Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"
LoglineAn accident with an experimental quantum probability field causes everyone on the USS Enterprise to break uncontrollably into song, but the real danger is that the field is expanding and beginning to impact other ships—allies and enemies alike.
Kirk and Uhura are real ones for never telling McCoy that Spock had a phase of being proud to be human until he got dumped by Nurse Chapel. He never would have let him live it down.
For Pike’s singing voice, he adopts a kind of Meatloaf/Russell-Crowe-in-Les-Miz style that is exactly the right mixture of masculine and adorable.
The build up to the Klingon Boy Band: We know that Klingons love opera, heightened emotions, spontaneous group singing, and choreography (if you’re willing to consider martial arts a form of choreography). La’an even explicitly mentions singing old sea shanties which would seem to be an obvious way to translate the Klingons into musical form. So naturally, I was shocked that the Klingons would not immediately assimilate into their new musical reality. I even told my husband, “I can’t believe the Klingons would want this to stop!” And when it hit, everything made perfect sense.
Fantastic episode! Loved it from cover to cover. I like how we have Spock reverting back to being classic Spock in a musical episode. Arguably it makes this episode one of the most important episodes to canon. Also did Kirk know about Marcus beforehand? I swear he learned about him in Wrath of Kahn but I haven’t seen that film in forever.
Kirk was aware of David’s existence prior, but David wasn’t aware that Kirk was his father. He is surprised when David identifies himself as Dr Marcus in ST II but asks Carol when she appears, “Is that David?”
Later, he says:
KIRK: I did what you wanted. I stayed away. Why didn’t you tell him?
CAROL: How can you ask me that? Were we together? Were we going to be? You had your world, and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father.
Sweet thanks for clearing that up. I really need to rewatch all of the movies again. I really appreciate that the writers of SNW seem to be trekkie enough to catch these things.
Technically, David did know that his father was an “overgrown boy scout” named Jim Kirk, but they had never met before and evidently knew little about one another aside from their mutual existence.
From the dialogue, David, at the point Kirk has the altercation with hin just outside the Genesis Cave, was unaware that Kirk was his father although he knew that his mother knew him. As he said on Regula I:
DAVID: Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That’s exactly the kind of man…
CAROL: Listen, kiddo: Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout.
Carol also doesn’t deny Kirk’s assumption when Kirk asks why she didn’t tell David about him. So it seems clear that David doesn’t know at that moment.
That being said, David may have met Kirk as a child. In the beta canon Kirk does spend time with David as a “friend” of his mother’s, but Carol insists that Kirk not tell David the truth, for the reasons she mentions in ST II about their different worlds.
It’s only after Spock’s funeral that David reveals he knows and is proud to be Kirk’s son. But the way this all makes sense is to assume that David was just told off-screen by Carol about his parentage.
Given that the subspace rhapsody spread to many other ships in the area, they could do a parallel episode from the point of another the ship, say the Farragut but it won’t be the same primary cast.
I think Strange New Worlds is the best Star Trek show made so far. Every season they seem to have 9 amazing episodes and one so cringe I end up fast forwarding through the whole thing. This musical one was the low point of the season and the series, just like that word fantasy ones they did in season 1.
What an absolute gosh darned delight that was. I love musicals but I tend to be pretty cynical about musical episode of TV shows, but I think that’s probably the best one I’ve ever seen? It helps that a. its still a coherent episode with a plot about the musical itself, b. its effectively paying off three or four different emotional character arcs we’ve already spent a lot of time with and c. the music is actually really well written both lyrically and compositionally
Where will this stand in the long history of Star Trek gimmick episodes? After all, this is the franchise that gave us “Trials and Tribble-ations”, “Take Me Out To The Holosuite”, “In a Mirror, Darkly”, the OG “Lower Decks”, and most recently… “Those Old Scientists”. Holy shit, that was just two episodes ago and in between we got the darkest Star Trek thing in years!
Uhura having to be the operator sounds like the most stressful thing to do that doesn’t involve imminent danger.
“Even if it’s not fully necessary.” That basically sums up every contrivance to get Kirk on board.
KORBY ALERT
Ah, spatial distortions, the cause and solution to everything.
The facial acting as they enter musical-land is priceless.
Acapella theme song!
“So… that happened.”
“Quantum uncertainty field”. That’s some Hitchiker Guide type stuff.
Ah, they brought back the Gilbert and Sullivan stuff.
I like how they are hanging a lampshade on just how BIZARRE it is that people sing out their biggest secrets and deepest feelings in musicals.
Good save, La’An.
“Surprisingly beautiful baritone”
It could have been worse for the crew. Imagine if Uhura had broadcast opera into it, then they’d ALWAYS be singing.
Shaxs would suggest blowing it up by ejecting the warp core.
Gratuitous zero-gee is gratuitous.
Oh god, singing Klingons.
Yeah, the Klingons would also like the “let’s just blow it up” plan.
Wait were those extras twins?
Apparently the improbability field also affects the lighting of the bar.
Isn’t K’tinga the later type of Klingon ship? Ah, screw it, musical rules.
“I don’t love rules but I think you’re about to break a big one.”
This totally is going into Temporal Investigations Kirk file.
CAROL MARCUS REFERENCE
Oh shit, David Marcus reference!
“I’m the Ex” standing as if X in a math question is a good bit of workplay.
Kind of surprised it took this long to give Celia Rose Gooding a full-on solo.
Grammy-Award winning singer!
A grand finale. How meta!
Boy Band Klingons was not on my bingo card.
Lol, playing the TOS theme as a curtain-closer
“You sang about lying to me.”
“Sorry, Earworm.”
All-and-all, it was a good enough gimmick episode. But it was no “Take Me Out To The Holosuite.” (“DEATH TO THE OPPOSITION!”)
The three Klingon vessels that got rekt by V’Ger at the beginning of TMP were K’Tinga class ships. That was less than 20 years after this episode was set. However, the K’Tingas did remain in service well into the 24th century, likely for the same in- and out-of-universe reasons that the Excelsior class did.
Another amazing episode and a certainly fresh idea for the Klingons with their K-pop, or Kling-pop?
I think they towed a good line on whimsy, emotion and gimmicks and kept it well grounded as character exploration. Let’s force everyone to process their season’s emotional growth in song!
Also I have to say I love how much focus SNW gives to lower ranking officers. Classic trek always ended up focusing on a few senior officers but this is a proper ensemble number.
Only thing I want more now is this with Elle Cordova doing her Star Trek technoblabble songs in it.
I love musicals and I love Trek so I was hoping I would love this episode, but I just didn’t, and I think it was mostly because the music was… bad? It wasn’t catchy, it wasn’t fun, there was not one single legitimate bop during the whole episode. Uhura’s last line about an earworm struck me as a sour note because… no. Not a single earworm to be had in the whole thing. I couldn’t hum a single song from that episode and I watched it less than an hour ago. The only number that had any spark to it at all was Chapel’s number at the lounge, and it was barely a spark.
Even Una’s alleged Gilbert and Sullivan riff was barely, barely recognizable as a take on G&S. It was to G&S as a brick spraypainted orange is to a glass of refreshing orange juice. You’re gonna do G&S in a musical episode and not do patter? Come on, son.
I just can’t get behind this episode, and I was truly prepared to be thrilled. I mean the cast tried hard, but in a musical the music has to be good, and this wasn’t.
I saw a fair amount of skepticism across the Fediverse about how musical episodes are always bad and annoying, to which someone would always respond “well, Buffy nailed it.” Apparently the SNW writers feel the same way, because “Subspace Rhapsody” isn’t just a homage to “Once More With Feeling,” it’s a love letter. They may have swapped the demon for a subspace wedgie, but they kept the idea of using music to force the characters to confront their feelings about each other, and they even threw in a bunny callback.
10/10. I hope SNW maintains the tradition of a theatrically silly episode near the end of each season as long as it runs!
That was hard work… Can’t fault the singing, but after 10 minutes it all felt very tedious.
I don’t care about the love affairs of the Enterprise. I was finding all the emo, pining, lovesick, will they, won’t they crap tedious well before this.
Drummer lites Kirk crush feels especially forced. How many times are they going to force him into an episode?! he serves on a different ship ffs
Incidentally I loved ‘Once more with feeling’ (inspite of Gellars singing)
I actually really like Kirk being intricately tied to the Enterprise in intimate ways in the years before getting command of it. Trek has never really dealt with how a ship passes hands to a new captain, and I enjoy that Kirk is being given the chance to form relationships with the ship and members of the crew well before anyone even considers that he might one day be its captain. Never mind that Pike is uniquely well aware that his own time is limited and he wants to make sure that his ship is in good hands, so vetting Kirk in this way by encouraging this kid of collaboration is also a reflection of his own strengths.
And just in a broader sense it’s always neat to see Federation ships collaborating. I’d like to see more of it, honestly. Sure, starship crews are often isolated from one another, but they’re also designed and trained to work together on missions whenever possible, and I like the excuse to explore that dynamic with Kirk.
No, he’s only seen Kirk in command of the Farragut in an alternate timeline where Pike avoided the accident. It seems a bit cruel that he knows about the accident, but not that his mind ends up in a simulation unfettered from his physical body. Kinda wish Boimler had told him (assuming it’s in the official record). Not like it would change the timeline since he’s resigned to his fate.
I don’t think so, when he had his Balance of Power episode I don’t think he was told that Kirk was supposed to be in charge, just that he shouldn’t have been
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