Strange New Worlds goes Deep Space Nine and… they… pull it off??? It’s, like, as good as a good episode of DS9????
They’ve been dropping lots of hints about the nature of M’Benga’s war time activities, and in Under The Cloak of War we get a full on flash back. There are lots of nice and complex tensions in this episode. Starfleet is happy to use the Klingon ambassador to further their mission of peace, to the extent that they don’t seem to really scrutinize his past. The ambassador is selling this story of his reformed nature, and in a lot of ways he believes it himself, but he’s a coward and an opportunist that doesn’t even understand the depths of his sins. The inability of the Enterprise crew that didn’t serve in the hardest parts of the war to understand those that did is palpable. Babe Olusanmokun turns in a fantastic performance. All around a really strong episode.
Look at this dumb ship. I love it.A Klingon diplomat arrives. He used to be a blood thirsty general that killed a bunch of the crew’s friends but now he’s chill.This triggers flashbacks of Clint Howard.Ortegas stands up! They handle the difficulty of some of the crew trying to fulfill their diplomatic duty really well. Pike tries to walk the line of not asking too much of them but also putting the best foot forward with the ambassador. The crew does their best to be professional and even though emotions run high they don’t get too out of control. Y’know, until the end…The Klingon says that he killed his own officers and that he did it, it was him.But it was actually M’Benga!They have a squabble.M’Benga’s like yeah so what. That guy is dead, maybe he started the fight maybe he didn’t YOU DON’T KNOW ME Remember how last episode ended with the crew hallucinating that they were cartoons and spock had bendy arms, and the next episode will probably be a musical or something
