In Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (S4 – EP1) Valles Marineris

Synopsis: In Valles Marineris, Pike leads the Enterprise into a stellar storm, inadvertently sending the ship 65 million years into the past.

The Story

Valles Marineris gets off to a bit of a slow start as we see Pike, Dr. M’Benga and La’an finishing up a mission that required them to be on horseback. Although we never do get to see where the stables are on the Enterprise.

The opening plays out as Pike being all too aware that his time is drawing nearer, given the fate that the audience already knows awaits him. If I’m honest, it felt a little unnecessary in the context of this particular episode, as it slows things down quite a bit. Once you get to the meat and potatoes of the story, though, it becomes a hodgepodge of some genuinely fun ideas. Whether it pulls them all off successfully is likely to be something fans will be debating over the coming weeks and months.

In short, the story sees the Enterprise investigating a strange stellar squall in a remote region of space. While scanning it from a safe distance, the crew intercept a distress call. Pike, being Pike, immediately takes the Enterprise into the dangerous phenomenon to investigate. As they encounter a mysterious buoy, the storm suddenly intensifies, somehow pulling the Enterprise back through time and into the Sol System… except it is now 65 million years in the past.

Scanning the system, the crew discovers the wreckage of another starship on Earth. However, with the Enterprise badly damaged, transporting a landing party isn’t possible, so Una, La’an and Ortegas are dispatched by shuttle to investigate the wreck in the hope of finding something that can be used to repair the ship.

Meanwhile, aboard the Enterprise, Pike and the senior staff make first contact with a delegation of Martians, a civilisation on the brink of extinction after years of devastating war. Their commander is fascinated by Pike and everything he tells her about the Federation’s values and culture, but she’s also perceptive enough to realise he’s hiding something. She gradually pieces together that the Enterprise is from the far future and that, in Pike’s time, Mars is a dead world.

As the story develops, Pike is forced to make a decision that will almost certainly divide fans. By refusing to interfere, he effectively allows the Martian commander and her crew to meet their fate while also ensuring that the history leading to the destruction of Mars unfolds as it always did. It’s one of those classic Star Trek moral dilemmas, balancing the Prime Directive against the consequences of altering the timeline. Suffice to say that, by the end of the episode, history has been restored and everything is once again as it should be.

Acting

Saffron Burrows puts in a strong guest performance as the Martian commander and shares some excellent scenes with Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike. Also delivering a fun turn is Rebecca Romijn, whose Una, aka Number One, comes up with a unique, if not exactly scientifically proven, way of subduing a T. rex. Her solution is to fire a phaser on stun directly into the dinosaur’s mouth in the hope of hitting its soft palate. I’m pretty sure that would only annoy it rather than knock it unconscious, but since dinosaurs are no longer around, there’s no way of proving the theory. It’s certainly not an experiment I’d be volunteering to take part in.

We also get a fun performance from Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura, who is given responsibility for mentoring a new Vulcan cadet, S’Sha, played brilliantly by Bianca Nugara. Uhura has clearly been brushing up on her Vulcan in an effort to ingratiate herself and make life easier for the cadet, only to have her efforts politely dismissed as unnecessary. It makes for a charming running gag and provides some welcome comic relief in an episode that ultimately builds towards a rather dark ending.

Overall

Valles Marineris is what I’d describe as a fun episode that leans heavily into action and adventure with a healthy sprinkle of comedy. When it comes to the science, however, things are a little patchy, but that’s hardly surprising given that New Trek continues to wing it rather than lean on scientific advisers.

That said, the idea that Mars may once have harboured life is very much in keeping with current scientific thinking and speculation, so that aspect of the episode feels surprisingly timely.

I was somewhat disappointed with the look of the Martians, though. I’d been hoping the designers might borrow a little inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter novels and give us the iconic Red Martians, but that wasn’t to be. The episode does, however, pay tribute to Burroughs’ Barsoom series with a nice reference towards the end.

I also enjoyed the dinosaurs, largely because they appealed to the six-year-old in me who was obsessed with them. Beyond that, though, they don’t really contribute much to the story other than serving as a clear and present danger for the away team. And while La’an punching out a raptor is undeniably funny, it perhaps pushes the humour a little too far, even if the episode does later offer an explanation for how she managed it.

Overall, Valles Marineris is an entertaining ride with plenty of action, some enjoyable character moments and a few laughs along the way. It doesn’t always hold together scientifically, and a couple of ideas feel a little underdeveloped, but despite those issues it’s still a fun hour of Star Trek.