In Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (S2 – EP6) – Lost in Translation

Synopsis: In Lost in Translation, Uhura seems to be the only one who can hear a strange sound that seems to trigger terrifying hallucinations.

The Story

The Enterprise and the Farragut are assigned to help in the building of a new deuterium refinery in a nebula, but when Ensign Uhura starts hearing an unusual sound over the communications, which no one else can hear. What was meant to be a mission to build a gas station in space turns into a mission of a more mysterious nature.  As Uhura’s hallucinations get worse she struggles to ask for help for fear that she is going mad. When she befriends Lieutenant Kirk who has just been promoted to First Officer of The Farragut she finds an ally and someone that will ultimately help her get to the bottom of her hallucinations.

Meanwhile, the Deuterium Refinery. The Enterprise’s First Officer Una Chin-Riley is overseeing repairs but is having a few issues with the new chief engineer Pelia who isn’t one for following procedure. However, things take a turn for the worse when they learn that the damage done to the refinery is an act of sabotage by an Officer who is having the same kind of hallucinations that Uhura has been having on the Enterprise. 

The Acting

Celia Rose Gooding puts in a brilliant performance as Uhura in this episode and captures the sense of panic and fear of losing one’s mind brilliantly. She gets a great supporting performance from Paul Wesley as Lieutenant Kirk who takes a liking to her and earns her confidence as he helps her figure out what her hallucination are about. We also get a nice guest performance from Bruce Horak as Uhura’s hallucinated version of Hemmer who has a towering presence in this episode for a number of reasons.

We also get solid performances from Rebecca Romijn and Carol Kane as we see The Enterprise’s First Officer have somewhat of a difference of opinion with the ship’s new Engineer Pelia.

Overall

Lost in Translation is a solid episode that gives us some good character development for Uhura and gives us an early look at the future of Star Fleet as we see Uhura, Spock, and Kirk meet for the first time.

The episode also has a really nice nod to the loss of Hemmer who proves to be a towering presence on the episode without saying a single line. Indeed Hemmer is instrumental in helping Uhura figure out the answer to why it has only been her and the other officer hearing and seeing the hallucinations. As it is a message that has been lost in translation.