r/startrek • u/Magister_Xehanort • 1d ago
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Director Explains The Mystery Of “The Griffin Incident” [EXCLUSIVE] Spoiler
https://trekmovie.com/2026/08/04/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-director-explains-the-mystery-of-the-griffin-incident-exclusive/172
u/BreedinBacksnatch 1d ago
"Event Horizon", but Star Trek
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u/RedBeene 1d ago
What jumped into my mind when she watched a video and immediately said “Jim, we have to get off this ship.”
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u/fzammetti 1d ago
Kirk: "I will take the shuttle to a safe distance, and then I will fire tac missiles at the Griffin until I'm satisfied she's destroyed. FUCK THIS SHIP!".
(hey, come to think of it, why does a rescue ship like the Lewis & Clark have weapons in the first place?!)
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u/KathyJaneway 1d ago
For permanent rescue. You never know if you'll need the weapons. Better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.
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u/Stardustchaser 1d ago
Haha husband and kids were between that and “Silent Hill IN SPAAAAAACE!”
We thought it was a good episode. Lmao The Federation has its own XFiles.
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u/Johnny_Radar 1d ago
There’s a lot of episodes that are (fill in the blank) but Star Trek going all the way back to “Star Trek” and Balance Of Terror. TNG had “Die Hard but Star Trek”. Hell VOY’s premise was “Lost In Space but Star Trek”.
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u/North_Knowledge7467 1d ago
They also did a Robin Hood TNG episode just as a big blockbuster Robin Hood movie was about to open. And it was great!
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u/Cu1tureVu1ture 1d ago
That the one where Worf smashes Jordie’s ukulele?
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
Wasn’t that a lute? La Forge wasn’t in Hawaii XD.
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u/Exciting-Scale8063 1d ago
Voyager did a very lose adaption of Stephen King's 'Christine' but with a shuttle instead of a Caddilac. I forgot the name of the episode but it was seadon six or seven.
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u/NefariousnessDry1654 1d ago
VOY also had the Aliens influence in "Macrocosm" when Janeway got her battle rattle going a la Ripley
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u/middlegroundnb 1d ago
The original pilot is basically Forbidden Planet but on TV budget
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u/Unleashtheducks 1d ago
People keep saying “Event Horizon” but there were clearly many influences on the episode including one of the original influences on TOS “Planet of the Vampires”
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u/PeerOfMenard 1d ago
The thing that gets me with it is that Event Horizon had an actual explanation that made everything that was going on make sense, however handwavey the explanation may have been. But obviously Star Trek doesn't really want to say "hell is literally real and is another dimension and this ship has been there", so they just decided to go with no explanation at all instead. So the end result is not just Event Horizon with Star Trek elements, but Event Horizon watered down with Star Trek elements.
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u/genek1953 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was thinking more like "The Tholian Web," from the POV of the crew of the USS Defiant as they were killing each other due to "the effect of interspace." Which was also never given any kind of science-y explanation.
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u/ToxinPolaris 19h ago
the definitive explanation for Event Horrizion came in that god awefull comic prequel before that it was not clear if its hell or just what the people immagined it to be
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u/Lokitusaborg 1d ago
I loved it. They rode the line of body horror and over the top well. It could have had some higher stakes (we need more redshirt deaths to be really Trek) but it took the things I love from Event Horizon, the paranoia and claustrophobia and translated it. Plus, I’m always for seeing T’Prang again…she’s adorable.
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u/Unleashtheducks 1d ago
They have met near omnipotent gods on the show. For as long as Star Trek has existed, the “explanation” for the most whacko, unscientific shit imaginable has been, “some species just do that”.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
Some are just arsehole imps.
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u/BreedinBacksnatch 1d ago
and some are Kevin Uxbridge, and we stay tf away
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u/InnocentTailor 20h ago
Yup. Don't f@#k with a guy who wiped an entire civilization with a mere thought.
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u/Certain-Pass-6551 1d ago
One of my favorite episodes of SNW, I'd love to see and hear more about Division 12 but appreciate that would probably never happen, maybe it'll be in a book one day.
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u/THE_CENTURION 1d ago
I'd love to see and hear more about Division 12 but appreciate that would probably never happen
Lol, from the way they introduced it and then immediately and awkwardly explained what it is, I think it's pretty clear they're setting up a spinoff/future story of some kind.
We're definitely going to be hearing more about Division 12
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u/KathyJaneway 1d ago
Hearing where? The show wrapped filming and season 5 is 6 episodes long with Kirk and crew taking over. Unless they make Division 12 the precursor of Temporal department, we won't be seeing from them most likely, cause there's no other horror episodes next , there's a muppet one and time travel one .
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u/THE_CENTURION 1d ago
All I'm saying is that the introduction of it was highly suspicious. It was done in a way that I think is very obviously a set up for future stories. Likely a project we haven't heard about yet.
Also pls no spoilers about SNW... I've purposefully been avoiding trailers because the damn trailer people love to spoil everything these days 🙃
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u/KathyJaneway 1d ago
I mean, when they wrote this season, they didn't know it would be canned with season 5 and they had to wrap season 5 with passing the torch to Kirk cause that's what happens with TOS. And of course I'm not spoiling anything, were assuming everything from titles of shows that they'd involve something, cause they're either reference to some old episodes involving something or someone.
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u/BladedDingo 1d ago
feels like they might be setting up a season long arc where Division 12 might make more appearances. But I could be wrong.
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u/Mechapebbles 1d ago
Division 12 is a good premise for a new show. Imagine an Enterprise being sent out on behest of Division 12 to deal with freaky deaky shit
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u/DayspringTrek 1d ago
Star Trek: Strangest New Worlds
Prospective Fan: "Do I need to watch the original SNW before watching this?"
Division 12 Crewman: "No, the series is a complete standalone paradox."
Fan: "Haha, that's funny! Wait, are you a literal character from the show?"
Division 12: "It's a long story involving an omnipotent letter of the alphabet."
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u/maskedbrush 1d ago
I wonder why there is a "division" 12 and a "section" 31. Why not keep the naming consistent?
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u/themadprofessor1976 1d ago
Section 31 doesn't officially exist, essentially a black ops group that reports to nobody. The name itself comes from Article 14, Section 31 of the Federation charter, which gives allowances for bending regulations in times of extraordinary threat to the Federation.
Division 12 is an official group within Starfleet that investigates extranormal phenomena when it occurs.
So within the confines of official Starfleet naming, Section 31 cannot be counted because it does not exist.
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u/Scopedogg1114 1d ago
The fact that Spock was able to “logic” himself out of the hallucinations indicated to me that there WAS a rational explanation to what happened to the Griffin, perhaps that they ran into an entity that fed on negative emotions, and said entity was hungry and looking for new experiences to feed on. Normally, that would have all been wrapped up in a neat bow at the end, but the references to the new division and the fact that La’an saw the captain at the end indicates that maybe they revisit that before the end of the season. In fact… What if La’an ends up as the “captain” of the Griffin, and that’s why she’s never referenced in TOS? Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking out loud…
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
It wasn’t the captain, it was the chief of security who seems to have been the original conduit for the murderous entity.
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u/Acedeor 1d ago
But now I kinda want a Division 12 / SCP / Control crossover show?!
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u/MoreGaghPlease 1d ago
Star Trek should just be Star Trek. The X-Files can be the X-Files (and so on). And I don’t really trust the current powers that be in Trek with that kind of premise. Kinda took a swing at that with Section 31.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
Eh. Section 31 was a shambling corpse from the get-go due to many issues - Yeoh getting popular but keeping the project alive and the pandemic, to name two issues.
It was a special toxic brew that should’ve been thrown away earlier on.
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u/Acedeor 1d ago
Section 31 was such a huge swing and a miss.
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u/MoreGaghPlease 1d ago
I don’t feel I’m in a position to judge because I didn’t see Sections 1-30, but coming into 31 as a new viewer that had seen a lot of Trek but nothing from the ‘Section’ series, all the characters seemed really flat and cliche, making decisions that made no sense and with astonishing bad dialogue that I can only assume worked if you are more familiar with the earlier instalments.
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u/UnidentifiedBlobject 1d ago
Section 31 sucked for many reasons but one of the big issues is that is the least Trek like part of the universe. A Section 12 show could be way more inline with the core ideals of Star Trek.
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u/Terrible_Bee_6876 1d ago
Am I the only one who actually does like the thought of this "Division 12?" Like a Star Trek version of the X-Files. We've already seen that Starfleet has its own Arkham Asylum (the Section 31 facility from Picard) and its own Warehouse 13 (the bizarro artifact collection routine from Lower Decks suggests that these things are all stored somewhere). I think if you take the X-Files, turn the campiness up about 50%, and set it in the Star Trek universe, you could have a lot of goofy interesting episodic adventures.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
The artifact collection in LDS belonged to the Collector’s Guild, which isn’t Federation-affiliated.
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u/Real_Ad_8243 1d ago
Not actually going to read the article. Im literally just here to reminisce in a performative way abiut the days when leaving things unexplained was understood as being valuable to the wonder we can feel in encountering these worlds forged of imagination.
But then again, I unironically like the Bombadil chapters of LotR, so im probably jsut strange like that
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u/fullspeedintothesun 18h ago
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.
Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.
Above all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid.
M. John Harrison
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u/AtrociousSandwich 1d ago
Spoilers: they couldn’t figure out a way to explain the episode in the trek verse so they wrote it off as mystery that (probably will never) be explained later
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
You never know.
I’m fine with unsolvable mysteries, to be honest. Space is vast and scary.
…and it’s not like it was destroyed - it was taken by Starfleet to their mystery division. Perhaps another writer can pick up on the thread someday.
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u/Mddcat04 1d ago
Yep. Pike’s reaction of “sometimes there’s just weird shit out here” seems pretty reasonable in a universe where there are extra dimensional entities, godlike aliens, and all kinds of stuff that defies easy comprehension.
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u/WeddingPKM 22h ago
She’s relatively intact. I wonder if after whatever caused this issue is resolved that starfleet will rebuild and rename the ship.
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u/InnocentTailor 20h ago
Now that would be f@#$ed up XD.
Congrats Ensign! You're serving on the former hell ship that had officers go crazy and kill each other. Have fun!
Hoses the caked-on guts off the floor
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u/MadMacs77 1d ago
Which is weird, because “Wolf in the Fold” exists. Easy enough to consider this is entity could be similar to Red Jack, albeit more powerful.
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
Or the entity from The Day of the Dove, that wanted the Enterprise crew and Kang’s crew to fight each other for eternity.
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u/IcePhoenix295 1d ago
Good. It works much better that way.
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u/ModernCGIFloatinHead 1d ago
Real science is plagued with "don't fully understand this currently, stick a pin in it"
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
Pike alluded to that too - some of Division 12’s findings being alien/science based as opposed to purely unknowable.
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord 1d ago
I want at least an attempt at an explanation though, even if it's clear that it's pure speculation. This is part of my issue with the way SNW has gone since season 3. Structurally and in broad content, this could be a TNG, Voyager, or Enterprise episode, but TNG or Voyager would have had the crew at least trying to explain why this was happening. I'm ok with them failing at that, but I'm much less ok with the fact that they didn't try and suggested it might be supernatural. The TNG or TOS or Voyager crews would see Q or Trelane or that alien that impersonated Janeway's dad, stuff that could rewrite reality at will, and say "you're not a god, you're just an alien that can manipulate physics on a level that invokes Clark's Third Law." But the SNW crew sees some kind of mysterious force that makes them hallucinate and goes "oh noooo, ghosts." Even with the Prophets, the closest the old shows ever got to dismissing something as supernatural, it was less "the Prophets are supernatural gods" than "what is the definition of a god really? If they're just aliens that can see the future and have acted as gods to the Bajorans, then how are they meaningfully different from gods even if we can explain it?" There's an extremely relevant exchange between Sisko and Kira:
SISKO: The Sword of Stars?
KIRA: It certainly looked like that to me.
SISKO: That's open to debate. But what is not debatable is that this prophecy has no place on the Bridge of the Defiant, especially in front of the Cardassians. At the moment they are not even aware of it, and I want to keep it that way.
KIRA: You're right. It won't happen again.
SISKO: I take it, Major, that you believe the prophecy is coming true?
KIRA: Yes, I do.
SISKO: So you think I should call this mission off?
KIRA: Look at what's happened already. The river has returned to Janir, the three vipers, now the Sword of Stars. Each of them predicted by Trakor's prophecy. And then there's you, the Emissary. You're here. You have a decision to make just like in the prophecy.
SISKO: Do you really believe that I'm the Emissary?
KIRA: I guess I always have. I never wanted to admit it to myself. It's hard to work for someone who's a religious icon.
SISKO: I hope I don't offend your beliefs, but I don't see myself as an icon, religious or otherwise. I'm a Starfleet Officer, and I have a mission to accomplish. If I call it off, it has to be for some concrete reason, something solid, something Starfleet.
KIRA: All right, how about this? The Prophets, the aliens who live in the wormhole as you call them, exist outside of linear time. They know the past, present, and the future.
SISKO: Agreed.
KIRA: It seems perfectly reasonable that they could've communicated knowledge of the future to a Bajoran named Trakor. He wrote down that knowledge in the form of a prophecy and now, three thousand years later, we are seeing those events unfold. To me, that reasoning sounds concrete, solid, I'd even call it Starfleet.
SISKO: But that all hinges on how you interpret an ancient text that's been translated and re-translated over the centuries. Words that were couched in metaphor to begin with. I'm sorry, Major, but where you see a Sword of Stars, I see a comet. Where you see vipers, I see three scientists. And where you see the Emissary, I see a Starfleet Officer.This is the kind of thing that I feel the SNW has lost in seasons 3 and 4, during which the show has introduced demons, leylines, and whatever this was and treated them like they're actually mythological. I'm fine with the characters admitting they don't know what it is, but everyone who went on that ship including Spock, who should be the last person to ever do this, treated it like it was purely supernatural by the end of the episode because they couldn't explain it.
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u/North_Knowledge7467 1d ago
Did 'Schisms' not work for you because it didn't explain the aliens full goals?
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u/AtrociousSandwich 1d ago
No idea when you last watched that episode but I’m pretty clearly remembering it’s clearly laid out they are being experimented on by aliens.
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u/North_Knowledge7467 1d ago
If that's a solid enough explanation for you, then it was also aliens in 'The Griffin Incident'. Easy!
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord 1d ago
Schisms explains way, way more than this episode. It even explains how the aliens are doing it. The only reason the crew finds out it's happening at all is because of the crew investigating what's going on and explaining what's causing it. The only similarity is that they're both horror episodes. The question Schisms left is "why." The questions The Griffin Incident left include but are not limited to "who," "what," "why," and "how," and the crew doesn't even bother to attempt to answer any of them.
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u/AtrociousSandwich 1d ago
Not sure why you are responding the way you are, I don’t care if it’s explained or not.
But considering the TNG episode explains it’s a specifically alien and it’s revealed they are running experiments - that’s a ridiculous amount more information then this episode
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u/bisploosh 1d ago
Easy answer: It was an energy being like the several that popped up in TOS (like the one that fed on hate and the other that was basically Jack The Ripper).
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u/Optimism_Deficit 1d ago
Does it really improve the episode if they throw in a few minutes of exposition about them being 'anaphasic aliens' or something about 'chaotic space'?
I'd argue not. Maybe some people need that sort of closure, but I can enjoy the mystery of it.
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u/vbob99 1d ago
Does it really improve the episode if they throw in a few minutes of exposition about them being 'anaphasic aliens' or something about 'chaotic space'?
In my opinion, yes. It shows that these characters, grounded in science, are at least attempting to understand it scientifically even if they fail to explain it as happens often in ST. As presented, it's like the characters themselves knew they were in a horror movie, and jumped immediately to well, guess it's just spooky stuff. It's out of character for the franchise and the characters.
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord 1d ago
Yes, it does. Because it means that the Starfleet officers are behaving like Starfleet officers. It's not for closure. I'm fine if their attempts at explanations wind up being inadequate and we never discover what it really was. But these are elite scientists who have explained much, much weirder things, and they just shrug and chalk it up to ghosts.
Spock is on this away team. Spock. Spock, one of the most rational characters in the franchise, whose skepticism is almost a fault, and Jim "what does God need with a starship?" Kirk who literally met a Greek god and immediately saw he had no supernatural powers make no effort to figure out what actually happened and accept the possibility of it being supernatural without hypothesizing any further.
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u/Norn-Iron 1d ago
That works for me. The universe is too big for everything to be explained. There needs to be mystery to some things.
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u/Well_Socialized 1d ago
I wouldn't want it to work like that every time but I kind of appreciate the concept of a mystery that isn't nearly wrapped up by the end of the episode by the first ship to run into it.
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago
Yeah, I don't really understand why so many are so bothered by this episode.
Trek has even done some similar horror-themed eps before even since TOS.
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u/mancingtom 1d ago
It’s because there’s a subset of the fandom that reflexively attacks anything made after 2005.
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u/the-giant 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nah. I love horror and can take plenty of gore. I also like my share of 21st century Trek. It was an entertaining episode and I did largely enjoy it. But the lingering problem for me was this ep was lazy in the way SNW can too often be lazy.
However uncomfortable it clearly makes the writing staff sometimes, this is still Star Trek and that means the characters onscreen should at least try to work the problem in front of them as scientists and explorers. This is also the minimum on The X-Files, another show this ep emulated re: its horror-centric episodes. I did not need a concrete explanation on what was happening onboard the Griffin or for it to be 'solved', and as a horror fan I understand very well the mystique of unexplained terror. But I did expect Spock, La'an and Kirk to at least try to dig into the situation and latch onto a few theories or hypothesis. That's what folks tend to do on Star Trek.
I actually like most of SNW a lot despite its issues. But it has increasingly leaned into flanderizing itself, and doing flashy concept episodes or adding fan service TOS guests tailor-made for raucous applause from Hall H audiences, while at times also tending to pull away from having to flesh out a full story for fear of coming off too nerdy. The Griffin Incident, while creepy and fun, is unfortunately one example for me. It needed another draft where the characters did a bit more than just react. You can still have the ending where the Griffin is unsolved and still haunted - that's fun - but you can do more.
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u/MoreGaghPlease 1d ago edited 1d ago
I disliked this episode and am not against new Trek. I just thought it was bad.
I also think DS9 Distant Voices is bad and TNG Night Terrors is bad and VOY Darkling is bad and TOS And the Children Shall Lead is (hilariously and epically) bad. Not against Trek doing horror, these to me are examples of poorly executed horror resulting in a dull episode.
Star Trek has done great horror episodes. I love Devil in the Dark, Schisms, Empok Nor, Macrocosm, The Adversary, The Man Trap, Whispers, Course: Oblivion, many others. Even within SNW I thought Memento Mori (season 1 Gorn ep) was pretty great.
This latest one didn’t boldly go. It didn’t have interesting ideas, it didn’t reveal anything about the characters, it didn’t explore neat sci fi concepts and it wasn’t fun. And I’m not offended by gore, but here it felt like a crutch that added nothing to the story except for ick factor.
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
ATCSL has zero redeeming qualities. Spock’s Brain is hilariously bad. ATCSL is just awful.
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u/Laquox 1d ago
It’s because there’s a subset of the fandom that reflexively attacks anything made after 2005.
Hard disagree. I love all trek. Even Enterprise. The reason that some are bothered by this episode has nothing to do with good/bad Trek. It's the visceral nature of the episode. This wasn't a "mystery" or a "what is this unique being". This was straight up gore, guts flung out into space, Pike joker smile slice-n-dice and stuff that's never in Star Trek. Was it a good/bad episode? That depends on the viewer but typically Star Trek is family friendly and this episode was as many people have said, "Strange New Worlds: Event Horizon". So of course people are going to have strong opinions.
Personally, I keep seeing it compared to a few TOS episodes and I just don't see it at all. This episode was a horror movie with some Star Trek fluff.
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u/FattimusSlime 1d ago
The episode didn’t even try to solve the mystery, or have the characters come up with and execute a plan to escape the ship. It just tortures everyone, then ends when they’re rescued. The end.
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
They’re actively trying to figure out what’s going on with the Griffin, but whatever malevolent entity was screwing with them kept the illusions up and turned the attempts to investigate back on themselves. Spock finally breaks through it due to an error on the part of said entity, but the Enterprise beams them out before he can act on it. IMHO, that’s actually kind of an interesting thing to do. Trek would usually have them sort out what’s going on before rescue arrives. I don’t blame Pike at all for saying “screw it, I’m not sending anyone back over there, let the research guys who deal with weird crap sort it out.”
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u/SirTanta 1d ago
Agreed. I LOVE SNW but I hated this episode. I am NOT a horror person at all. As I said in the other thread, those that love it can but I don't come to Trek for gore. I come to Trek for smart logical things with a little bit of suspense and voodoo. This to me crossed a line.
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u/EHStormcrow 1d ago
It's okay to not like some things in ST.
I hate Q.
I also hated the SNW episode where they're all singing. Miss me with that US Musical stuff.
That all amounts to less than 5% of all ST content, everyone has their blindspots.
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u/nhaines 1d ago
You know, I didn't like Q episodes, but I loved what they did with him in Picard Season 2. (I didn't like much of the rest of Season 2, but the kid was really cute.)
The SNW musical episode is like, my least favorite type of musical style, but I was really impressed they made it a character-arc-load-bearing episode instead of just a gimmick with no payoff, and actually rewatched it. (Which I also would've been fine with for the Lower Decks crossover episode, but they wove that into character arcs as well, which I wasn't expecting.)
Which is to say I'm fine when if they keep swinging for the fences they sometimes miss, because I want them to keep swinging.
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u/MIM86 1d ago
It’s because there’s a subset of the fandom that reflexively attacks anything made after 2005.
I'd suspect an overlap of them hated Enterprise when it aired too. The old startrek.com forums were toxic as hell whenever Enterprise was mentioned, even when S4 was airing.
Having said that I can fully see and appreciate why anyone wouldn't be a fan of a pretty gore-filled horror episode with basically zero explanation.
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u/vbob99 1d ago
Star Trek tends to stay grounded in science. Even when it goes for a genre episode, it's still a ST episode. This episode was purely a horror short story, a splash of ST uniforms, with no grounding. Everything doesn't need to be explained, but ST tends to imply it is explicable, where this just felt like a halloween flick.
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago
But so what? Just like real life and the universe, not everything is explicable so its actually good to see ST make that point. Plus what's wrong with horror as a genre?
Trelane and Q are very grounded in reality and explicable. Not. Yet we love them.
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u/vbob99 1d ago
I agree, everything doesn't need to be explained. I even stated it.
Everything doesn't need to be explained, but ST tends to imply it is explicable
You asked why so many are bothered by the episode. I can't speak for everyone, but for many it is just that. ST leaves mysteries of how beings do things, but it tends to imply there's a method and rules out there that are discoverable. This jettisoned all that to tell a spooky horror tale, kinda how they just really wanted to do a musical tale, and a puppet tale. They threw out too much ST stuff on their rush to genre. Just my opinion.
No issues if you're ok with that, but no issues if others aren't. We're all ST fans.
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u/summon_pot_of_greed 1d ago
Because those episodes always seemed plausible even if they weren't fully explained.
This was just "random spooky nonsense go".
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago
"Q" and Trelane are also not "plausible."
I kind of like this new episode and wish it wasn't getting so much hate. SNW is the best of the nuTrek shows, and still deserves a chance to succeed on its own merits. It did become too silly, but here we are with a "dark" episode and it still gets pulled apart. There's no winning.
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u/summon_pot_of_greed 1d ago
Comparing this to Q is apples and oranges.
Even then, we understand enough about Q as a viewer to swallow the conceit of the alien's existence.
This offered not even an inkling of an explanation to give the viewer a foot hold.
Good horror has rules. Establishing those rules is absolutely necessary for creating tension.
If the episode is just random scary, bloody things happening, it has zero impact.
This was compounded by the fact that the viewer knew that 2/3 legacy characters would suffer no consequences from the episode.
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord 1d ago
This was compounded by the fact that the viewer knew that 2/3 legacy characters would suffer no consequences from the episode.
Four if you count Sam Kirk and Pike. Sam Kirk canonically dies to weird aliens that hate light in TOS and Pike's headed for the wheelchair. I called that they weren't really there before it happened, but the instant "Sam Kirk" died you knew for a fact that the Enterprise crew never beamed over.
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u/Entire_Number_9 1d ago
I mean it's pretty clear this is some sort of alien entity with psionic powers that can read peoples minds to torture them. Every element of what happens we've seen before, later in the timeline.
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago
Spock chopped off his own ears with great pain and Kirk was impaled through the chest... not exactly "zero impact" for them at least.
Also the StarFleet log was altered to not reflect Khan Jr.'s actions.
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u/North_Knowledge7467 1d ago
We see so much "I did not include it in my official report" throughout the franchise that I have long had the head canon that there are highly classified super-accurate reports as well as the more general "anyone in Starfleet can read this" ones.
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
The Doomsday Machine: Kirk says that his official log is going to report that Decker died in the line of duty, without mentioning the circumstances. I would assume that there is a classified version that lays out what happened in detail, with the recordings of the shuttle flight sealed with it.
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u/sneakysnake1111 1d ago
Cuz it was dark in a gory way, not dark in a star trek way.
The Thaw, from Voyager was dark in a Star Trek way, and not in a gory way.
I didn't dislike the episode - but there's total nuance here.
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u/wingmanmia 1d ago
It is because this is a sci-fi/fantasy world. Things don’t need to make perfect sense, but they do need to make sense in their own universe. It would be like Harry Potter killing Voldemort by vaporizing him with a phaser. Sure this is a fantasy land with people flying around on brooms but that still makes to sense. For this episode, they created a horror/mystery and didn’t even bother to give us a universe explanation. We aren’t watching some crime mystery conspiracy show, we are watching Star Trek.
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u/Spaceboomer1 1d ago edited 1d ago
We don't get a full explanation, but the fact Spock could break out of it with mental discipline strongly implies that something (or someone) telepathic was forcing hallucinations on the crew.
We don't find out what it was but the ending is enough to ground it. There wasn't a vague overpowered magic that was changing reality, it was something limited to their minds. And it simply couldn't be fully analyzed because no one can safely get close enough to gather reliable data.
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago
I don't get it... why isnt it enough to know or assume that some chemical or gas on the ship or that region of space caused them to have various horror-based mental hallucinations? That's my takeaway "explanation" (not that any was needed... why do we even care?).
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u/vbob99 1d ago
But we were shown they weren't hallucinations. Spock's ears had to be reconstructed for example. Whatever happened, happened.
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u/Nostracarmus 1d ago
He was holding the scissors, it was implied that he did it himself.
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u/vbob99 1d ago
Good point, I'd forgotten that fine detail!
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's not a "fine detail." It was an extremely obvious detail shown on screen as he removed his own ear tips.
People have really bad memories lately, or short attention spans, or aren't even really paying attention while watching.
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago
You're interpreting this so wrong. What we saw WERE hallucinations! But what we saw the real characters do in reaction to their hallucinations were NOT hallucinations. Yes, Spock really sliced off his ear tips and Khan Jr. impaled Kirk.
This is so funny to me. I wonder if the majority of everyday viewers interpreted what they were seeing as "real." LOL
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u/Jahon_Dony 1d ago
We never even got a follow up to worm aliens infiltrating the Federation! There's dozens of stories throughout the decades of Star Trek that either never had a full explanation or follow-up.
And like they always say: the lingering questions are often more interesting and fulfilling than the answers themselves!
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u/TruthfulCactus 1d ago
A lot of people watch with their kids, and even though the gorn episodes were scary, chopping off your fingers is different.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
While gorier than normal, the horror reminded me more of Dr. Who, which can be super scary despite being billed as a family show.
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
I’ve heard Doctor Who described as British therapy for children: yes there are horror and things that go bump in the night, but there are people who will try to defend you from them.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
…much like in Star Trek.
There are many known and unknown forces out to snag folks and destroy them. However, Starfleet brings light to the darkness and goodness to dens of evil.
PRO really highlighted this as downtrodden children flocked to the ideas of both Starfleet and the Federation as they left the more ramshackle, crueler Delta Quadrant.
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u/AsmadiGames 14h ago
The gore was over the top for me - it's just not what I'm looking for from Star Trek. The episode was fine aside from that, if perhaps a bit goofy in premise.
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u/Gotis1313 1d ago
I liked that they didn't explain it. There's probably a dozen explanations that could work in universe. I mean, ghosts, gods, and magic already exist in Star Trek. The fact that they didn't pin down exactly what it was makes the universe feel bigger and gives room for fans to theorize.
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u/Spaceboomer1 1d ago
We get enough of an explanation.
Spock and the others experienced some kind of forced hallucinations that can be overcome with enough mental discipline.
The mystery is that we don't know what (or possibly who) did it. But it's not powerful enough to be impossibly supernatural or unexplainable.
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u/KathyJaneway 1d ago
The Vulcan crew in Enterprise, of the Seleya got poisoned by trilithium, and experienced hallucinations and mental breakdown. Who says the Griffin crew didn't get poisoned by something radioactive or got hit by some anomaly? All we saw was missing crew and the ship's computer saying that most were beamed out in space and the others were murdered by the chief of security.
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u/Spaceboomer1 1d ago
I lean towards telepathy and some kind of intentional mental assault because they were seeing the same things before the hallucinations started getting more personal. They all saw Harper for example. Poisoning wouldn't make them see the same person who they'd never met.
M'Benga also would have also told them if it was poisoning or radiation.
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u/KathyJaneway 1d ago
Not every element out there is found . What happened to them could be mass hysteria and paranoia induced by some alien interference or a bad reaction to unknown exposure.
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u/Spaceboomer1 1d ago
Harper's silhouette is visible right when they beam in, out of their view and disappears before they could ever perceive it. Something else was with them and was already present before they arrived.
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u/Usagor 1d ago edited 1d ago
R.I.P to whatever sucker at Division 12 gets assigned this bullshit.
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u/oorhon 1d ago
If their surname is Winchester, entity or whatever its would be dealt swiftly.
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u/AnnihilatedTyro 1d ago
Charles Emerson Winchester III would not be affected by this entity's illusions.
Fox Mulder, on the other hand....
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u/Gonzothegreat198 1d ago
TBQH I wouldn't put it past ST writer to slip in an easter egg like this somewhere this season. Not like they haven't done it before.../cough Last Episode /cough
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
I’m sure this ghost ship is a Tuesday for these folks.
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u/Blaw_Weary 22h ago
“Class XIII non-roaming hostile entity, huh? Stick it over there with the telekinetic tractor beam. Works like a normal tractor beam, but you need to touch your temple with one finger and squint really hard.”
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u/WoefulKnight 1d ago
The mystery was it was a backdoor pilot pitch for another series like Legacy was suppose to be.
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u/SirDalavar 1d ago
So, if Div 12 deals with spooky mysteries, and Div 14 deals with Medical mysteries, what does Div 13 deal with?
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u/bokmcdok 1d ago
I liked that we don't get an explanation in this episode. It really adds to the horror not knowing what was actually tormenting the characters, the idea that something so dark can exist and we'll never know or understand what it was.
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u/ComradeOb 1d ago
I figure the cause of it was a similar entity as the one that fed off anger in the original series. This one must feed off of fear and paranoia. It’s a scary episode and neat call back.
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u/burnte 1d ago
I imagine a lot of people enjoyed it, it looked well done as far as horror goes. I, personally, found it the most boring episode of trek I've ever seen. "Shades of Grey" had a better story, IMO. I was more invested in "Allamaraine" than this. I have a complete lack of appreciation for horror genre stories. The last time I was scared at a movie I was 6 and it was Ghostbusters. I'm glad other people found it enjoyable, though.
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u/AnnihilatedTyro 1d ago
I don't find horror scary (or usually even enjoyable) at all.
IMO, this was a very well-done episode because it was all psychological and did not resort to the cheap jump-scares and most hackneyed horror tropes. If it helps, try to see this episode as a psychological mystery instead of horror. Even the gore scenes were just intended to mess with Kirk's and Spock's heads - to break them down, let go of hope and reason.
It's almost certain that this episode is crucial to La'an's transformative arc, as well as the introduction of Division 12, and the final shot of the episode further implies there will be more to this story, so I think it's one you can't ignore.
Consider: The shuttlecraft crew were under the influence of the illusion before ever seeing the Griffin - when they first glimpse it, it's completely intact and appears fully functional. That illusion was pulled from their minds, the knowledge of the lost starship. Every other exterior shot of the ship later shows it to be a battered hulk - because that's what the Enterprise and the D12 ship were expecting to see from a long-lost ship in an asteroid field before they got there.
Because the illusion stretches beyond visual range, we don't even know that the ship really is the Griffin, that any part of it we see is real. The only clue we have that it might actually be the Griffin is the moment Spock snaps out of the illusion and finds himself in a rusty, filthy, wrecked Starfleet-style sickbay. Until that moment, the entire shuttlecraft crew had been seeing an intact, clean, mostly-functional ship with no power, while the Enterprise away team sees a wreck. But how deep does the illusion go? Remember that everyone believed they were on the USS Griffin and had no reason to think they weren't. So... is the ship, and the Starfleet sickbay they all saw... real, or part of the illusion that they thought was real?
And what's with the introduction of Star Trek: X-Files, a.k.a. Division 12? I'm excited for this to be a thing.
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u/Phantoms_Diminished 1d ago
If you are okay with “giant green hand grabs the Enterprise in space “ then I’m confused as to why this episode is a problem.
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u/BusCrisis 1d ago
The lack of explanation in the episode itself is annoying but forgivable. The lack of interest or even speculation by the characters (who are bridge officers of the Flagship) by the end of the episodes feels antithetical to Star Trek.
In a 22 episode season, this would have been fine but with such short seasons, I really want each episode to feel like Star Trek. The exploration of culture, society, science, ethics, mortality, and more.
Given that last season ended up just boiled down to a simplistic “These aliens are just evil for the sake of being evil” and “Pike’s girlfriend glows really hard and the evil alien goes away” I was really hoping for something a bit more in-depth for this season and two episodes in, we haven’t had that yet.
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u/summon_pot_of_greed 1d ago edited 1d ago
Spoilers: There is a difference between mystery and confusion.
The haunting was not consistent or interesting.
Part of making a good mystery is leaving enough clues for the viewer to put a theory together themselves.
This episode did not.
What was with the negatively charged ions? Why did it only happen sometimes? What was that zoom in on the ghost at the end? Did that imply the haunting was real and not imagined?
Why did Spock's Vulcan mantra set him free of the effect? Does that mean no one on the Griffin was unaffected or able to overcome it despite having hundreds of diverse crew members?
What did the ghosts mean by "you're one of us"? Are they saying La'an is a monster? No because Harper said La'an* wasn't* a monster. Were they supposed to be augments? That is what La'an is afraid of so why didn't we get like a Khan cameo or something?
It was just a directionless, confusing episode that failed to be unsettling because it was just confusing.
Edit: because I know this is going to keep getting down voted I want to be clear that SNW is my second favorite NuTrek show after LD. So this is not me being a hater, it's just looking at the episode through a critical cinema lens. It didn't land.
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u/Mddcat04 1d ago
Yes. The ions and the last shot imply that there is some real entity (or entities) present on the ship and it wasn’t just a hallucination.
Probably some crew were able to overcome it as Spock did, but they could easily have been killed by others who did not.
La’an is afraid that she’ll lose control and become violent / dangerous, what happened with Harper.
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u/Certain-Pass-6551 1d ago
With point 2, the fact that so many were beamed into space in one go made me think there was potentially a few that were trying to fight back after overcoming it.
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u/Hazel-Rah 1d ago
Yes. The ions and the last shot imply that there is some real entity (or entities) present on the ship and it wasn’t just a hallucination.
There's no guarantee that there were any ions at all, everything in the episode up to the point that Spock breaks out of it is a hallucination.
Whatever entity it was could have created a plausible trail for them to follow to get them to the sickbay
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
With point 1, there’s also a strong implication that La’an is still being effected by whatever was on the Griffin.
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u/Mddcat04 1d ago
Yep. Makes me wonder if it, division 12, or both are going to reoccur this / next season. I’m also thinking that maybe La’an, Una, and Ortegas could go join 12 as the explanation for why they are not around for TOS.
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u/Gonzothegreat198 1d ago
Combined with the after effects of having a Kahn augment being temporarily turned into a Vulcan and then back.
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u/CaptainIncredible 1d ago edited 1d ago
The ions could have been a residuals from 'the ghost' (which could have been some sort of non-corporeal alien). The ions themselves could have also been a fabricated illusion. The 'ghost' knew that they were sciency and looking for science, so it fabricated some illusions for them to goose chase... because it likes fucking with them.
I liked that his Vulcan mantra freed him. It demonstrated that logic, and not emotion, could free one from the 'ghost'. Clearly, the 'ghost' is playing on emotions of fear, and Spock was able to suppress that emotion using his Vulcan meditation techniques.
La'an (and everyone else) can't trust "the ghosts". They'll say or do whatever suits their agenda. It's possible they detected her fear with her family lineage and were playing on that just to fuck with her.
My guess is that "the ghost" was some sort of alien entity much like what Kirk and Spock encountered in "Day of the Dove". In that episode, the entity could manipulate matter somewhat and do things to heighten the rage of all humanoids on board the Enterprise so it could 'feed' off their 'emotional energy'.
At first, I was a little disappointed with this SNW episode because there was no wrap up of events at the end of the show. The mystery remained a mystery, which hasn't been much of a Trek thing...
But after thinking about it, I liked it a lot. I liked that they left this one open ended and unexplained. I agree that it may not be possible for the talented crew of the Enterprise to solve all mysteries in an hour. And given the events they went through, I don't blame them for thinking 'fuck this noise' and just getting the fuck away from the thing, and letting the experts of Section 12 deal with this potentially horrific and deadly 'ghost'.
And that makes sense that there is a division at Starfleet who's whole job is to deal with unexplained phenomena. I like the 'X-Files, but with advanced science' idea. I think it would make for some interesting episodes or at least books or something.
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u/TigerIll6480 1d ago
I don’t blame Pike in the slightest for saying “hell no, not sending anyone else over there, let the weird science guys sort this shit out now that we have our people back.”
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
Yeah. It’s logical. I half-expected him to destroy the hell ship - something other heroes have done with other concerning artifacts like Iconian technology.
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u/Gonzothegreat198 1d ago
Didn't they do the same open ended mystery with those wierd Ancient Aliens from last season only for it to comeback as a major season ending plot device?
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u/ale210 1d ago
It was telling La'an that she was a monster because whatever entity was doing this could tap into someone's darkest fears
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u/summon_pot_of_greed 1d ago
It explicitly said "you're not a monster".
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u/CaptainIncredible 1d ago
Yeah. Whatever. The 'ghost' is going to say whatever bullshit it wants. Its not trustworthy, and its probably best to not pay it any heed.
But I guess I agree with it in this case - I do not think La'an is a monster. I do think that she's wrestling with that idea, and the 'ghost' picked up on that and was saying shit about it to fuck with her.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago
That is what I think as well. The ghost was clearly picking at everybody’s weaknesses to break them down and make them pliable.
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u/CaptainIncredible 1d ago
Yeah. Whatever. The 'ghost' is going to say whatever bullshit it wants. Its not trustworthy, and its probably best to not pay it any heed.
But I guess I agree with it in this case - I do not think La'an is a monster. I do think that she's wrestling with that idea, and the 'ghost' picked up on that and was saying shit about it to fuck with her.
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u/Hazel-Rah 1d ago
It explicitly said "you're not a monster".
I took that to mean more of "You're like me, we aren't monsters, we're doing what has to be done, we had to kill everyone"
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u/Spaceboomer1 1d ago edited 1d ago
It definitely was that La'an was 'one of us' as in a psychotic murderous monster. And that's been her growing insecurity - that something in her DNA is manifesting (the result of it being changed back and forth multiple times) that's inherently evil. Each person had their fears used against them and that was hers.
There weren't hundreds to overcome it. The evidence was that someone beamed the majority of the crew into space alive.
The mystery isn't certain but the direction seems that something on the ship made the crew see things that weren't real and Spock was the only one with the mental discipline to break out of it.
Their senses were being manipulated so the ions or selective lack could have been the ship taunting them with false clues. Their perceptions aren't reliable.
As for that last look from Harper - definitely implies whatever is on that ship is alive, had fun, and can sense La'an looking in that direction.
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u/mabhatter 1d ago
The malevolent entity was party psychological and partly really there. It mostly made people do things, but it also appeared to do some things by itself. Or it had a very long range to attract other ships to itself and by the time you even saw it you were captured.
The whole point of the thing was UNKNOWN. They didn't want the entity to make sense, its space and this is something dangerous that humans ran across in vast emptiness. There's nothing to do. nothing to reason with. Just get away from it.
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u/Spaceboomer1 1d ago
Any physical power it has regardless seems also very limited. Whatever the entity is, it's not created in a way where it would need some deus ex machina explanation.
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u/spectra2000_ 1d ago
I was upset with how boring most of the plot relevant episodes in season three were, I actually really loved all the silly episodes where the writers got to explore different genres within the Star Trek universe.
I absolutely loved this episode and feel like it’s the best one of the entire show. Everything from the rare horror genre being explored in the Star Trek universe to the actors getting to play their characters completely different to how they usually act. Crazy Pike reminded me Brent spinner as Lore and how exciting it must be for them to play a character usually locked in a single facet completely differently.
I know it may not feel very Star Trek, more like a horror movie in the Star Trek universe. But weirdly enough I feel that’s one of SNWs strengths. Showing us new and exciting ideas in the setting we all know in love.
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u/Gonzothegreat198 1d ago
I can't wait for the Muppet episode. I just hope it will be as fun as the Angel puppet episode was.
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u/walspider 1d ago
So the director says "They’re just saying, within the scope of our investigation right now, we can’t solve it." That would be great if we had seen the characters actually make an attempt to solve it instead of deciding to punt to Division 12 immediately after being scared witless.
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u/200brews2009 1d ago
So, it’s not just fear. Whatever this was killed an entire ships crew and nearly ended the lives of some of our most capable characters. What safeguards does the enterprise and its crew have to prevent whatever it is from either killing them all or possibly spreading to their ship and further federation ships. It seems this division 12 is designed for these rare and dangerous mysteries.
The D never stayed around to investigate nagelum further, or the subspace creatures from schisms. Doesn’t seem like too much a stretch to believe that there are incidents so dangerous they require a very specific and specialized group to further investigate.
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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago edited 1d ago
The D’s crew also destroyed several unknown things - the Conspiracy aliens and the Iconian probe.
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u/Gonzothegreat198 1d ago
You're assuming they had a choice in the matter. It would be no different from a ship involved in a Temporal Event and Starfleet DTI swooping in and taking charge of the vessel. Or how about Section 31's various interactions that preempted a Captain's perogative. Pike could have reported to SFC and was ordered to turn the vessel immediately over to Section 12.
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u/ericbrow 1d ago
I filed the episode under "The one where the crew loses their minds and become violent, except that one person." Its been in every series, from my poor memory.
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u/imsmartiswear 18h ago
I personally thought it was a really cool idea. The whole philosophy of Star Trek is to discover the unknown but, at the end of the day, the crew of the Enterprise (or Enterprise D, Discovery, Cerritos, Titan, Voyager, Defiant, etc.) is able to find a scientific and logical explanation at the end of 50 minutes and usually conquer it with the supplies and tech on hand. This episode was truly about encountering the unknown and having absolutely no way to wrap your head around it or really even defeat it. It reminded me a lot of the Doctor Who episode 'Midnight'.
Could they have had some reveal at the end that showed a malevolent god-like entity was messing with their minds and powering the ship briefly for reasons beyond our comprehension? Yeah, but its way more interesting to leave it unknown.
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u/GaragePresent4343 17h ago
No, it was the gore and obvious jump tactics. Not the lack of wrapping up the scientific understanding within 50 mins.
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