One subplot that has been humming along in the background of this season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the film being shot by Lt. Erica Ortegas’ younger brother, Umberto, documenting life aboard the Starship Enterprise. Well, in this week’s episode, we finally get to see what Umberto’s been working on!
“What Is Starfleet?” is presented as a documentary, made and narrated by the character Umberto Ortegas. It depicts a mission in which the Enterprise is sent to provide aid to Lutani VII, a non-Federation world that has been consumed by a war with a neighboring planet, Kasar, which includes helping to transport a massive space creature.
It is soon discovered that this space creature has been tortured by the Lutani for use as a weapon against Kasar. The remainder of the episode consists of the crew trying to determine what to do and ultimately siding with the creature and helping it immolate itself in the system’s star.
Throughout the episode, the framing as a documentary is used to depict Umberto’s largely negative perception of Starfleet and what it and the Federation stand for. In the end, though, he is brought to a point of deciding that maybe Starfleet isn’t so bad after all.
Overall, “What Is Starfleet” is a perfectly decent episode of television. It seemed as though thought was put into camera placement and editing to capture the limited perspectives that could have been captured by Enterprise security cameras and Umberto’s hovering robot cameras, such as the lack of exterior shots of the Enterprise. This helped with the documentary conceit.
At the same time, we have seen Umberto and his robot cameras show up in multiple episodes prior to this, so it felt a bit odd that the only footage included in his documentary would be from this mission. It also felt like the final resolution of the “documentary”—deciding that Starfleet was okay after trying so hard to make it look bad—relied too much on audience goodwill for familiar characters.
Strange New Worlds often leans a bit too heavily on a meta-awareness of Star Trek in order to make its point, and while it was subtler here, its presence was still notable. The odd thing, however, is that the writers seem to want audiences’ meta-awareness to stop at Star Trek. This is to the detriment of an episode like this, with a premise that will realistically ring some bells for fans of sci-fi TV.
“What Is Starfleet?” is noticeably similar to the Babylon 5 episode, “And Now For a Word.” Both take a skeptical stance on the show’s heroes and their mission. Both also depict a situation caught between two warring factions. The only difference is that audiences had prior context for the war shown in Babylon 5, and that show executed the documentary concept better. It also did it 30 years ago.
Granted, Babylon 5 does not own the idea of a “documentary” episode (M*A*S*H did it 20 years before B5), but it did it so well on a sci-fi series that it is hard for anyone familiar with it to ignore the similarities here. In Babylon 5, the “documentary” episode served a narrative function and helped flesh out the world of the series. Strange New Worlds does it as a lark.
If there is one overarching critique to be made of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it is that it copies the outward appearance of other works of science fiction and fantasy (including Star Trek) yet seldom captures the substance that makes those works matter and endure for decades and centuries. It is like Trelane in “The Squire of Gothos,” with his heatless fires and flavorless foods.
Despite this critique, “What Is Starfleet?” is a serviceable episode that tells a fairly standard Star Trek story in a decidedly non-standard way. It may have worked better to save Umberto’s “documentary” for the season finale and let it cover events from multiple episodes, but this was fine. Next week is “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans,” and I’m much more worried about that episode than this one.