Star Trek Strange New Worlds - Ghosts of Illyia review

I just watched Season 1 Episode 3, Ghosts of Illyria. There are major spoilers ahead. I have watched most of the Star Trek shows and movies. There is a needed suspension of disbelief for a few things. Faster than light travel, transporters, the holo-deck, and gravity never failing on a spaceship no matter how damaged or disabled it gets. I can live with all of that. In this episode, I noticed 4 major plot holes which is far worse than any of the older Star Trek episodes.

Plot hole 1: Number One is an Illyrian. It is clear than Illyrians are aliens, that happen to look a lot like humans. I can accept this, even though it is improbable. What makes no sense is that she could enroll in Star Fleet with a completely made up background that nobody ever notices. I don't know what kind of background checks Star Fleet runs, but you would think that making up a completely fictional history and education would be noticed. Even if it wasn't noticed, a medical check of Number One would clearly reveal that she was an alien. It is clear that all ship personnel get pretty through medical exams. It is likely that all Star Fleet members get them as well. It is too much of a stretch to believe that an alien could pass as a human.

Plot hole 2: When Number One and La'an Noonien-Singh are exposed to high levels of radiation, I can accept that Number One can deal with it due to her augmentations. What makes no sense is that somehow she can protect La'an from the high levels of radiation, and then La'an's antibodies can fight off the strange infection. Perhaps if she suddenly gave La'an a blood transfusion that might be able to protect her from radiation, but it is a major plot hole.

Plot hole 3: The transporter. I can accept that there is a medical transporter even though one didn't exist in TOS. I can accept that it has a child in the storage buffer. I can accept that it wasn't updated. What I can't accept is that just because it wasn't updated to check for diseases (which makes no sense for a medical transporter) that it would affect the main transporter. They are separate systems. If there was any way for it to affect the main transporter, someone would have noticed that it wasn't updated.

Plot hole 4: Spock and Pike are stuck on the planet due to a storm. No problem there. They are in a building that was build by the Illyrians. Clearly this planet isn't their home planet. Clearly they are a space fairing race. Clearly they are as advanced or likely more advanced than humans. Still, they build a building whose window suddenly breaks during a storm, when it clearly has held up for many years or perhaps centuries. Now this doesn't violate any natural laws, but it is clearly a convenient plot devise that makes no sense.

Bonus plot holes: The transporter in TOS can't work beyond a few miles underground. However, in this episode which takes place before TOS, the transporter can beam in a piece of the planets core, which is surely thousands of miles underground. Also Spock and Pike are stuck on the planet because the transporter doesn't work in a storm, but it does work because the chief engineer beamed a chunk of the planets core onboard. Also Uhura seems to be immune to the disease because she slept in the dark.

This episode had more plot holes than Spock's Brain or whatever TOS episode you hate the most. I really think Strange New Worlds needs some writing talent to survive.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds - Valles Marineris review

I just watched Season 4 Episode 1, Valles Marineris. There are major spoilers ahead. I have watched most of the Star Trek shows and movies. There is a needed suspension of disbelief for a few things. Faster than light travel, transporters, the holo-deck, and gravity never failing on a spaceship no matter how damaged or disabled it gets. I can live with all of that. In this episode, I noticed 4 major plot holes which is far worse than any of the older Star Trek episodes.

In the opening scenes, Pike and company are on a planet riding horses. The planet features odd geologic formations that defy gravity. Unless there is a highly advanced civilization with control of gravity, the geology is impossible. For a bonus, when the crew beaus aboard, the horses are absent. As a bonus plot hole, There is no evidence of any civilization on the planet, and yet there are domesticated horses on it.

The ship encounters a category 10 interstellar squall which I will call a giant space wedgie with odd properties. The ship investigates and is mysteriously transported to the distant past, and near earth. Perhaps giant space wedgies can do this, so I will give it a pass. Spock says to get back would 'require the power equivalent of a supernova'. The ship soon encounters a new race #1, which turns out to be martians who are fighting another new race #2. Race #1 has ships which can travel between planets, have something like a tractor beam, and other high tech things. Race #1 steals the Enterprise's primary antimatter fuel cell and ends up blowing up planet 5. Spock says 'The antimatter explosion combined with the explosion of the planet's core has created the necessary energy to free Enterprise from this temporal anchor point'. It seems odd that the ships antimatter fuel cell has anything like the power of a supernova, but I can give that a pass. However, the energy of a supernova would vaporize most of the solar system, including the sun. Since Spock is the best science officer in starfleet, there is a clear plot hole here.

The Enterprise returns to its present. It seems that the primary antimatter fuel cell is magically restored, as the Enterprise appears to be in fully working condition. This is a major plot hole.

And what of the martians? Any spacefaring civilization would likely leave clear evidence of their presence, even after millions of years. We can find fossils on the earth that are over 3 billion years old, so 65 million years isn't a big deal. Other than fossils on mars, there would be geostationary satellites, satellites at L4 and L5, artifacts left on the moon and other clear signs of civilization around both mars and earth. This is another major plot hole.

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