Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"
Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"
Logline
An accident with an experimental quantum probability field causes everyone on the USS Enterprise to break uncontrollably into song, but the real danger is that the field is expanding and beginning to impact other ships—allies and enemies alike.
Written by Dana Horgan & Bill Wolkoff
Directed by Dermott Downs
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SNW continues to break new ground really well. This was a really refreshing episode and very well done. I for one loooved this episode.
Alright, I get that musicals are not everyone's cup of tea, but as a person who watched multiple dozens of Broadway musicals, I must say that the songs were really on par with actual musicals. The cast can really sing well -- I expected many great things from Cecile Rose Gooding and wow she did not disappoint. I was very pleasantly impressed by Christina Chong, Rebecca Romijin, Ethan Peck's performances as well.
I think the director made sure to highlight those actors that can sing well and put those that can't sing into secondary positions. Clearly Grammy-Award winning/Tony Award-nominated Gooding was at the center of the story, and they cut off Anson Mount's song, because well, he isn't the greatest singer. They even fully acknowledged that Babs Olusanmokun can't sing in universe as well. :) The ensemble pieces in the teaser and the finale were superb though and was a lot more entertaining than the solo pieces (which I get is probably much easier to rehearse/record and produce).
I loved that the episode intertwined music as a piece of the story, pushed the character arc forward between Spock/Chapel and La'an/Kirk. I am not so much of a sucker for La'an/Kirk but the alternative universe scenes were really a nice touch. The only cringey part was the Klingon K-pop/rap, but I suppose it was intentionally cringey/funny.
Whether you like this musical episode or not, you gotta admit that SNW really boldly goes where no one has gone before.
The Klingon bit was the best part. Imagining them being forced to sing like that while having no context for that style of music is hilarious.
Poor guys didn't even get to sing Klingon opera. "Aktuh Maylota!"
Or is this what Klingon Opera is really like? What we heard with worf was the "edgy emo" version
That has to be right! Worf would absolutely listen to the emo version, and he's probably just calling K-Pop "opera" to impress Picard and the other 90s-Trek captains.
Makes the line earlier in the episode about their dishonor even better.
Hehe, yeah, I guess, there's no honor in that. :)
If someone would have asked me a year ago if I thought Spock/Chapel and La’an/Kirk were gonna be my favorite ships in the Star Trek universe I woulda laughed at them.
Yes, this a starship joke lol
Yeah, they used the songs well to pack huge amounts of character work into one episode for most of the cast. Clever move in a ten episode a year TV landscape.
I honestly never fancied musical episodes, but this was so well done, I loved it!
Are those actually all of the actors singing? I thought they just got separate singers
I think they are real cuz they included Chapel’s song and the amount of autotune they added probably wouldn’t have happened if they hired a professional singer. Still liked the song, it was just very noticeable.
Criticism of the actress's singing ability aside, Chapel's song was my favorite. I loved the sound of it. What is the name for that style/genre so I can find more like it?
It was kind of swingy, big band esque I'd say. Not miles away from the lounge stuff in DS9.
Fosse
They also didn’t have a great deal of time to record. They did their studio work over weekends.
For those who weren’t musical theatre performers (Gooding, Chong, Romjin) earlier in their careers, getting a clean run through or even portion of a song would be a difficult challenge. Just the stress of getting it done in a single day or two of sessions would be likely to put them out of tune.
Gooding and Chong came from musical theatre though.
Oh no. Those are the actual actors singing.
Anybody who went to acting school has some background in music and dance. Obviously not their best talent or else they'd be a singer instead of an actor. I often consider that most people on television can sing and absolutely knows how to dance, we just never see them do it.
Sweeny Todd is a good example of this. You know almost the entire cast from something else and had no idea they were capable of doing music all this time. But, a classically trained actor has definitely been in a musical before, we just never knew about it. Alan Rickman wasn't exactly a vocalist, but he could keep up with one.