SNW: Four-and-a-Half Vulcans

[kathleen_dailey]

Most reviewers have had their say by now, so I won't recap all the conceptual stupidities and plotting missteps of the episode. I should feel vindicated that it reflects (my version of) the Romulan Commander's assessment of Vulcans as (in KRAD's words) arrogant snots. But I think even the Romulan Commander--who would have at least acknowledged the Vulcans as rational and intelligent, if humourless and passionless, thinkers--would have been horrified by this portrayal.

Why the director instructed Anson Mount to portray a Vulcan as a 1950s-style B-movie robot may be the biggest mystery of the episode.

Just as in last week's documentary ep, the throwaway story (the consequences of the Vulcans' contact with a pre-warp society) might have made an interesting Star Trek episode, if a Star Trek series were still being televised.

Comments

[dewline]

It's as if there's five or ten good episodes' worth of material, messed up by being mashed together too damned fast...among its other flaws as already noted elsewhere. A longer season might have allowed better pacing for all the stories included here.

[kathleen_dailey]

A longer season might have allowed better pacing for all the stories included here.

Yes, better pacing, better planning, and maybe better dramatic and character arcs. And the nonsense eps would (one hopes) make up a smaller proportion of a longer season, of course.

I'm finding it very hard to reconcile the SNW of season 1 with what's being produced and delivered this season. I guess we'll see what the next two episodes bring ...

Re the perpetrators of this episode: I knew about Dana Horgan and Henry Alonso Myers, so that was no surprise. But I hadn't really clocked this ep's director, Jordan Canning (a Canadian), in connection with "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Charades" until now. She's worked on quite a few series that I like--Pretty Hard Cases, Schitt's Creek, Astrid and Lilly Save the World, Family Law, Baroness Von Sketch. It would be interesting to know why she made many of the directorial choices that she did in "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans."