The geekiest thing you will see all week (guaranteed)

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I’m resurrecting this post which originally ran many years ago because it seems particularly appropriate today. You may be aware that last week, Star Trek Strange New Worlds ran the franchise’s first ever fully musical episode. Since then, geekdom has been divided, with some saying this is the worst thing to ever happen to Star Trek and others saying they flat out loved it. OK, we’re all entitled to our opinions, and Trek fans tend to dig their heels in. I’m not going to say who’s right or wrong. I’ll give you my opinion, then publish the original, very short post, below.

Rewarding the big swing

Strange New Worlds isn’t the first genre show to have a musical episode. A lot of attention has been paid recently to the musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which seems to be universally well regarded as a masterpiece. I’m not a Buffy watcher and never have been. So, I’ll just take their word for it.

I will give a lot of credit here for three things. First of all, I’ll say that going out and writing all these original songs isn’t easy. These aren’t just 30-second song snippets based on other songs. These are all new, and they actually work to advance the plot and help with character development. That’s a pretty big accomplishment.

The next thing I’ll give credit to is those folks who haven’t been professional singers. Yes, it’s clear that some of the cast haven’t really done this sort of thing before. It’s also likely that there’s been some auto tuning in there. But it’s not easy to learn how to do this sort of thing and I give them credit for doing it.

Finally, I’ll mention the incredible work from the three people who do have musical backgrounds. Rebecca Romijn actually recorded several songs in the early 2000s, Christina Chong has a musical background, and Celia Rose Gooding actually has won an award for doing it. Using this sort of talent when you have it just elevates the whole thing. It makes me want a musical episode of Discovery featuring the folks there who have been on Broadway.

But did it work?

Here’s my honest review, with respect to all the hard work that’s been done.

Obviously, a musical episode is going to hinge on the actual music. And while a few of the songs are really good, there is a repetitiveness to them that makes them a little less effective. It seems like every member of the crew has roughly the same existential crisis: Is this who I am? Is this what I want? Could I be more if I wanted? The songs themselves sometimes seem a bit overlong because the musical themes are repeated as well. I’ve listened to the soundtrack a few more times and they do seem better after multiple listenings. But that doesn’t help the casual viewer who is only going to experience this one.

Now, using the same musical motif with two different tones really works for “I’m Ready” and “I’m the X”, in which Christine talks about her feelings and Spock talks about his. And it’s really cool that they were able to take the same music and make it evoke different emotions. But honestly the tone of the songs is so different that I didn’t even make the connection that they were both the same underlying music at first.

K-pop. Get it? K-pop?

A lot is being made of the singing Klingons, which people seem to really hate. I say, it comes and goes quickly, and you laugh at it and it goes away. I was calling them “Backstreet Klingons” until it was pointed out to me that the style they’re singing in is actually K-pop, and you know someone had to stick that in there because the “K” in “K-pop” usually stands for “Korean” but in this case, well you get it. It’s a little too clever for its own good but as I said, if you didn’t like it, at least it comes and goes quickly. I thought it was hilarious.

Overall…

I think this is a solid effort and I think it’s really cool that the show is trying to do things that have never been done. A planet-of-the-week show would draw unnecessary comparisons to the hundreds of hours of Trek that have already been made, and this show has shown over and over again that it’s willing to take big swings. This big swing wasn’t a home run, but I’d call it a very well-executed triple.

Now, on to the original post that inspired me to write this.

Unless you’re walking the halls of a sci-fi convention right now, there is very little chance that you can top the following video for sheer geekiness. This comes from a barbershop quartet competition (geeky enough it itself, perhaps) but having the singers in character simply puts this over the top.

If that doesn’t set you into geek anaphylactic shock, the fun continues here with part 2.

Sorry, folks, can’t help but smile when I think, “Don’t bring Sulu…”

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.