Strange New Worlds Episode 7 The Serene Squall Is A Return To Old Sci-Fi Camp

Space pirates have been the bain of intergalactic life for centuries. In episode 7 the Enterprise crew gets their first baptism by gunfire into the world of marauders, thieves, freebooters, and those easily swayed by a decent meal. It’s everything you’d expect out of a pirate-centric plot and more.

The crew takes on board a counselor named Dr. Aspen (Jesse James Keitel ), a former Starfleet officer turned freelance humanitarian (at least that’s what her file says) who has requested the Enterprise’s help in rescuing a colony ship from her sector that is stranded near the edge of Federation territory and is vulnerable to attacks by the infamous Serene Squall, a roving band of space pirates known for their brutal raids. Captain Pike agrees to search for the colonist’s ship, with the absolute bare minimum of identifying information to go on about the colony, just Dr. Aspen’s word and ends up in non-Federation territory with no means of contacting Star Fleet (should have listened to Spock) and impulse engine deep in pirates who are running late for a meeting with the Klingons. Not a good look.

While the away team that beamed aboard the Serene Squall to save what they assumed to be captured colonists are now the ones that are captured and on deck to be sold for slave labor to the Klingons, pirates beam aboard Enterprise and take control, with Dr Aspen, whose real name is Captain Angel, unexpectedly in command of the raiding party and then the ship. Her whole motive for taking Enterprise was to take Spock prisoner to get T’Pring to release a special prisoner from the rehabilitation facility she worked at named Sybok (Spock’s half-brother) and exchange the brothers/prisoners. The blot that would be brought upon T’Pring, Spock, and their families for releasing a prisoner under her care was too much to ask of her, so Spock did the only practical thing he could, fake an affair with Nurse Chapel and fake breaking up with T’Pring which worked out in the end but had some very painful unintended consequences.

Photo Cr: Marni Grossman/Paramount+ ©2022 ViacomCBS. All Rights Reserved.

While all the bizarre relationship issues were going on on Enterprise, the away team, or more specifically Captain Pike (after getting his face punched a bit) tries to start a mutiny aboard the Serene Squall over bad food, poor working conditions, and a severe lack of quality leadership and it kinda workes but a lot of liberties were taken with this episode. All the pirates spoke English very well, they all ate gruel, Pike cooked an alien meal for alien and human pirates that he could also eat but we don’t know what it was (details like that can make things a lot more fun) and the away team had codes that worked on the newly found alien tech aboard the ship that allowed them to take over and operate the Squall. I think they could have done better with this storyline. A person could fall through the plot holes throughout this episode, and that’s before you try to understand the utter infatuation everyone now has with Spock figuring out who he is as a half-human, half Vulcan.I guess the main takeaway from this episode is, don’t take it too seriously as a whole but definitely take Jesse James Keitel’s performance earnestly.

Epsiode 7 The Serene Squall is available to stream, along with all previous episodes, right here on Paramount+.