HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has done fairy tales before; last season gave us “The Elysian Kingdom.” This time in season two’s fourth episode, they’re trying to do it without the conceit of a mysterious alien being with “Among the Lotus Eaters,” taking advantage of one of Star Trek’s tried and true formulas: the away mission gone not quite right. “Among the Lotus Eaters” wants to use myth-building and storytelling to discuss the power of memory, but it just doesn’t quite manage to do it. It’s not a bad episode by any stretch of the imagination, and it’s not going to go down in Trek canon as one of the legendary stinkers. It just doesn’t quite hit the mark while still being entertaining in its own right.
Plot Ahoy!
Captain Pike and Captain Batel are trying to find some time together, but they keep getting interrupted. However, Batel gives Pike an Opelian Mariner’s stone as a thoughtful gift just before Pike convinces himself to break up with her due to the inconvenience of trying to find a way to make the relationship work. Admittedly, she does lose out on a promotion possibly due to her association with Pike. Batel storms off just as Pike gets notified that the Enterprise is being sent to Rigel VII to investigate the potential contamination of the local Kalar civilization. Pike explains to Number One that Starfleet has chosen to send the Enterprise because the contamination of the culture likely occurred during the failed away mission Pike himself led that resulted in the deaths of three officers, including Zac Nguyen.
Pike selects La’an and Dr. M’Benga to accompany him on this new mission and reveals that they are only allowed to use technology that would be native to the planet, and that they will not have access to back up Starfleet equipment. During the 20 kilometer walk from the landing zone to the Kalar fortress, La’an seems to lose time. Concerned, Pike asks if she’d like to turn back, but La’an being herself soldiers onward. They eventually reach the castle where they are captured and taken to the High Lord who happens to be none other than Zac Nguyen himself. He chucks them out to live with the “field Kalar” where the exposure to the planet’s strange radiation will gradually erode their memories.
The same thing is happening on the Enterprise. The crew gradually begins to lose their memories, leading to most of them wandering the halls like zombies. Spock and Erica Ortegas remain alone on the Bridge without any real understanding of who they are or what they’re doing. Ortegas flees the bridge, perhaps emotionally aware that she’s upset with Spock for asking that she stay and pilot the ship rather than going on the away mission. The computer leads her to her quarters, but asteroid debris begins colliding with the ship. The computer tells Ortegas that she’s the pilot, and Ortegas squares her shoulders and heads back up to the bridge. Spock implicitly trusts her to pilot the Enterprise, and she finds a way out of the debris field. Later and free of the radiation’s effects, Spock is able to devise a shield harmonic to prevent the radiation from disrupting the crew’s collective brains.
Back on the planet, a night outside in a cage renders Pike, M’Benga, and La’an completely unaware of their identities. They find themselves put to work by the “Castle Kalar” and meet Luq, a field Kalar, who promises to show them a totem and teach them how to remember the important things. Luq shows them his dwelling where the central pole has been intricately carved with the history of the Kalar. He also shows them his tattoos, which the field Kalar use to remind themselves of important things, events, and people.
Pike remains unconvinced that they’re meant to be field Kalar given their lack of calluses and M’Benga’s absolutely terrible form using a saw. He attacks one of the Castle Kalar guards, and La’an backs him up, sustaining a serious wound in the process. They all flee back to Luq’s yurt, and M’Benga tries to treat La’an. However, M’Benga knows he needs his memories to do it successfully, so Pike decides they need to storm the castle.
They proceed to do just that and discover that rather than just holding all of their memories, the castle blocks the radiation. Pike seems to be on the verge of killing Zac when his memories return, and he explains that the loss of memory did nothing but strip them all down to the base of who they were. He arrests Zac, and he takes advantage of the prisoner exchange to beg for Captain Batel’s forgiveness.
Analysis
“Among the Lotus Eaters” really, really, really tries to be deep, and the episode has some good things to say about our intrepid Enterprise crew. M’Benga is, at his heart, a healer. Even if he can’t remember his own name, he remembers basic first aid and runs to La’an’s side. La’an is a protector. Last episode, she lamented some of the struggles associated with being Starfleet security, but in “Among the Lotus Eaters,” we see that she’s exactly where she needs to be. I suppose the episode wanted us to question whether or not Pike was the kind of man who would allow his rage to overtake him enough to end High Lord Zacarias, but this is really where things break down. No, we don’t think Pike is going to use the phaser rifle on Zac. Up to this point, we’ve seen amnesiac Pike defend himself or others and use levels of force appropriate to the situation. At no point have we seen him be a man with rage issues. Sure, Zac had just told him that he’d have to wait to get his memories, but nothing about that interaction carried enough intensity to suggest Pike would be willing to hurt Zac seriously. My guess is that was supposed to be an important moment, but it falls mostly flat.
“Among the Lotus Eaters” also wants to be very, very sure that you picked up on the symbolism. Luq shows them a fruit that they use to make their tattoos. The episode’s title comes to us from Greek mythology, and the main story is that residents of this particular island eat from the “lotus tree.” The fruit of that tree would cause the inhabitants to forget about everything. In the Star Trek version, the fruit lets them remember the important bits or forget about them by tattooing over the names of lost loved ones, which is what Luq does. He serves less as a character in the story and more as walking exposition. He even flat out explains to Pike that he chooses to forget, that the “forgetting” is a gift as it means freedom from memories that hold pain or sorrow. Luq’s whole idea here is that the forgetting forces the field Kalar to exist in a perpetual present. Luq even tells Pike, M’Benga, and La’an that they need to be “in the moment.” Y’all, this sounds like an overly simplistic understanding of Buddhism.
On the other hand, there’s Pike who argues for the need to remember everything, both the good and the bad. The point of this is less for Pike to take a more Westernized approach to philosophy but rather to force Pike to contend with his own emotional ties to Batel, but it comes across as being a bit suspect. However, Pike does ultimately conclude that yes, even though his relationship with Batel has the potential to cause pain, it’s worth it. This might have worked had the series not built Pike up to be reasonably emotionally intelligent. I don’t mean to imply that emotionally intelligent people can’t have blind spots to their own behavior, but this episode seems to undercut the work that Pike did in “A Quality of Mercy.”
Pike’s story arc in the episode may not be great, but the Erica Ortegas plotline is inexcusably weak. Yes, on its face, we have Ortegas showing great bravery and faith in her own abilities, and she does save the ship. However, the episode misses out on giving us actual character development and instead boils Ortegas down to being her job. She is Erica Ortegas, and she flies the ship. I love that we get to see Melissa Navia flex her acting chops, but I generally dislike the idea of distilling the entirety of Ortegas down to being a function of what she does for a living. With M’Benga, who arguably gets the same treatment, we get to see him do different things in the episode, but for Ortegas, it’s literally just flying the ship. This was a real missed opportunity.
Lastly, I really didn’t feel comfortable with the terms used in the episode for the two groups of Kalar. If you find that your story requires you to distinguish between field and castle iterations of a people, given the history of the use of similar terms, maybe just don’t.
That said, “Among the Lotus Eaters” features some great visuals and feels very grounded in the TOS aesthetic. High Lord Zacarias has a crown that’s an example of how amazing costuming for the series can be. The crude construction and asymmetric look to the crown tells you everything you need to know about Zac and the Kalar he leads, and it’s a great addition to the episode’s storytelling.
Rating:
Three Time Crystals
Stray Thoughts From the Couch
- Actually, Zac and Rigel VII do come to us from “The Menagerie”/”The Cage.”
- I really wish we’d gotten to see how the memory loss would have affected Pelia.
- I’m also not wild that they had Chapel wandering the halls. Why wouldn’t she have maintained as much focus as M’Benga did?
- Also, yes, I know that lotuses do not grow on trees. Take that one up with the Ancient Greeks.