#among the lotus eaters haters

[curator-on-ao3]

I never came back from Among the Lotus Eaters

I see now, in hindsight of SNW season two, that Among the Lotus Eaters was a breaking point for me.

First, that episode needed to transition Batel and Pike from … whatever they were … to a deeper relationship. And what did the episode do?

It hung their issues on not enough time for each other. (How many dinner parties has this man thrown?)

It made Pike a commitment-phobe. (Really? Pike? Y’all sure you meant second season Pike not second season Picard?)

It undercut Pike as a captain as well as his pain dating back to The Cage. (Say, fellas, is it okay to leave your yeoman behind if someone at some point said he looked kinda dead?)

Here’s the thing. I would have bought the episode starting with Batel and Pike having an adult discussion about how they could have hated each other after Una’s arrest and trial but they don’t. They’re still drawn to each other. Then I would have bought Pike’s relationship hesitancy being due to his concerns about his fate — and Una later calling him out on his potential fears for longer-term intimacy when he believes his days are numbered. (And if the show backtracks to make this Pike’s motivation, I’m gonna call bullshit because it should have been there from the start. I’ve seen a thousand stories about commitment-phobes. But a story about a person frightened to hurt someone they might be falling for because of a known timeline to the end? That’s actually interesting.)

Then, I would have bought Pike on the planet holding the necklace and feeling that he had unfinished business — the adult discussion with Batel (as opposed to love that, due to his own fears, hadn’t yet been grounded in the reality of the episode).

Second, the episode has the hero moment of Erica figuring out that she flies the ship. Okay, putting aside that other people can and do fly the ship (ahem, Una), this was an incredible opportunity for Erica to have a totem to remind her of why she cares about flying, not just that she does it. Give us a goddamn model airplane or a book about birds or an action figure of Erika Hernandez — something. Anything. Let us get to know Erica better. This missed opportunity stings.

Third, the trauma repetition was painful. The guy on the planet lost his whole family? Dude, he’s the three-way pointing Spider-Man meme with two members of the away team — M’Benga and La’an. What are the odds of all three of them having the same trauma (and not discussing it)? I don’t know, but it was lazy as shit. (Note: Uhura has the same trauma. Una might, per her service record. Enough already.) Make that guy the former king and he’s somehow responsible for the memory loss rock landing and plaguing the planet. Make him a doctor who saved Zac’s life and therefore plunged the planet into tyrannical rule. Again — something. Anything. Just make it unique instead of repetitive. (And if he had saved Zac’s life by some extreme means, that could even possibly excuse Pike for breaking the essential promise of Starfleet by leaving a crewmember behind.)

There’s more. There’s so much more. There should have been a line, at least, about Una being affected by the radiation when her body could clear radiation before. There should have been recognition that Pike was going down to the planet underprepared — again — by cutting the number of people on the away team. There should have been console warnings flashing that, I don’t know, the warp core was in danger since no one in engineering knew who they were or how to do their jobs.

This episode began the season’s beats of Pike being a crummy captain and a crummy boyfriend. It continued the trend of underutilizing Erica, even when she’s there. It forgot the show’s own internal realities. And I am big mad about that because this clutch point of an episode could have been different. It could have been better.

#star trek strange new worlds #star trek strange new worlds season two #among the lotus eaters #among the lotus eaters haters #christopher pike #marie batel #erica ortegas #i am a voyager fan so i have been gaslit by trek before #(tom paris has always loved the ocean) #(chakotay has always loved boxing) #(kathryn janeway would totally choose to endanger her crew rather than turn off the holo-vibrator she’s suddenly calling her boyfriend) #i thought snw would be better than that #i started this season liking pike #even though the show started undercutting him with last season’s finale #STOP MAKING YOUR HERO AN ASSHOLE #he can be complicated without being a jerk to his girlfriend