James Osborne reviews the sixth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds…
“Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach” begins at the same starting point as plenty of Star Trek’s classic episodes: with the USS Enterprise answering a distress call. One small cruiser is being fired upon by another, before the Starfleet ship slowly floats over like a hulking Star Destroyer to intervene. The Enterprise ends the assault and beams aboard the victims of the attack, whose ship has been damaged beyond repair.
These victims include a prodigiously gifted child and his stern father, and an old flame of Captain Pike’s called Alora. As the Enterprise investigates the attack, Pike and Alora begin to rekindle their relationship with a directness that would make Will Riker blush. But like the majority of Will Riker’s own intimate experiences with a member of an alien species, Captain Pike’s doesn’t end well.
As it turns out, the child is set to be sacrificed in a cultural keystone ceremony led by Alora – a fact that Captain Pike isn’t aware of until it’s far too late to take any action. The child, who is defined by an excellent performance from the young actor, is locked into a short future of pain and suffering for the greater good causing Pike to leave Alora and her people, promising to report their actions to Starfleet.
The episode gives the audience a chance to get a closer look at Dr. M’Benga, which is never a bad thing, revisiting the previously established plot about his ill daughter and his search for a cure. This links organically to “Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach”’s main plot, reminding us that the consequences of Dr. M’Benga’s rule-breaking can’t be too far away. There is also a five second cameo from Samuel Kirk, but it’s completely superfluous and only acts as a reminder that the character would have been better served by being left alone.
Like the shift in gears between “Memento Mori” and “Spock Amok”, “Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach” is another case of tonal whiplash. The flexibility of Strange New Worlds’ episodic formula makes this not just feasible, but actively fun. Watching the crew of the Enterprise slaloming between horror-inflected action, light-hearted comedy, and disturbing ethical dilemmas is exciting, and it helps to flesh out our understanding of exactly who these characters are and what they believe. Moreover, the episode is brave enough to take bold narrative steps, and this helps to elevate an otherwise somewhat derivative story.
And, in theory, ending on a dour note – and emphasising the limitations of Starfleet and its values – is absolutely fine. In fact, it’s great. It shows that our phaser-wielding space-faring heroes can’t always save the day. Sometimes there are no easy solutions. But, this ending feels like the first half of a two-parter, and that’s because there’s no real resolution. Captain Pike doesn’t have some epiphany about the subjective nature of morality in his galaxy-spanning present. Alora doesn’t come to the realisation that purposefully inflicting intense suffering on a child can’t be justified. Instead, the characters don’t change: Captain Pike is still resolute in his belief that the actions of this civilization are wrong; Alora is still determined that they’re right.
While the episode might not shy away from disturbing imagery, it does seem to be more squeamish about actually testing these conflicting ideologies and pitting them against one another. This means that, at the end, we’re left wanting more exploration of the right and wrong, and the reasoning behind it. Perhaps a follow-up episode would track Captain Pike as he reports the discovery to Starfleet and the Federation, and examine his frustration as he comes up against the rules of the Prime Directive and the entrenched respect for other civilization’s cultural practices, culminating in some shift in opinion from him and Starfleet and the Federation.
But, that won’t happen. Instead the episode ends as it ends, leaving the audience somewhat uncertain and unsure of what to think. Every now and then, that’s okay.
James Osborne
