I see that I’m the default translator then, fandabidozi (phan-dab-ae-dozi). Directed by Warehouse 13 Seasons 3 and 4, the season 1 finale and season 2 opener of Strange New Worlds, and more than a baker’s dozen of The Magician director, Chris Fisher returns. While Ugly Betty producer Henry Alonso Myers and Supernatural writer Davy Perez wrote the story, with season 2 staff writer Onitra Johnson returning as story editor, Perez constructed the teleplay. At the very least, after that whole writer’s strike business, I’m glad to have the crew of the Enterprise back.

Picking up practically where we left off last time out, the crew of the Enterprise, the Stardiver, as well as colonists that the Federation is failing to protect, are here, there, and practically everywhere. Still fighting the Gorn Hegemony, crew like La’an, Dr M’Benga, Erica, and the sex pest’s little brother are fighting for their lives in the digestive tract of a Gorn ship. Meanwhile, Captain Boring, who Pike is strangely enamoured with, is filled with Gorn eggs, so he’s preoccupied as Nurse Chapel fights to freeze Batel like Walt Disney. Oh, and Pelia is being annoying to Martin Quinn’s Scotty.

Unofficially sent into the Gorn Hegemony, the crew needs to problem solve nearly every breath they are taking; Scotty modifying the ship’s signal, Chapel and Spock playing high-stakes Operation, and the Bridge Crew operating on fumes and turning the ship into a third star in the middle of a binary star system. Ya know, simple stuff. I’m sure it won’t feel slightly rushed in the third act, and you’ll wonder if something was cut, because that couldn’t happen; they’ve had years to prime this episode just right. Right?

About three weeks away from two years since we last saw the crew of the Enterprise originally, this second part has a lot to build off of. Without going too far into a recap and without personally going back to watch seasons 1 and 2 (I’ve been busy), here is the lowdown. Nurse Chapel was ready to leave, Ortegas was flying the ship, La’an was tormented by the Gorn in their new, actually scary look, Pike was (and still is) sexy “AF,” and I was bemoaning the fact that Martin Quinn’s accent is what annoys me about his performance. I’ve only missed off Spock’s wanting to sleep with Chapel.

Everything else is practically left off the table for “Hegemony, Part II,” which, for a 45-minute episode, is a lot still to cover. Especially in terms of nuance and giving time for things to breathe. I don’t hate the episode, aside from the typical “we’re all going to die if this goes wrong” bit, simply because it is the first episode in season 3 with another season confirmed. For what it is, I think “Hegemony, Part II” moves along nicely, does a lot of emotional and character beats that work to the point I was whispering to myself, “for those that come after,” and generally, it is a good episode.

However, couldn’t it have been maybe ten minutes longer to let those beats land a bit better? At least, maybe not make the third act resolution feel almost as sudden as being thrown back into the fray. There are just two points where I’m practically thinking either we’re going to come back to these later on once the time has passed, or we’ve missed the chance to make characters like Scotty feel more than just that special engineer we’re supposed to care about because of some Canadian. Something a little more than saying he has trauma and switching gears to the greatest engineer who has ever lived in minutes.

With the Enterprise in a space battle that’s just fine, The Orville kind of set the bar lately. The crew is working on escaping and dealing with everything. One of which is Scotty’s little do-dah (Scottish for “thing”) that he mentioned in the season 2 finale, the one that masks the ship as a Gorn ship to the scanners, making it easier for the crew to hide. That’s all fine. I like how everyone is practically separated and doing bits and pieces here or there, but the whole plot is that the crew is working as one.

Engineering is supporting the Bridge Crew, who are working on saving not only those on board but also those on the Gorn ship that the Enterprise is chasing. Meanwhile, Captain Pike is being distracted by the woman he loves being infested with Gorn babies in the med-bay; the crew is tired, they are all feeling the traumatic events of the Gorn, and it all pulls it together. Even when they are butting heads, it is them pushing each other and getting work done.

Pelia, in particular, is the one to push Scotty to figure out his little machine quickly because she knows he works well under pressure. Nonetheless, that’s also the scene where either I feel something was cut for time, or something is being held over for another episode to slowly drag our characters throughout this season and next. At which point, I ask why bother? Paramount canceled the show, and it will only run for another 16 episodes after this season. No, let’s not make a good show for as long as possible; that’s clearly too much to ask.

The point is that there is more that could be done there about Scotty’s trauma of being a survivor from a destroyed ship. That’s already the story of the beloved Sisko and fantastic Shaw. Show the pressure that’s put on him, show that despite being this perfect engineer (until O’Brian is born), he’s just a young bloke that’s good at his job. That’s probably why I don’t care about Spock that much; he’s held up as perfection, then working backwards to be normal. Stop pretending like everyone loves TOS now, it is not realistic to believe everyone has that nostalgia.

I also need to bemoan something, and don’t worry, it is only 17-ish minutes in. “Aghhh, Bawhied!” which isn’t English, and I’m surprised the Americans didn’t subtitle it like they do with everyone that doesn’t sound like a robot that touches their sister. Much like my fandabidozi at the top of this article, that’s what is called Scots, which is finally one of the official languages (thanks to the Greens), which is very difficult for a lot of non-native speakers to wrap their heads around. Or heids round. One such people is the Americans; simple, unassuming folk.

As I’ve said before, I have a burning hatred for the depictions of Scotty, mostly because everything has to be softened and made appealing for certain people. “Well, what are your qualifications to bemoan this?” The fact I’m more Scottish than your 1/16th ancestry ever will be, the fact I speak Scots, the fact I spent 5 hours last night listening to nothing but bagpipes and drums, and the fact I’m willing to fight you weeks before you read this. I’m getting to my point in a roundabout way, but if I hear another Canadian or Englishman make the accent cartoonish, I’ll go on a rampage.

Wrapping back around to this “bawheid” line, it is supposed to be authentic, but the way it is presented feels off. So Scotty is faffing about with his little do-dah, and it doesn’t work. As a result, he exclaims “agh, bawheid!” I get where it is trying to go. Quinn is fine, it’s all right from his perspective, but direction, editing, and maybe just an action line in the script could have saved it a bit more. There are two meanings to the term “bawheid,” which in plain English is ball-head, so it makes sense you’d call a chubby child with a round head a “bawheid.”

However, it also means idiot, so exclaiming it as he does works, kinda. He just looks at the machine for a second as he says it, then, after a bit of a pause, says “that’s no [sic] it.” It is fine, and I’m just nitpicking because of course I am. Maybe a flail of the arm(s), maybe a bit more concern in the eyes, or simply something to hammer it home, he’s annoyed with himself, not the machine. He’s calling himself a bawheid, not the machine.

The reason I’m nitpicking with this is that we’re finally getting a Scotty that I don’t want to hate off the bat. I don’t want to jettison his corpse out the airlock. In fact, I want more from this Scotty in this episode, especially after his interaction with Pelia as she pushes him here. He’s clearly struggling with this whole Gorn destroying the ship he was assigned to business. A few minutes of him dealing with that wouldn’t have killed the episode. At least enough for Pelia to apologize for being purposefully aggravating.

Chapel and Spock have a good bit of time, and I don’t hate it because we’re not instantly saying Spock is special. However, as I’ve said many times before, and to bastardize Malcolm Tucker: I’ll be on the train to liking Chris Chibnal’s dross and I’ll give you the special signal, which is me being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. It’s a storyline that almost understands the point of relationship drama, but always misses the point to become surface-level CW teen drama that hardly does anything.

I hate doing this comparison, but over three seasons of The Orville, I cared more about the relationship of a robot from a race of war-mongering genociders and Kasidy Yates than I’ll ever do about Spock. “Oh, but it would be boring otherwise,” otherwise it would allow them room to be adults instead of whatever half of this nonsense is. It just does nothing for me, partly because of where we know we’re going, but also the writing itself.

Not that Spock and Chapel are the worst bit of the episode, far from it. The whole La’an, M’Benga, Ortegas, and Kirk thing just feels like an obligation of the episode rather than a well-written piece of action-drama on the backdrop of “these people are in danger.” I care about them, but simply the way that it is written and shot feels a bit more like something that needs to be done, or we can’t move on. Good sci-fi writing (good writing, period) is writing yourself into a corner and figuring out that smartest, most interesting way out of there that makes sense.

Truthfully, it is about as smart as Frank Reynolds on the news talking about gun control. It is flashy, it is shot fine, but in the end, it does little to solve many problems and hardly takes care of its own. Beyond what I’ve said (which is the obvious), I’m not going to spoil the third act; it is just a bit of a poo B or C-plot.

Pike is probably the highlight, simply because Anson Mount is brilliant. I swear, that man could emotionally read the phonebook – and for the kids among you, that’s quite literally a book of names and phone numbers, and it was big enough to kill you if thrown at you hard enough. If Leonard Nimoy is Spock and there is no one else, then Anson Mount is Pike. He just so beautifully embodies the character.

Ultimately, “Hegemony, Part II” is a big, loud, bombastic explosion back onto our screens of the crew of the Enterprise, in an action-packed season opener that does a lot right. However, given the extended break and the weight of the cliffhanger, it could have very easily taken another few minutes here or there for character moments or the ability to remember certain things. Its lowest points are La’an still having flashbacks and this Gorn ship business, but it hardly takes away from an otherwise good season opener.

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SNW "Hegemony, Part II"

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Mount will always be a highlight.
• Scotty finally making in-roads to be interesting, slightly.
• The Gorn design.

Cons

• Gorn Ship plot is a let down.
• More Spock and Chapel, K-I-SS-I-N-G in a tree...
• Scotty is a bit iffy in places.