For all the whizbang spectacle and big sci-fi ideas that Star Trek is famous for, at the end of the day some of the best episodes of the series simply streamline their stories down to two strangers forced to get to know one another: Captain Picard trying to communicate with a Tamarian captain in “Darmok,” Kira Nerys confronting a Cardassian war criminal in “Duet,” Michael Burnham and Cleveland Booker’s chaotic first meeting in “That Hope Is You, Part 1,” and, of course, Captain Kirk and the Gorn in “Arena.”
There is something about condensing the bigness of the Star Trek universe into a single pair of characters that makes the world feel vital, alive, and unpredictable in a way it doesn’t always from the safety of a starship bridge. And Strange New Worlds delivers its own stellar entry to the genre with “Terrarium,” an episode that’s eventually revealed to be an “Arena” prequel but doesn’t need that gimmick to work as well as it does. It may have taken us nearly three full seasons to get an Erica Ortegas-focused episode, but at least the result was worth the wait.
The premise of the episode is effectively simple: As Enterprise explores an area of uncharted space known for its “strange phenomena,” Ortegas is charged with flying a one-woman survey mission into a gravitational storm. Unfortunately, she winds up getting sucked into a wormhole and crash landing on a desolate moon, well out of communication range with the ship. At first, she pulls a Tom Hanks in Castaway and tries to survive on her own. But she’s heartened to stumble upon the camp of a fellow stranded survivor—until she realizes her compatriot is a Gorn.
After Strange New Worlds seemed to put a button on the Gorn arc, it’s a thrill to see the lizard creatures return again here. The “Hegemony” two-parter hinted that the Gorn were more than just feral space monsters, which made it a little odd to watch the show drop that thread in favor of simply sending them into hibernation. But “Terrarium” reopens the Gorn story in a more personal, intimate way. As a hegemonic culture, the Gorn may be violent and vindictive. But as individuals, it turns out they can be collaborative and selfless too.
That makes this a really effective story for Ortegas in particular. If La’An were dropped into this situation, having her bond with a Gorn would have felt corny and/or unbelievable. And if Uhura were there, having her try to communicate with the Gorn would have felt obvious. But Ortegas is a little more of a wild card. Her violent brush with the Gorn in “Hegemony, Part II” means she’s got some of the hatred and fear that drives La’An. But she’s also got a plucky, lighthearted sense of adventure that makes her open to new experiences too.
Before this episode, I would’ve called Ortegas’ plucky, sarcastic confidence a bit of generic characterization for one of Strange New Worlds’ least developed supporting players. But, helped along by a stellar performance by Melissa Navia, this episode does a great job making those qualities feel more intentional and dimensional than they ever have before. Ortegas is a little bit like a high-school jock—less intellectual or emotionally sensitive than many of her co-workers, but also tenacious, improvisational, and upbeat in a way that’s equally important for a Starfleet officer. Where others would crumble or at least turn toward self-pity, Ortegas self-talks her way into solving problems and looking on the bright side. The moment she celebrates making a water condenser feels distinctly Ortegas in a way I’m not sure the show has really locked into before.
It’s a great little character sketch that only grows once Ortegas teams up with her unexpected Gorn ally, who I’m going to call Gornina for the purposes of this recap. (She’s just listed as “Gorn” in the credits.) If Ortegas is a jock, Gornina is like the weird artsy goth loner she unexpectedly befriends. And while the beats of their slow-burning friendship aren’t exactly revolutionary for this kind of sci-fi survival story, screenwriter Alan B. McElroy (who also worked on some of Discovery’s strongest hours) does a great job lending specificity to this particular enemies-to-allies tale.
The first comes when Ortegas realizes Gornina is also a pilot, which serves as an always important reminder that the Gorn are an advanced space-faring race not just lizard monster people. And the next comes when Ortegas constructs a simple “yes/no” translator device and realizes Gornina can understand everything she’s saying. As in “Darmok,” it allows the episode to emphasize how important the nuances of communication can be. When Ortegas suggests the Gorn learned English to “study their prey,” Gornina disagrees. But when she changes the phrasing to “you want to understand your enemy,” Gornina concurs.
It’s a moment that humanizes both the Gorn as a species and Gornina in particular—as do scenes like the one where Ortegas and Gornina share games from their respective worlds. (Ortegas pretending to eat a game piece is adorable.) As with Groot or Wall-E or E.T., it’s impressive how much this episode manages to convey tone and intention with just physicality and limited vocabulary. It helps that the mix of prosthetics, puppetry, and CGI looks fantastic, but it’s also in the character work. While Gornina is a more natural survivalist than Ortegas, she has given up on being rescued because she knows her people will kill her for her leg injury. At best, all she can hope for is a friend to help her pass the time. It takes Ortegas’ gumption to give the duo something bigger to strive for, just as it takes Uhura’s gumption back on Enterprise to ensure the rescue mission remains a priority for the crew.
Although it’s a slightly weird thing to say about an hour where one of the protagonists is a giant reptile, this is actually a great episode for Strange New Worlds’ female characters. (“Look at us, just a couple of girls having a slumber party.”) While the idea that Uhura and Ortegas are best friends has come up in passing before, Uhura’s desperation to get Ortegas back drives that dynamic home in a tangible way for the first time. (Celia Rose Gooding is also great this week.) Meanwhile, Una’s willingness to call off the rescue mission in order to bring lifesaving vaccines to a pandemic-ridden colony ensures there’s a different female POV in the mix too, one guided by big-picture duty over personal emotion.
La’An, meanwhile, is given the (unintentional) antagonist role this week, as she follows Ortegas’ explosive SOS signal only to shoot Gornina on sight, mistaking Ortegas’ new friend for an attacker. It’s a welcome bit of continuity from the documentary episode, where La’An was specifically asked if she would fire first on a Gorn. (“Unless you can kill them first, the best move is to run,” she explained.) It’s also a welcome example of Strange New Worlds actually taking an episode to a tragic, unresolved place in the end rather than tying things up in a neat bow like so many of this season’s episodes have done. As Ortegas later tells Uhura, “She was my friend. La’An is my friend too. I don’t know what to do with that.”
In fact, Gornina’s death is such a compelling moment of tragedy, it’s a shame the episode pulls focus from it by overtly tying this story into The Original Series canon. Personally, I think it would’ve been more than enough to simply leave this hour as a spiritual sister to “Arena” without making the connection overt. Instead, we learn that this whole dual shipwreck scenario is actually an earlier experiment conducted by the Metrons, the godlike species who will later shove Kirk and his Gorn foe together in that classic 1967 episode.
While it’s compelling to watch Ortegas rail against the beings who brought her into this cruel sociological experiment (Navia is fantastic in her big breakdown moment), the way the Metron introduces himself only to wipe her memory of him is clunky. And it’s even clunkier for him to suggest “perhaps someday we may need to reset your perception of the Gorn,” which feels like Strange New Worlds hedging its bets about continuity rather than simply living in the moment and letting this episode stand on its own two feet.
It’s a disappointing but thankfully small misstep in what’s otherwise the strongest episode of the season yet and one of my favorite episodes of the series to date. While Strange New Worlds has spent much of season three biting off more than it can chew, “Terrarium” proves that a simple story done well can be the most compelling thing of all. This episode snaps Ortegas into focus as a character, gives Navia a welcome acting showcase, recontextualizes our understanding of the Gorn, and deepens the dynamics between the show’s female ensemble in the process, all while keeping its focus firmly on a two-hander survival story that gets ample room to breathe.
I hope it’s a template the show keeps in mind moving forward. While this episode echoes some of the best of what Star Trek has done in the past (including even a bit of “The Inner Light” in that final shot of the Gorn game piece on Ortegas’ shelf), it’s also rooted in the characters and dynamics that exist only in this era of Trek. That’s a great balance for Strange New Worlds to aim for. And it’s thrilling to see the show hit the mark so confidently as this uneven season barrels toward its finale next week.
Stray observations
- • In a season filled with annoying little plot holes, I love how this episode takes the time to explain that Ortegas’ shuttle has been stripped of everything but essential equipment and that her emergency food rations got destroyed in her crash. Great attention to detail.
- • I also love that Ortegas takes paper airplanes on her missions as a good luck charm. Every good Star Trek character needs their little retro quirk.
- • So La’An killing Gornina is what directly inspires the Metrons to put Kirk and the Gorn in an overt trial-by-combat scenario in “Arena.” Not sure if that’s a win or a loss for my Kirk/La’An ‘shipping.
- • Pike and Una piloting the ship through the wormhole while Spock sits in the captain’s chair is a great image. Although flying the entire Enterprise into the wormhole feels like an insane risk to take for one crewmember—even if Uhura’s fudged numbers had been true.
- • I’m obsessed with the little Starfleet branded “fire cube” that Ortegas uses to cook her food.
- • You could program a really great afternoon of just Trek survival episodes. I’m also thinking of “Shuttlepod One” from Enterprise, “Day Of Honor” from Voyager, and “Change Of Heart” from Deep Space Nine.
