HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
In an interesting move, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds opens with a focus on characters we get to see occupy comparatively less of the limelight. I recently wrote about Joseph M’Benga and why he’s such an interesting character, and after watching season two’s first episode “The Broken Circle,” I feel a touch prescient. The episode gets us a look at what psychological damage both Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Chapel endured as part of their experience in combat. We’ve seen Trek grapple with the emotional fall out from war before, most notably in the characters of Miles O’Brien and Nog, but there’s a violent undertone to M’Benga’s experience that we’ve rarely seen. In fact, “The Broken Circle” is mostly about coping with emotional instability, and I’d argue that we get a few really interesting insights into the characters’ coping mechanisms.
Plot Ahoy!
The episode opens with Captain Pike speaking with a dispirited Number One, who believes she deserves her punishment for lying about her species. Pike, however, disagrees entirely and resolves to hunt down a better attorney to represent her in her legal dealings with Starfleet. Pike determines that he’ll take advantage of the downtime afforded by Enterprise’s refit in order to reach out to an attorney he believes will be able to take her case. He leaves Spock in charge, and while Spock is wrestling with his own emotional control, Ensign Uhura identifies what is clearly a communication from La’an indicating that not only is she in trouble but also that the trouble has dire ramifications for the Federation.
Because the admiralty refuses to help, Spock and a select crew of familiar faces stage a warp core breach in order to steal the ship, but a Commander Pelia who promises to be our new engineer not only notices that the ruse isn’t great but also agrees to help them. The Enterprise warps to a dilithium mining planet, Cajitar IV, that alternates between Federation and Klingon control by treaty. The Klingons currently control the planet, creating the potential for a major diplomatic incident and possible rekindling of hostilities between the two powers. However, La’an has discovered that a mining consortium, The Broken Circle, based on the planet has decided that war was good for business and wants to jumpstart a new conflict. La’an does not know, exactly, how they plan to accomplish this, but she needs help to investigate.
Meanwhile, Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Chapel go to the medical tent to offer their help, which they offer to Oriana’s parents. However, the Broken Circle kidnaps them and takes them to treat ion burns in a facility below ground. M’Benga and Chapel quickly discover that the facility is less a facility and more a Federation starship that the Broken Circle has been painstakingly building. They plan to attack a Klingon ship with their “Federation” starship in order to fake an act of war.
Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Chapel discuss a bit about the horrors of war, and M’Benga retrieves a vial of a green liquid with which they both dose themselves. The substance apparently has the effect of turning them into super soldiers, so M’Benga and Chapel carve a swath through the Broken Circle members. They aren’t able to stop the ship from launching, but they do get a message out to the Enterprise that the ship needs to be destroyed.
Aboard the Enterprise, Ortegas and the bridge crew have detected the arrival of a Klingon Bird of Prey. That ship doesn’t immediately notice the small Federation ship launching from the planet, so Spock sets the Enterprise to monitor the ship. Spock realizes that both M’Benga and Chapel have to be aboard the Broken Circle ship, and he’s torn. However, ultimately, he does order the ship destroyed. Just before he does, however, M’Benga and Chapel fling themselves out of an airlock in the hopes that the Enterprise can find them, which is exactly what happens.
The Klingon captain accuses Spock of trying to start some nonsense, but Spock talks him down. They and their respective crews even meet on Cajitar IV’s surface to share bloodwine. The next day, Spock, suffering from an incredible hangover, contacts Starfleet to receive his punishment. Admiral April lets him off with a warning, and then has his own meeting with another officer in which they discuss a possible war with the Gorn.
Analysis
I mentioned above that “The Broken Circle” is about emotional compromise, as several characters struggle with it. Spock, having torn down some of his mental barriers in order to survive last season has been struggling with his emotions to the point that he asks M’Benga for help. That’s certainly a huge step for Spock because admitting that weakness cuts against who he is as a Vulcan. We also get a chance to see that Chapel’s affections might actually be reciprocated. Spock’s blood pressure rises when she comes into the exam room while he’s meeting with M’Benga. Later, when he’s performing CPR on Chapel after they transport her back onto Enterprise following her little dance with the vacuum of space, his raw fear is written clearly across his face. The best part of Spock’s journey in this episode is actually that M’Benga doesn’t give him an easy answer. M’Benga offers a coping strategy in the form of music, but importantly, he acknowledges that Spock will struggle to regain the emotional equilibrium he had in the previous season. I like that Strange New Worlds recognizes that one’s mental health requires work to recover and maintain. Trek doesn’t always recognize that struggle.
Interestingly, M’Benga faces a similar challenge on Cajitar IV. M’Benga expresses real rage at the waste of life caused by the conflict, and he shares a horrifying anecdote regarding the carnage he personally saw during the Battle of ChaKana. We’ve seen other characters struggle with witnessing that kind of carnage. Miles O’Brien survived the war with the Cardassians, and his experiences leave him with rage targeted specifically at the Cardassians. Nog survived the Siege of AR-558, but he expresses his trauma by fixating on the replacement leg. He views the replacement leg as being weaker, which is a metaphor for how the trauma has affected him. For O’Brien to move past his rage, he had to confront it. Nog needed to regain a sense of self and empowerment by protecting Vic Fontaine in the holodeck.
M’Benga’s rage is an altogether different beast. M’Benga rails against war itself, and his anger is a quiet, seething emotion. Even Bones never hated war with the intensity M’Benga does. Granted, M’Benga has only just come out of the harrowing experiences that fuel his emotional upheaval, but his fury is very personal and very targeted at an abstraction. That rage also ultimately prompts him to decide sacrificing his own life to save others from experiencing war is both a moral and necessary choice. Trek has always been a franchise that emphasizes the importance of the greater good, but M’Benga almost makes this sacrifice not only to spare everyone from the war he hates so much but specifically to spare himself. It’s an interesting nuance to be sure, and I look forward to seeing how it plays out going forward into this second season.
As an aside, Carol Kane’s Pelia is going to be a fascinating addition to the crew dynamic. She comes along on the Enterprise because she’s bored. As one of the incredibly long-lived Lanthanites, she’s seen and done just about everything, so that decision makes sense. I also think she’s going to be a bit of a chaos gremlin down in Engineering. I can’t wait.
Rating:
Five Time Crystals
Stray Thoughts From the Couch
- I kind of love that M’Benga is the one who jumpstarts Spock’s interest in the Vulcan lyre. It’s an interesting blending of two cultures, much as Spock himself is. He’s playing a Vulcan instrument in order to achieve a very human goal.
- I’m not sure what to think of how this episode hints that Spock has feelings for Chapel. I’m really not keen on this becoming a weird romantic subplot unless it’s going to be done well and respectfully.
- I love that Oriana gets her family back.
- Apparently M’Benga is so traumatized by what he experienced in war that he carries around the green stuff all the time. I really hope we get to hear a bit more about what Chapel and M’Benga actually did during the war.
- Lanthanites are a new species, so if you haven’t heard of them, you aren’t alone.
- I loved the Klingon captain, but I loved hungover Spock even more.