Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 7 Review: Days of Our Enterprise

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 4, Episode 7, “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass,” sees a certain childlike cosmic entity return to wreak havoc aboard the Enterprise. Trelane traps our intrepid crew in a cheesy soap opera, orchestrating the narrative arcs to play out as he sees fit. It’s reminiscent of The Truman Show in that regard. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” 

Admittedly, if we’re pitting this silly episode against the silly puppet episode, this one comes out on top. “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” presents its strange premise in a way that makes sense. It only works because Pike is in on the ruse. He’s our “straight man” character, reacting to the absurdity around him. He’s our lens into this world. 

That’s not to say the cast doesn’t meet the bar in terms of performances. They all turn in fearless work, hitting the ground running with the ’70s/’80s soap opera acting. It makes it all the funnier that Deidre Hall, the actual soap opera actor, delivers the most grounded performance when under Trelane’s spell. 

So Are the Days of the Enterprise

The episode plays with soap opera tropes and archetypes to great effect, from extreme close-ups and musical cues to the soft, dreamy lighting. La’An appears to be your stereotypical soap opera villain, wearing black to tell you she’s a baddie, until “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” yanks the rug out from under you.

The outing even presents the “evil twin” trope with Sybok. If memory serves, Spock’s half-brother hasn’t been teased since “The Serene Squall.” Here’s hoping this eventually bears fruit and that we might meet Sybok soon, at least who he would be in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

I love that this episode propels the emotional arcs for Pike, La’An, and Spock, in particular. Pike finally reckons with his grief over losing Batel and longing for his lost life with her. La’An grapples with ending her relationship with Spock, and it seems she might actually have feelings for him, while Spock now embraces his Vulcan side. 

Meanwhile, Uhura’s belief that Pike is her father (at least in this soap opera narrative) lends itself to her feeling lost after losing her own family. She’s still young and finding herself. Of course, Hemmer’s loss probably still stings. M’Benga’s struggle with “space madness” and his desire to leave Starfleet mirrors what he was telling Chapel on last week’s episode. He feels like it’s time to move on.

Acting MVPs

The writers cleverly link the characters’ emotional journeys to their respective soap opera stories. In addition to the comedic aspects of the heightened soap opera acting, Anson Mount and Christina Chong emerge as my acting MVPs, especially after Trelane’s spell is broken. Mount mines the depths of Pike’s grief and produces raw, visceral work, notably in the final scene.

Chong also navigates La’An’s perhaps unexpected pain over losing Spock, and her conversation in the medbay hits even harder when paired with Ethan Peck’s stoic Spock acting. 

“Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” is equal parts hilarious and moving. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds never shies away from shooting at the sky in terms of creative risks, and it revels in its occasional silliness with unabashed glee. However, underneath that silliness is a story chock-full of heart. 

Stray Observations: 

• Okay, hello, Sybok. He’s like a Vulcan Fabio meets Lestat de Lioncourt. 
• Trelane reminds me of Gabriel in Supernatural, and this episode specifically brings to mind Season 5, Episode 8, “Changing Channels,” in which Gabriel/The Trickster traps Sam and Dean in a series of TV parodies. 
• I hope you stayed for the end credits with the pitch-perfect soap opera title sequence and Trelane’s cereal commercial. So good. I hope he got the funding he needed to bankroll another season. 
• “Body cleaning theater” is replacing “soap opera.” I don’t make the rules. 
• The most surprising development from this outing is that Enterprise has a therapist. Everyone’s always walking around traumatized. 
• Ethan Peck reacting to the camera as Sybok in that one scene made me laugh out loud. You know the one. 

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams new episodes every Thursday on Paramount+.

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