It turns out that she and Chin-Riley were friends, but she resents Una for joining an organization that rejects their kind. In a power move to end all power moves, Meera lets him in and turns on the air supply just as his oxygen runs out. “I can wait all day” he tells her secretary, who cooly shoots back “I don’t think you can,” seeing his oxygen supply is at two percent. Unfortunately for Pike, she’s set up shop on a planet where humans cannot breathe the atmosphere, and he has to wear an oxygen mask. We first meet Meera when Captain Pike turns up at her office, refusing to leave until she sees him. I expected her to proclaim “ don’t f*** with me fellas, this ain’t my first time at the rodeo.” And then there are those asymmetrical power suits and that sharp haircut. A million drag queens will be born watching her chew the scenery with line readings reminiscent of Joan Crawford, Eartha Kitt, and Kristen Chenoweth. This week we met that lawyer, and boy is she something! Actress Yetide Badaki (Bilquis in American Gods) completely steals the show as Meera. Last week, Chin-Riley and Pike discussed a hotshot lawyer who wouldn’t return their calls. ![]() This is because Illyrians genetically modify themselves, while the Federation banned genetic modification after the eugenics wars (1992 to 1996 you remember). It was revealed last season that Commander Chin-Riley is Illyrian, and Starfleet does not admit Illyrians. To recap, last season’s finale saw Number One/Una Chin-Riley arrested for lying on her Starfleet application. It’s a bold move to upend 55 years of canon. I don’t think Star Trek has ever shown racial prejudice to be alive and well, as well as institutionalized in the Federation. Still, previously this has meant a single rogue malicious agent or someone taking desperate measures in desperate times. We’ve known for over 30 years that some of the best Trek stories are about the cracks in the Federation’s utopian facade. Although those rules have fallen by the wayside over the years, I can’t think of another episode that’s broken them quite so hard. The legendary showrunner of the show that kicked off the Star Trek franchise famously had a set of rules for writing the show that ensured that the United Federation of Planets was always portrayed as a utopia, free of things like war, money, and racial prejudice. In her Vulture review, Kathryn VanArendonk calls Utopia “weirdly, upsettingly topical.” Maybe the show will find a new home in the future, when that isn’t quite so true.Hear that whirring sound? That’s Gene Roddenberry spinning in his grave over the direction that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has taken this week. As if that wasn’t scary enough, their realization makes them the target of the shadowy organization the Network and Mr. ![]() ![]() The show, starring John Cusack, Rainn Wilson, and Jessica Rothe, among others, followed the plot of Dennis Kelly’s 2013 series, in which a group of comic-book fans discover that a graphic novel, and its unpublished sequel, have correctly predicted real-life catastrophes and epidemics, including a viral pandemic currently threatening the planet. The show premiered on the service on September 25. Either way, according to Deadline, the streaming platform has canceled the series, adapted by Gone Girl author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn from the 2013 British series of the same name, after one season. That, or everyone just had a lot going on this fall. Between the dark conspiracy theories, violence, global pandemic, and impending apocalypse, it would seem Amazon Prime Video’s Utopia was the wrong show at the exact wrong moment.
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