What You Need to See Before AVENGERS: ENDGAME

Well, I did this last year for Infinity War, so here we go. Working backwards through the previous movies, with as few spoilers as I can:

CAPTAIN MARVEL
If you don’t know who Captain Marvel is, or what her deal is, you might want to check this one out. But in terms of plot, nothing in it is really followed up in Endgame. All you really need to know is Captain Marvel exists. If you saw and liked Captain Marvel, though, you’ll have a good time at Endgame.
STATUS: Skippable

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP
Seeing that I hadn’t even bothered with seeing this one until watching it a week before Endgame on Netflix, it turned out to be surprisingly critical. A major element of the movie’s plot is set up here, and no it’s not Ant-Man going up Thanos’ butt.
Corollary: For Ant-Man and the Wasp to make the most sense, you’ll need to have seen Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War, and Ant-Man.
STATUS: Essential
 
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
Endgame is the second half of Infinity War. You can see it that way, or as the finale of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe to this point. Either way, yeah, seeing this without having seen Infinity War is a waste of a very expensive movie ticket.
Corollary: I broke down what movies were needed to really get Infinity War last year.
STATUS: Essential 

BLACK PANTHER I mean, it’s a good movie that you should see anyway, but if you haven’t seen it yet you aren’t going to be lost watching Endgame other than the Captain Marvel element of “these characters exist.”
STATUS: Skippable 

THOR: RAGNAROK
Thor’s character arc gets a lot of attention in Endgame, and ultimately the events of Ragnarok are crucial to making the most of this film and Infinity War.
Corollary: Ragnarok depends on Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World, The Avengers, and Thor.
STATUS: Essential
 
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING
Do you know who Spider-Man is? Did you see Infinity War or Civil War? If yes, then if you haven’t seen this one yet don’t worry about it. But it’s pretty good.
Corollary: You’ll probably want to have seen Captain America: Civil War before watching this one.
STATUS: Skippable

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2
Like Infinity War, Endgame leans heavily on elements first established in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, though really the only characters you need to pay attention to are Nebula and Gamora, which is rough because this movie is mostly all about Star-Lord. It would help to have seen this one to understand the sisters’ bond more, but if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, don’t sweat it.
Corollary: If you check this one out, you’ll really want to have seen the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
STATUS: Optional 

DOCTOR STRANGE
Any movie that introduces an Infinity Stone is probably a good call to see before Endgame, and if you haven’t seen this movie yet you might be really confused when a certain character shows up. It’s not altogether the most necessary, but if you have the time you should squeeze it in.
STATUS: Optional
 
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
This movie was a major turning point in the arcs of several of the Avengers. It’s not directly tied to Endgame, but so much of this film is completing the arcs of the main Avengers characters and I think if you haven’t seen one a lot of moments in Endgame will fall flat.
Corollary: To get the most out of Civil War, you need to have seen Ant-Man, Age of Ultron, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man.
STATUS: Essential 

ANT-MAN
You don’t need to have seen this movie to see Endgame, but it’s a necessary background to movies that are essential to Endgame, such as it’s sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, so if you haven’t seen it you should probably give it a go.
STATUS: Optional  

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
I think having seen Age of Ultron makes some of the character beats in Endgame land a bit better, I think a lot of the character work being done here pays off a lot more now that we know where they were going. And Age of Ultron was also pretty crucial to Infinity War. But if you haven’t seen this one yet, you probably won’t be too too lost, other than a few moments here and there.
Corollary: Essential to understanding Age of Ultron are The Winter Soldier and The Avengers.
STATUS: Optional

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Several key concepts and characters to Infinity War and Endgame were introduced here, so it’s pretty critical to following who’s who and what’s what in the new movie. Also, if you’ve already seen this one it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to give it a rewatch to refresh your memory.
STATUS: Essential 
 
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
Not much from this movie is directly related to Endgame, however it’s pretty crucial to later movies that are themselves more crucial to Endgame, and there are a few moments in the movie that may not really land if you haven’t seen it.
Corollary: If you’re seeing Winter Soldier for the first time, then The Avengers and The First Avenger are essential to understanding it.
STATUS: Optional

THOR: THE DARK WORLD
Again, this one introduces an Infinity Stone - and more specific elements end up being surprisingly crucial to Endgame’s plot. It’s not very highly regarded among fans - it’s not a bad movie so much as it’s a bit forgettable - but you’ll want to have seen it before going into Endgame.
Corollary: The Dark World’s plot depends on The Avengers and Thor.
STATUS: Essential

IRON MAN 3
It’s a relatively key part of Tony Stark’s character arc, serving as a bridge between the first two Avengers movies, and it also explains one minor cameo in Endgame, but if you missed it, you haven’t missed much.
STATUS: Optional

THE AVENGERS
If you haven’t seen the first Avengers movie, what are you even doing going to Endgame? This one’s pretty critical.
Corollary: If you haven’t seen The Avengers, somehow, you might want to see The First Avenger, Thor, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man before doing so.
STATUS: Essential
 
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Endgame is a lot about paying off the character arcs of the major Avengers characters, and a lot of Steve’s storyline stems more from this movie than his later two “solo” films. Don’t sleep on this one.
STATUS: Essential  

THOR
This one is an essential introduction to concepts elaborated on in later movies that are more Endgame crucial, but this film itself isn’t really all that important to Endgame.
STATUS: Skippable

IRON MAN 2
The story of this one? Not so much. The themes? Absolutely. Again, character arcs are really important to Endgame, and Iron Man 2 really does the heavy lifting on a major element of Tony’s character.
Corollary: You’ll probably want to see Iron Man before seeing Iron Man 2.
STATUS: Optional 

THE INCREDIBLE HULK
This movie may as well have never happened in terms of any of its major narrative threads being picked up.
Corollary: The Incredible Hulk is a pseudo-sequel to the non-MCU movie Hulk.
STATUS: Skippable

IRON MAN
It’s debatable if anything from this movie is really crucial to Endgame, but the new movie really is focused on providing a satisfying finale for the entire canon of Marvel films up til now, and that gives it a very retrospective tone. What better way to prepare for that tone than going back to where it all began?
STATUS: Optional

Star Trek: Discovery Has the Worst Handle on Stardates of Any Trek Property

Star Trek: Discovery is a prequel series currently airing, set about ten years before the original 1960s Star Trek which starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. There are many things a die-hard Trek fan can point to that violate “canon”, the established history and lore about the Star Trek universe that have been established over the half century of the franchise’s existence.
Most of these changes are visual in nature, updating the look and feel of the show to something that seems futuristic to a modern television audience, instead of what would seem ten years less advanced than what seemed futuristic to a 1960s audience. Some changes are to avoid overly complicated lore that might turn off new viewers (although the show has also indulged in using some of the most complicated continuity in the franchise to tell its stories on occasion). Many of these changes can be justified by the need to make a modern Trek show that appeals to everyone, not just diehard fans.
But the show fucks up stardates constantly, and it’s driving me crazy.
Now, stardates might be the most inconsequential thing to complain about, the very definition of the kind of asinine nitpicking Trek fans are mocked for, but the thing about it is this: it costs Discovery nothing to get it right. Unlike costumes and set designs, special effects and alien make-up, stardates are not an expensive visual, nor are they a complicated story element that eats up exposition time. They’re just some numbers rattled off during the traditional “Captain’s log” voice-over segments of the show, that were originally designed to make things easier for the writers.
Star Trek is set in the future, but exactly when was originally left somewhat vague. Years of filling in the details has led to the original series being pegged with the years 2265-2269. Discovery begins in the year 2256. But the original series writers didn’t want to be bogged down with exact dates, and besides - the Enterprise serves a United Federation of Planets: there are enough different calendars on Earth let alone when you consider alien worlds with different methods of measuring time altogether.
So stardates were designed as nonsense numbers that supposedly are a kind of standard nonbiased timekeeping method in the Federation. You aren’t really supposed to pay too much attention to them on the show, or wonder what they mean. However, if you do pay attention to them, presumably because you’re detail obsessed as many fans of Trek are, you’ll notice they aren’t wholly random.
Stardates in the original series progress roughly from episode to episode - more smoothly if you take the episodes in the order they were produced rather than they were aired. Season 1 features dates that range from 1312.4 to 3417.7, Season 2 runs 3018.2 to 4770.3, and Season 3’s dates cover 4372.5 to 5943.9. Whether you watch the episodes in airdate order or production order, the stardate progression isn’t perfect, but it is approximate - the numbers go up, roughly 1000 units for each year that passes in story.
With Star Trek: The Next Generation, the franchise moved 100 years into the future, with that series set from 2364-2370, and the show’s producers paid greater attention to stardates, with a more consistent system in place. Like on the original show, these dates are not the responsibility of the show’s writers, but rather are written in later by story editors and other staff members who work consistently from episode to episode and are aware of what order the scripts will be produced in the season. The earliest date in TNG is 41153.7. The decision had been made to increase stardates from four digits to five to show that the new series was further in the future, the leading number 4 was chosen as a subtle reminder the show was set in the twenty-fourth century, the next number was the season, and the last three numbers progress roughly from 000 to 999 throughout each season, with each season covering roughly one year in the story. The last date in season 7 of TNG is 47988.0. This system continued until the film Star Trek: Nemesis, set in the year 2379 on stardate 56844.9.
When JJ Abrams rebooted the Star Trek timeline with his new films in 2009, the writers of that film decided to just make stardates the Earth year with a decimal point after them. Which kinda misses the whole point of why stardates exist, but at least was easy for an audience to understand and was consistent, and missing the point was largely the raison d’être of the Abrams helmed Trek films.

So that brings us to Star Trek: Discovery, which - despite all the visual differences - is set within the original continuity of the franchise, ten years before the adventures of Kirk and Spock. Based on this, what would be a reasonable system of stardates to assume? Perhaps to take it down to three digits, to show that we are before the original four digits of TOS, similar to how TNG employed five digits?
No. The earliest stardate we get in Discovery is 1207.3, which is certainly an earlier number than the earliest TOS given date, but based on the rationale of the previous stardate systems would indicate a date earlier the same year as the first stardate of TOS, not ten years earlier. Things only go downhill from here, however. The next stardate we get is six episodes and seven months in story later, and is 2136.8, which would place this story in the middle of season 1 of TOS, presumably. Then the very next episode after that features the much earlier date of 1308.9 - which again predates TOS, but only by a few weeks perhaps. And unlike past Trek shows, where the storytelling was largely episodic and so non-consecutive stardates in consecutive episodes can be hand-waved away, Discovery is an extremely serialized show. The 1308.9 episode definitely takes place after the 2136.8 episode. The next stardate we get is five episodes and nine months in story later, 1834.2. Five episodes later, in season 2, we get 1029.46, the earliest stardate we’ve had yet, and then in the very next episode 1834.2512, which would be about twenty-five minutes later than the stardate from six episodes ago. This utter nonsense, while seemingly inconsquential, demonstrates the core of a recurring problem with Star Trek: Discovery. They want the touchstones of Star Trek, the recognizable elements, without doing any of the work for them.
They know that stardates are a thing in Star Trek, a string of numbers with a decimal point after them, sometimes four digits, sometimes five. Better make it four since we’re closer to TOS than TNG, I guess. But no one is paying attention, it seems, to what the stardates are episode to episode, whether they progress in anything close to a logical or consistent manner, not just with previously established shows, but more significantly in my eyes - with each other in the same show!
Going back all the way to the original series, when you read behind the scenes interviews with the producers, writers, and designers who worked on it, you consistently hear about decisions that were made in at least a desire to appear believable and coherent. “What would this thing actually look like in the future, maybe?” or “If this was real, how would you really design it?” It’s why the Enterprise has a smooth exterior hull for instance, instead of the highly detailed fiddly bits of ships in Star Wars which show scale more easily. Because if you really wanted to make a spaceship, why would you put a ton of stuff on the outside since that means you’d have to go out in a spacesuit to fix it?
The stardates on past series were arbitrarily decided, but then once those arbitrary starting numbers were chosen, they progress forward throughout the shows in a roughly consistent manner. As if they were a real thing, that worked. And for many fans, “as if it were a real thing, that worked” is a big appeal of the world of Star Trek. It cannot be stressed enough, it is all arbitrary fictional bullshit, but it’s consistent within itself, and that helps us to believe it, which helps us be invested in the stories and characters, even if they are set on strange new worlds where no one has gone before.
On Discovery, you get the sense that the design principles have changed from “what would seem believable?” and “what can we afford?”, the two masters of past Trek worldbuilding, to “what looks cool?” and “what signals Star Trek to people?” So sometimes things look familiar, like iconic props such as phasers and communicators, other times things look utterly different, like the overall aesthetic of Starfleet interiors or the entire Klingon race. It’s not consistent within itself, because the goal is to either make your jaw drop at how awesome it was, or else to signal something in your brain that says “aha! Like on Star Trek.” The stardates on the show are the latter - no one seems to care how they work or if they’re consistent, but they’re a thing they know the audience knows are a thing from Star Trek, so let’s throw them in there, and who really cares?
What’s the most frustrating is, they’re the easiest things in the world to get right. It’s just numbers on a page, dialogue said by an actor, it costs nearly nothing to just make sure you’re counting up from episode to episode rather than spouting random numbers. So when something that small, and that easy to get right, is utterly disregarded, it puts you on edge about how the rest of the show is being handled.

I like Star Trek: Discovery. I like the cast and the characters a lot, I often enjoy the writing, and sometimes I even like the aesthetic choices. But I would be lying if the feeling I often get from watching the show is that for all the money being put into it - and it is indeed the most expensive and thus most impressive Star Trek has ever looked - the entire series from writing to post-production feels a bit sloppy. As they say, the devil’s in the details.

What You Need to See Before AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

Since everyone’s been asking me, here’s a guide to what you should see before watching Avengers: Infinity War. The simple answer is “everything”, since this is the movie Marvel Studios’ has been building towards for 10 years and it all pays off here, but that’s a LOT of movies, so here’s a guide to what’s Essential, what’s Optional, and what’s Skippable. I’ll be working backwards through the movies, from newest to oldest.  

 

BLACK PANTHER 

This is a fantastic movie that you should really just see anyways, but it’s not really necessary for understanding Infinity War. The main things established in this movie that play into Infinity War are equally established in Captain America: Civil War, a movie that’s also much more vital in the overall saga. If you have seen Black Panther, you’ll see a lot of those characters and settings return and get a big role in Infinity War, but if you haven’t, you can get by so long as you’ve seen Civil War. 

STATUS: Optional  

 

THOR: RAGNAROK  

Infinity War literally starts right where Ragnarok ends, and the third Thor film changes Thor’s status quo so significantly, that if you haven’t seen it you’ll be pretty lost when it comes to what’s going on with the God of Thunder in this one. It helps that Ragnarok is also a pretty rad movie on its own, so it should be a pleasure to catch up with it. 

Corollary: To understand what’s going on in Thor: Ragnarok, you’ll need to have seen Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World, The Avengers, and Thor, so those all become essential to Infinity War by extension. 

STATUS: Essential

 

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING 

Spider-Man’s in Infinity War, but there’s nothing you really need to know about him in that flick that you don’t know either from cultural osmosis or by seeing how he was introduced in Civil War. If you have seen Homecoming, there’s some stuff from there that shows up in Infinity War and there’s one character from Homecoming who shows up in a minor supporting role, but if you haven’t seen it you’ll be all right, again so long as you’ve seen Civil War. 

STATUS: Optional

 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 

The Guardians play a huge part in Infinity War. By the end of this sequel their status quo has been a bit shaken up, particularly with the introduction of a new member who’s quite prominent in Infinity War. The main plotline of the sequel, which centres on Star-Lord, isn’t relevant at all to Infinity War, but the subplot about sisters Gamora and Nebula is essential for understanding where those characters are at in the new movie. 

Corollary: You should probably see the original Guardians of the Galaxy before seeing the second one, if you haven’t already. 

STATUS: Essential

 

DOCTOR STRANGE 

The Sorcerer Supreme and Master of the Mystic Arts is a major player in Infinity War, as is his arcane talisman, the Eye of Agamotto. The Eye plays a big role in the plotline of the new movie, and this introductory Doctor Strange film is a good primer on what it is and what it can do. 

STATUS: Essential

 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR 

This movie was a major turning point in the arcs of several of the Avengers characters. While its plot doesn’t directly tie into Infinity War, it’s a crucial film for understanding where most of the characters in the film are at and what their emotional stakes are. 

Corollary: To understand Civil War, you need to have seen Ant-Man, Age of Ultron, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man. 

STATUS: Essential

 

ANT-MAN 

You don’t need to have seen this movie to see Infinity War, but you do need to have seen it to see Civil War, and you need to see Civil War before seeing Infinity War. So it’s either totally skippable, or it’s essential, depending on your point of view. 

STATUS: Skippable (but essential to other Essential viewing)

 

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON 

Yes, you need to have seen the second Avengers movie to understand what’s up in the third one. Several prominent characters and concepts are introduced in it that are key to Infinity War’s plot. 

Corollary: Essential to understanding Age of Ultron are The Winter Soldier and The Avengers. 

STATUS: Essential  

 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 

Several key concepts and characters to Infinity War are introduced and explained in this movie. Additionally, it contains the most prior screen time for Infinity War’s villain. 

STATUS: Essential

 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER 

Not much from this movie’s plot is directly related to Infinity War, however the plotlines, character arcs, and consequences from it do directly inform later movies that are essential to Infinity War. 

Corollary: If you’re seeing Winter Soldier for the first time, then The Avengers and The First Avenger are essential to understanding it. 

STATUS: Skippable (but essential to other Essential viewing) 

 

THOR: THE DARK WORLD 

This entry introduced a key concept to Infinity War, but everything you need to know about it is re-introduced in the new movie, so if you haven’t seen The Dark World it’s not a big deal, though it does form the connective tissue between other essential entries. 

Corollary: The Dark World’s plot depends on The Avengers and Thor. 

STATUS: Optional (but essential to other Essential viewing) 

 

IRON MAN 3 

While nothing from this movie directly connects to Infinity War, or even many other Marvel movies for that matter, it does delve into Tony Stark’s PTSD following the attack in The Avengers, and its this trauma that drives much of Stark’s interaction with Infinity War’s villain. 

STATUS: Optional

 

THE AVENGERS 

The main villain of Infinity War, Thanos, is introduced for the first time here, and the events of this movie are referenced multiple times. The movie introduces many other key concepts to Infinity War. 

Corollary: If you haven’t seen The Avengers, somehow, you might want to see The First Avenger, Thor, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man before doing so. 

STATUS: Essential

 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER 

This movie was the first to really lay the seeds for the events we see in Infinity War. Many key characters and concepts from this movie are paid off in the latest one. 

STATUS: Essential  

 

THOR 

While a fairly major Infinity War character is introduced in this movie, it’s not directly related to the new movie in terms of plot. That said, it’s pretty essential to other essential movies in Infinity War’s backstory. 

STATUS: Skippable (but essential to other Essential viewing) 

 

IRON MAN 2
Very little from this movie is relevant to Infinity War, but much of it is relevant to movies that are relevant to Infinity War. 

Corollary: You’ll probably want to see Iron Man before seeing Iron Man 2. 

STATUS: Skippable (but essential to other Essential viewing) 

 

THE INCREDIBLE HULK
Do you know who the Hulk is? Great.
Corollary: The Incredible Hulk is kind of a sequel to the non-MCU movie Hulk.

STATUS: Skippable (but essential to other Essential viewing) 

 

IRON MAN
The foundation for all that follows. Not directly related to Infinity War at all, but everything else is ultimately is built atop this movie. 

STATUS: Skippable (but essential to other Essential viewing)

"Star Trek" Review: "The Tholian Web" (November 15, 1968)

"The Tholian Web"
Writer: Judy Burns & Chet Richards
Director: Herb Wallerstein
Producer: Fred Freiberger

When it comes to lists of "actually good" episodes of third season Trek, "The Tholian Web" usually comes near the top of the list, usually under "The Enterprise Incident". And it does have a ton of stuff that makes it fodder for Trekkies: new alien races, new technology, alternate dimensions, a strong Kirk/Spock/McCoy focus, and even a good showcase for the "junior officers" due to Shatner's reduced screentime.

But "The Tholian Web" is also fascinating for the way in which it examplifies an odd trend of the entire third season, which is namely the change in genre focus of the entire series. Season three is significantly more pulpy than the show was previously. There's more of the kind of sensationalist content you'd expect from the lead cover stories of old sci-fi magazines, all with a kind of bizarre horror tinge. Previously, the Enterprise explored a galaxy full of challenges and moral questions, yes, but a galaxy that makes sense. But in season three, the bizarre and unknowable rears its head for stories that are more dedicated to be unnerving and strange than to posing intellectual or philisophical dilemmas.

In this case, "The Tholian Web" is above all a ghost story. While it's heart may be the dilemmas Spock faces while in command, and learning to turn to and appreciate the advice of McCoy, the "weird" that drives the story is that Captain Kirk (and the entire abandoned starship he was on at the time) has disappeared and is presumed dead, but then begins appearing in a spectral form around the ship to several crewmen, including Uhura initially.

The complications to recovering the captain prove equally memorable, with the introduction of one of the series most unique and memorable aliens, the titular Tholians. That it took almost forty years for another one to show up in a Trek production made them ever more mysterious and noted in the minds of fandom. And ultimately the episode's true heart, the scene where Spock and McCoy view Kirk's recorded "last orders", cuts right to the kind of character interaction that ultimately made the series so beloved and remembered over the years. 

If the episode has an issue, it's the one that many of the episodes this season share. Namely that it doesn't have enough content to really fill it's hour, and ends up feeling slow and repetitive through a large portion of its runtime.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4

Next Voyage:

"Star Trek" Review: "The Empath" (December 6, 1968)

"The Empath"
Writer: Joyce Muskat
Director: John Erman
Producer: Fred Freiberger

"The Empath" is a fascinating episode of Star Trek and I've been struggling with how to talk about it. Certainly it's the episode that leans the hardest into the budgetary confinements of season, producing a surreal, stage play atmosphere that might seem familiar to anyone who sat through the third season of the 1960s Batman TV show.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy are trapped by aliens with a mysterious fourth prisoner, a woman Bones dubs "Gem". She can't speak, but she is empathic, to a sci-fi degree where in addition to feeling a person's emotional states she can also touch them and absorb their pain and injuries. She literally can cure people but only by hurting herself.

The aliens who've captured them have placed them underground in a seemingly endless black void with occasional props or furniture or devices scattered about, all designed to "test" their subjects, primarily by causing them pain and then seeing how Gem responds. They particularly want to know how far she'll go in harming herself to save others, and if she can be taught to sacrifice herself for the good of strangers.

In terms of the presence of aliens in silver robes with enlarged skulls testing captive humans for an unknown purpose, this episode definitely feels like a bizarre theatrical stage play reworking of the original pilot, "The Cage", updated from 1964 to 1968. But the focus is different. The pilot was about "can we trick this depressed human into being horny enough to mate a slave class for us?", this episode is about "Is a species of empaths worth saving from annihilation, if we can discover if they can use their powers for good?"

But ultimately the minimalist sets and sparse nature of the plot means the episode becomes focused in on the show's characters, particularly it's lead trio, and showing how Kirk, Spock and McCoy all react to the situation they've been placed in, and how they feel towards Gem and towards their captors. DeForrest Kelley cited this episode as his favourite of the series and maybe it's because its budgetary limitations meant the focus needed to be on the actors, their emotions and their performances, more than the trappings of gadgets, monsters and effects.

The actress playing Gem, Kathryn Hays, was trained first and foremost as a dancer. Her performance is extremely effective. It has perhaps it's broad moments, but given that her character is mute and must carry the episode and serve as its lynchpin without dialogue, her expressions and movements must be understood to be occuring in a mime/dance tradition, furthering the "modern theatre" atmosphere of the episode as a whole.

It's an abnormal episode of Trek, but its a standout entry in the beleagured third season.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4

Next Voyage: