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After a noir-inflected black-and-white episode and an episode inspired by The Muppet Show (to say nothing of the miniature horror movie of “The Griffin Incident”), you might think that Strange New Worlds had already featured a full season’s worth of homages. But you’d be wrong. As suggested by the title, an allusion to the opening credits of Days of Our Lives, “Like Chronitons Through the Hour Glass” looks to daytime soap operas for inspiration. It also packs in quite a few soap opera tropes: amnesia, evil twins, a medical emergency, a father-and-child reunion. There’s a lot going on in this episode, which ultimately reveals itself as more than a fun bunch of references. So let’s get into it… right after this break from our sponsors.
First up: amnesia. The episode opens with Pike in a state of confusion, which Dr. M’Benga quickly arrives to explain as a case of “cosmic amnesia.” That sounds like a plausible enough explanation for why Pike’s seemingly lost two weeks’ worth of memories. But it doesn’t explain the change of lighting or dramatic music (which Pike seems to hear) or the way M’Benga drops expository details about Pike’s past or Chapel’s tortured dramatic pause before she reveals that Spock is in a coma or others’ tendency to stare into space while talking.
A trip to see Dr. Lorraine Chivers (Deidre Hall), the Enterprise’s never-before-seen therapist, doesn’t help matters either. As Pike slumps in frustration, the episode pulls back to reveal a familiar face: Trelane (Rhys Darby). An impish prankster first seen in the original series episode “The Squire of Gothos” and revealed to be part of the Q continuum in his previous Strange New Worlds appearance, “Wedding Bell Blues,” Trelane also now seems to be capable of breaking the fourth wall, as evidenced by his ability to start the credits at his will.
There’s more drama on the other side of those credits. When Nyota arrives in sick bay, Chapel informs her of a discovery that surfaced as part of her DNA test, news she’ll soon bring to Pike: the Captain is her father. Orphaned at a young age by her adoptive parents, she’s always wondered who her real parents were, and who lovingly penned the recipe book she’s kept as her only clue to the answer. And now she believes she knows. Pike knows this is nonsense, but after doing a bit of reasoning aloud, he figures it out. It must be a higher-dimensional being invisible to their sensors. In other words, Trelane. At this point, Trelane reveals himself. He also swears he means them no ill will. What’s going on is his “great human experiment” and his love of an art form that captures the “raw, unrepentant beauty of human emotion,” of what he calls “body-cleaning theater.”
Trelane has used the Enterprise as the stage for a situation he likens to a dissertation, one in which he’s using the form of a soap opera to explore some of the emotions and inner struggles that usually get pushed to the side by the crew’s other adventures. “Think of it as a gift,” he tells Pike. Pike doesn’t, and he’s not happy to hear that Trelane plans to press on with it, in part because he’s confused as to why Pike is aware that he’s part of an experiment. “Until you figure out your internal struggle, I cannot end the experiment,” Trelane clarifies. He’d better figure it out, too, since if Trelane fails, there might be dire consequences for the whole ship.
Pike wants to fix this but first has to take part in a mandatory “family” therapy session with Nyota. It doesn’t go well. When Pike tries to explain what’s going on to Nyota, she accuses him of ignoring their issues and can’t be persuaded to view the situation otherwise, even when Pike points out her recipe book is just a blank diary. This only angers her, to Pike’s surprise and to Trelane’s, who has to pretend it’s part of his plan when a proctor (Diane L. Johnstone) in “extensive robeage” shows up to gauge his progress. But before Pike leaves Dr. Chivers’ office, she offers a hint. Perhaps he’s repressing something related to the moment before he lost his memory?
Outside the office, it again looks like Pike has little choice but to talk to Nyota. In the Enterprise’s bar, they try to figure out why the Coq au vin recipe described as being for “the perfect daughter” falls on the date of her parents’ shuttle crash. To get to the bottom of it, Pike suggests they make the recipe with her, but Nyota’s feelings are too hurt to agree to that. Before long, Nyota comes around and joins Pike in his quarters to cook Coq au vin. But when they turn to the recipe’s page, Pike sees something that makes him flee.
Elsewhere, La’an escorts the one person who can save Spock via a cloned heart transplant, Sybok, Spock’s half-brother (though by all appearances his twin since he’s played by Ethan Peck). Their exchanges are, in every sense, heated, staged to maximize the sexual tension between the characters as Sybok first escapes from his restraints, then challenges La’an to defeat him in a Vulcan logic game, then seizes control of the ship and asks La’an to run away with him. She resists, prompting Sybok to express his frustrations that Spock has the sort of love and admiration of others that he’s never experienced. “A man who does not value emotions does not deserve the most precious one of all,” he tells her, then lowers his phaser before telling the computer to resume its course to the Enterprise.
Of course, even if La’an gets Sybok to the Enterprise in time, there’s another problem in the mix. M’Benga’s hand has begun shaking uncontrollably, and he knows exactly why, as he confesses to Una. It’s a horrifying case of “space madness.” He feels perhaps he’s lost his connection with Starfleet, another sign that this episode, however silly its form, wasn’t going to be consequential and deal with the characters’ real emotions (including, it appears, some previously unexpressed and quite mutual feelings for Una). It seems like M’Benga’s near-death experiment hasn’t snuffed out his wanderlust, just as Spock and La’an’s breakup hasn’t killed what they feel for each other. Nor has Erica’s return to duty silenced the aftereffects of her time with the Gorn. She, too, has space madness. But she’s learned to deal with it by taking a step back, letting herself feel the emotions, and relying on her friends. Later, in sick bay, the subplots start to come together. While operating, Joseph shakes off the space madness by recalling La’an’s advice. The surgery looks like it will have a good outcome for Spock, but not for Sybok.
Back in the bar, Pike asks Dr. Chivers the question that will prove to be the heart of the episode: “How can something be both real and not real?” Dr. Chivers notes that it’s a matter of finding the emotional truth even in the absurd plot twists they’ve recently experienced. Pike doesn’t disagree, but he has something more specific in mind. In the recipe book, above the Coq au vin recipe is a note that it’s for “Juliet’s birthday dinner.” And when he returns to his quarters, there’s Juliet (Anna Mirodin), his daughter from the life he experienced without actually living in “New Life and New Civilizations,” the season-three finale.
And it’s at this point that the episode takes a turn. Juliet seems to understand her situation, telling her dad (or “dad”), “Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” She wants him to remember the life they had and what it meant for him even if it wasn’t real in the way that word is normally used. As she fades away, the episode returns to its usual aspect ratio and lighting while, elsewhere, Trelane’s proctor gives him a “solid B-” for his work and notes that humans might be worth studying more closely. (It’s possible that this is the moment that sets up a future captain of the Enterprise’s complicated history with Q.)
With the spell lifted, the crew is left with their memories intact and the need to, in Pike’s words, “reckon with what was real and what was merely a play.” Those answers won’t necessarily be easy for them, but perhaps that’s okay. Pike, a man who’s missing a daughter, and Uhura, who’s lost her parents, agree to make the Coq au vin together. Later, what’s happened leads La’an and Spock to talk about what she experienced, even though Spock advises her not “to read too much” into it. Their parting has a kind of finality to it, even though neither is leaving and they, again, plan to remain friends.
Still unsettled, Pike decides to visit Dr. Chivers, this time the real Dr. Chivers in the reality they share. She gets to the hard stuff directly by asking that they talk about loss. After noting that the mourning process includes mourning the future that might have been, Pike lets it all out. He talks about Juliet and what it was like to watch her grow up, then breaks down and cries. With that, an episode that looked like it was going to be one of the season’s silliest (no mean feat) ends up being one of its most emotionally substantial. It looks like Trelane might have been onto something about the benefits of pausing to acknowledge the emotions everyone has been too busy, or too afraid, to confront.
• Speaking of Days of Our Lives, guest star Deidre Hall is not just one of that soap’s stars; she’s been playing the same character, Marlena Evans, since 1976 (with some breaks here and there). Also, Marlena is a therapist, too. It’s a fun bit of casting made better by Hall’s quiet, measured performance, which might be the least stereotypically soapy acting in any of the episode’s soap segments.
