Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-4. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series, The Search for Spock, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and Lower Decks.
I think I ought to start this week’s review with a bit of an explanation of how I try to approach new episodes of Star Trek. On the one hand, I’m obviously going to tell you whether I personally enjoyed the story, the character moments, the presentation, the score… all of that *subjective* stuff. But I also try to keep in mind, when writing a review, what an episode was aiming for and how well it measured up to those objectives.
That’s why I can look at an episode like last week’s Human Best Friend and say that I truly enjoyed its sense of humour, its pastiche of films like The Hangover, and its genuinely well-written character moments – and why, conversely, I’ll tell you that the otherwise outstanding horror offering The Griffin Incident came with a glaring narrative flaw. I’ll even admit – however begrudingly – that Season 2’s Subspace Rhapsody was competently made, musically solid, and even had some solid characterisation… even though I will literally never watch that absolute travesty ever again!
Why did I start my review of A Case of Chiaroscuro with that explanation-come-caveat? Well, the truth is… I *really* don’t like watching black-and-white films and TV shows. I realise that’s a horrible generalisation, and there are some exceptions – Christmas films, like Miracle on 34th Street, for instance. But, generally speaking, I just struggle to get immersed in black-and-white media, and *modern* productions which deliberately use black-and-white – as A Case of Chiaroscuro does – almost universally feel gimmicky and silly to me.
Again, this is a *subjective, not objective* take – but I wanted to be up front about my bias here, because my general dislike of black-and-white has undoubtedly coloured (pun very much intended) my thoughts on A Case of Chiaroscuro.
A Case of Chiaroscuro was a faithful recreation of the kind of ’30s and ’40s noir movies that inspired it. Not only in terms of its use of black-and-white, but the entire episode’s visual style and presentation all drew from that source, as did its score. Narratively, A Case of Chiaroscuro also leaned heavily on noir and melodrama from a bygone era. And regardless of whether I *liked* that in a personal sense… I respect the commitment to the bit.
However, more so than any other story so far this season – and really, any other story in Strange New Worlds, save, perhaps for Subspace Rhapsody – A Case of Chiaroscuro felt like “a bit.” Its noir inspiration was *so* omnipresent in everything from the set design and music to the soft-focus close-up shots and narrative melodrama that it feels less like an actual story within the Star Trek universe and more like a pulpy television serial. It was hard to take A Case of Chiaroscuro as seriously as I wanted to – because, by turning the dials all the way up and not just drawing inspiration from film noir but actively copying as many aspects of it as possible, the episode imported all of what I’d consider to be the genre’s flaws.
By choosing to employ an outdated kind of storytelling – not just the black-and-white, but a melodramatic narrative with over-the-top twists and turns and cardboard cut-out secondary characters who didn’t feel like real people – A Case of Chiaroscuro feels… vintage. But that isn’t a good thing in this case, if we’re talking about an episode of Star Trek that I want to watch and enjoy. Most of the episode didn’t just look dated, but it also *felt* out-of-date; TV serials and movies like this were past their prime even sixty years ago, when The Original Series was on the air. And while there absolutely are interesting points in A Case of Chiaroscuro that I can wholeheartedly say that I enjoyed… the final product is simply too gimmicky for my personal taste.
I concede, though, that A Case of Chiaroscuro knows exactly what kind of story it wants to tell, and sets out to tell it earnestly and successfully. I can absolutely see this being considered a highlight of the season – and perhaps even of Star Trek as a whole – for Trekkies who have a fondness for these kinds of mystery-thriller noir stories. And, as I’ve said before, it’s to the credit of the former Paramount corporation that the executives were willing to greenlight a project like this, to spend a not insignificant amount of money on scripts and sets, and to – for lack of a better word – allow Star Trek to be “weird.” I can’t think of many other big-budget streaming productions that would’ve so wholeheartedly embraced the kind of genre-shifting that Strange New Worlds has done… and, for all of the many, many flaws and failings of the old Paramount, I think they deserve at least some kudos for giving the thumbs-up to a story like this one.
So… another “big swing” in Season 4, then! Adventure, horror, comedy, and now film noir… and we still have the puppet episode yet to come. I think this season will go down in the history books for just how many different ideas the writers brought to the table – and I can appreciate the diversity, the semi-episodic storytelling, and the willingness to go to places Star Trek hasn’t always gone before. Even if the results, on this occasion, weren’t “my thing.”
Let’s concentrate on the part of the episode which I liked… or at least the part I felt wasn’t as weak as the main story.
Back aboard the Enterprise – but still in black-and-white – we have La’an’s investigation of a mysterious signal. The probe – little more than a macguffin to kick-start the episode’s two main storylines – may have been tampered with, or at least La’an believed so.
I liked the way that the episode framed this, and the way the story convinced us as the audience that what we were seeing was nothing more than La’an overreacting. Even the little recap at the beginning of the episode, which went back to last season, showed how La’an might be succumbing to paranoia. And, as her storyline unfolded, A Case of Chiaroscuro tried very hard to convey to us that La’an was seeing things that weren’t really there.
This made the ultimate reveal – that the probe *had* in fact been meddled with – hit a bit harder. I still don’t think that this storyline was executed perfectly; both Spock’s dismissal of La’an’s concerns and Chapel’s confession felt rushed. But that’s a consequence of this being the B-plot of an episode that had its attention elsewhere. Had we not already got a major La’an storyline already this season, I might’ve said I’d have liked to see this B-plot fleshed out into its own episode. But, that limitation aside, I liked this storyline.
Firstly, the Vulcan cadet – I’ve now learned her name is A’sha – finally got something plot-relevant to do after her introduction in the season premiere. Maybe it’s this episode’s noir tone and double- and triple-crosses, but I can’t help but wonder if A’sha is going to turn out to be a spy or something! But maybe that’s too much of a reach based on her limited screen time. In any case, it was nice to see her on the bridge and for her to get something to do. Modern Star Trek hasn’t always handled its secondary characters especially well, but it’s nice to get *some* conversations and interactions outside of the main cast; it populates the Enterprise and makes the broader world of Star Trek feel more lived-in and real.
I wasn’t wild about the speed with which Spock dismissed La’an’s concerns – though, in a noir-style story, it made me question whether *he* might’ve been complicit in… whatever may or may not have been going on, so I guess that’s not all bad. I do wonder, though, what recent events – including last week’s argument in the bar and now this dismissive reaction – might mean for La’an’s relationship with Spock.
We also got a bit of a follow-up to last week’s episode as Ortegas and Scotty were seen hanging out together. I wondered, when they seemed to be in the same quarters, whether this might be another hint at some kind of romantic relationship, but La’an stated they’re “friends now,” at the end of the episode – and I think that’s how we’re meant to read it. In any case, it was cute to see them together after their adventure, and I appreciate how Strange New Worlds retains these character relationships and moments that it develops.
Scotty gave us a great line of technobabble about how he was keeping tabs on the Klingon ship, and that was both fun and very “Star Trekky,” for want of another term. I felt Dr M’Benga’s line about why everything was in black-and-white was a bit hand-wavey earlier in the episode, as technobabble goes, but Scotty’s was definitely more in line with what we’ve seen before. Not sure why he was keeping it a secret from the ship’s security officer, of all people, but I guess it worked as an excuse for La’an to chase leads and catch up with other members of the crew.
One thing I didn’t really like, though, was Scotty’s line about being “trapped in a transporter buffer;” a reference to his ultimate fate and the TNG episode Relics. If this had been a one-off, I wouldn’t have minded (I think), but so far this season, La’an has called back to The Search for Spock and Dr M’Benga made another reference to Relics just last week. Occasional callbacks to past iterations of Star Trek – or calls forward, I guess, to these characters’ fates and ultimate destinations – are okay, but they really ought to be *occasional*. Otherwise they come across as heavy-handed and overwhelming… and it just isn’t necessary and stops being fun. A single line like this is great; a nod and wink to long-time Trekkies. Too many just feel like navel-gazing, self-referential fluff… or just a plain lack of originality, I guess. And because we’ve had several of these lines in earlier episodes – one of which already featured Scotty – this one was a bridge too far. On its own? Totally okay. But after seeing several others already this season, I felt it crossed that invisible line between being a playful in-joke and becoming excessive.
The conclusion of this storyline sees Chapel confessing to being the one who interfered with the probe and deleted its data. Though, as I said, this felt kind of rushed, it was nice that in this kind of storyline, the ending was difficult to deduce and there was still time for a twist. I think both Chapel and La’an got good moments of characterisation here: Chapel didn’t just let La’an think paranoia was overtaking her, instead confessing even though doing so could’ve had real consequences for her, and La’an chose loyalty to a friend over following the letter of the law.
For both characters, those are positive things – and while not “out of character” by any stretch, it’s still good to see both of them doing the right thing and choosing friendship, not blind rule-following. Chapel’s decision to delete the incriminating data felt understandable, even though I wish we’d gotten a longer scene explaining it, and La’an’s choice to keep the issue between them said a lot about her character. If, as I’ve theorised, we could be seeing the beginning of the end for La’an – either aboard the Enterprise or, y’know, alive – moments like this will be all the more important.
La’an got this week’s secondary story, with the main focus of A Case of Chiaroscuro being on Una. But these two stories were thematically linked, and that made these two otherwise disconnected parts of the episode feel a bit closer together. La’an had to wrangle with her own paranoia and consider whether she was imagining things, or whether there actually was an issue with the probe. But the end of this story saw her choosing to do the right thing by a friend, even if that ment bending the rules.
Una’s story ends in a similar way. She chooses to bend the rules – in this case actively, whereas La’an’s was more passive, I suppose – to facilitate the rebels’ plan on Mat’Aar XII. But both characters had to deal with intrigue, mysteries, and ultimately, both had to decide whether to do the right thing – or what the “right” thing even is when faced with complex and nuanced situations.
Before we get further into the main thrust of the mysteries on Mat’Aar XII, I want to talk briefly about the Klingons.
A Case of Chiaroscuro wasn’t really a Klingon episode. The Klingons were present, sure, and they played a significant narrative role – but the bulk of the story was focused on the main characters and the intrigue on Mat’Aar XII. But the episode did something for the Klingons that I think is kind of important – and that I approve of!
I’ve said, on the record, that I felt Enterprise’s “Klingon-augment virus” storyline was one of the show’s weakest, and that the change in prosthetic makeup for the Klingons in between TOS and The Motion Picture simply did not need to be called attention to nor given an in-universe explanation. Thankfully, modern Star Trek has walked away from that idea, and we’ve already seen Klingons in Strange New Worlds with the more familiar design. That continued here – even with the character of Kor. Kor is a Klingon who tangled with Kirk in The Original Series and returned in three episodes of Deep Space Nine, too.
In Kor’s TOS and TAS appearances, he sports the original Klingon aesthetic, but this was updated for DS9. So if you want to be fussy about it, now we have a contradiction! But I don’t really see it as a contradiction at all. Just as when Kor appeared in DS9, prosthetic forehead and all, Star Trek was kind of drawing a line under TOS and updating things without drawing attention to it. And I read this prequel version of Kor in much the same way. Some parts of Star Trek… well, they can (and should) be ignored. Some stories didn’t work, some aesthetic changes could be made as new technologies and higher budgets allowed, and this is the result.
And hey, if you want to be picky and make everything in Star Trek fit? Let’s just say that Kor contracted the virus in between his posting to Mat’Aar XII and his run-in with Kirk!
I felt that Demore Barnes’ take on the character of Kor was one of the best parts of this weaker side of the story. Barnes – who you might recognise from Supernatural, Hannibal, or Twelve Monkeys, among other high-profile TV roles – was absolutely excellent in this villainous role, showing us a nuanced take on a Klingon leader that didn’t just rely on anger, aggression, and murder. In this kind of noir-inspired story, that’s how a villain should behave. Was bringing Kor into the show a bit of cheap nostalgia bait for Trekkies? Well… maybe. And I could entertain the argument that *this* version of Kor doesn’t fully line up with the way the character behaved in TOS and DS9. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the performance or Kor’s role in the story!
The Klingons, in their original incarnation some sixty years ago, were famously meant to be metaphorical stand-ins for the Soviet Union, with the Federation representing the United States or the broader western alliance. And A Case of Chiaroscuro called attention to the “cold war” that exists between the Klingons and Federation in this time period. That little connection was neat, and the lines referring to it were well-delivered.
But in this story, the Klingons felt less like 1960s Soviets and more like 1940s Nazis with the way their occupation of Mat’Aar XII came to life. Roving gangs of collaborators, uniformed soldiers, symbolic armbands, and propaganda messages being broadcast all linked up to create a really unsettling feel to the entire city; even seemingly “safe” spaces like the bar or the office felt like they could be raided or interfered with at any moment.
The sets and stages used to create Mat’Aar XII were genuinely very well done. I got a “Paris in World War II” kind of vibe; that this city was very much under occupation. The ’40s-style barrage balloons, the spotlights, and the art deco-style architecture (which was mostly seen in CGI establishing shots) all added to this sensation, as did the claustrophobic street set with its archway checkpoint. The white steam or smoke – another hallmark of films from this era – was well-used, too. As I said above, every aspect of A Case of Chiaroscuro leaned into this film noir style, and that extends to the way the sets were designed. The city was undeniably atmospheric.
Parts of A Case of Chiaroscuro reminded me a little of A Piece of the Action from TOS – the “gangster episode” where Kirk and co. visit a planet whose inhabitants were inspired by a book about 1920s Chicago. Some of the costumes, sets, and vehicles – all inspired by the first half of the 20th Century – gave me that feeling, and even the Klingons’ disruptors seemed to resemble Tommy guns! Obviously, A Piece of the Action was, itself, drawing on stories from the ’30s and ’40s for inspiration – G-Men, Invisible Stripes, and others – and there’s a difference between the kind of noir story present here and the simplified gangster/crime drama of that older episode. But, as I’ve said before, it can be nice when Star Trek stories… rhyme.
The main storyline’s central conceit was that Una is the exact doppelgänger of Mat’Aar XII’s resistance leader. And… I gotta be honest: I hated this and the stupid way it was “explained.” Basically, Dr M’Benga says that “well, space is big so we all have doppelgängers,” and that hand-wavey line is the only explanation offered for this really contrived setup. I admit that I don’t see an easy narrative pathway to tell this exact story without having Una share the exact same look as the resistance leader, but the way it was handled left a lot to be desired.
As I said in my review of The Griffin Incident: this is Star Trek. And in Star Trek, we like our technobabble explanations! You don’t have to be 100% scientifically accurate. You can make something up and then invent fancy-sounding technical words to fit. But in Star Trek stories, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that major narrative points receive more of an explanation than we got in A Case of Chiaroscuro. It was just a weaker narrative setup than the story deserved.
Once you got that out of the way, though, A Case of Chiaroscuro was a good episode for Una’s character journey. Her story intersected with her Illyrian heritage – something that we learned about in Season 2 – and gave her an arc about “doing the right thing” even if that meant breaking the rules. For a character who’s usually portrayed as a by-the-book kind of officer, this was a turn – albeit one that makes sense in context.
One thing I didn’t really follow, on this side of the story, was whether the Prime Directive should’ve been applied to Mat’Aar XII and its inhabitants. The planet’s own technology looked like it was from the 20th Century, with only the Klingons in possession of what might reasonably look like 23rd Century tech. But, despite being undercover the entire time, none of the away team mentioned the Prime Directive even once. Does it cease to apply when a planet meets another interstellar power, maybe?
To get back to Una, there was a lot of noir-style intrigue on this side of the story, as Una’s doppelgänger appeared, at first, to be a collaborator, then a rebel leader, and the episode did a reasonably good job of making it difficult to know who she could fully trust. Most of the Mat’Aar XII inhabitants felt fairly two-dimensional – which, let’s be honest, is kind of a hallmark of many films of the era A Case of Chiaroscuro is mimicking – but the question of which one of them betrayed Una’s doppelgänger still felt like an open one as the story progressed.
One thing I don’t really like in Star Trek – and *especially* in modern Star Trek – is just how many alien races are literally identical to humans! There aren’t enough “alien-looking” aliens in Star Trek’s galaxy, and while this was a contrivance during the early days of The Original Series with all of its budgetary and technical limitations… it’s something I wish modern Star Trek would dump. On this occasion, given that Una needed to be an exact lookalike of this rebel leader, I guess you can say the story wouldn’t have worked. But the episode itself even referenced this, with Uhura wondering aloud what the native population of Mat’Aar XII look like. It’s just something that, in older shows – and TOS in particular – I could overlook, but I don’t think it really fits modern Star Trek or a modern sci-fi setting any more, and I’d rather see the franchise invent more aliens who look truly otherworldly and different. With a few changes, we could’ve said that Mat’Aar XII was a human colony under occupation, or… something.
That issue also extends into Uhura’s storyline. After being arrested by the Klingons for not showing her ID, Uhura was taken to a Klingon facility to be tortured. But despite having access to 23rd Century scanners, tricorders, and some kind of brain-alyser, the Klingons never found out that she wasn’t actually a Mat’Aar-ian. How’s that possible? Even human-looking aliens, surely, have different DNA or other identifying markers? That’s how sensors and tricorders across Star Trek are able to differentiate between different races.
As an aside, though, I actually really liked the design of the Klingon torture device. It was a retro throwback – and, in this case, I mean that as a positive thing! I suspect that, if the episode was in full colour and trying to employ a more modern visual style, something like that would’ve looked dated and out-of-place, but in this kind of story, the brain-alyser looked pitch-perfect! There’s something about its simple design that just felt like the perfect TOS throwback, and it looked great.
To wrap up Una’s story, I thought the ending was pretty predictable; I clocked what Una had done – planting the macguffin bomb thing on the collaborator – long before the episode revealed it. But at the same time, it says something about her character that she’d get so involved in this planet’s cause and crusade for freedom. Una bent (or broke) the rules in order to help the people of Mat’Aar XII in their fight against the Klingon occupation, despite knowing that doing so could have massive consequences. She took a risk, but it always felt like a calculated risk.
Dr M’Benga referenced his service in the Klingon War – something that’s become a defining trait of his character, especially in more recent seasons. The show’s writers clearly like this idea of “the doctor who’s also a special forces killer,” and they’ve really latched onto that. I would like to see Dr M’Benga in different storylines, though, as I feel his arc with the Klingons and his backstory from his war days has been reasonably well explored, and with limited time remaining to do anything else… well, time’s a-ticking, sadly.
That being said, Dr M’Benga was a great choice to involve in a story like this, not least because of the Klingon element. He managed to be a mentor to both Una and Uhura at different points, offering advice, making note of how the Mat’Aar XII resistance was operating, and kind of serving as an exposition device for us as the audience, too! His war service felt like a natural thing for him to bring up in the context of the story, and while there were some contrivances – like how he could instantly recognise Kor, for example – they’re minor enough to not be bothersome.
Dr M’Benga guided Una, keeping her from making too many mistakes, but this was still Una’s story first and foremost, so we didn’t get any gratuitous scenes of him massacring legions of Klingons, or using his special forces background as an excuse to take the lead. Again, given the kind of story this was, and who it was centred around, that worked pretty well. From an in-universe standpoint, Dr M’Benga has told us many times that he wants to leave his past behind him, so again, his taking a back seat makes sense, too.
Celia Rose Gooding put in a great performance as Uhura this week. This younger version of the character is still, in some ways, finding her feet – and this mission took her far outside her comfort zone in more ways than one. Uhura’s friendship with Dr M’Benga was on full display, and the two characters played off one another exceptionally well in those supporting roles for Una and the noir-intrigue story.
However, I didn’t really feel like Uhura was ever in any real *danger,* even when she was literally facing the Klingons and their torture machine. Partly this is because Strange New Worlds is a prequel, and we know, in the backs of our minds, that Uhura will make it off-planet, back to Starfleet, and resume her career (relatively) unscathed. However, for a storyline involving literal torture… I think the episode could’ve made more of it. Perhaps Uhura will reference this experience in a future episode; I didn’t get the feeling, though, that this was an “Ortegas with the Gorn” or a “La’an’s DNA” type of situation, where a character’s storyline in one episode is clearly being set up for something more. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that front!
A couple of final points before we wrap things up.
This is at least the second Strange New Worlds episode where ships (or a shuttle, in this case) have literally been within visual range of one another, but – for no other reason I can discern than “because plot” – the adversary’s ship doesn’t notice or detect our heroes. In this case, a Klingon battlecruiser just wasn’t aware of either the probe or the shuttlecraft until the shuttle passed through the planet’s sensor grid. I know that, in prior Star Trek stories, the range at which sensors are effective can vary a lot depending on the needs of the story… but even with that in mind, this feels like a real stretch.
For the third episode in a row, Captain Pike had very little to do. I think I said this last season, too, but one of the main appeals of “the Captain Pike show” that fans – myself included – were clamouring for back in 2019 was Anson Mount and his incredible take on this character. We’re now a mere twelve episodes away from the end of the show’s run… and I kind of want to get a few more stories with Pike before the curtain falls. Star Trek has always done spotlight episodes where one or two characters are in focus – and this episode was very much an Una story, with supporting roles for Uhura and M’Benga, and a B-plot for La’an. And that’s great! But with limited time remaining, I’d like to spend a bit more time with the Enterprise’s captain.
As the dust settles, I’m left with one feeling more than any other: A Case of Chiaroscuro just isn’t an episode I’m in a rush to revisit, and as and when I return to Strange New Worlds in the future, it’s an episode I’m more likely to skip than sit through. Despite its earnestness and the way it fully embraced its film noir and mystery inspirations… it just wasn’t for me. Partly that’s the black-and-white; a gimmick that felt, well… nothing more than gimmicky. But it’s also, at least in part, due to some outdated and two-dimensional tropes among the secondary characters, the melodrama that the episode imports directly from its source material, and the simple fact that this genre is quite a niche thing nowadays.
That being said, I tried very hard to give A Case of Chiaroscuro a fair shake, and not pre-judge it based solely on the fact that it was going to be in black-and-white. And, as I said above, I respect both Strange New Worlds’ creative team and the leaders at Paramount for creating a story like this and getting it across the line in a way that stayed largely true to the kinds of stories that inspired it. It’s something very few other franchises would attempt, and – at least in that sense – it’s a very “Star Trekky” thing!
Next week, Strange New Worlds is going to serve up a Level-Five Transporter Accident – the (in)famous “puppet episode” that was teased in pre-season marketing. I honestly don’t know what to expect from that one; I like that they went to the Jim Henson Company to get proper puppets made, and there’s a potential tie-in, I guess, with an episode of Lower Decks that could be interesting. It’s certainly going to be another “big swing” after this week’s noir-style story.
I hope this has been interesting! As I often say: please keep in mind that all of this is just the *subjective, not objective* take of one old Trekkie. If you liked A Case of Chiaroscuro a lot more than I did, feel it’s irredeemably awful, or just don’t agree with my take… that’s okay! There’s plenty of room in the Star Trek fan community for differences of opinion and respectful disagreement.
Thanks for joining me for this review, and as always… Live Long and Prosper, friends!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-4 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available. The first three seasons are also available on DVD and/or Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of the Skydance-Paramount corporation. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 