Star Trek: SNW's Zero G Musical Number Was Almost Even More Over The Top
Say what you will about the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" musical episode (and people have certainly said a lot), but whether you loved "Subspace Rhapsody" or thought it missed the mark, it's hard to deny the emotional truth of the experimental hour. Whether we were listening to budding comms officer Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) singing about the loss that's underscored her career or witnessing Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) tell Spock (Ethan Peck) she's eager to leave for her big research fellowship, the tunes of "Subspace Rhapsody" allowed us to overhear the innermost thoughts of the Enterprise crew in true musical tradition.
Musical episodes always tend towards campiness, and while I think "Strange New Worlds" was mostly saved from as much by its undercurrent of earnest emotion, the episode still allows for some purposely silly concepts — like when the Klingons suddenly start singing a K-pop-style boy band number. In an interview with TrekMovie.com, episode director Dermot Downs revealed that "Subspace Rhapsody" almost featured a moment that probably would've tipped it into a more absurd territory than it was aiming for. At the very least, a high-flying duet between Number One (Rebecca Romijn) and Chief of Security La'an (Christina Chong) would've made the show's sense of musical reality less, well, grounded.
One scene almost took inspiration from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
When asked if there were any planned musical moments that "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" didn't end up using for logistical reasons, Downs explained that the zero gravity "number with Rebecca and Chrissy" was originally going to be a bit more visually heightened. "I wanted to get a little more... not operatic because even in all the songs, the show is still really, really grounded," Downs explains, "but there were a couple of maybe 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' moments in that zero gravity." This reference to Ang Lee's hit 2000 martial arts film is likely a nod to the movie's classic wuxia action beats, in which characters fly through the air in beautiful, gravity-defying ways.
Downs doesn't explicitly say that there was more intensive choreography and wire work planned for the scene, but watching the final product, I would imagine that's what a "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon moment" would encompass. The song, "Keeping Secrets," ends with La'an and Una floating in the air, buoyed by a literal lack of gravity and their shared emotional truth. It's slightly fantastical, but not out of place in the story or series. If the scene were to take a cue from Lee's film, it likely would've incorporated some wuxia-inspired gravity-defying leaps and movements. "It might have been too much, so I'm kind of glad that we didn't go that far," Downs says of the planned flourishes.
The musical number is touching as is
While I obviously haven't seen the version of the scene Downs initially envisioned, I think the version of "Keeping Secrets" we got was still lovely. The song is about Una's life spent hiding her identity as an Ilyrian, but the pressure to feel safer when hidden is something that can also apply to all of her colleagues in this episode — including La'an, who has complicated, dimension-spanning feelings for James Kirk (Paul Wesley). The scene's staging may be comparatively uncomplicated, but that allows us to focus on the truth of the lyrics and the complementary nature of the pair's voices.
The scene works to both further La'an's character arc and to help us better understand what Una went through earlier this season when her Ilyrian background was put on trial. "All the pressure it takes to create a diamond/Is the road to ruin paved by intentions of fools," she sings, "Nice people who/Couldn't keep a secret." Ultimately, Una reveals, she wishes she'd never had to learn how to keep secrets to survive. The scene is made even more poignant when you remember that La'an initially worried that she was the one who accidentally revealed Una's status to Starfleet.
If you're already crossing your fingers for a "Keeping Secrets" deleted scene on the home video edition of season 2, you may be waiting a while: it sounds like the scene never made it past the conception stage. "That was the one thing that wasn't, like, left on the floor because there became a decision not to do that," Downs explained to TrekMovie. "But I had earlier thought, 'Oh, that's gonna be cool.' And in looking at it, it still keeps it grounded and intimate."
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is streaming on Paramount+.