Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Has A Sequel To The Show's First Controversial Episode

This article contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 4, Episode 9, "Once La'an A Time."

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" has gotten a lot of flack for relying too much on gimmick episodes in Season 4, especially since the balance is out of whack. Out of the nine episodes so far, we've gotten three ("Valles Marineris," "Off-Hour," and "Orders of Magnitude") that feel like classic "Star Trek" stories but six that instead play as genre homages or parody romps. Even many fans who grinned throughout Season 2's musical "Subspace Rhapsody" feel the charm has worn off, and "Strange New Worlds" should return to its original premise: traditional, back-to-basics "Star Trek."

If you're one of those Trekkies, Season 4's penultimate episode, "Once La'an A Time," will not be for you. In fact, it's a direct sequel to the episode that arguably began this trend: Season 1's "The Elysian Kingdom," when an alien consciousness transformed the Enterprise crew into fairy tale characters. Part of the episode's gimmick is the show's cast got to play dress up and behave very differently from normal. Captain Pike (Anson Mount) went from fatherly leader to the cowardly Sir Rothe, Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) went from anxious ensign to the evil Queen Neve, etc.

I can see why this would be fun for the series' actors. "Strange New Worlds" even repeated that character switcheroo gimmick for a self-referential holodeck murder mystery with Season 3's "A Space Adventure Hour." But upon premiere, "The Elysian Kingdom" received mixed responses. We at /Film thought it was a pretty fun "filler" episode, but for as much stock as you can put in IMDb ratings, "The Elysian Kingdom" is the lowest-rated episode of "Strange New Worlds" Season 1 by a fair margin. (It currently stands at 6.2/10.)

The "Previously on..." recap at the top of "Once La'an a Time" opens with scenes from "The Elysian Kingdom," as the Enterprise discovers this fairy tale hasn't ended. The ship then encounters a thin plate-shaped world moving through space (perhaps a reference to Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" fantasy novels).

Now, when the Enterprise away team lands and spots a castle out of a storybook, they're shocked to see a doppelgänger of Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) on the planet. Recall that at the end of "The Elysian Kingdom," everyone's memories were wiped, except for M'Benga. Now, he has to catch the crew up on what transpired. If your memories of that episode have faded too, then no worries, we've got you.

An entity known as a "Boltzmann Brain" communed with M'Benga's daughter Rukiya (Sage Arrindell) and remodeled the Enterprise after her favorite story book. Rukiya had been terminally ill, and her father kept the disease forestalled by retaining her disembodied form in the Enterprise transporter buffer. The Boltzmann Brain, named "Debra" by Rukiya after her mother, cured the disease but Rukiya had to stay with her. The emotional climax of "The Elysian Kingdom" saw M'Benga letting go of his daughter, resolving the subplot in a way no one had expected.

Whereas the Enterprise's crew themselves were transformed into different personas in "The Elysian Kingdom," this time, the fantasy characters exist alongside the real people. For instance, while Pike and Spock (Ethan Peck) are captured by Queen Neve, Sir Rothe and Spock's counterpart, the evil wizard Pollux, beam aboard the Enterprise and impersonate Pike and Sock. The meeting of two counterparts winds up being essential to the episode's resolution, too.

"The Elysian Kingdom" was M'Benga's episode. This one is, as the title suggests, La'an Noonien-Singh's (Christina Chong). Her fantasy world counterpart is Princess Thalia, who is very much a classically feminine princess and the polar opposite of the real La'an: a hard-as-nails security officer who keeps her emotions close to her chest. When La'an learns she was a princess back during "The Elysian Kingdom," poofy ballroom dress and all, she's flabbergasted. But meeting the "real" Princess Thalia shifts La'an's perspective.

As you can tell from her name, La'an is a descendant of the infamous dictator Khan Noonien Singh, and she has the genetically engineered Noonien-Singh family "augmented" blood flowing through her. That increases both her strength and aggression, and she's had particular trouble keeping the latter under control in Season 4.

La'an spends most of "Once La'an A Time" traveling with Princess Thalia's beloved, Prince Dashing, who has James T. Kirk's (Paul Wesley) face. But Dashing has a dark secret: He's a werewolf, and he loves Thalia because she accepts both halves of him. Later, Queen Neve brings La'an and Thalia together to complete a spell that requires "the light and the shadow" to be joined. That spell swaps their personalities, imbuing La'an with Thalia's sensitivity and Thalia with La'an's rage. They duel themselves (herself?) before reaching an understanding of how they're merely opposite poles of one whole.

By the end of "Once La'an a Time," La'an has confronted buried trauma, finally reached inner balance, and shed embarrassment at her more joyful emotions. Some had expected La'an's journey might end in a tragic sacrifice, but it appears to be closer to "happily ever after" for now.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is streaming on Paramount+.