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The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 4.
One of the best things about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is how willing it is to push the boundaries of what a Star Trek episode is supposed to be and do. It’s true, some of its stranger concept episodes don’t always pay off, but the series’s utter fearlessness is one of its most admirable qualities. And although season 4’s “A Case of Chiaroscuro” doesn’t reach the heights of all-time franchise classics like “Those Old Scientists” and “Subspace Rhapsody”, the hour is an intriguing twist on what is essentially a real-life holodeck episode, which allows Rebecca Romijn to do something a bit more substantial than sing Bonnie Tyler bangers in Klingon. (Which, admittedly? She is great at.)
A noir-flavored thriller about resisting fascism, “A Case of Chiaroscuro” is shot entirely in black and white, and is not, as most of us likely assumed, a gimmick spurred on by someone playing Dick Tracy during their downtime. Instead, it involves a covert shuttle mission to retrieve a broken Federation probe that’s drifted into Klingon space, in a system dominated by a star whose radiation impacts the way we perceive color, rendering everything in greyscale. It’s both disorienting and strangely beautiful, as well as a reminder of how many weirdo pockets of space exist in our wide universe that this franchise has still (somehow) yet to explore. But although their initial task is successful, the unexpected arrival of a Klingon ship near their position means Una, M’Benga, and Uhura must detour to a nearby planet to hide, since, y’know, they’re not supposed to be there and all.
Mat’aar XII is a Klingon-occupied planet, and its general vibe is sort of Sin City meets Casablanca. There are lots of fedoras, some truly banging outerwear, and Klingon collaborators whose outfits are marked with silver cuffs. The Klingons have restricted the movement of most of the planet’s citizens by means of physical brutality and an elaborate surveillance system. But things get even more complicated for the Enterprise team when it turns out that Una is a dead ringer for a woman named Navette, who is simultaneously a top lieutenant to the planet’s Klingon overlord and a leader in the underground resistance helping families escape the occupation. And now she must find a way to pretend to be both, without getting herself or her crew killed.
The occupiers are led by Kor (Demore Barnes), a younger version of the first Klingon ever introduced on Star Trek: The Original Series, and it seems as though he comes by his enthusiasm for war-mongering very honestly. A member of the Imperial family, with grand ambitions of shutting the planet’s airspace and subsequently stripping the native Mat’aarans of their ability to protest, hold positions of power, or even to live where they wish, he’s both smooth and brutal. Una’s scenes opposite him are some of the strongest of the episode, if only because it’s never quite clear what Kor knows and what he doesn’t when it comes to her true identity. Is he ever fooled by Una pretending to be a woman he clearly knew quite well? Does he catch on to her scheme after torturing Uhura when it becomes clear she’s been to a world where green trees exist? It’s hard to say, but Romijn and Barnes make for excellent scene partners.
It’s true, “A Case of Chiaroscuro’s” basic premise requires a fairly healthy suspension of disbelief. That Una somehow accidentally stumbles upon the one planet where her exact doppelganger happens to live is…almost laughably convenient. (Much like the fact that doppelgangers exist at all.) But it’s not any weirder than the idea that the Enterprise is technically responsible for creating the asteroid belt in our solar system, is it? Of course not.
That Una also happens to be extremely good at pretending to be someone she isn’t is the kind of thing that makes sense for her character, and even if much of her success here is due more to pure luck and bravado than skill, well. You have to admire her moxy, as well as her willingness to risk it all to protect her team and, later, to strike a blow for the resistance itself. It’s another stark reminder that she’s never truly gotten over her family’s decision to refuse to fight alongside their fellow Illyrians rather than to pass as human when the Federation came to her colony all those years ago. (And, given how little her perception of this issue seems to have changed since the last time her heritage was a plot point, it seems unlikely that she ever will.)
Unfortunately, the episode’s B-plot is hands down the season’s weakest, involving an increasingly paranoid La’an insisting that some sort of sabotage has been performed on the probe they’ve just retrieved. Her investigation to discover what, if anything, has been slipped into its code. After what feels like an interminable amount of red herrings, it turns out it was just Chapel trying to protect a Federation medical ship which crossed the line of demarcation in order to answer a distress call. It’s thematically similar, in that this story too is about breaking the rules to help those that need it, but it’s both dull and pointless. Despite the visuals of this episode, the choices we face in life are very rarely black and white. But that’s hardly a lesson that La’an, of all people, needs to learn.
The idea of supporting an insurgency against some form of tyrannical oppressor is a story that Star Trek has told many times over, but was especially prevalent during The Original Series. It’s a theme that shows up in episodes ranging from “A Private Little War” and “Patterns of Force” to “Friday’s Child” and “Errand of Mercy,” an hour that also happens to feature Kor, originally played by John Colicos, and the Klingons trying to subjugate another world under their rule. But as Una and friends leave Mat’aar behind and color bleeds back into the frame, there’s at least a sense of hope that they might have changed something on this planet, if nothing else.
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