Just after Strange New Worlds provided a fun, comedic episode last week, this week's, “Through the Lens of Time,” was more like a horror movie. This wild hour involved time travel, the shocking death of a character, and possibly setting up a bigger threat in a creepy hour.
We open with Gamble supplying his personal log, proud of how he’s working on the Enterprise. He and M’Benga discuss the ship’s new mission, which involves exploring some ruins on a planet that could indicate a connection between resurrection and reincarnation and actual alien technology. Korby and Chapel talk on the mission, with Korby wary of Starfleet somehow messing up the site, and have some fun banter about Korby’s worries.
Chapel then talks to La’an about Spock, making it clear she knows of the new closeness between La’an and Spock. Gamble checks on Batel’s progress and is surprised to hear he is finally getting an away team assignment.
Chapel and Spock end up sharing a pretty awkward turbolift ride with Spock assuring Chapel he wouldn’t be part of the away team. The briefing is covered by Beto, filming everything and even wanting a new take on the talk about being invited to a planet by the non-Federation aliens. Oh, and Pelia is blatantly hitting on Beto before putting Gamble on the spot, reciting how Beto would be sticking around.
Korby waits on the planet, and Gamble gets off on the wrong foot, pressing for details on the alien life. Korby shows off a magnetic anomaly that indicates there is advanced technology buried beneath them. Beto also shows off his video drone, able to detect emotions, and Uhura is impressed. With a little help from the Enterprise, the team uses the phaser to uncover a massive alien temple.
More crewmembers come down, including Spock and La’an, just to guarantee that things would be uncomfortable. Korby relates that the language on the temple is similar to ones found on various worlds.
NJal shares that his ancestors would engage in “blood sacrifice” to access the temple, with Korby ready to cut himself before Chapel stops. She ends up getting poked herself by a scanner, which then opens up a door. The team enters, and Spock and La’an quickly realize that comms and transporters won't work inside it.
Cue a horrible injury
They find the remains of aliens that appear to have been left there centuries ago. Spock is ready to leave, and he and Chapel argue. Chapel overrules him to stay, and NJal shares that his people wanted to learn more about themselves. Chapel and Gamble investigate a corpse to find that it contains a “memory stone” of data. Gamble peers closer, only for a glowing orb to explode and horrifically burn out his eyes.
Gamble is immediately beamed to sickbay while Pike orders the away team back at once. Korby wants to stay while Beto reveals he sent a camera ahead to another chamber, which upsets NJal so much that he runs for the exit. A beam of light vaporizes him as the door seals shut, and then floodlights reveal the team is inside a massive multilevel chamber maze.
Gamble is upset to wake up, as M’Benga hopes a special regenerator visor would restore his eyesight. He secretly shares with Pike that something in Gamble’s system is preventing the regeneration from working, with Pike telling the doctor this isn't his fault.
The team theorizes that the scanner recognizes Chapel to keep her safe, but it wouldn’t recognize the others, which was why NJal is dead, and the rest were now trapped. Chapel uses her DNA to access the door, only instead, it opens to another chamber. The team goes through, only for Chapel and La’an to find themselves alone. They are able to contact Beto and Uhura and Spock and Korby, all in chambers that look the same.
M’Benga is baffled at the lack of healing for Gamble as they talk it over. Gamble can tell something is wrong, with M’Benga sharing that, according to the scan, he is brain-dead. Back at the temple, La’an and Chapel are thrown to find that this alien statue has markings in Chinese. Chapel realizes the statue has life signs but is somehow out of sync quantumly, admitting she has no more idea what this means than La’an.
Spock and Korby talk about Korby not going through the right procedures before Korby finds a piece of writing discussing some ancient evil. Spock scans the platform to see thousands of the same glowing orbs that had injured Gamble, with one floating up to him and revealing a hideous creature inside.
Pike finally realizes the landing party isn't back, and the aliens are keeping the Enterprise crew from heading down. Pelia and Scotty reveal that the orb is a containment unit, and the power source has overloaded. Pelia relates that whatever this is gives her the “heebie-jeebies,” which is enough to scare the hell out of everyone else.
The terror rises
In sickbay, Gamble suddenly begins talking about M’Benga’s daughter, which he shouldn’t know about, mocking M’Benga on her passing. M’Benga asks who he's talking to as Gamble regains his senses and is horrified at something inside him. Batel enters only for her and Gamble to seem to recognize each other, hissing in alien languages as they begin a brutal fight across sickbay.
Pike enters with security. Batel is still feral before M’Benga knocks her out, while Gamble takes off running. M’Benga finds him holding a security officer hostage after Gamble accidentally kills another crewmember. He is able to get Gamble to surrender.
Beto freaks out about being trapped, and Uhura calms him down. Beto’s camera then reveals how the rest of the party is all in the same room together. Talking things over, the team realizes they are, in fact, all in the same chamber, just in different time periods. They also realize this isn't some “fountain of youth” but a prison to those creatures.
Gamble is put into a holding cell while the team is able to combine forces to put them all back in the same temporal field. Pike checks on a waking Batel, who shares that she saw Gamble as “something else” and had an urge to kill him. Spock uses the usual Trek paradox technobabble to relate that the only way to get to the bridge was to walk across empty space.
A bitter end to the hunt
In his cell, Gamble lures a guard to the cell and reaches through the force field to snap his neck. Korby thinks this was a crazy idea, but Spock assures Chapel it would work. Sure enough, Chapel steps onto thin air only for it to form a bridge. She leads the group with Korby downcast that he has to leave some relics behind.
In engineering, Gamble holds Pelia, Sam, and Scotty at phaserpoint to demand the command codes to take over the ship. M’Benga arrives with his own phaser, with Gamble able to fight back and expel the creature from his body. Scotty traps it back into the orb and then beams it to “nowhere” as M’Benga tends to Gamble.
The crew decides a transporter buffer is the best way to make sure the parasites stay in their prison. The crew is troubled by how close the creatures come to escaping and is upset over Gamble’s death.
Pelia states, “There is evil in this universe as sure as there is good,” and whatever those creatures are, they are pure evil, and if even one escapes, it would be terrible. She then cuts the tension to ask if Beto wants her to do it again for the camera.
M’Benga goes over the data before completing the sad duty of telling Gamble’s family about his death. He thus fails to see how the screen behind him suddenly flashes the same alien text as the temple had.
Losing Gamble is a shock as the character seemed to be set up as a new face in the crew aiding M’Benga. His death is terrible, while also adding to the mystery of which aliens these are and why the Gorn part of Batel reacts to them.
There could be more done with the couples separated in that way, although the Alien vibes of the episode are nicely handled. The ending, indicating this may be part of a bigger arc for Strange New Worlds, makes this a scarier episode.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 airs Thursdays on Paramount+.
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