News is not "making up stuff that sounds news-y", just as Science fiction is not "making up stuff that sounds science-y". Science fiction is fiction written by scientists. Science fiction is fiction grounded in hard science. Jurassic park is grounded in hard science. Dinosaur DNA really can be trapped in amber, it can be extracted and sequenced, and with enough compute power and CRISPR, it can probably be reassembled back into the original DNA of a dinosaur and inserted into a modern bird egg. However, after 66 million years, the DNA strands are so short that we probably don't have enough DNA or the compute power or the algorithms to do it ... at least, not yet.
Now we come to the great many problems that plague ALL of the episodes of Star Trek : Strange New Worlds. The stories are written by non-scientists, and it's clear they don't even consult with scientists at all. Episode 9 contains a pretty serious plagiarism from the Alien movie series : a species that germinates inside another species. Also stolen is the idea that the species has acid for a bodily fluid. But this time, the great stupidity is, the bodily fluid is spit, and not only does the monster have acid for spit, the spit is also sperm, so they have acid for sperm and for spit. This stupid idea shows a great contempt for all science. It's as idiotic as giant tardigrades floating in outer space (ST:Discovery). To grow a zygote in acid is not something that any sensical scientist would ever imagine. It's not something that nature would evolve. It makes no sense because acid degrades DNA and damages tissues. It's simply a dumb idea.
And herein lies the problem with all of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds". When Science appears, it's the cheapest badly-imagined science that only a low-budget writer pretending to understand science could imagine. It has no basis in fact and in all cases, cheapens the plot. For example, to blend on an alien planet, the ship's surgeon surgically alters everyone's face. Not just a little bit, but a WHOLE LOT. However, just by watching the TV show any idiot knows that a latex rubber mask would work just as well. Just scan their faces and materialize the masks in replicators and glue them on. An existence proof that it would work comes from watching the episode itself. Any rational scientist would recommend this as a superior solution to having two surgeries on ~6 members of the crew!
Another annoying thing about Episode #9 is that it is standard practice to outfit a landing party with standard equipment such as weapons and communications. All military parties with a military function going back 100 years have that, and all future military parties will have it, too. ALL. NO EXCEPTIONS. It is said that the planet's ionosphere interferes with communications. Well, that may be true over long distances but at small distances, it's just not possible - the RF power of the handsets will dominate. The writers need to learn how to work within the framework of actual military practice and physics if they want to write a show about a Starship with a military function.
An even more annoying thing about the episode is the lack of discipline of the captain. When the first survivor is found - a young girl - no important are answered before the doctor cuts off all communications. The captain is not involved, to pass judgement, because he has a command ability to override the doctor's decision. Any competent captain would field a decision on whether to interrogate the young girl and/or override the doctor. But no. Just no. In fact, the young girl, once again a plagiarism of the "Alien" movie, doesn't even need to appear in the episode because her character contributes nothing of value to the plot line. I half expected her to say, "It won't make a difference"; which was a tagline from the action-adventure movie "Alien 2" - I expected it because the plagiarism was everywhere.
One gets the impression that the writers are playing "hope chess" with the viewers. They are hoping that the viewers have never seen any science fiction stories before. This strategy is not a winning strategy - not in chess, and not in TV Dramas. Viewers who have watched science fiction before will see through the writer's charades and see that the writers are incapable of backing up their fiction with facts from actual science.
It is for this reason I give this episode a "2". I believe that most episodes do not rate much higher than "2".
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