Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Memento Mori” | Season 1, Episode 4
The Enterprise faces a cold-blooded unknown
The Gorn were never meant to last. Introduced in the original series episode “Arena,” the race of lizard men were designed in the service of a morality tale: the Enterprise finds a colony destroyed by the Gorn, magical aliens make Kirk and a Gorn fight, Kirk learns a valuable lesson in tolerance, and everyone moves on with their day. The Gorn have showed up a few times since, but I don’t think any appearance has really topped the original in terms of pop culture iconography. “Arena” is a good episode, a fun example of Trek being smart and goofy at the same time, and the costume, with its immobile dinosaur head and steel wool eyes filmed under the sun’s harsh glare, is charmingly low-fi. It’s not particularly scary, though, and that frozen mouth and shiny leopard print caveman outfit don’t scream “terrifying menace.”
“Memento Mori” seeks to change that, and largely succeeds. But let’s get this out of the way right now: the whole point of “Arena” is that no one in the F…