Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Ad Astra Per Aspera” | Season 2, Episode 2
Una must prove her measure in a surprisingly effective episode
They absolutely got me.
I spent some of last week criticizing Strange New Worlds’ otherwise delightful premiere for being too indebted to the past, and with “Ad Astra Per Aspera” the show doubles down on its commitment to reiterating Trek history, this time with a kind of stealth remake of “Measure of A Man.” In case you don’t remember, “Measure” is the second season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Picard is asked to defend Data’s autonomy from a predatory scientist. It’s a well-regarded classic, and one of the first signs that TNG was finally coming into its own after an extremely rough season one. Trek has pulled the “court case to prove someone’s rights” trick since then—there’s a pretty awful take on the concept in Voyager’s last season—but that didn’t stop SNW from having its own swing at the premise.
Obviously there have been some changes. In “Measure,” Data is ordered by Starfleet to let someone dismantle him, on the assumption that, as a robot, he doesn’t have the benefit of civil rights. In “Astra,” Una is on trial for hiding her identity as an Illyrian on her Starfleet application. Illyrians are genetically modified at birth, and since the Eugenics Wars Starfleet has had a strict “don’t fuck with DNA” policy. There’s still a metaphor at work here, but where Data was serving as a stand in for slaves (he didn’t commit a crime, he just had the gall to want to decide his own destiny), Una is intended as a broader commentary on persecuted minorities in general.