Stardate: 2341.6
Original Air Date: June 23, 2022
Writers: Akela Cooper & Onitra Johnson
Director: Amanda Row
“You must make a choice… the crew or your daughter.”
“The Elysian Kingdom” opens with a Chief Medical Officer’s personal log. Dr. M’Benga says The Enterprise is conducting a routine survey of the Jonisian Nebula. There is not a great deal of work for sickbay on this mission, so Dr. M’Benga has been continuing his personal research on his daughter Rukiya who is running out of time while she suffers from Leukemia.
Meanwhile, Cadet Uhura informs Spock that all data buoys have been retrieved, the landing party has returned, and with that, the Enterprise’s survey of the nebula has been completed. A pleased Pike says, “I could get used to this. No battles. No chaos. Just scanning a nebula and focusing on the science.” The Enterprise then sets a course for the McNair Starbase but when Pike delivers the command to “hit it,” the ship suddenly runs into a strange problem. All systems appear to be functioning, but the Enterprise is still frozen in place. Scans indicate a minor synchrotron flux emanating from inside the nebula and Lt. Ortegas is injured when they attempt to remedy the situation. Dr. M’Benga is urgently ordered to the bridge, but in the lift, something mysterious occurs. When Dr. M’Benga arrives at the bridge, all the crew on the bridge are oddly dressed in medieval garb as characters from the children’s book he has been reading to his daughters –Ortegas is Adya, Pike is Sir Amaund Rauth (M’Benga’s “loyal chamberlain”), and M’Benga is now hailed as “King Ridley.” The computer is now known as “the oracle” and the chief enemy is Queen Neve (a.k.a. Uhura) who lives across the “kingdom” and through a “forest.”
Hemmer seems to be the only other crew member who is not affected by this strange bout of madness. He was in Engineering when a consciousness pressed against his own, but his years of practicing telepathy have allowed him to block any invasive presence upon his mind. Is this all a dream? Is Dr. M’Benga merely hallucinating from experiments he was conducting? He visits Nurse Chapel’s “magical” sanctuary, a.k.a. sickbay and Princess Talia shows up (a.k.a. La’an) as does an archer huntress named Z’ymira (a.k.a. Una/Number One).
This whimsical fairy tale leads to a search for a “mercury stone” amidst Queen Neve’s “Crimson Guard” and with chief engineer Hemmer being accused of being a “wizard” named Caster, and Spock is also now apparently a traitorous wizard named “Pollux.” In time, Hemmer and M’Benga piece together evidence that they are dealing with a single life form without a physical body –like a god—and Hemmer mentions the psychological theory of the “Boltzmann Brain,” a theory of spontaneously generated consciousness in which an all-powerful being can actually appear ex nihilo.
And then, in remembering the original children’s book, King Ridley notices an error –he realizes his daughter Rukiya must be the origin of this story. She has somehow disappeared from inside the transporter buffer, and has been beamed out to some unknown location on the ship. The “mercury stone” is then revealed to be Rukiya and when found, she now has no trace of Leukemia. Hemmer saves the king by sending the allies of Queen Neve away to Cargo Bay 12 (or the evil land of the “Event Horizon”). And Hemmer tries to connect with the consciousness of this strange being who demands that M’Benga protect his daughter –as it turns out, this being is just as lonely as Rukiya, and after finding her imprisoned in the transporter machine, created this fictional world for her to enjoy.
Alas, the fantasy must end but Rukiya decides to remain with this being she calls “Debra” (in honor of her mother) inside the nebula where her consciousness can live on. Rukiya appears one final time in corporeal form before thanking her father and departing into the ether.
In the end, none of the crew of the Enterprise remember what happened during this strange escapade –only Dr. M’Benga remembers what happened over the past missing five hours. When he recounts the story to Una/Number One, he says: “it begins, like all good stories, once upon a time.”
My Thoughts on “The Elysian Kingdom”
In a mix of comedy and sentimentality, “The Elysian Kingdom” is a charming little fairy tale that offers a hilarious return to the days when Star Trek was still campy and ridiculous! I love that SNW brought back goofiness in Star Trek. If this were a TOS episode, it might be considered a bottle episode. It gives us a nice throwback that takes place entirely aboard the ship, and the tone is reminiscent of “The Squire of Gothos” in TOS or the Q episodes in TNG. Watching this crew prance around in medieval garb is surprisingly amusing –as a viewer, you can easily tell each cast member is simply having a blast, especially Anson Mount in his a-typical role of a lowly, cowardly chamberlain.
Star Trek Trivia:
- The title of this episode may be an allusion to the Greek mythological locale known as the Elysian Fields, a part of the earth seated in the west where the honored dead continue to reside. Appropriately, Dr. M’Benga’s daughter Rukiya continues into a new life of her own in this episode. The episode title is also a reference to the children’s book Dr. M’Benga reads to his daughter: “The Kingdom of Elysian.”
- In this episode, Spock offers some brief albeit amusing commentary on superstitious human beliefs.
- Rukiya names the unknown consciousness entity after her mom Debra.
- The little dog carried by La’an is actually actress Christina Chong’s dog named “Runa.”
- The “Boltzmann Brain” theory was devised by 19th century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. It is a somewhat solipsistic cosmological theory (sometimes compared to the “brain in a vat” analogy) which suggests that it might be more likely that a single brain can be spontaneously formed in a void (complete with a memory of having existed in our universe) rather than for the entire universe to come about in the manner cosmologists think it actually did.
So glad that M’Benga found a happy ending of sorts with his daughter. Thank you for your review and trivia.