Stardate: 2184.4
Original Air Date: August 7, 2025
Writers: Onitra Johnson & Davy Perez
Director: Andi Armaganian
“This thing is older than anything I’ve ever seen…”
In a junior medical officer’s log from Ensign Gamble (Chris Myers), he shares that has been stationed for six months in sickbay on the Enterprise. Nurse Chapel and Dr. Korby are about to make history –a breakthrough in molecular memory and corporeal transference (i.e. “resurrection” and “reincarnation” which could be based on forgotten technology). There is a new dig site for Dr. Korby’s research on the planet Vadia Nine. Gamble is permitted by Dr. M’Benga to join a landing party, much to his delight. Documentarian Humberto “Beto” Ortegas (Lt. Ortegas’s brother) has also been given security clearance to record the Enterprise’s current roster of missions.
Down on the surface, the M’Kroon natives have rejected joining the Federation but a landing party has been allowed down to the surface for the dig. But he is nervous about the dig (Spock decides to stay behind aboard the ship). Quickly, they find an ancient form of advanced technology –a magnetic anomaly—buried underneath the soil. It turns out to be a giant city hidden in the dirt, perhaps a temple or palace, where blood sacrifices were once made. They come to realize that the M’Kroon are descendants of an alien race that could travel across multiple galaxies. More crewmen are brought down to join the landing party.
Christine Chapel gives a drop of her blood that permits entrance to this large temple, but once inside they find a dead body. Spock says Starfleet protocol requires that they stop the mission and contact the ship, but Chapel challenges him (even though he is her senior ranking officer?) until N’Jal, the M’Kroon representative, makes the decision to stay. Spock reluctantly acquiesces. One of the devices they find lying around seemingly malfunctions –with an orb containing something inside it– and it shoots Gamble in the face, destroying his eyes. Gamble is then beamed back aboard the Enterprise into sickbay where Dr. M’Benga learns that whatever agent destroyed Gamble’s eyes is also preventing his eyes from regenerating. Then a scan shows his brain is dead. He starts behaving in an “evil” manner and has a confrontation with Captain Marie Batel whose latent Gorn instincts seem to come to the surface.
Meanwhile down on the planet, the landing party (now consisting of Chapel, Korby, Spock, La’an, Uhura, and Humberto Ortegas) becomes entrapped inside the temple facility while N’Jal is vaporized. They realize their only choice is to venture deeper into the facility which starts moving around them and they discover the facility is likely more of a prison operating in different dimensional planes. They figure out how to regroup in the same room and they must cross a vast chasm to a door (a la Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade).
On the Enterprise, the crew shoots and kills Gamble after he runs amok on the ship, and then they recapture the Vezda (meaning “evil”) that has possessed him before entrapping it back inside the orb it came in. They store the volatile little orb in the ship’s transporter buffer (why in the world would they do this?) The crew believes the ancient M’Kroon were searching for immortality only to awaken an evil entity. The episode ends as the transporter buffer starts malfunctioning while Dr. M’Benga contacts the deceased Ensign Gamble’s family on earth.
My Thoughts on “Through the Lense of Time”
Another horror-adventure episode! I thought this was a particularly corny episode if I’m being honest. It was another middling quest in a fairly mediocre season thus far unfortunately. All the characters in SNW and their romantic relationships are just ridiculous at this point –the whole sexual tension element in every episode is painful. And in this episode, are we really led to believe that Spock would tolerate insubordination from Nurse Chapel when he instructs her to report back to the Enterprise instead of venturing further into the highly dangerous temple? And at the conclusion, do we actually believe the crew would be satisfied with storing an ancient, malevolent being with seemingly limitless powers inside the ship’s transporter buffer? This is all just completely luicrous. Many of the characters are a little too childish and irksome for me. At least “Through the Lens of Time” was an entertaining voyage to a “strange new world” and not just another bottle episode, but I’m still waiting for a truly compelling, standout SNW episode in this season.
Star Trek Trivia:
- The dermal wands on the biobeds in sickbay apparently need to be charged as do the remote synthesizers.
- A substance called Tarazine is referenced in this episode.
- “Spock’s brain” is briefly mentioned as an in-joke.
- Dr. Korby references an insignia on Polaris 12 and Praetorian where he and Christine Chapel found ancient tablets.
- “We’re gonna need a bigger landing party” is a nod to Jaws.
- The landing party’s escape from the prison/temple is an obvious allusion to Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.
- Vadia Nine is apparently the ancient ancestral home of the Q Continuum. It later came under the control of the M’Kroon.
- “Vezda” is the M’Kroon word for “evil.”