Star Trek Backing Away From Its Most Controversial Episode?

However, to hear him tell it doesn’t mean that Star Trek will never have another musical episode, but that there are no plans to do one in the near future. Myers claims, “I can’t promise we aren’t going to revisit “Subspace Rhapsody” someday, but we’re going to hold off a little bit before we come back to it.”

That makes sense for a show that likes to keep viewers on their toes, and considering that the Season 3 tease has Pike and other officers transformed into Vulcans (seemingly permanently), the show may very well be focusing on new bonkers stories rather than returning to the well with a repeat of an earlier gimmick.

Myers rightfully believes that it’s not worth Star Trek getting an encore musical episode if they can’t top the craziness of the earlier adventure. “ If you come back for a second episode of something,” he said, “you really want to make it special and different and bigger and crazier.”

There is likely some wisdom to this…Buffy, the Vampire Slayer gave us the best musical in television history, but we never tried for a repeat, likely because it would have been so difficult to do anything better than what we already saw in the standout episode “Once More With Feeling.”

If you’re nervous about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds not taking enough chances in Season 3, don’t be. Myers confirmed that even though we’re not getting another musical episode anytime soon, fans could look forward to other wild surprises, saying, “We’re special and different and bigger and crazier in our next season in a lot of other ways.” As huge fans, we really do find it reassuring that a series this young and successful is continuing to push entirely new boundaries rather than just playing the greatest hits from earlier seasons.

Speaking of hits, Star Trek’s musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody” really resonated with critics and currently has a 100 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes (though that score comes from only nine reviews). It still generated major controversy in the fandom, though, with some fans comparing it to Buffy’s musical episode or just musicals in general and declaring that most of the songs just weren’t catchy enough.

And even though the script bent over backward to provide a technobabble explanation for what was going on, many felt that having otherwise serious Starfleet characters like Spock break into song was a bridge (crew) too far.

So, while some might see this new Star Trek show backing away from its controversial musical episode, we are taking Myers at his word that the writers simply want to tell different stories and won’t have our characters singing their hearts out until they have a story that can top the original. And for anyone who wants more Original Series-era singing, keep in mind that you can listen to entire albums from Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner.

Of course, by the time you hear Shatner screaming at the end of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” you may be ready to face a Klingon firing squad before you decide to boldly go and seek out new songs from this enterprising actor.

Source: TrekMovie