Summary
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 cleverly borrows from a classic TOS episode, "The Devil in the Dark," to explore the impact of resource extraction on alien life.
- The episode showcases a character-driven story, connecting mining sabotage, hallucinations, and the existence of aliens to highlight grief and empathy.
- Spock's empathy for the Horta in TOS may have been influenced by Uhura's example in Strange New Worlds, demonstrating the power of empathy in communication.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 did a stealth Star Trek: The Original Series remake. In both the old and new versions, the USS Enterprise arrives at a mining operation where workers are being attacked by an undetectable enemy. In TOS season 1, episode 26, "The Devil in the Dark", Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) investigate the deaths halting operation in the mines on Janus VI. Over 50 miners have been killed by an unknown creature, which turns out to be the silicon-based Horta. Spock's mind meld reveals she's sabotaging the mine to prevent the miners from continuing to kill her children.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 6, "Lost in Translation" sees Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) assist the USS Farragut, represented by Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), in bringing the deuterium mine in Bannon's Nebula online after its startup has been mysteriously stalled due to suspected sabotage. Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) is meanwhile experiencing frightening hallucinations, which she discovers are actually messages from aliens living in the nebula, who are attempting to communicate that the Federation mining operation is killing them, and should be stopped.
