“A Case of Chiaroscuro” blends a striking noir aesthetic with a compelling story about moral ambiguity, resistance, and the difficult choices that come with surviving in the shadows.
Strange New Worlds shows us the world isn’t always black and white in an intriguing episode that cleverly shows us a world in black and white.
The Enterprise is tasked with retrieving a wayward probe, the Angelo-1, that drifted into Klingon space in the Mat’Aar system, and a shuttlecraft is the only vehicle that can stealthily snag it. While Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), Doctor M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), and Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) are successful in this mission, the arrival of a Klingon D7 starship above Mat’Aar 12 forces them to duck for cover within a city that is occupied by Klingon forces.
Exploring Gray Areas
The clothing worn by the planet’s populace, as well as the black and white color spectrum caused by the nearby star, gives this episode a signature noir look, and we were completely on board with this style Strange New Worlds adopted. Having a star give off funky radiation is a perfectly sensible reason for a limited color spectrum, and a Klingon occupation of a planet sets the stage for a setting that looks straight out of WWII-era occupation — albeit with a futuristic twist. In short, Strange New Worlds is clever with how it conjures this unusual sci-fi setting.
Soon after arriving in the nearby city, Una is mistaken by Roman (Andy McQueen) for a local collaborator, Nevette, one who holds a strong position of power with the occupying Klingons. Number One, for her part, chooses to play along while carefully keeping her and her away team’s true identities a secret. M’Benga, war veteran he is, is somewhat of an expert in hiding in plain sight and helps the more inexperienced communications officer, all while alluding to some part of this past that taught him these unfortunately useful lessons.
“This is not the first time she is pretending to be someone she is not.”
– M’Benga to Uhura about Una.
The local Klingon leader, Commander Kor (Demore Barnes) shows up and gives the away team reason to try and make it back to the shuttle, but not before Una, playing the role of Klingon collaborator, questions a soon-to-be dead resistance traitor and learns a mysterious frequency that will be important to the away team later.
At a checkpoint on their way to the shuttle, Uhura is arrested for improper identification, leaving Una and Joseph to figure out another plan. The team’s situation gets more complicated, though, when Una learns from a local bartender, Ja’Lem (Albert Chung), that Nevette is also a member of the resistance against the Klingons.
Una investigates Nevette’s office and not only learns Nevette was the nucleus of the resistance network and was playing both sides to help the resistance. Una also learns Nevette herself is dead. Sympathetic to the resistance cause due to her own personal history, Una takes it upon herself to complete Nevette’s mission to disrupt the Klingon occupation — which she does by tricking Roman into inadvertently triggering a massive electromagnetic blast that disables all Klingon technology and even their nearby D7 warship.
With the Klingon occupation severely hampered by the away team’s action, many people from Mat’Aar 12 flee the planet. The episode ends as M’Benga and Number One discuss the gray areas of life, and that not everything is black and white — a smart message for the monochromatic episode.
La’an’s Tribulations
While the away team deals with the Klingon resistance, La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) has a tough time of her own on the Enterprise. She knows she has recently felt her augment genes rekindling, and a mystery surrounding the recently recovered probe doesn’t help her feel quite in her right mind.
Upon beaming the Angelo-1 onboard, Spock (Ethan Peck) and La’an find one of its data chips loose — worrisome for the security officer considering the probe was drifting in Klingon space. In her investigation, La’an enlists the assistance of Cadet A’Sha (Bianca Nugara), who discovers there is an underlying transmission from Enterprise that La’an traces to the quarters of Montgomery Scott (Martin Quinn), who has recently kindled a friendship with Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia). Scotty reveals he recently created a makeshift navigational buoy that helps track the Klingon ship’s location in this strange sector of space, but that the buoy has nothing to do with La’an’s investigation.
La’an thinks paranoia is getting the best of her, but a conversation with Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) holds a surprise for La’an: Chapel actually loosened the data chip as the probe was beamed aboard. Apparently, the probe held information about an unsanctioned rescue mission into Klingon space by the USS Yang, whose commander knows Chapel. If Starfleet or the Klingons were to learn of the Yang’s passage across the border, it could be bad for the Yang’s crew. Chapel asks La’an to keep the secret, and La’an agrees — even hiding the information from Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount).
Looking for the Light
“A Case of Chiaroscuro” ranks for us as one of the more interesting episodes of this season thus far, and certainly a more entertaining and meaningful watch than last week’s drunken shenanigans. Exploring noir territory within a science-fiction universe is a perfect fit for this show’s demonstrated breadth of creativity, and Mat’Aar itself is one of the more memorable locations Strange New Worlds has provided in recent years, what with its mix of high-tech and early to mid-20th century vibes.
Visuals mean very little without a solid story to back it up, and on that front this episode gave us a juicy, dramatic ethical quandary for Una — a quandary informed nicely by her established backstory of pretending to be someone she’s not. Her accidentally finding herself in the center of a Klingon occupation as both a sympathizer and resistance leader is ripe for exploration of the moral gray areas of life; having this episode be a noir is a great marriage.
“Irony notwithstanding, few things in life are black and white.”
– M’Benga to Una at the conclusion of their adventure.
While it’s shockingly bad luck that Una just so happens to be basically identical to Nevette—a coincidence this episode does take some time to try and justify—there isn’t a better person on Enterprise to handle the delicate balancing act the commander faces on the planet. Rebecca Romijn sells her character’s struggle, too, as we could tell Una’s traumatic past weighed heavily on her as she maneuvered between working with the Klingons and helping the resistance.
Beyond Number One’s storyline, this is a great episode for Doctor M’Benga, who plays the role of wise sage as he helps the more innocent Uhura through their undercover mission, as well as serving as a sounding board for Una’s moral struggle. We were captivated by M’Benga’s monologue at the end of the episode where he is explaining to Una why he knows how to stay undercover amid an occupying force. That man sure does have an interesting past.
Ultimately, “A Case of Chiaroscuro” stands as a strong entry in the season, proving that Strange New Worlds remains unafraid to play with genre and form. By effectively blending a striking noir aesthetic with compelling character-driven drama, the episode offers a thought-provoking exploration of the moral ambiguities inherent in duty and survival. It’s a compelling reminder that in the vast, sometimes shadowy reaches of the galaxy, the most difficult decisions often exist in the gray.
Stray Thoughts:
- Why was Doctor M’Benga on the mission to recover the Angelo-1 in the first place? Nothing about the mission required medical staff.
- Commander Kor will later be seen in The Original Series and Deep Space Nine.
- Scotty swears to La’an that his navigational buoy has nothing to do with the Angelo-1 probe, and that he’ll “cross my heart and hope to get stuck in a pattern buffer”—which is exactly what happens to him much later in life, as seen in The Next Generation episode “Relics.”
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