So I have a theory...(a Strange New Worlds spoiler post about a certain character)

This post has nothing to do with the above scene. I just love this scene a lot. I also didn’t want to spoil anything for anyone who wanted to remain unspoiled, because I’m considerate like that. So, yeah, by the way, this post has MAJOR spoilers for Season 1 of Strange New Worlds, so if you don’t want a VERY ENORMOUS PLOT POINT ruined for you, go away.

Last chance.

Ok, let’s crack on.

More than a few of you were upset when Hemmer went out like an absolute champ in Episode 9 of Strange New Worlds. Having been implanted with Gorn eggs, Hemmer chose to walk to his doom in the freezing cold of the planet rather than stick around and explode from the inside. He even got to make a heroic speech first. As actual deaths go, it was solid, but it rubbed many a viewer the wrong way. Generally speaking, complaints fell into one of two camps:

1. Why draw so much attention to a character only to kill them off?

2. The actual death came suddenly and felt half-assed.

The answer to #1 is simple: To make sure you give a damn when they die. If we didn’t know Hemmer, his death would serve as little more than a plot point to inspire Uhura. Instead, we get to know him as a shipmate and an individual. We learn about his philosophy of life, which (to summarize) boils down to “you live long enough to fulfill your purpose and then you die.” Now, if that doesn’t telegraph that a character is meant for the eventual chop, I don’t know what does. It becomes even more obvious when you remember that Strange New Worlds is, in effect, a prequel. We know who crews the Enterprise, and we know the lead engineer isn’t Hemmer, it’s Scotty. At some point, he was going to leave the ship (and so will everyone else besides Nurse Chapel, Uhura, and Spock).

That brings us to #2. Hemmer pushes Uhura out of the way and gets splashed with Gorn goo. Which….does pretty much nothing. He says something to the effect that it feels uncomfortable, but he’s not even in the foreground of the shot when it’s said. He’s not examined, nothing is analyzed…it’s just sort of a non-issue. Until, of course, the end of the episode when it’s suddenly about to kill him. Small wonder viewers felt short changed. A separate character’s impending demise was communicated far, far more effectively, but no connection was drawn to Hemmer’s injury. There was nothing to suggest to the viewer that he was ever in any danger, and then all of sudden, WELP.

So I have a theory.

If you go back, you’ll notice that Rebecca Romijn is oddly absent from most of the season. She gets her spotlight episode, where we learn that she’s been genetically modified and that her body can immediately cure any illness she may contract, but after that, she pops up here and there, but certainly not as much as you’d expect from the first officer. Her absence is so conspicuous, in fact, that there’s a scene in The Elysian Kingdom (aka the fairy tale episode) where her character walks off screen without her face being visible. (She’s so close to the camera that you can’t even tell whose body it is, in fact.) Ortegas says something like “and there she goes, back to the forest” by way of awkward explanation of why this important character is just gone now. I’ve tried to find out why — Covid or some other health issue seems like an obvious possibility, but I never did get an answer.

My theory is that Una was originally supposed to get thwacked with Gorn goo, the threat made obvious, only for her genetic modifications to save the day while also revealing her secret to the rest of the crew. But for whatever reason, Romijn wasn’t available for filming and the script had to be revised. Instead of going down to the planet, Una stays with the Enterprise and thus is out of the action for the majority of the episode. At that point, the writers have a choice: Remove the plot line of the Gorn infection altogether, or change who gets infected. If we accept that Hemmer was always going to die this season, it seems reasonable to believe the writers might’ve pivoted to shoehorn him into this scenario.

If I’m right, and a bunch of stuff had to be changed on the fly because Romijn was unexpectedly unavailable, then overall the showrunners did a killer job because the season was highly successful. I was trying to work up a post ranking all 10 Strange New World episodes and got stuck because you could make a strong case for at least five of them as being the best of the season. So, yeah, overall Strange New Worlds straight-up slays, even if a few moments ended up a little broken.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong and Romijn was in the show as much as she was supposed to be and Hemmer was always supposed to go out exactly the way he did. I have no inside information, I’m just a viewer, same as you. But I bet I’m right about some of it.

Let me know your thoughts, if you have some!