A Case of Chiaroscuro — film noir trappings hide a conventional storyline

A focused cast allows Rebecca Romjin to shine in a black and white setting

A Case of Chiaroscuro — what is it about

We could pretend we knew all along, but we had to look up Chiaroscuro. It’s from Italian, and literally means light / dark. In cinema, it’s associated with film noir. Add the relevant costumes and a city under Klingon control with an early 20th century America vibe and we couldn’t be surprised to see a Raymond Chandler character or two drinking at the bar.

All this said, there’s a “strange radiation from the local star” effect going on, meaning the cones in our eyes are suppressed, so we only see with the rods in black and white. It wasn’t explained as cleanly in the episode, for which we blame our distant memories of studying biology at school. It’s an effective method, though (as far as we know) not using film and the way modern TVs are setup, we weren’t sure the effect was fully as intended (we think the photos look better).

Meanwhile, back to the Star Trek elements. A probe has drifted into the Neutral Zone with the Klingons.

Number One, the recently promoted Commander Una (Rebecca Romjin) is leading a small team of Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Dr M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) on a mission to sneak into the zone and sort out the probe. This done, they find a secret planet with a civilisation with Klingons in control. Needing to land and hide, they soon find a city under Klingon control, regular patrols, betrayals and a resistance movement. Here comes the weakest part of the story — Una looks exactly like the top Klingon collaborator and secret Resistance leader, recently vanished. After a plot of tricks and deceptions (as well as finding the body of the real leader), the day is saved in pure original series Star Trek style. There’s a hint of Piece of the Action here and there, and it’s easy to imagine a version of this with Kirk in the lead.

Romjin shines in this episode, Uhura is there so she can understand and obscure Klingon dialect and the Dr mostly to sit back and give wise advice. It’s pretty satisfactory, but what about the rest of the crew?

Back on the ship we have a little of the La’an worried she is becoming dangerous due to her genetic heritage, a minor plot about a possible traitor, some token lines for the still underused Nurse Chapel with the new Vulcan (as yet not well used) having more lines.

In the final analysis, it’s a solid piece of Trek, an attempt to be artistic, good production but perhaps lacks a little something. It’s a shame, as there are plenty of good performances here, but overall it fails to be the classic it might have been.