“The Good of All”
Star Trek: Khan Episode 6—debuted Monday, October 13, 2025
Written by Kirsten Beyer and David Mack; primarily based on a narrative by Nicholas Meyer
Directed by Fred Greenhalgh
“Once I have a look at Khan, I don’t see a thriller that must be solved. The issue with evil isn’t that we don’t perceive it. It’s that the apply of it’s incompatible with the peace and happiness of all different residing issues. In case your happiness relies upon upon the struggling of others, if peaceable coexistence by way of painful compromise is an unacceptable end result, there’s merely no place for you in a civilized society.” – Captain Hikaru Sulu
Cooperation and belief are essential to the thriving of any society. However how can cooperation and belief be constructed when one of many companions has solely skilled betrayal, competitors, and loss? When survival has all the time necessitated conquest and victory? When it’s inconceivable to utterly know the opposite particular person’s true motives, and full honesty would end in full vulnerability? Episode 6 of Star Trek: Khan, the primary scripted podcast for the franchise, is all about belief. The need of belief, the issue of belief, and the methods through which belief might be damaged.
In our earlier installment, Khan and his followers had been joined on Ceti Alpha V by survivors of a crashing alien vessel. Although Khan initially responded to the presence of those aliens with fearful hostility, on the urging of his spouse, Lt. Marla McGivers, Khan opened himself as much as the potential of trusting cooperation. However belief takes time, and time is one thing that the residents of Ceti Alpha V–people and the aliens–have a diminishing provide of.
This newest episode options some startling revelations, an expanded function for Captain Sulu and Ensign Tuvok, and a few tragic occasions. The tempo is rapid-fire, however there’s loads of time for the kind of philosophical wranglings that Trek followers love a lot. Traces start to type that threaten to blow aside the unity of Khan’s tribe of Augments, as superior ambition results in deeply-fluctuating feelings. You may see prepare wreck coming, and there’s nothing that you are able to do to cease it.
[NOTE: This review contains SPOILERS.]
In 2296, Captain Sulu orders Tuvok to covertly surveil Dr. Rosalind Lear as she investigates the historic recordings from the Ceti Alpha V exiles. This rubs the younger ensign the improper means, as he believes Dr. Lear’s work is being carried out with integrity. However it isn’t Lear’s work that Sulu questions, it’s her motives. She appears to have a private curiosity in valorizing a person that Sulu knew as one of many biggest monsters of historical past, and within the course of she’s going to smear the status of certainly one of Sulu’s most admired mentors, particularly Captain James T. Kirk. It’s a thorny scenario through which the morality of Captain Sulu’s actions shouldn’t be clear, and the strain is palpable, together with with Lear. When she discovers Tuvok’s spying–as a result of even within the 23rd century, educational espionage and theft of mental property are a factor–she is livid, and is barely barely prevented from confronting Sulu by Tuvok’s restraining hand. So as to construct belief between her and Sulu, he should know her secret: who gave her these historic recordings?
Again in 2267, the scenes present putting improvement of Khan as a personality, though his blind spots are nonetheless clearly seen, as properly. The aliens who crash-landed on Ceti Alpha V are referred to as Elborians, nicknamed “Elbs” by a few of Khan’s people, and they’re led by Delmonda (a reputation which immediately recalled for me this scene from The Fugitive). The Elborians are telepathic, bonded by “a group of minds bonded past comfort or aptitude”–the pandem. As Khan begins to know Delmonda’s internal life, he begins to assign phrases to the alien’s communication–bettering the alien’s means to attach–a captivating tackle a sci-fi premise. The openness of the pandem has made the Elbonians extra open and trusting than the Augments’ upbringing has left them. However Delmonda nonetheless retains some secrets and techniques in reserve, away from Khan’s inquisitive thoughts.
Madlyn Rhue as Marla, Ricardo Montalban as Khan, and William Shatner as Kirk, in TOS’ “Area Seed”
The Elbs have gifted Khan and the Augments the underground cavern they’ve named “the Sunless Sea,” but it surely doesn’t comprise any marine life, and the aliens estimate that given the meals provides and what might be grown underground, survival for his or her individuals can solely final about 5 years. Longer-term survival would require extra information, and new concepts. However the Elborians and the Augments share this in widespread–each had been pushed from their homeworlds, and each are searching for a spot to ascertain a brand new society that embodies their most cherished values. For the Elbonians, meaning compassion, service to others, a tolerance of various opinions, and the concord of the pandem. Whereas for the Augments, oppression and worry have made their highest worth survival, and loyalty to Khan as their chief. Nobody has ever given Khan something and anticipated nothing in return. For him, altruism all the time hides a deeper stage of self-interest. Khan has by no means been in a position to conceive of one thing wanted being freely given–all the time, it have to be seized. However Delmonda is displaying him a special means.
Sadly, Khan’s followers are usually not all uncovered to Delmonda’s kindly affect. Whereas exploring the caverns, Ursulla, Medeaux, and Ivan uncover one other chamber past the partitions of their very own, and in trying to interrupt by way of the wall, there’s a cave-in. Medeaux is injured, as is the kid that she was carrying in her womb. Regardless of Ursulla’s greatest efforts, the kid’s life is misplaced. In her grief, Ursulla’s belief in Khan is shaken, and her wrath spills out in an unpleasant trade. And in a parallel to the Excelsior story, Ivan is ordered by Khan to covertly surveil the Elborians. Khan needs to know what Delmonda is holding again, however Ivan is extra centered on whether or not Elborians can bleed, and might be killed. Sadly for everybody, Ivan will get the possibility to seek out out, and takes it, killing one of many Elborians. And he discovers that the Elborians are constructing one thing out of the wreckage of their ship!
The solutions to all of those questions open up new questions, and new mysteries. How did Dr. Lear’s historic recordings go away Ceti Alpha V? Somebody will need to have survived to inform the story! And are the Elborians to be trusted, in any case? What shall be achieved with Ivan, who has now murdered one of many telepathic aliens? And the way can Khan lead, now that a few of his most trusted internal circle are overtly questioning his authority? And each time Marla McGivers goes off alone, you’ll be able to’t assist however questioning – is that this the scene the place she will get eeled?
“The Good of All” is a captivating exploration of the interaction between belief and privateness, altruism and selfishness, worry and generosity. Naveen Andrews as Khan continues to thrill as he brings the character into new avenues of thought that he’s by no means explored earlier than, and Wrenn Schmidt’s Marla McGivers has made me care a few character I all the time discovered shallow and unlikable in “Area Seed.”
With the earlier episode and this one, the function of Captain Sulu and Ensign Tuvok within the drama is turning into extra central and extra clear. It’s a delight to listen to George Takei and Tim Russ seemlessly step again into their roles. And this story additionally does a little bit of connecting the dots as we see how Tuvok and Sulu didn’t precisely see eye-to-eye throughout Tuvok’s tenure aboard the Excelsior, choosing up on their dynamic within the Voyager episode, “Flashback.” As anticipated from writers Kirsten Beyer and David Mack, this drama understands the Trek characters at a deep stage, and makes use of them properly,
George Takei recording Star Trek: Khan (CBS Studios/Edward Pomykaj)
Among the secondary roles are much less well-cast than the leads. However the music and sound results are frequently spectacular and useful in setting the scenes and the tone, and the manufacturing ably creates a world within the thoughts of the listener. Like all good Star Trek, this audio drama asks huge questions, and wrestles sincerely with the solutions from differing factors of view. With out letting go of the thought of fine and evil, it additionally clearly reveals the affect of trauma on an individual’s means to belief–even when that particular person is a genetically-enhanced superhuman.
Pay attention now
New episodes of Star Trek: Khan debut every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Additionally it is accessible on YouTube. Khan will wrap up with episode 9 on November third.
Right here is the total sixth episode by way of Apple podcasts.
Sustain with information and evaluation in regards to the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
