The Gorn were introduced in the original series’ “Arena,” and while they’ve been seen briefly here and there since then—in the animated series’ “The Time Trap,” Lower Decks’ “Veritas” (GORN WEDDING!) and “An Embarrassment of Dooplers,” and Enterprise’s “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II”—there’s been very little done with them of any depth (outside the tie-in fiction, anyhow).
Using the Gorn on Strange New Worlds was always going to be fraught because the implication in “Arena” was that this was first contact with the Gorn. Yet part of La’an’s backstory on SNW is that she was the sole survivor of a Gorn attack. We get the details of that this week in a thrill-ride of an episode that is one of the best space-battle episodes of Trek you’re ever likely to see.
