RTR Blog: Andrew's Away Mission to New Eden

   Most Star Trek fans agree that one of the stand out episodes of Discovery's seconds season was the second episode "New Eden"! An away mission to a strange new world, where humans had been displaced and created a hodgepodge of religions amidst the confusion of being transplanted.

   Add a sprinkle of the Prime Directive and how it applies to displaces people of your own people who aren't warp capable, and you have a very Original Seriesesque episode. Needless to say it was one of my favourites as well, and when I learned that it was filmed only an hour south of where I live; a summer road trip was in order! New Eden is in fact Ball's Fall Conservation Area in the small town of Lincoln Ontario, just outside of Niagara Falls. It includes walking trails and a maintained 19th century industrial hamlet atmosphere including, the original Ball's family farmhouse, an operating flour mill, lime kiln, black smith shop, carriage shed, and of course the church! 

  Seeing as it is the central building of the episode and is located in the middle of the clearing, it was the main attraction for Star Trek lovers. Interestingly, they decided to add this small graveyard behind the church for the conversation between Pike, Burnham and Owosekem! 

Unfortunately, despite being allowed to enter other buildings, the church was not one of them. I assume that most of the interior shots were shot at Pinewood in Toronto, but I couldn't confirm or deny that anywhere online. I did notice that the stain glass in the episode was much more detailed than the on-location church and that the on-location church was quite small and would have been difficult to film inside of. 

                                                  

     Another really nice touch, albeit small, is that they removed the cross from the church steeple and replaced it with a spherical ornament, representing that the people had compiled the varied religions into one. All told the area that used for filming the episode is quite small in comparison to the tiny village that is there. When you see everything in the daytime especially, you get a real appreciation for the scenes that were filmed at night.

    More specifically the way the church was lit, as well as the town itself during the establishing and subsequent night shots are very impressive giving what they had to work with. Johnathan Frakes did a really great job here giving the sense of an entire community centered around the church when in actuality, the church is really just a tiny church amongst a handful of farm buildings.     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ball's Falls is a really beautiful conservation area in the Niagara escarpment, more known for it's dual water falls (the lower falls can briefly seen in one of the establishing shots[see below]), is most definitely worth the trip for a little throwback to our history and more importantly Trek history!  

     As always, thanks so much for reading and listening!! If you are looking for more great Star Trek media from Matt and I, come listen to our most recent special BONUS 25th podcast when we discuss the movie Star Trek: Nemesis!
http://randomtrekreview.blogspot.com/2019/07/rtr-25-naked-and-hungover.html