Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Strange New Worlds Seasons 1 & 2, as well as the trailers, clips, and teasers for Season 3.
As soon as I published my Strange New Worlds Season 3 wishlist last week, Paramount decided to drop a brand-new trailer! I really do have the worst timing when it comes to these things; it isn’t the first time something like this has happened! Today, I thought we really ought to take a look at the trailer, as well as the two other “clips” that have been revealed so far. Knowing my luck, Paramount will release another one later this afternoon!
In 2024, we got to look at two extended clips from Strange New Worlds Season 3. I must’ve missed the second one; the only one I’d seen was the Vulcan one that I talked about in my look at Star Trek’s Comic-Con showing last summer, but Paramount also released another clip that I think got lost in the marketing blitz for Section 31. As the TV movie’s January release got closer, that’s where my Star Trek focus fell, anyway!
We’ll start with the clips and then look at the trailer, because there’s plenty to say about all three.
The Vulcan clip I’ve already covered – check out my piece about Star Trek at Comic-Con by clicking or tapping here – but to briefly recap, it depicts Pike and several other members of the crew being “turned into Vulcans” for some kind of mission to Spock’s homeworld. The surgery appears to be much more than just cosmetic, with the away team seemingly taking on Vulcan personality traits and suppressing their emotions. One thing I didn’t mention last time (because I hadn’t really thought about it) is this: isn’t Vulcan emotional suppression something that requires a lot of education and training? I mean, Vulcans don’t just come out of the womb with natural barriers to feeling their emotions; we’ve seen from Spock in Strange New Worlds itself how this ability is a learned one, not a natural phenomenon.
I know this probably sounds nit-picky, but I like Star Trek (and every other fictional setting that I get invested in) to remain basically consistent. Star Trek stories from as far back as the episode Sarek in The Next Generation era showed how Vulcans are not naturally emotionless; this is a learned trait or skill that takes a long time to master. And while I hope this episode is fun – which it looks like it will be – I think Star Trek should be consistent with these things.
I’m also cognizant of the fact that, in basically every Vulcan-centric story so far, Strange New Worlds has taken a comedic approach. There’s a lot of fun to be had with the Vulcans, don’t get me wrong, but in Strange New Worlds a lot of it has relied on a peculiarly American style of “cringe” humour that I just personally don’t find all that funny. This new Vulcan episode looks to be taking a similar approach to those used in Season 1’s Spock Amok and Season 2’s Charades. Both of those stories relied on a premise summed up thusly: “Vulcans are all uptight, formal, and proper, so wouldn’t it be funny if something went wrong?” It’s basically slapstick; the same kind of comedy used in mid-century films like The Bellboy or Carry On Teacher. I can tolerate that kind of thing in small doses, but after Strange New Worlds has already done the whole “aren’t these stuck-up Vulcans kind of funny?” thing twice already, maybe a more straight-laced Vulcan episode might’ve been a change of pace.
There’s no shortage of examples in Star Trek of how Vulcan episodes can be entertaining, emotional, and funny – without necessarily going to such a comedic extreme. While I’ll be happy to give this episode a chance when it premieres and I don’t want to render judgement prematurely, a big part of me hopes there’ll be more to it than just cringe humour and an unserious, comedic look at Spock and the Vulcans. I kind of feel like Strange New Worlds is getting close to exhausting that premise.
With all of that being said, the idea of an episode harkening back to the likes of Amok Time and perhaps some of Enterprise’s Vulcan stories is intriguing, and I like the idea of a story set on Vulcan which could expand beyond Spock and T’Pring. Bringing more of the characters into the episode in this way – by surgically altering them to be Vulcans – opens up a lot of different possibilities. There’s definitely going to be a comedic angle to this story – we can all see that already! But perhaps there’s also going to be a chance to spend some time with other Vulcans and take a look at aspects of Vulcan history and culture that we’ve seen elsewhere in Star Trek.
This could also be a fun way to bring back a character like Sarek. In my wishlist, I talked about the possibility of bringing in James Frain, who played the character in the first two seasons of Discovery. That could be a lot of fun, and we could get a closer examination of Sarek’s feud with Spock, perhaps. Strange New Worlds also teased Sybok – Spock’s half-brother – in Season 1, and he could be a fun character to include. Maybe we could learn why Sybok was apparently hospitalised or imprisoned, and set the stage for his role in The Final Frontier.
The second longer clip is the one I’d totally missed until now, but you might’ve already seen it a few months ago. This clip was released in the autumn, but somehow it managed to elude me!
This clip appears to pick up right after the cliffhanger at the end of Hegemony, with Captain Pike on the bridge of the Enterprise after learning that La’an, Ortegas, and a large number of the Parnassus Beta colonists have been abducted by the Gorn. It could be the very first scene of Season 3 – but there could also be something else in between, perhaps set on the Gorn ship with the abductees or even at Starfleet with Admiral April. In any case, the clip was exciting and definitely left me wanting to see the continuation of this story!
There was a lot of tension on the bridge as Pike and the crew had to figure out their options. Unable to defeat the Gorn vessel and with no way to retrieve the kidnapped officers and colonists, the only thing they can think of is to place a kind of rudimentary tracking device on the ship – allowing them to keep track of this specific Gorn warship in what seems to be a spiralling conflict. I liked the way Pike and the rest of the crew considered different ideas – and how they were all that perfectly-written Star Trek technobabble that we all know and love!
It was also fun to see Una take the helm – with Ortegas missing in action, someone else had to sit in that seat, and Una seems to know how to handle the ship! My only real criticism is that the whole thing took only three minutes or so – which doesn’t seem like a lot of time for the crew to have co-ordinated a complicated shield-breaking manoeuvre. I liked the idea of ramming the Gorn ship, I just felt we could’ve seen a bit more work on the bridge or in engineering to prepare the Enterprise for this unconventional tactic.
We’ll have to see how that shakes out in the finished episode, though!
After the cliffhanger, Season 3 promises to start with a bang. As I said last time, I wonder if Strange New Worlds is teeing up this Gorn conflict to run across multiple episodes this season, or whether it’ll be resolved somehow in that first episode. With a fourth season confirmed (and already in production) could the war with the Gorn spill over into next season, too? There’s a lot to consider on that front! I really appreciate Strange New Worlds’ episodic nature, though, so I hope that if the Gorn war does run on, it doesn’t come at the expense of the wonderfully diverse storytelling we’ve been enjoying across the first couple of seasons.
Finally, in this clip (and at the end of Hegemony) something appears to be affecting Captain Pike. I noted in my review of Hegemony that in the final seconds of last season, Pike seemed to freeze – almost like he wasn’t sure what to do. In this clip, he seemed to be experiencing something else, though, not merely an adrenaline rush, fear, or exhaustion… but something different. My first thought was that it could be related to his time crystal – the warping effect at the very end of the clip, with Pike remaining in focus as the bridge seemed to dissolve around him, felt like something Discovery’s time crystal could’ve done.
There’s also the possibility, perhaps, that Pike is infected with the Gorn parasitic eggs like Captain Batel, and he’s beginning to feel the impact. And we can’t discount the possibility that Strange New Worlds is going to do what both Picard and Discovery have done (with varying results) and try to tell a story about Pike’s mental health and the burden he feels. That would be in character – going all the way back to The Cage we got a scene with Pike talking about the responsibility of command and how it weighs on him. Pike had already been through a lot on the day the clip is set – Captain Batel is in mortal danger and he’d just learned that several of his crew had been abducted. So it’s not unreasonable to think those events would impact the captain. If Strange New Worlds is going down this road, though, I hope there’s enough time to do justice to a storyline like this. Unfortunately, modern Star Trek hasn’t always got that right.
The final trailer (so far, at least) was much more diverse. Rather than just a single extended clip, we got teases that seem to come from multiple episodes. There’s less to go on in terms of story, but there were a ton of interesting-looking things in the mix! I’ll try to hit everything, but please forgive me if I miss one or two. I’ve watched the trailer several times over, but my ageing brain might not have taken everything on board!
Let’s start with the Gorn. We got a similar visual of Gorn ships bearing down on the Enterprise as we saw at the end of Hegemony and in the Gorn-themed extended clip that we just talked about. That’s almost certainly from the first episode of the season, picking up right after the cliffhanger. There was also a shot of an adult Gorn – this time without a space suit! The monstrous depiction of the Gorn, clearly inspired by Alien’s xenomorphs, will definitely carry through into this season. Captain Pike and La’an also seemed to be aboard a Gorn vessel, or perhaps on a Gorn planet, firing phaser rifles.
I saw what looked like eggs or egg sacs in one clip, and while that could be from a different episode, it looks like it’ll be related to the Gorn. If Starfleet (or Captain Pike and the Enterprise on their own) are taking the fight to the Gorn, could they have figured out a way to even the odds? If so, perhaps that’ll be the way this Gorn conflict is brought to a close – a kind of stalemate.
I’m also intrigued by what looked like – and bear with me on this – a zombie Klingon!
We only saw this character for a handful of frames, so I could be totally misreading it, but we saw a Klingon with a whip and then what looked like a zombified Klingon. Perhaps this Klingon has been infected with Gorn parasitic eggs – that was my first idea. But this could also be a completely different story focusing entirely on the Klingons. If it’s going to be “zombies,” perhaps we’re getting another horror episode along the lines of Season 1’s All Those Who Wander.
There was also a very brief clip of Dr M’Benga running away from someone – or something – that was following him through a door. I couldn’t be totally clear on that, but whoever was following him looked like they could have the same kind of infection as the Klingon in the previous clip. Those could easily be from the same episode, and having Dr M’Benga present would make a ton of sense – he could be looking for a cure for whatever this contagion is that affected the Klingon and presumably other people, too.
The main talking point coming out of this trailer has obviously been the throwback, retro sci-fi aesthetic that at least one episode will employ! I’m getting kind of “Captain Proton” vibes from these clips, which seem to lean into a deliberately old-fashioned look. Star Trek, of course, took inspiration in its early days from old sci-fi serials, something that Voyager’s writers acknowledged with their Captain Proton creation. I’ll be curious to see how this plays out – maybe it’ll be something like last season’s Subspace Rhapsody, where strange space phenomena mess with the Enterprise! Or it could be something completely different.
Star Trek has made a bit of a mess of holographic technology, so although we arguably “shouldn’t” be seeing a holodeck in this era… we clearly will be in at least one episode. This could be a fairly standard “the holodeck done goofed” story, with the main characters trapped in a holographic environment. Or it could be something closer to Season 1’s The Elysian Kingdom, which transformed the crew into characters from a fairy tale. Maybe these aren’t the real characters at all, they’re just holograms with the same appearances! This holodeck story seems to be distinct from the retro sci-fi story above, but they could be part of the same episode if we’re dealing with technology which can change the way the ship and crew look.
Pelia “wiring up” the Enterprise with, of all things, telephones, though… I’m really not sure what to make of that one! Parts of the ship looked darker than normal, so could there be a power drain forcing the crew to fall back on analogue technology? If so… why do they even have old-fashioned telephones on board? Perhaps these clips are all part of the same story and we’re going to get an episode all about analogue technology that features a holodeck, a retro sci-fi serial, and an underpowered Enterprise with telephone wires running everywhere!
Could Strange New Worlds be about to confirm a very old Star Trek fan theory?!
If you missed this one, many fans have speculated that Trelane – from The Original Series episode The Squire of Gothos – is a member of the Q Continuum. That theory has been doing the rounds since The Next Generation premiered, but it’s never been officially confirmed in canon. In one clip in the trailer, a character who looks very similar to Trelane, and is wearing a similar costume, raised his hand and snapped his fingers in a very Q-like manner! So does that mean we’re getting a Trelane/Q episode this time… and if so, will that old theory finally be confirmed?
Trelane was arguably less dark than Q, but this character – judging by their facial expression – looked quite serious, at least in the very brief clip we saw. So maybe we’re not going to get a fun and whimsical adventure, but something a bit deadlier? That’s a total guess, but it would certainly be a bit of a change from what fans might be expecting!
Other short clips from the trailer seemed to include a three-armed alien – which could be the first live-action depiction of an Edosian. Arex, from The Animated Series, was an Edosian, and the race has also been seen in Lower Decks, but never in live-action. The face looked, to me, closer to the Kelpiens than what I’d have expected a live-action Edosian to be, but it was a very short clip so maybe in the finished episode we’ll see more. This could also just be a background character, though!
I also saw a blue-tinted star, the Enterprise (and several other ships) docked at a planet or starbase encased in a dome, Uhura having a drink with someone who instantly gave me bad and creepy vibes, and the Enterprise being rocked by a “Praxis effect” shockwave of some kind. There’s not a lot to go on in any of these clips, but they all definitely feel exciting in different ways, and I’m curious to see where all of these episodes are going to go!
There were several other clips that could be from the Gorn fight, including one of Captain Pike encountering a strange-looking spaceship or shuttlecraft. I’m not sure if this is a Gorn vessel or not, but Pike’s away team uniform and the general darkness of the setting make me think it’s at least a possibility. There was also a clip of the Enterprise’s shields being impacted by some kind of light or plasma; again there’s not much to go on in either of these very short clips, except to say that they’re intriguing and exciting.
Spock and Chapel seem to have gotten back together in one clip – though something about it feels “off;” maybe it’s Spock seeming too emotional. In any case, I’m thinking that this could be a dream, an alternate timeline, a flashback, or something else – anything other than simple reality! This clip could be from the Vulcan episode, or it could be set on the dome-starbase mentioned a moment ago.
So I think that’s everything for now. Those are all of the things I noted from these three clips and trailers, at any rate!
It took me a while to work my way through Strange New Worlds Season 2, but when Season 3 arrives later this year I hope to get through all ten episodes in a more timely manner! There are a ton of interesting ideas presented in these trailers, and I’m really excited to see what Season 3 will have in store when it arrives this summer.
If I had to pick, I’d obviously say that a conclusion to the Hegemony cliffhanger is one of the things I’m most keen to see – but I’m also particularly intrigued by the diseased or “zombified” Klingon that we saw. What kind of episode will that be – and am I even close to right with my guess?
The retro sci-fi thing looks… interesting. At least, I hope it will be. I gotta confess that Captain Proton was never my favourite part of Voyager, and I just hope a story that uses that kind of aesthetic won’t be too self-referential and “meta” to the point of killing the joke. Some shows and franchises which run for a long time can do that, and it ends up feeling less fun than fan-servicey sometimes. I don’t like to be a buzzkill, though, and I will definitely go into all ten episodes with an open mind!
So that’s all for now. When the season premieres later in the year, please check back. I’m hoping to review all ten episodes, and if there’s the opportunity, perhaps I’ll even craft a theory or two, too. I hope this has been a fun look ahead.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 will premiere on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the service is available in Summer 2025. Seasons 1 and 2 are out now on Paramount+ as well as on DVD and Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 