Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series, Deep Space Nine, Discovery, and Picard.
At time of writing, Season 3 of Strange New Worlds has just concluded. With Starfleet Academy on the schedule for the first half of next year, and with Season 4 having only finished filming a few weeks ago, there’s gonna be a wait of a year-plus before we’ll see it – late 2026 or early 2027 is my guess, barring any strikes or similar disruptions! So it’s a bit early to look ahead – but Strange New Worlds is on my mind right now.
What I want to do this time is try to take stock of how the series has performed so far, as well as look ahead to a few things that I’d like to see in Seasons 4 and/or 5. This isn’t going to be a review or a recap of Season 3, though obviously we’ll talk about Season 3 along the way, but rather a broader overview of how I see Strange New Worlds now that we’re three seasons in – and, regrettably, past the halfway point of what will be a forty-six-episode run.
The final shot of Season 3.
As always, a couple of caveats before we get much further. Firstly, I have no “insider information,” so anything I say about possible future episodes and stories should be viewed through that lens! And secondly, all of this is the subjective, not objective, opinion of one old Trekkie. If you disagree with me about Strange New Worlds, hate my take, or want to see the series go in a completely different direction… that’s okay! There’s enough room in the Star Trek fan community for differences of opinion and polite disagreement.
Alright, now that that’s out of the way… let’s talk Strange New Worlds!
Season 3 was, on the whole, pretty good. There were a couple of dud episodes, but even those had some redeeming qualities. It felt a bit more serialised this time, thanks to the ongoing Batel-Gorn storyline, but still episodic enough that we got a diverse mix of stories. If I had to highlight two episodes for special praise, I’d pick Through the Lens of Time and Terrarium. I think Through the Lens of Time is, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps somewhat let down by a weaker conclusion in the season finale, but on its own it’s still a solid episode. And Terrarium is just fantastic across the board.
Ortegas in Terrarium.
In terms of characters, I’d like to see Strange New Worlds do more with some of its original creations, rather than leaning so heavily on the younger versions of TOS characters. Scotty seems to have taken precedence over Pelia for a lot of engineering storylines, such as in A Space Adventure Hour, and because Pelia is just a ton of fun… that doesn’t sit right. She’s the chief engineer, and he’s… what? A glorified assistant at best. And although sometimes lacking in confidence, this version of Scotty is still working engineering miracles. We’ve seen that before, and while there’s definitely fun to be had in seeing Scotty’s growth and the development of some of his friendships with folks like Uhura and Kirk… I don’t want that to overwhelm an original character like Pelia.
I’ve said this before, but if Star Trek had relied so heavily on legacy characters when considering spin-offs in the 1980s and 1990s, the franchise would feel a lot smaller today. We might never have met the likes of Picard, Sisko, or Janeway if the folks in charge had insisted on retaining characters from past iterations of Star Trek – and I’m just a little concerned that the attention dedicated to legacy characters is beginning to overshadow the rest of the cast. Spock was almost omnipresent this season, and we got stories heavily focused on Kirk, Chapel, Scotty, and Uhura, too. I’m glad that we finally got an Ortegas episode – and that it was so darn good! But with only sixteen episodes remaining, I’d really like to see Strange New Worlds strike more of a balance between characters who’ll go on to play big roles in TOS and the rest of the cast.
Kirk in command.
I mentioned this in one of my Season 3 episode reviews, but La’an being related to iconic Star Trek villain Khan has been a complete nothing-burger so far, and unless something major changes on that front… I’m gonna reach the end of the series wishing she’d been given a different last name. If you know me, you know I’m not a stickler for the tiniest minutiae of “canon,” but given how important Khan is to Kirk, Spock, and really to Star Trek as a whole… making La’an a direct relative of Khan kind of treads on the toes of what was established in Space Seed. If there’d been a big narrative payoff for that, it could’ve easily been worth it. But so far? I’m afraid it hasn’t been.
Think about it like this: what would change about La’an if her last name had been… Shellac-Wombat instead of Noonien-Singh? She could still have been a descendant of augments. She could still have survived the Gorn as a kid. She could still have felt shame about her ancestry. She could still have developed a friendship with Una, fallen for Kirk, and gotten into bed with Spock. Her iconic ancestor doesn’t matter one iota – and because of how important Khan still is to the franchise, I don’t think that’s good enough. There’s just no reason to have made her a member of Khan’s family – and right now, the name feels like little more than cheap nostalgia bait.
La’an in Season 2.
What appealed to me the most about “the Captain Pike show” in the aftermath of Discovery’s second season was spending more time with Anson Mount’s take on the character. Season 1 gave us a decent mix of Pike and other characters, but the captain seems to have stepped out of the limelight a little in Seasons 2 and 3. There were whole episodes this season where Pike got remarkably little to do, and one of his bigger roles – in Four-and-a-Half Vulcans – was far from his best. Anson Mount did a great job, by the way, in that kind of comedic role… but I just wasn’t thrilled about the end product.
So in Seasons 4 and 5, I hope we get to see a bit more of Pike. That doesn’t mean every story needs to put the captain front-and-centre, but there have been moments in some episodes which could’ve been perfect for Pike to step up and play a role – but where writing decisions meant other characters came to the fore. Maybe you think this contradicts my earlier wish to see more of Strange New Worlds’ original creations – but I kind of include Pike, Una, and Dr M’Benga along with the brand-new characters, as their roles prior to this series were much smaller.
It’s still “the Captain Pike show” to me!
There are plenty of great characters on the show, and with only sixteen episodes left – and presumably at least one or two new recurring or secondary characters to be added – there are clearly gonna be constraints on how often Pike can be centre-stage… and I get that. But this is, for me, still “the Captain Pike show,” so when Pike is absent, relegated to a background role, or even mischaracterised – as I’d argue he was, to an extent, in episodes like Under the Cloak of War and Four-and-a-Half Vulcans – then a big part of Strange New Worlds is missing.
This leads into one of the concerns I have going into the remainder of the series: filming for Season 4 has already concluded, and Season 5 is currently underway. There’s no time for Skydance/Paramount to address feedback from Season 3; it’s too late to make any changes to the stories that have already been created. And given that Season 3 did have a couple of misfires and, I would argue, an over-use of characters like Kirk and Spock at the expense of Pike and some of Strange New Worlds’ original characters… that could be a problem. Feedback is important, especially in the modern streaming television landscape, and unfortunately, Strange New Worlds went ahead with producing Season 4 and 5 before there was a chance for any significant responses to Season 3 to be known. Hopefully, because the show is still pretty good, that won’t be too much of a problem. But I worry that the creative team may have doubled-down on some of the things that fans and viewers have been less keen on this time around.
Pike and the crew on the bridge.
Returning to Pike, I don’t think we need to see his accident and disability again at the end of the show. That story has already been told in Discovery, in The Original Series, and in a couple of Strange New Worlds episodes, so ending the show that way would, I would argue, be repetitive. If Kirk hadn’t been such a big presence this season, I’d probably have said that the series finale should show Pike handing over the Enterprise to Kirk – and a big part of me still believes that will be the final shot of the series. But given Kirk’s expanded role… I think some of the impact of that will be lost, even if the moment itself is handled well.
Instead, I think Strange New Worlds needs its very own Undiscovered Country-type of story. Perhaps Pike and the crew get word that the Enterprise is to undergo a major refit, and that Pike himself is to be promoted. The crew have one final mission to undertake – perhaps against the Klingons, the Gorn, or another well-known antagonist. The mission could be intense, explosive, and action-packed, but rather than the final moments of the show depicting the handover to Kirk… I’d like to see Pike on the bridge, setting course for parts unknown one final time.
Ortegas, Una, Chapel, and Spock from one of the Strange New Worlds comic books.
We’ve had it confirmed in a recent interview that the creative team weren’t sure a renewal was coming after Season 3, which I think explains a few major decisions this time around. It explains why there was such a rush to do the “backdoor pilot” for their Year One idea, with Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Chapel, and Uhura all working together. It explains why some characters – like Chapel and Uhura – now feel like they’re coming to the ends of their arcs on the show. And it explains that epilogue in the season finale, which I said in my review felt like it was intended to serve as the ultimate ending to the show if it hadn’t been picked up for more episodes.
Some of those decisions could, if the creative team are aware of them, open up different possibilities in Seasons 4 and 5. We’ve already had the “Kirk in command” Year One spin-off episode. So check that one off the list – no need to do that again. Chapel’s relationship with Dr Korby has emerged, gone through a couple of bumps in the road, and gotten to a point where he doesn’t need to regularly reappear. Uhura’s grown in confidence and ability, taking her from a raw cadet unsure of her place in Starfleet to a confident officer who was even willing to bend the rules. Spock has just been all over the place… but even if we never got another Spock episode, I think we can safely say we’ve spent more than enough time with him, too!
Spock.
So that should open up other opportunities. We haven’t had a major storyline for Una since the beginning of Season 2 (and no, getting horny for Patton Oswalt doesn’t count). We finally got our Ortegas episode, three seasons in, but there’s still scope to do more with her character. It would be nice to get a story for Dr M’Benga that doesn’t revolve around either his violent past or some other secret he’s keeping from his shipmates – perhaps one that could explain why, by the time of The Original Series, he’s no longer the chief medical officer.
Then there’s the secondary cast. Mitchell’s been a regular on the bridge – maybe the show could do something with her? Admiral April’s family was hinted at in the Season 3 finale, as was his friendship with Pike, so perhaps a story in which he’s in focus would be well-received. I’d also love to get one more story featuring Hemmer! Perhaps a time-travel story, of some kind, could see Hemmer getting some screen time with Scotty? That could be absolutely fantastic if handled well. And Sam Kirk has been rather overshadowed by Spock in the science department and his brother, but it would be lovely to get a story in which he’s in focus, for once.
Sam Kirk in Season 2.
You’ll have heard me say this before (I often use it as a bit of a caveat when talking about episodes I didn’t like!) but I’m really glad to see Strange New Worlds remaining a mostly episodic show. Discovery and Picard both went for big, season-long serialised arcs… but for me, that’s not really what I’ve wanted from Star Trek. In past shows, where seasons were longer and there was more room for manoeuvre, arcs like the Dominion War worked pretty well. But in the modern television landscape, where there are fewer episodes and fewer seasons available, I think Star Trek really needs the diversity and options that only an episodic format can deliver.
So, as production gets underway on Season 5… please keep the episodic format! A two-part or even three-part finale could work, sure, but I hope that at least some of Season 5 can retain the episodic charm that has made Strange New Worlds feel like such a nostalgic throwback in the best possible way. It wasn’t until I started watching Strange New Worlds that I came to recognise how much I’ve missed episodic television – and how essential the format is to a franchise like Star Trek.
The zombies in Shuttle to Kenfori.
Star Trek shows need the freedom to explore strange new worlds… pretty much every week. The Enterprise needs to visit a planet, meet an alien, then warp away to a different destination next time. As Strange New Worlds has demonstrated, that doesn’t mean you have to lose character growth, personal relationships, and other modern television trappings. But it means that, for a franchise all about exploring the galaxy, spending too long in one place or having too narrow a focus isn’t what works best. And I’m not alone in feeling that way, I suspect.
I think there’s room for something like a two-part finale to wrap up the show, or even a two-part cliffhanger in between Seasons 4 and 5, as we got with Seasons 2 and 3. One or both of those ideas could be great. But what I don’t want to see, really, is for Seasons 4 and 5 to go down the Discovery/Picard route of being fully serialised, as I think that would take away so much of what has made Strange New Worlds work. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the Strange New Worlds model – which I’d describe as episodic with character arcs – should be adopted by Starfleet Academy and by any other Star Trek project that might get greenlit in the years ahead. It’s absolutely the best choice for this franchise.
La’an on the holodeck.
At this stage, with Starfleet Academy on the schedule for early 2026, I’m not convinced that Strange New Worlds’ fourth season will be ready in time for the 60th anniversary, which is now less than a year away! But if I could be allowed one “wish,” it would be for Season 4 to contain some kind of celebratory episode, perhaps a story akin to my Cardassia Prime pitch, which would bring in characters and factions from elsewhere in the franchise.
The 60th anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate a milestone that few franchises ever reach. And let’s be honest: with all the cancellations and Paramount+ struggling, being able to do anything big for the 70th or 75th seems unlikely! And speaking for myself… I might not be here by then! So I’d dearly love to see at least one Season 4 episode written as a “love letter” to Star Trek and to the fans, really leaning into the 60th anniversary and celebrating all things Star Trek.
A 60th anniversary episode could really celebrate the franchise.
Before we wrap things up, I have a couple of much siller, almost-certain-never-to-be-made ideas. The first is one I’ve talked about a few times here on the website: rescuing Captain Lorca! Lorca appeared in Discovery’s first season, and the prime timeline version of the character is assumed to have died in the Mirror Universe… but what if he didn’t? Captain Pike could lead a rescue effort, stepping through the looking-glass to save a friend. I think that could be a ton of fun as an episode.
And finally… I still kinda want to see a “Captain Pike versus the Borg” story! Yes, there are timeline problems. Yes, it would tread on the toes of canon. And yes, the Borg have been overused in Picard in recent years. But still… I think you could write a script which sees Pike’s Enterprise catapulted to an alternate universe where the Borg are dominant, with Spock saying “it’s unlikely a cybernetic race like this exists in our universe,” and where La’an, Dr M’Benga, and the rest of the crew have to battle drones and figure out a way home. I just think it would be a really fun idea.
I know, I know… it ain’t gonna happen!
So that’s all for today!
We’ve talked about Strange New Worlds, the show’s first three seasons, some of its characters, and a few things I’d like to see going forward. I’m still disappointed that the show has been prematurely cancelled – especially because it happened before Season 3 had aired a single episode. But we are where we are, and there are now just sixteen episodes left. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some wonderful adventures before Captain Pike and co. have to hang up their uniforms for the final time.
I hope this has been interesting. I wanted to talk about the show more broadly now that Season 3 has ended. I still don’t think we’re gonna see Season 4 before next autumn at the earliest – and a 2027 release doesn’t seem impossible, either, given the lengthy post-production involved for modern shows. So… it could be a while before we rejoin Pike, Spock, Una, and the rest of the crew. Before then, I’d like to finally write up some Season 1 episodes, which I didn’t do at the time because Paramount cut off Strange New Worlds from an international audience! And if and when there’s a trailer, a teaser, or more information revealed about the upcoming season, I daresay I’ll take a look. Until then… Live Long and Prosper!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance and/or Paramount. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek series: The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, and Picard.
So this is it, then! Strange New Worlds Season 3 draws to a close after nine weeks. Perhaps in the days ahead we’ll take stock of the season overall, because there have been some fantastic episodes… and a couple that I was a lot less keen on! Season 4 has already wrapped, with production now underway on what will be Strange New Worlds’ fifth and final season, so there’s more to come – even though we are now, sadly, past the halfway point of the show’s run.
But all of that is yet to come! Today, we’re talking about New Life and New Civilizations – the dramatic and emotional final episode of Season 3. I’ll give you the lowdown, but first comes my usual caveat. This review is the subjective, not objective opinion of one old Trekkie. If you enjoyed the episode more than I did, completely hated it, or just don’t like my take on things… that’s okay. There’s plenty of room in the Star Trek fan community for differences of opinion and polite disagreement, and I share this review with my fellow Trekkies in that spirit.
The Enterprise at the beginning of the episode.
Was New Life and New Civilizations a good episode? I would say yes. Was it a perfect episode? That’s a much higher bar to clear, and I’m afraid I have to say no. I think the episode got a lot of things right, building on story threads from across Season 3 in a way that made sense – while also having time for a genuinely unexpected twist. However, there were issues with the way large parts of the episode were paced, resulting in moments that were too short or where more debate and conversation were needed, as well as quite a bit of jumping around. I also felt that, of all the ways Kirk was brought into stories this season, the excuse here was the flimsiest – even though at least part of the result was positive.
While there were some imperfections, some of which admittedly straddle the line between legitimate criticism and nitpicks, New Life and New Civilizations had heart, and managed to successfully build to an emotional climax – particularly for Captain Pike. This was once known to fans as “the Captain Pike show,” and I’ve noted more than once in recent episodes that Pike himself seems to have taken a back seat. So it was good to get a story that brought him in in a big way, while connecting to the themes of destiny and inevitability which have arguably defined this incarnation of the character.
Captains Batel and Pike.
The first thing I wrote in my notes after the credits had rolled was that New Life and New Civilizations felt like a series finale. The final sequence on the bridge with Pike and the crew reminded me of Kirk at the end of The Undiscovered Country, Picard after All Good Things, and even Burnham in Discovery’s final episode. After the main story had wrapped up, and we’d been treated to one of the most emotional moments in the entire series so far with Pike and Una, that closing scene felt almost eerie. I wonder if, behind the scenes, there was no guarantee of a fourth season, so the decision was taken to wrap everything up and write an ending that could’ve – if necessary – served as a series finale. If that was the objective, I think it worked! Though I’m glad it doesn’t have to be the finale; I’m not ready to lose Strange New Worlds just yet!
Deep Space Nine and Voyager probably got the most comprehensive finales in the franchise, with DS9’s crew going their separate ways and the USS Voyager finally making it back to Earth. But the way this closing scene was scripted and shot was definitely giving me a “series finale” feel. Compared to last season’s cliffhanger, it’s a noticeable change of pace. It was neat, after almost every other Star Trek show of the last few years had told single-season stories, to get that kind of continuing story last time. I could certainly entertain the argument that a two-part version of New Life and New Civilizations might’ve had more room to breathe! But I think it’s noticeable, at least, that this episode seems to have been deliberately crafted in such a way that it could’ve wrapped up the entire show if it had been called upon to do so.
This could’ve been the series finale.
In the run-up to this week’s episode, it felt pretty likely that the Vezda – who appeared in the thoroughly excellent Through the Lens of Time earlier this season – would be making a return, if for no other reason than to tie up that dangling narrative thread. And I saw some fans speculating online about the Vezda’s “true identity” – as I’ve done here on the website with other new additions to Star Trek, like Picard’s super-synths and Discovery’s Species 10-C. But you know what? I’m glad that the Vezda are new to Star Trek, and given the way the franchise has often tried to tie in new storylines to pre-existing alien races and factions – even when they don’t exactly fit the bill – I think it was the right call.
Imagine if, in The Next Generation, we never got to meet the Borg or the Cardassians, because the Romulans and Klingons kept coming back to fill those roles. And instead of meeting, say, the Sheliak or Ux-Mal, we’d gotten episodes with the Tholians or Metrons. Star Trek would feel… smaller. The franchise needs to introduce new alien races, sometimes, in order to grow, and while it can be fun to speculate and theorise about who or what a new faction might be connected to… in this case, I think making the Vezda a brand-new race was the right call.
The Vezda.
It was also a huge shock to see Chris Myers again – reprising his role as the Vezda-possessed Ensign Gamble. Or perhaps we should say the Vezda who assembled a Frankensteinian-transporter-clone of Gamble? I genuinely wasn’t expecting this, even though the Vezda being seen again seemed likely. It was properly hidden ahead of the episode’s premiere, and Myers did an exceptional job in the role – as he had in Through the Lens of Time.
And I think an episode like New Life and New Civilizations needed someone familiar in that villainous role. This is a story we’ve been building to, in different and not-so-obvious ways, perhaps, all season long. It didn’t have to be Gamble from a narrative point of view; the Vezda could’ve cloned someone else, or beamed itself off the Enterprise and possessed a random alien’s body. But having Gamble there, with that extra link to Dr M’Benga and the others – as well as being a familiar face for us as the audience – it added a lot and made this side of the story feel more complete.
This reveal was fantastic.
Let’s talk about the main issue I have with New Life and New Civilizations – its pacing.
In short… this feels like a two-part episode that’s been torn and crumpled to fit into the runtime of a single story. And the result of that is that some scenes were too short, characters seem to jump to wild conclusions incredibly rapidly, Pike and Batel’s fantasy life was raced through, and perhaps most crucially, Batel’s climactic showdown with the Vezda was over far too quickly. We’ll address each of these points in turn, but suffice to say that I don’t think this episode needed another ten minutes – it really needed another forty-five to truly reach its potential.
Two points stand out where characters appeared to make completely wild and almost nonsensical leaps in logic without enough information or buildup. The first was when Dr M’Benga, having read one line above the doorway, decided that this pretty vague and ambiguous statement just had to be all about him and his life. (Even though it referenced an event we’d never heard about before, let alone seen on screen). The second was Captain Batel, when talking with Pike and the others in the science lab, immediately deciding that it was her destiny to defeat and imprison the Vezda for all eternity – while claiming she had all the knowledge she needed to do so.
Did this have to be Captain Batel’s fate?
To be clear: I think both of these story ideas can be made to work. But the pacing is throwing me off. Captain Batel went from “I’m ready for a new assignment as head of Starfleet’s legal division,” to “well obviously I’m the guardian/prison warden who saves the universe from these monsters” in one short conversation, and there just wasn’t enough time dedicated to exploring this idea, what it really means for her, for her relationship with Pike, and the kind of sacrifice it entails. There also wasn’t nearly enough time to explain how or why she feels capable of doing this.
Batel declared, partway through the meeting in the science lab, that she possesses “all” of the knowledge of every species to ever fight the Vezda. But that’s bullshit. She possesses at best the genetic information of two-and-a-bit species – human, Gorn, and, at a stretch, Illyrian. But part of the conversation framed the Vezda as a kind of “ancient evil” that every race and culture in the galaxy had faced in the distant past. So how can having the knowledge of three of them mean she’s qualified to stand up to them? That wasn’t explored at all, and it seems to be at least a worthwhile counterpoint that a longer conversation here could’ve considered.
Batel makes her case to Pike.
This whole preamble just seemed to race by. Scotty realised the transporter had been used to clone Gamble. That took all of about a minute. Then from Pike being summoned to sickbay through the entire science lab conversation? Five minutes. It’s just not enough time on a setup that effectively “kills off” a major recurring character and the love interest of the series’ protagonist. We needed these scenes to last longer, particularly the conversation in the science lab. Other possibilities needed to be considered, and a more solid foundation built for Captain Batel’s sacrifice.
I also feel that the old “show, don’t tell” adage is a bit of a problem on this side of the story. The Vezda, since showing up in Through the Lens of Time, have killed precisely one named character: Ensign Gamble. Pelia made an elaborate speech about how evil they are, and this week even the logical Spock leaned into this idea of the Vezda as an unstoppably powerful “prehistoric evil.” But, for all the talk, we didn’t really see the Vezda do a lot of damage – and thus we don’t fully grasp the stakes involved. Sure, if the Vezda break out of prison, it won’t be great for the pre-warp citizens of Skygowan. But… so what? What, precisely, are the Vezda going to do to them? And what are they going to do to Starfleet and our heroes?
What were the Vezda planning… and why was I meant to care?
The Vezda are not akin to the Gorn – or to invading aliens from other iterations of Star Trek, like the Dominion or Borg. They don’t even possess spaceships, and if the ones we saw in the prison are all the Vezda that exist… I mean, one photon torpedo from orbit would be all it would take to end their entire civilisation. They’re talked up as being hugely powerful, unstoppable, and evil – but we don’t actually see a ton of that on screen. We’ve only met one Vezda – the one who possessed Gamble. And for all we know, he could be an outlier.
My point is this: this moment needed more time on screen. Captain Batel makes a life-changing decision based on the very un-Starfleet ideas of fate and destiny in way too short a span of time, without really listening to or considering alternatives. And the reason why she makes this decision – to stop the Vezda and keep them contained in a prison – is based on information which is incomplete at best. Surely Starfleet – an organisation dedicated to, y’know, seeking out “New Life and New Civilizations” – would want to study the Vezda, learn more about them, and then come to a conclusion about whether to pursue this kind of conflict. Instead, Batel and the others simply declare them to be “pure evil” based on one interaction with a single individual.
“Ensign Gamble.”
Then, during the away mission, we have Dr M’Benga deciding that a random inscription – which was pretty vaguely-worded – can only be about himself. No time was taken to consider alternatives, or to come to this realisation at a more reasonable pace. This part of Dr M’Benga’s backstory was also, as far as I can recall, not even known to us as the audience ahead of time. Why not, for example, use Dr M’Benga’s murder of the Klingon defector from last season’s Under the Cloak of War to set up this story point? It would’ve at least been a callback to something we’ve seen for ourselves.
I liked the idea that Gamble needed Dr M’Benga to open the doorway; that there was a narrative reason for the inscription and for Gamble to have to wait. I just felt, as above with Captain Batel, that the pacing of the way M’Benga arrived at the realisation was simply too fast, and that it doesn’t make sense in-universe. If it had used his name, for example, or even if it was just worded less ambiguously, I think it could’ve been stronger. But several factors came together to make it feel rushed and less impactful than it should’ve been.
The door to the prison.
“A young boy was not yet a man, but his time had come, to kill or be killed; a knife in his hands.” That’s the full line that Dr M’Benga read before deciding that this vaguely-worded and poetic line could only be referring to himself. And no one else stepped in to say “uh, hang on a minute there, Dr Self-Centred, it’s a pretty ambiguous statement, don’t ya think?” Taking just an extra couple of minutes on this sequence, with the other members of the away team considering possible interpretations before Dr M’Benga interjected with that fact about himself would’ve done a lot to sell me on it. And if we’d known already about Dr M’Benga’s childhood, or connected this line to something we’ve already seen on screen, such as his Klingon War service, that would’ve improved things a lot.
This is what I mean about pacing: we can use the same words and get to the same conclusion… but if the route is too quick, it undermines what the story wants to say. Dr M’Benga finding a statement carved in stone on an alien world that’s all about him is, in theory, an interesting idea that ties into the episode’s story about time and linearity, and contributes to the idea of the Vezda as being significantly more powerful than the Federation. But if you rush it, you botch it. When this fact about Dr M’Benga’s past was brand-new, and the wording that led him to that conclusion was so vague… we needed to spend more time here. Or the reference needed to be more overt: “The portal only opens for the one you call… M’Benga.” There. Fixed it.
This moment was horribly rushed.
I have enjoyed Paul Wesley’s take on Kirk since he first appeared in the Season 1 finale. Most of Kirk’s appearances have made sense in context… but of all the excuses to bring Kirk into Strange New Worlds, the one this week felt the weakest. I’ll try to explain what I mean. Firstly, Captain Pike reached out to the Farragut… but didn’t speak directly with Captain Whatshername (the Vulcan). Instead, for some reason, he speaks with the first officer. That was already a bit… odd.
But then, later, Spock decides he needs to mind-meld with someone in order to coordinate this “two ships firing phasers at the same time” idea. But… why? The crew could reasonably infer Gamble’s intention: that he wanted to go to Vadia IX and free his fellow prisoners. And Pelia, in another disappointingly weak and underdeveloped scene, confirmed that one of the “interdimensional ley lines” from Skygowan led directly to Vadia IX. So… why did Pike and Batel need to open the portal when they could’ve just warped there in the Enterprise? It’s not like getting into the Vadia IX prison was complicated; all it needed was a pinprick, and Captain Batel is dead set on staying there anyway. So all of this mind-melding and phaser coordination just felt like a totally unnecessary narrative diversion. In a stronger, better-paced episode, perhaps it would’ve been less noticeable. But in an episode where the main story was desperate for more time on screen, it’s a particularly egregious waste of time.
The crew already knew the Vezda’s destination… so why not warp there?
In The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail, I said that I really liked seeing Kirk and Spock’s burgeoning bromance. After Uhura had been the one to introduce them, their friendship seemed to be growing and developing really well. But… does New Life and New Civilizations at least imply that the reason they’d become such good friends is because they shared a mind-meld? If so… how do we feel about that? I said earlier in the season that Kirk serving under a Vulcan captain – especially when she’s such a nonentity that I’ve forgotten her name – comes a bit close to treading on the toes of his friendship with Spock, and how the two of them worked to overcome the cultural differences between humans and Vulcans in The Original Series. But now… is this episode not saying that at least part of why they’re such good friends by the time of TOS is connected to the mind-meld? If so, I’d argue very strongly that it detracts from their friendship and from one of Star Trek’s most important and iconic character duos.
Any prequel needs to tread carefully. And speaking for myself, I don’t really like the implication in New Life and New Civilizations that Kirk and Spock’s friendship was, at the very least, accelerated or enhanced by a mind-meld. To me, it seems to take something away from the organic and natural chemistry they’ve always had. As I’ve said more than once when discussing Star Trek’s various prequels: not everything demands an on-screen explanation down to the finest detail. Kirk and Spock are friends – perhaps more than friends. There doesn’t have to be a reason; people can just like each other and develop strong bonds.
Spock and Kirk’s mind-meld.
Given that this setup felt pretty flimsy, and that I don’t like the implication of the mind-meld for Kirk and Spock’s friendship… I actually felt their scenes together were pretty great. Set aside whether the story actually needed them to fire phasers exactly in sync, and whether Pike should’ve talked to Kirk’s captain first. The Spock and Kirk scenes themselves were a lot of fun. I particularly liked Kirk calling their meeting a “date,” or at least implying that it could be – whether jokingly or not. I noted a few weeks ago that, with Strange New Worlds’ writers apparently set on making Spock sleep his way through all of the female members of the Enterprise’s crew, they seemed to be going out of their way to erase any possibility of “Spirk” in canon. (“Spirk” referring to the fan theory/fan-fic that Kirk and Spock were romantically involved). This “date” line definitely puts that back on the table for folks who want to see or believe in that – and I was pleased to see it.
It was also undeniably cool to see Spock and Kirk making those perfectly in sync movements. And the CGI on this side of the story – putting the Farragut and Enterprise together in a kind of “ballet in space,” was a really cool visual effect. It reminded me of both Picard’s linked-up fleet in the 25th Century and the Klingon ships during last season’s musical episode, which also seemed to be “dancing” with the Enterprise.
This was a really cool visual.
With Captain Pike and Captain Batel, the writers of New Life and New Civilizations clearly had a lot they wanted to do. Unfortunately, because this story really needed to be a two-parter, I don’t think either of the main ideas worked as well as they should’ve done.
Captain Batel’s climactic fight against the Vezda was over in… what? Less than two minutes. That’s all the time it took her, after the end of the fantasty-life/alternate timeline sequence, to use her magic Gorn-Illyrian powers to defeat and imprison them, then turn herself into a statue. It didn’t feel like the war of good versus evil that it was set up to be… because it was over in a flash. If you stepped away from the screen to grab a glass of water, you’d have missed the whole thing.
Then we have the fantasy sequence itself. Obviously something like this is going to be jumpy – you can’t condense a lifetime into a short runtime without skipping over years or decades. But really, if what the writing team wanted to go for was something comparable to The Inner Light from The Next Generation, this needed to be basically an entire episode all by itself. This is where I’d have made the biggest change to New Life and New Civilizations. Half of “Part One” would’ve been taken up reaching this point, then the second half and the entire first half of “Part Two” would’ve been just the fantasy sequence. It needed room to breathe and, because it had to be packed in with everything else in the story… it didn’t get it.
The Vezda’s prison.
I’ve said before that I’m not a particularly big fan of The Inner Light. But compared with that story, this premise actually feels a lot stronger. We’re seeing Pike and Batel living their lives – a fantasy version, at least. A world in which Pike doesn’t get injured, in which he and Captain Batel get married, have a daughter, and grow old together. Compared with the disconnected story of The Inner Light, which took place centuries in the past and didn’t involve anyone from The Next Generation save for a version of Picard, that’s a really strong and incredibly emotional idea.
And to be clear: we got a lot of that emotion in New Life and New Civilizations. I just don’t think we got all that we could’ve. If we’d spent more time with these versions of the characters, perhaps seeing Pike’s relief at not becoming disabled, spending more time with the younger version of Juliet, watching her grow up… there were a lot of opportunities that were missed to really ramp up the emotional side of things because this entire sequence could only last ten minutes. Again, when you compare it with The Inner Light – or just consider what a forty-plus-minute cut could have looked like – it doesn’t have the same impact. It comes up short, which is a real shame, because the bare bones of the idea work so well and there’s so much potential here.
Batel and Pike in their fantasy life.
The point of the fantasy sequence was for Batel to show the sacrifice she was making, but also for Captain Pike to catch a glimpse of the life he could have led. Given Pike’s impending fate – which, again, is set in concrete and cannot be altered – that’s such a cruel tease. He got to see the daughter he’ll never have, marry the love of his life, go through the elation of avoiding a debilitating condition that he thought was guaranteed to happen… then it was all ripped away from him. As we saw with Picard after The Inner Light, I expect we’ll see at least some kind of follow-up to this story next season. But… that follow-up isn’t going to be as impactful as it might’ve been if this sequence had been longer and stronger.
Did Pike experience his entire fantasy life in real-time… or did he only see the moments that we as the audience also got to see? That was left totally up in the air by the time the credits rolled, and I think Strange New Worlds had an opportunity to take the basic concept behind not only The Inner Light but also stories like Deep Space Nine’s Hard Time and really expand upon it. The idea of someone living a full life in this kind of fantasy world, then being dragged back – unwillingly – to the real world and having to face the consequences of that… it’s an interesting story idea that past iterations of Star Trek, being wholly episodic, could only take so far. And I really do look forward to seeing how Pike handles this experience in Season 4, and to what extent it will have an impact on him. I just wish the sequence itself had been longer and more fleshed out in this week’s episode.
Did Captain Pike live an entire lifetime… or just experience parts of it?
There’s a lot to love in the fantasy-life sequence. And I think it achieved at least some of what it was supposed to in terms of ramping up the emotional nature of Batel’s sacrifice, and keeping the focus grounded on two characters and their lives, rather than straying too far into lofty ideas about “pure evil” and “saving the galaxy.” Given the weaknesses on that side of the story… New Life and New Civilizations benefited from this change in focus.
And for Captain Pike, whose future is still predetermined, it’s such a rug-pull that it feels cruel. Pike got to see what his life might’ve been like under different circumstances – having a wife, a daughter, and remaining in good health – and then it was taken away from him again. Depending on your outlook, having had a taste of something, only to lose it, can be worse than never having experienced it at all – and so it may be for Captain Pike. Obviously we aren’t going to spend Season 4 with Pike sulking in his quarters, and I think the end of New Life and New Civilizations at least tried to set up that Pike is back in the captain’s chair and ready to resume his mission. But… dealing with the lingering emotional consequences could be an engaging storyline next time, if handled well.
Captain Pike got to see what life could be like if he and Batel escaped their fates.
Taking all of the above into account, particularly the problems with pacing, the overstuffed story, and the need for this particular episode to have really been split into two parts… where do we stand?
In my opinion, New Life and New Civilizations has a lot going for it. It’s a lot better than, for example, Four-and-a-Half Vulcans or Subspace Rhapsody. But it’s also the weakest of the three season finales that we’ve seen so far – A Quality of Mercy and Hegemony are significantly better, more tightly-focused, and a lot more enjoyable.
But there are things to appreciate, and having talked about what I didn’t like, I think it’s only fair to move on to what worked well in New Life and New Civilizations.
Scans of Captain Batel and the statue.
Although not as strong or as well-developed as I’d have liked, the fantasy-life sequence was genuinely interesting and emotional. It challenged our perceptions of Pike, and what kind of life he and Batel could have led if things were different, but both characters stayed true to themselves throughout. I’m not convinced that Pike, being aware of what lay in store for him, would have chosen to get married – let alone have a child – but having a rock-solid family life definitely upped the stakes and ramped up the emotional storytelling. I’m working with the head canon explanation that this fantasy-life was created entirely by Captain Batel based on her ideas of what an ideal life would’ve been like, and I think that’s more than enough to explain any apparent discrepancies. It’s also why I’m calling it a “fantasy” as opposed to something like an “alternate timeline.”
We don’t get to see Pike as a nurturing family man very often, and I really liked catching a glimpse of what that could look like. It was bittersweet in the best possible way (if that even makes sense), as we saw Pike living in a beautiful house, with Batel by his side, a daughter, and even a pet dog. If the worst thing I can say about that is “I wish we’d spent longer here and seen more of it,” well… that’s not exactly a damning criticism, is it?
Pike with Batel and their daughter, Juliet.
I also liked the idea of Pike and his daughter, Juliet, having such a strong bond that he’d be the first to know about her engagement. I’m not sure making her fiancé Admiral April’s son was necessary, but we got a cute connection between Pike’s family and “Uncle Spock,” which was just really sweet. Pike having perhaps retired from Starfleet is an interesting direction for his character in this fantasy sequence; I like to think that he’d have been worried about making changes to the timeline after the events of A Quality of Mercy.
And for Captain Batel, who I guess knew all along that this was just a fantasy… again, that’s heartbreaking. It was performed incredibly well by Melanie Scrofano, who’s been a wonderful recurring star on Strange New Worlds. I said ages ago that her relationship with Captain Pike had a “time limit,” but for it to have ended this way – prematurely, even, from Pike’s point of view – is tragic. Her final act was one of sacrifice, and even though there were narrative weaknesses with the Vezda that I would argue kept us from fully understanding the nature and necessity of that sacrifice, as a grounded and emotional storyline, it worked incredibly well.
Captain Batel and Captain Pike at the end of their fantasy life.
Toward the end of the episode, Pike and Una shared a moment together as he recovered from the loss of Captain Batel. Since Pike went out on a limb for Una back at the beginning of Season 2, we haven’t seen them spend that much time together, so this was a sweet moment. For Una to be the one he’d turn to when at such a low ebb said a lot about the nature of their friendship, I felt.
This closing montage also showed us Sam and Jim Kirk sitting down together, Pelia and Scotty working on something together in the science lab, Ortegas, Uhura, and Una sharing a drink, Spock and La’an meditating, and Dr M’Benga reuniting with Chapel in sickbay. These small clips were cute, and they added a lot to the ending of the story. Again, there’s that “series finale” vibe to this montage, but the individual clips – and the voiceover tying them together – were great.
Una and Pike sharing a drink.
At the beginning of the episode, we got another fun sequence with the crew in Pike’s quarters – and Scotty being the latest victim of the “showing up in your dress uniform” prank that Uhura also fell for back in Season 1. I liked Scotty’s flustered reaction, here, it was cute. And Martin Quinn (whom I met at a Star Trek convention here in the UK not long ago) showed off that side of the younger Scotty incredibly well. There was also a Doctor Who reference during this sequence – Pelia mentioned having once known a “time-travelling doctor.” Obviously this was just a little easter egg; a nod and wink to fans of sci-fi. But it was a fun inclusion, and I like to see Star Trek making little in-jokes like that from time to time.
Dr Korby, although his role was smaller this time, made a welcome return. His presence this season has been a thread of continuity, binding different episodes together, and I think his relationship with Chapel is played well by both Jess Bush and Cillian O’Sullivan. Dr Korby took what he’d learned on Vadia IX and continued to pursue it, again in the name of finding some pathway to eternal life. There’s a lot of deliberate foreshadowing here, setting up Korby’s role (and ultimate demise) in The Original Series.
Korby and Chapel.
The first away mission to Skygowan (before the crew apparently gave up on the idea of going incognito and, y’know, following the Prime Directive) included some wonderful colourful costumes, and I really liked the way Una, Uhura, Chapel, La’an, and Dr M’Benga looked. Those costumes felt like they came straight out of The Original Series or The Next Generation, which I really do mean as a compliment. I also liked the way the aesthetic of Vadia IX’s prison from a few weeks ago was retained, but given a more lively feel. The use of the AR wall was pretty solid here, too.
Despite some narrative weaknesses on his side of the story, Anson Mount put in a spectacular performance. Particularly towards the end of the episode, I really felt Pike’s grief and the weight of what he’d lost – not only Captain Batel, but the fantasy life that he could have led. This was a challenging role, one which involved putting Pike in old age makeup as the fantasy timeline unfolded, showing him wrangling with the changes to the timeline, gaining and then losing a family, and really going through a range of emotions. Mount did an exceptional job.
Anson Mount did a fantastic job in this episode.
Before we wrap things up, I want to talk about one more topic.
Star Trek is science-fiction, and some of its storylines lean heavily on the “fiction” side of that little hyphen! But one area where I’ve felt Star Trek has been more detached and rational in its approach is when it comes to questions like “fate” and “destiny.” Even Captain Pike’s story – with its ending set in stone – isn’t treated as his “destiny,” but rather as the consequences of choices he made. As Pike said in Discovery: “I’m not going to abandon the things that make me who I am because of a future… that contains an ending I hadn’t foreseen for myself.” Whatever we think of “time crystals” and the Klingons on Boreth, the way the story was presented made it clear that it was still Pike’s choice. A Quality of Mercy, with its time-travelling future Pike, doubled-down on that, explaining that Pike does have the freedom to avoid his accident, but that it comes at a price.
This story, in contrast, really went out of its way to lean into the ideas of fate and destiny… and I gotta be honest: I don’t love that for Star Trek. Some stories in fantasy settings work really well with the idea of a character’s fate or the outcome of a battle being predetermined, but I don’t think it’s right for a sci-fi series like Strange New Worlds. I didn’t like it when Deep Space Nine messed about with Sisko’s birth, saying it was caused by the Prophets so he could be their Emissary, and I don’t like it here with Captain Batel, either. It feels, to me, too far removed from the more objective and scientific way that Starfleet officers handle things.
This was Captain Batel’s “destiny.”
There was a creditable attempt to explain this, with Spock talking about “effect coming before cause,” and time being non-linear. That throws a scientific bone in the direction of this story about fate. But at no point did it seem as if Captain Batel had a choice or could regain control of her life and her future. Once Chapel established that Batel was the Vadia IX statue, and she’d decided it was her destiny… that was it. Everyone just kind of went along with it. And this isn’t just a question of pacing, though a longer version of this story could have dedicated more time to this debate. But rather it’s a question of whether a story about predetermination and fate – presented in this manner – is right for Star Trek. I’d argue that it’s not. It wasn’t right with Sisko and the Prophets, and it isn’t right with Batel and the Vezda, either.
There are other Star Trek stories which have come close to this line. Daniels and Archer in Enterprise, Picard with Q in The Next Generation, and even The City on the Edge of Forever all looked at questions of destiny and unavoidable fates. But it’s about how these stories are presented, not so much their content, and for me at least, New Life and New Civilizations went too far with the idea of Captain Batel having a predetermined “destiny” in a way that felt closer to fantasy than sci-fi.
Spock talked about effect coming before cause and time being non-linear.
Here’s a question: with Captain Batel being written out of the series… does that mean there’s now an open slot for a new recurring character? If so, it’s bound to be someone else from The Original Series, right? Maybe in a future piece we’ll have to speculate about that! I’ll also go into this in more detail another time, but I generally liked what Strange New Worlds did with recurring characters this season. Kirk, Dr Korby, and Captain Batel all had roles to play in some episodes, but not all, and I felt they worked pretty well.
But after Kirk’s first appearance came in the Season 1 finale and Scotty showed up at the end of Season 2, I can’t have been alone in wondering if we might’ve gotten a new TOS character this time! I’m kind of glad we didn’t, though, and I could absolutely entertain the idea of Season 4 not introducing anyone new, but rather narrowing its focus on the characters already in play. Some folks, like Pelia, haven’t had a lot of time in the spotlight, so bringing in someone like Sulu, McCoy, or even a secondary character like Kor to fill the slot vacated by Batel isn’t strictly necessary.
Will Strange New Worlds replace Captain Batel with a TOS character?
So let’s bring this review to a conclusion.
“Good but not great.” That’s my four-word summary, I guess. In a season where some episodes have been truly fantastic, I don’t think New Life and New Civilizations reached the highest bar. But it wasn’t the season’s weakest offering by any stretch, and my complaints mostly focus on the fact that potentially interesting storylines were cut too short, paced poorly, and not given enough time to shine. I think, if I were in charge, I’d have cut an episode like Wedding Bell Blues or Four-and-a-Half Vulcans in favour of a two-part version of this story.
But that doesn’t mean I hated New Life and New Civilizations. The decision to keep the Vezda as a brand-new alien race was a good one. The sets and costumes were great, and there were some fantastic uses of the AR wall, as well as a beautiful starship “dance” in space. Though Kirk’s inclusion in the story felt particularly flimsy, I liked his scenes with Spock overall, and furthering their relationship was a good choice. Dr M’Benga got an emotional turn with Gamble, and Pike’s fantasy-life sequence could, potentially, set up something for him in Seasons 4 or 5.
The Enterprise warps away to her next adventure.
So that’s a wrap on Season 3. It was a two-year wait after Season 2 ended, but that was partially due to strikes over in Hollywood. With Starfleet Academy on the schedule for the first half of 2026, and presumably taking up time and resources in post-production, I wouldn’t expect to see Season 4 of Strange New Worlds for at least a year – and 2027 isn’t off the table. So… watch this space, I guess! Having finally reviewed all ten Season 2 episodes – and gotten around to Season 3 in a much more timely manner – I’d like to go back and write up re-watches of Season 1 in the months ahead. I hope you’ll join me for some of those!
And there’s more Star Trek content to come here on the website. Later in the autumn, I’d like to do a review of the Khan audio drama, I’m planning a couple of episode re-watches involving actors that I met at a recent Star Trek convention, and there’s the upcoming Voyager video game that I’m looking forward to, too. And, of course, there’s my usual chatter, previews, and theory-crafting! So even though Strange New Worlds Season 3 is over… don’t be a stranger. Check back from time to time, because I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say about Star Trek.
Live Long and Prosper, everyone!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance and/or Paramount. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series Season 1, The Search for Spock, The Next Generation Season 3, Discovery Season 2, and Picard.
Of all the main characters on Strange New Worlds, we’ve spent the least amount of time with Erica Ortegas. She’s been a presence on the show and has had some memorable scenes, but she hasn’t gotten a major storyline or a spotlight episode… until now. There are reasons for that, of course, and we don’t have to go over all of it again. But I know that a lot of Trekkies – myself included – have been waiting for an episode in which Ortegas would get her moment to shine.
And what an episode it was!
Terrarium was intense, dramatic, emotional, and just fantastic. It’s rare for me to sit down to write a review having taken no notes, but I was so absorbed in the story that I genuinely didn’t have a second’s pause to write anything. The only negatives I can find from Terrarium are total nitpicks; the kinds of silly things only the most detail-obsessed Trekkies might ever care about. The episode really was exceptional. One of the best from all three seasons of the show without a doubt.
Uh-oh, Ortegas is in a spot of bother…
Because Strange New Worlds is a prequel, and because we know that several of the characters it includes will go on to have careers in Starfleet during The Original Series era, it isn’t always easy for the show to create a genuine sense of danger. We know Pike’s fate, we know where Spock will end up, and we know Uhura, Scotty, Chapel, Dr M’Benga, and others all have futures beyond the series. In the modern entertainment landscape, that can change how we perceive stories which put these people in the firing line.
In the aftermath of shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones – shows which use what I’ve termed the “disposable cast,” where any main character can be killed off at almost any moment – television storytelling has shifted. Being a main character is no longer a guarantee of safety. Star Trek has struggled to keep pace, with characters in Picard and Discovery almost all surviving even the most apocalyptic dangers (or being resurrected afterwards!) But Strange New Worlds has already been different – Season 1 saw the untimely demise of the brand-new character of Hemmer. Terrarium got me to feel like Ortegas was genuinely in danger of losing her life and being written out of the show in a way that stories like Shuttle to Kenfori simply couldn’t for Pike and M’Benga. And I think that shows the advantages, in this new media environment, of using brand-new characters as opposed to relying too heavily on legacy characters whose fates and futures are set in stone.
This genuinely felt like it could’ve been the end for Ortegas…
I said recently that I don’t like when Star Trek stories blatantly rip off what’s come before, but I appreciate it when they “rhyme.” And for me, Terrarium reminded me of The Next Generation Season 3 episode The Enemy, in which Geordi La Forge and Bochra, a Romulan, are similarly trapped together on the desolate planet of Galorndon Core. The barren, stormy world, the pairing up of a Federation officer with a member of an enemy faction… Terrarium uses these same elements in a similar way, but still feels like a totally distinct story. That isn’t easy to pull off, and the differences between the stories – the shuttle crash, the wormhole, the difficulty of communicating with the Gorn, and Ortegas’ hostility toward the Gorn as she still processes her trauma – are a big part of what makes Terrarium work.
If I might make one criticism that falls outside of nitpick territory, it would be the editing and pacing of a few of the scenes. In short, Ortgeas seemed desperate for food and water immediately after crash-landing, and the passage of time was not particularly well-communicated at first. Pike said, at one point, that they’d been searching for her for over two days, and by the time she was eventually rescued, even more time seemed to have passed. Ortegas might’ve spent a couple of days on the moon before encountering the Gorn. Or a week. Or a few hours. Or maybe she and the Gorn lived together for a couple of weeks before the rescue? Some of those scenes just felt a little… choppy, if that makes sense – particularly the sequence after Ortegas crash-landed, and the scenes in the run-up to her first meeting with the Gorn. I can’t help but feel adding a card or some text saying “48 hours later…” or something like that might’ve helped at a couple of points.
It wasn’t totally clear to me how much time passed in between some of these sequences.
Can I skip to the end and talk about that? Because the end of Terrarium was brutal. After working together, surviving together, and planning out an escape together… for Ortegas’ Gorn friend to just be gunned down by La’an and the redshirts was harrowing. Star Trek stories almost always present our heroes as being in the right – even if they do something bad or against the rules, it’s almost always for a noble reason. La’an and the security team just opened fire without warning against an unarmed opponent, killing her in cold blood. I was shocked – and I’m genuinely struggling to call to mind a similar moment anywhere in Star Trek, in which the death of a friendly character was handled with such ruthlessness by Starfleet personnel.
The writers took a narrative necessity – that the Federation couldn’t have a Gorn just hanging out aboard the flagship years before the events of Arena – and turned it into a truly shocking twist ending for this kind of “let’s all learn to live together in peace” storyline. Ortegas is probably the second character, after La’an, to have held such genuine fear and hatred for the Gorn, and it seemed as if Terrarium was trying to echo Arena and similar Star Trek “morality plays” with a story all about overcoming hatred, finding common ground, and learning to work together. All of that was ripped away with seconds to spare – after Ortegas and the Gorn had risked everything to achieve rescue. It was… well, it was brutal. There’s no other word for it.
Shocking and brutal.
Ortegas still learned a lot, of course. She overcame her fear and hatred for the Gorn, and as the Metron told her at the end of the episode, that was real and she’ll be able to retain all of that knowledge and those feelings. She’ll also be able to convey to Starfleet that the Gorn can, under the right circumstances, be dealt with, reasoned with, and communicated with – which, hopefully, are things that could set the stage for dialogue in the future. So those “morality play” ideas are still present, they still matter, and they’re still a big part of the episode’s story. It feels very “Star Trek” in a way that not every modern episode has done!
But the ending is straight out of the modern entertainment playbook! Arena ended with Kirk injuring the Gorn, but refusing to kill him. The Enemy ended with La Forge and his Romulan counterpart being rescued. But Terrarium went for the twist ending, the shock of seeing Ortegas’ new friend gunned down right at the moment of victory. Betrayed by Starfleet – unintentionally, perhaps, and even arguably understandably – but that doesn’t make it feel better.
La’an firing her phaser rifle. (Colour/brightness tweaked for clarity)
If anything, I’d say this kind of ending ramps up the “morality play” angle. Terrarium is different from the likes of Arena and The Enemy, which got happier, or at least more positive endings. But the final act of Terrarium hammers home its message about bridging cultural divides, working with someone from a different race, and finding comradeship with an enemy. Ripping that away so coldly, and for no good reason, shows us how far Starfleet and the Federation still have to go – and how the “good guys” can still make mistakes or be too quick to anger.
This is what Star Trek has always been about – just updated with a more modern style. What was the point of The Enemy, if not learning to see an enemy as an equal? Or Arena – that “the other” is not a monster, but a person? Kirk starts his battle with the Gorn by talking of the revulsion he feels for the reptilian monster, but stops short of killing him at the end. Terrarium builds from the same narrative foundation, but twists the knife right at the end. Ortegas may have learned to let go of her fear and her hate… but Starfleet is still too quick to reach for the phaser.
Ortegas came to see the Gorn as a friend.
Despite feeling like she was genuinely in danger the entire time, I’m glad Ortegas lives to fight another day. The opening act of Terrarium, which showed Ortegas with Spock and Uhura, felt comparable in tone to how Discovery set up Airiam’s death, or how, earlier this season, Ensign Gamble was sent on the away mission that claimed his life. That kind of setup, knowing what we know of modern Star Trek, has an almost eerie feel, so when Ortegas’ mission went wrong and she crash-landed, I really did feel like she was in danger.
Given that Strange New Worlds has been adding to its roster of legacy characters, fleshing them out, and even trying to set up a “Year One” spin-off focusing on the likes of Kirk, Spock, and Scotty… I wondered if Ortegas might be about to be brushed aside to bring someone like Sulu on board. But I’m very glad that didn’t happen (or at least, it hasn’t happened yet) because she’s someone we’re still getting to know – and she’s such a fun character. Ortegas is cut from the same cloth as Voyager’s Tom Paris insofar as she’s a genuinely passionate pilot, not just a helmsman. Having that kind of person in the pilot’s seat – both of the Enterprise and in shuttlecraft – is a ton of fun, and I can feel her passion for the role every time she takes the helm. Shuffling her out of the way to make way for Sulu (or another legacy character) wouldn’t sit right with me.
Ortegas is at home in the pilot’s seat.
Speaking of piloting… what do we make of Captain Pike taking the helm? I absolutely loved it – and I think Terrarium is a great episode for Pike, despite him not being the centre of attention. I wrote last week that, across the three seasons of Strange New Worlds that we’ve had so far, several episodes saw Pike transformed into a different person, recreated as a hologram, or just… behaving out-of-character. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like it’s almost a refreshing change of pace to see Pike as the upstanding, decent, honourable Starfleet captain that we remember – the character who, as Trekkies, we were so desperate to see given his own show.
Pike taking the helm also reminded me of another Next Generation Season 3 episode: Booby Trap. That episode sees Picard – to the shock of everyone on the bridge – take the helm to guide the Enterprise-D out of a sticky situation, and Pike’s turn at the helm definitely brought up echoes of that story for me. I would’ve liked to see Pike take his seat, perhaps… but maybe that would’ve been too similar, I don’t know. Either way, it was a really great moment, and it drew on Pike’s history as a Starfleet test pilot, which Strange New Worlds has brought up on a few occasions. I like that this is an ongoing aspect of his character and wasn’t newly-invented for Terrarium; these consistent story threads make a series and a setting feel so much more real.
Captain Pike at the helm.
Pike’s side of the story also brought up the weight of command and the difficulties of making command decisions. This is something we know weighs on the captain – in The Cage (and The Menagerie) Pike spoke about how he felt the burden of command and how being responsible for the ship and crew was taking a toll on him. In Terrarium, Pike had to balance the needs of the many with the needs of the one (to quote a future Mr Spock), wanting to do everything in his power to search for and save the wayward Ortegas – but having a time limit to deliver vaccines to a colony world.
I loved Pike’s line to Uhura that he knew she “fudged the numbers,” and he would’ve undertaken the rescue mission regardless. I think that says a lot about the kind of captain he is, and the way he handles his ship and crew. Pike was confronted with a genuinely impossible situation, but he stayed calm, he did everything he could to buy his crew as much time as possible to look for Ortegas, and his role this week reminded me exactly why I was so keen on “the Captain Pike show” back in 2019!
This was a great episode for both Uhura and Pike.
Did you spot a reference to The Doomsday Machine? Decker – a commodore by the time of The Original Series – was in command of the USS Constellation, the ship Pike and the Enterprise were set to rendezvous with in Terrarium. I just thought that was a neat little reference. It doesn’t need to be expanded into something massive, with the Constellation and Commodore Decker being shown on screen next week, but it was a cute little nod and wink to Trekkies – and another reminder that all of these stories are taking place in a shared setting. It wasn’t a big thing, but it was neat that the writers went the extra mile, instead of saying that the vaccines were to be delivered to Captain Bob of the USS Whatsisname.
Terrarium was also a fantastic episode for Uhura. Her empathy and love were on full display as she supported Ortegas ahead of her first solo mission in months, then became the strongest advocate for searching for her, even when Spock seemed (perhaps a little too keen) to throw cold water on her plans. We’ve seen Uhura grow in confidence across Strange New Worlds so far, and as Pike remarked, bending the rules is a new frontier for her! But it came from an understandable place, and had been set up incredibly well earlier in the episode.
Uhura at the episode’s climax.
Uhura has had several “moments” across the first three seasons of Strange New Worlds in which she becomes more confident, solidifies her relationship with Starfleet, or just grows in some way. And Terrarium was another great example, building on storylines like visiting the comet, bonding with Hemmer, and inspiring the crew to sing their way out of trouble. The notion that Uhura would do anything to help a friend in need… that’s a core part of the character we remember, and seeing her bend the rules, thinking that was the only way to help Ortegas? It sets up Uhura joining Kirk’s mission to steal the Enterprise in Star Trek III, as well as countless other examples of her going out of her way to help her friends.
Spock was, perhaps, a little too quick to dismiss some of Uhura’s ideas – but this was never really presented as a conflict; more so a hurdle for Uhura to overcome. And Spock, despite his initial predictions of failure, didn’t come across as being a jerk for the sake of it. He even stayed with Uhura, continuing to help her work on her simulations, which I think also says a lot about how far he’s come across the show so far. After so many “Spock comedy” storylines – something I talked about at length last week – it’s nice to see Spock in a more familiar and straight-laced role. It’s also nice to see Spock contributing, but taking a back seat to other characters. This side of the story mostly looked at Uhura and, to a lesser extent, Pike. Spock played a role, but he doesn’t always have to be centre-stage.
Uhura and Spock.
So let’s return to the main part of the story: Ortegas and the Gorn.
I really liked the moon that Ortegas crashed on. It made fantastic use of the AR wall, and just felt like such a barren and desolate place. Seeing the wind sweeping across the surface of the moon, with nothing but dust and rocks in sight, with occasional quakes and rumbles shaking the ground… it made for a very unnerving place to have crash-landed; very lonely, very bleak. The addition of the flaming blue gas giant in the sky obviously added a huge sense of impending danger, which was intimidating. The camera work on the surface of the moon, combined with the AR wall, actually led to a really great effect – something Paramount hasn’t always been competent at if you look back at some other recent Star Trek projects, like Discovery’s fifth season.
And this sense of being lost, alone, and trapped in a desolate, barren wasteland was really hammered home by the presence of the wormhole. I don’t think we ever learned exactly how far away the wormhole’s terminus was from where the Enterprise was situated – but, as Spock said, it could be basically anywhere in the universe. That added so much to the sense of isolation and abandonment compared to, say, an episode like The Enemy, in which the Enterprise-D was still in orbit, even if for technobabble reasons it wasn’t possible to beam out Geordi right away. Again, that sense of genuine danger – that we might be about to lose Ortegas from the series entirely – was ramped up by just how badly wrong this mission was going.
The Enterprise in the wormhole.
A couple of weeks ago, I said that I was worried that Ortegas’ injury and trauma from the beginning of the season hadn’t been picked up in a big way, and that if it did come back, it would be harder to pull off effectively after having seen her “back to normal.” And I stand by that to an extent – I think if, instead of Terrarium, we’d gotten a Discovery-style “let’s all talk about our feelings” story, it would have been difficult to put Ortegas into that after several episodes had passed in between her injury, her insubordination, and her apparent recovery. But because of the way Terrarium approached it – putting her face-to-face with a Gorn for the first time since the end of Hegemony, Part II – it actually worked incredibly well.
Ortegas’ character arc built on her earlier encounter with the Gorn and the lingering trauma it caused her without feeling like we’d missed a step. By throwing her into this tense survival situation, we got to see her going from “just kill me already you alien monster,” to “okay, we can be friends.” And Terrarium built this up slowly and carefully, taking us from Ortegas’ shock at spotting the Gorn, trying to hide, fearing for her life, and eventually coming to terms with the fact that they’d have to work together to have any chance of escape. It was incredibly well written – and given that Melissa Navia was the only one to actually have any dialogue on this side of the story, incredibly well performed and emoted. Having to act out an incredibly intense and emotional storyline against a person in a Gorn suit can’t have been easy – but she made it look easy! This is why, for almost three full seasons, a lot of us have been champing at the bit for a proper Ortegas episode!
Melissa Navia absolutely excelled.
We got to see Ortegas run the gamut of emotions. The elation of her mission and the piloting challenge, the anxiety and loneliness after the crash-landing, the sheer terror of her first Gorn encounter, a slowly-developing friendship which culmintaed in board games, and the abject grief at her new friend’s utterly brutal execution. And Melissa Navia had to do all of that (well, almost all of it) on her own, with no other actor to bounce her lines off of. It’s an incredible solo acting performance, one which really encompasses a huge range of different emotional states across a dangerous and nearly fatal away mission.
After Strange New Worlds has reimagined the Gorn to be closer to Alien’s Xenomorphs or other horror movie monsters, it was incredibly refreshing to see a different and softer take this time. We got to see a Gorn – for the first time in the entire series, really – not as “the other,” or a monster, but as a person. This Gorn showed Ortegas – and by extension, us as the audience – that the Gorn are more than just mindless killing machines who see humans as food. They have a complex language, a culture, they enjoy playing games, they can get sick and injured… again, to tie into the theme of Star Trek stories as “morality plays,” we’re seeing the Gorn – through Ortegas’ eyes – as people… basically for the first time since they were re-worked for Strange New Worlds. This only makes the brutal killing of the Gorn at the end of the story hit so much harder and feel so much worse.
Ortegas at the end of the story.
May I nitpick? If you know me… you know I must!
If you can transport down to a moon, it stands to reason that you can also transport up from a moon, right? So why did La’an have to beam down to search for Ortegas? And why did La’an beam down with a squad of redshirt tactical officers for a rescue mission, instead of – oh, I dunno – a doctor? The “we have to deliver these vaccines on time” added an extra source of tension to the episode, but it felt a bit exposition-y – mostly because of the timing of its introduction. If the episode had begun with Pike saying, “we’re en route to deliver these vaccines, but we stopped off briefly to study this unusual phenomenon,” I think it would’ve worked a lot better than Una springing it on us after Ortegas had already gone missing. The “scanning ability” percentage wasn’t really explained, and I could’ve entertained a brief line of technobabble discussing it, especially given its importance to Uhura and Pike’s storyline.
But, as I said, all of those are incredibly minor points, and none of them detracted from the finished product. I include them here because, well, I’m a Trekkie – and as Trekkies, we love nothing more than to pick at the tiniest little details in Star Trek, sometimes!
The rescue team beams down.
Terrarium joins Shuttle to Kenfori and Through the Lens of Time as one of my favourites from Season 3. It was fantastic all around, with great moments for Pike and Uhura, as well as an incredibly intense story for Ortegas.
I loved this completely different way to include the Gorn. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve enjoyed Strange New Worlds’ reinterpretation of the Gorn, by and large. But I also think we were beginning to come up against the limits of the “alien monster” idea, so to show a softer, more personable side to the Gorn – and to put Ortegas, who had suffered so severely at their hands, right in the middle of it – was a fantastic storytelling decision, and one that was executed incredibly well. Melissa Navia got her first major spotlight episode – and rose to the occasion, overcoming a difficult acting challenge.
I really can’t heap enough praise on Terrarium, as you can probably tell! It truly is an outstanding episode, one that harkens back to the likes of Arena and The Enemy from those older shows, but puts a completely different spin on a familiar setup thanks to a brutal ending. I’m not sure I’d have chosen to include Arena’s Metrons; I’m just not convinced that brief scene at the end added an awful lot or that the story really needed it. But doing so helps to square a circle, perhaps, while hinting at a “different” take on the Gorn by the time of Kirk’s encounter in Arena.
Playing chess with a Gorn.
So that was Terrarium. Absolutely fantastic. No notes – literally, in my case!
Season 3 has been pretty good, overall. Strong episodes like Terrarium are a nice balance after a weaker offering like Four-and-a-Half Vulcans last week, and I’m rooting for an excellent season finale to close things out with a bang! Can you believe Season 3 is almost over, already? I’m actually feeling pretty sad about that.
The final episode of the season will be titled New Life and New Civilizations. So far, there’s been nothing released – no promo photos, no blurb, no trailer. Something big could be hiding under the surface, then! Check out my latest theory about Captain Pike and Captain Batel, if you’re interested – you can find it by clicking or tapping here. And join me next week for the final episode review of the season. Oh, and if you missed it, I met Martin Quinn (Scotty) over the weekend at a Star Trek convention here in the UK. Click or tap here to check out my write-up of the events of the day. Live Long and Prosper, friends!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance and/or Paramount. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3, and Discovery Season 3.
Last week, Strange New Worlds surprised me with an episode styled like a documentary. I approached Four-and-a-Half Vulcans much more keenly aware of the kind of story I was getting into… and I set my expectations accordingly. For the kind of light-hearted episode that it was, I think Four-and-a-Half Vulcans was, as Mr Spock might put it, adequate. There were actually some genuinely funny scenes and lines in the mix, and I laughed more than I expected. This was not the total cringe-fest I feared it would be.
However, it’s also an episode I’m in no hurry to revisit, and I’d probably rank it in the lower half of the Strange New Worlds episodes that have aired so far. Comedy has been a part of Star Trek since the beginning, and I’m not opposed to episodes and stories which firmly place themselves in that genre. However, a light-hearted tone and a comedic premise do not cover up any and all flaws; “it’s just a comedy episode” is not a good enough excuse for dodgy writing, weak characterisation, or hand-waving away one of the most significant elements of one of Star Trek’s most well-explored and understood races.
Captains Batel and Pike.
I’m going to start with the positives this week.
Four-and-a-Half Vulcans genuinely made me laugh. Like… out loud. Multiple times. A lot of the comedy, even though some of it wouldn’t usually be “my thing,” stuck the landing thanks to a combination of clever writing and creative performances, backed up by some well-planned staging, solid camera work, and even editing. Spock and La’an’s battle-come-dance sequence at the end of the episode, in which they moved through different areas of the ship, was incredibly well-executed, and that’s just one example.
Though this was an undeniably silly premise for a story, the way everyone involved really threw themselves into it made Four-and-a-Half Vulcans feel earnest in a way that not every Strange New Worlds comedy episode has done. But that’s the double-edged sword, and, for me, part of why Four-and-a-Half Vulcans doesn’t feel so special: it’s repetitive. Strange New Worlds has used a very similar premise several times already. If this were the show’s first comedy episode – or even the first Vulcan comedy or Spock comedy episode – I think it would’ve felt stronger, or at least more original. When I saw the promo photos and the teaser clip, I was already rolling my eyes and getting ready to complain because of how overused this core idea has been in a series that still hasn’t reached the thirty-episode mark.
Vulcan comedy… again.
And that side of Four-and-a-Half Vulcans was very much a let-down. Strange New Worlds’ writers seem utterly fascinated – borderline obsessed – with the idea that “Vulcans are stuck-up, rigid, and unemotional… isn’t that hilarious?” There hasn’t been a single straight-laced Vulcan story in the show so far. We now know that cancellation is coming, and Strange New Worlds has actually passed its halfway point. I really, sincerely hope that if the show revisits the Vulcans in Seasons 4 or 5… we’ll get a different kind of story.
Because for all of its genuinely funny and engaging moments, Four-and-a-Half Vulcans was weighed down by that sense of repetition. We’ve been here before – more than once, and in all three seasons. We’ve done the whole “what if Vulcans were hilarious,” “what if Spock had emotions,” and “aren’t these autistic-coded aliens just a hoot” things so many times… I’m beyond over it. That didn’t stop me laughing at some of the episode’s well-played jokes and genuinely fun moments. But it drags it down several notches. More than anything, I hope Four-and-a-Half Vulcans will be Strange New Worlds’ final attempt to go down this road. And hey, if the writers have zero other ideas for what to do with Spock and the Vulcans? Just don’t use them. That would honestly be better, at this point, than another attempt at “Spock comedy.”
Spock.
Sorry, this was meant to be the “positives,” wasn’t it?
Anson Mount is funny. He has good comic timing, and I enjoyed his weird and quirky take on a human-who’s-not-quite-Vulcan. A character like pseudo-Vulcan Pike would be absolutely awful to watch week in, week out… but as a one-off and a change of pace? I liked it. And Mount’s performance was a big part of that, I think. I can see just by watching the scenes he had in sickbay and in Pike’s quarters that it must’ve been a ton of fun to perform.
However… we’ve had Pike the cowardly courtier in The Elysian Kingdom. Pike without his memories in Among The Lotus Eaters. Pike the singer in Subspace Rhapsody. And earlier this season? Pike the holo-TV producer in A Space Adventure Hour. That’s four episodes in which Captain Pike isn’t Captain Pike… in what we used to call “the Captain Pike show,” back when Strange New Worlds was little more than the target of a fan campaign. As with “Spock comedy,” I’m kinda done with the whole “let’s turn all our characters into totally different people!” premise. Strange New Worlds isn’t the only Star Trek show to have done this. But it is the only Star Trek show to have done it so often in such a short span of time. These aren’t twenty-five episode seasons of a show that’s gonna run for seven years. Forty-six episodes of Strange New Worlds are all we’re getting. And in several of them, Captain Pike isn’t himself. Again… I’m kind of over that premise. Let Pike be Pike!
How about a Captain Pike episode in the Captain Pike show where Captain Pike… gets to be Captain Pike?
Sorry, sorry. Positives.
I liked Kirk and Scotty’s burgeoning bromance. I was surprised to see Paul Wesley back as Kirk so soon after his big turn in the captain’s chair. But building on his new friendship with Scotty was a fun angle, and it was actually one of the few elements of Four-and-a-Half Vulcans that was played pretty straight. Yes, Kirk and Scotty found themselves in a weird situation with Vulcan/Romulan La’an… but their friendship continues to grow. Paul Wesley and Martin Quinn genuinely work well together. Kirk is beginning to come into his own as the captain we remember, but Scotty still has an edge of nervousness or a lack of confidence that comes from youthful inexperience. There’s a cute vibe to how they interacted, this week… and I really liked it.
Kirk and Scotty got what was one of Four-and-a-Half Vulcans’ most over-the-top storylines, with La’an plotting and scheming her way to a multi-front war. I think the boys’ side of things was the better one, and certainly the most grounded. Two stellar performances kept things focused mainly on the younger versions of these characters, despite the shenanigans happening around them.
Scotty and Kirk make a pretty good team.
Since I mentioned La’an, let’s talk about her next. I haven’t really had the chance to discuss this very much… but La’an’s connection to iconic Star Trek villain Khan has been, for me, almost a complete waste so far. Only a couple of episodes have so much as touched on La’an’s ancestry and the potential lingering effects of augmentation, and to be blunt, that’s not been good enough from Strange New Worlds. There are ways to use a character like La’an to talk about things like collective guilt, the dangers of eugenics and genetic engineering, or generational trauma. So far, we haven’t got much of that… making me feel, as time has gone by, that La’an should’ve probably been created as an original character without that connection to Khan.
However, this storyline did belatedly address some of that. It wasn’t a huge part of it, with La’an’s famous relative and augmented DNA only being referenced right at the end. But that explanation made sense to me and seemed to account for La’an’s changed persona when in Vulcan form. As an admittedly small and easily-overlooked nod to this under-utilised aspect of her character, I liked it.
La’an being zapped.
The scene between Pike and La’an in their Vulcan/Romulan guises was pretty funny. And I liked that Strange New Worlds linked up these two characters – both of whom are, as far as we know, the only people in Starfleet at this point in time to be aware of the connection between Romulans and Vulcans. The fact that they both had to cover this up to comply with the Temporal Prime Directive was alluded to, and added a lot to the scene. Obviously Pike came to learn about the Romulans in the Season 1 finale, and La’an did last season in her team-up with an alternate timeline version of Kirk.
The implication of this is interesting, though, if we take a step back. La’an basically turned into a Romulan, not a Vulcan, and Spock seemed to suggest that her augmented ancestry played a role in that. Is that a clue about the split between Vulcans and Romulans? Enterprise showed us our most comprehensive look so far at Vulcan history – including the Time of Awakening, after which the proto-Romulans left Vulcan. But it’s interesting, at least, to get this hint at genetic manipulation possibly playing a role in either the early history of the Romulans, or even in their society in general.
La’an and Pike.
Or perhaps the story wanted to highlight how thin the dividing line is between Romulans and Vulcans. That’s also an interesting idea, especially in light of Discovery’s far-future Ni’Var storylines. At any rate, I liked the idea that there could be some kind of augmentation at some point in Romulan history – and I felt that idea expands our understanding of the Romulans without treading on the toes of previous storylines.
Given how other parts of Four-and-a-Half Vulcans really leaned into the idea of “logic,” La’an’s transformation was a refreshing change of pace. Christina Chong can take a villainous turn remarkably well, and her performance – while no less over-the-top than any of the others this week – was still a lot of fun to watch. Again, this seems like an episode that would’ve been a blast to work on.
La’an becoming a Romulan, not a Vulcan, was a fun idea.
So let’s talk about the other Vulcans, then, and their transformations.
Though there was an attempt to address why Pike, Chapel, and Uhura were so emotionally repressed and logical, I felt it was a pretty flimsy way to hand-wave away an incredibly important part of Vulcan lore and history. Vulcans are not, by nature, stoic and logical. It takes a lot of effort and work on their part to box up their emotions the way they do, and just being physically Vulcan should not bring with it the decades of training that Spock went through to reach his more mature and logical state.
This was a narrative hurdle that I was really worried Four-and-a-Half Vulcans would trip over. And while we can say that the episode avoided the most flagrant violations of canon on a technicality… I’m still not sure that I like the result.
The transformation process doesn’t look very pleasant…
Regular readers will have heard me talk about internal consistency before. I believe internal consistency is one of the absolutely foundational components of suspension of disbelief when engaging with any work of sci-fi or fantasy. Once it’s been established that magic, fictional technologies, or alien races behave a certain way, that’s gotta be something subsequent storylines stick with. If Star Trek was constantly changing how warp drive worked, for example, it would soon erode the core of one of the franchise’s key technologies. And when it’s been established that Vulcans are intensely emotional people who have to train for years to keep their emotions in check and present a logical face to the world… future stories have to stick with that.
However, by showing the flaws and weaknesses in each of the transformed characters’ applications of logic, Four-and-a-Half Vulcans actually does something genuinely interesting with this idea. It’s more than just cringe humour, and while I maintain that it feels like something that’s dangerously close to crossing the line into an outright violation of canon, there was at least somewhat of a point to it. And more nuance than I’d been expecting.
Captain Pike was… illogical.
Pike, La’an, Chapel, and Uhura were completely unprepared for what being a Vulcan would feel like. And they found it impossible to adhere to a genuinely logical pattern of behavior, with all of them crossing lines and behaving like, as Spock put it, jerks. In that sense, I think we did actually learn a little more about what it must be like to be a Vulcan, and how intense their training and education must be to keep a logical lid on some truly illogical impulses and desires.
This was more than just pure comedy, and breaking it down, we catch a small glimpse at what being a Vulcan might feel like – something that, if you think about it, we haven’t seen much of outside of Enterprise. Parts of Four-and-a-Half Vulcans seemed to build on T’Pol’s storylines from Enterprise in an interesting way. Whether that was the intention or not… that’s how I read it. And perhaps I’m reaching, trying to find positive glimmers amidst a storyline I generally didn’t like. But I think that interpretation is there, and stepping back to Enterprise gives context to some of these scenes.
The episode explored a bit more about Vulcans.
Pelia is legitimately one of my favourite characters on Strange New Worlds, and almost every scene she’s in is just… delicious. She’s so funny, she adds so much light-heartedness to the show, and even in an episode like this, where comedy was the focus, her scenes still stood out. It was also a change of pace to put Pelia with a different combination of characters. We saw her with Ortegas, Dr M’Benga, Spock, and Una, and I honestly can’t remember many (or any) times she’d really spent time with most of them. She’s the chief engineer, and though we do now have Scotty as a junior officer, the chief engineer role on a Star Trek series is still an important one.
What I got from Pelia’s scenes, more than just a good laugh, was how she is genuinely friends with the rest of the crew. They like her, and she likes them. Because of how little screen time Pelia tends to get, and how inconsistent her appearances are – with her disappearing for multiple stories in a row, sometimes – there’s been less of an opportunity to show that. This week, with everyone hanging out in her quarters, I felt like she was a fully-fledged member of the crew. And I liked it. Oh, and Pelia’s quarters being shielded from the ship’s sensors? Love it.
Pelia is so funny. I love her.
Though Chapel and Uhura got arguably the less-interesting Vulcan storylines, both had their moments. Uhura trying to solve problems with mind-melds and forcibly “brainwashing” Beto was… weird. But it was nice to welcome back Mynor Lüken on this side of the story. I still think Beto and Uhura have good chemistry, and giving the younger Uhura a romantic interest is – if done well and explored more in future – a solid idea I can get behind.
Chapel’s single-minded focus on work was also interesting, especially as she began severing relationships and friendships in the name of efficiency. I felt a little of Seven of Nine in this characterisation, as Chapel prioritised doing as much work as possible ahead of everything else. Bringing back Dr Korby in the closing moments of the episode rounded out this storyline quite well.
Uhura in her Vulcan form.
If I might nitpick… Dr M’Benga and Una both said that they couldn’t force Pike and the others to return to their human states. And Una was unwilling to remove Pike from command, despite his erratic behaviour. But surely on medical grounds… the affected officers could have been relieved of duty. When it became clear that Pike could no longer effectively command the ship, and was issuing nonsensical orders like 45-minute shift changes, or when La’an was rigging the ship’s weapons for all-out war… intervening at that stage was definitely an option. In fact, it should have been mandatory.
In previous iterations of Star Trek, we have seen officers relieved from duty for less! I can appreciate why, in the beginning, Una and Dr M’Benga might’ve taken a “wait and see” approach, rather than trying to force Pike and co. to return to their human states. But when it became clear that they were being adversely affected by their transformations, steps would surely have been taken by a competent commander and medical professional to, at the very least, take them off duty for a while.
These characters could (and arguably should) have intervened before things went too far.
Doug was an interesting character, but in a busy episode, I don’t think we got enough time with him to really explore who he is or what he was even doing. He and Una made a fun pair, but we never really understood why they have such an unstoppable effect on one another. “Pure lust” doesn’t seem like something Una would experience, to be blunt about it, and even if she did… even if Vulcans and Illyrians have some kind of effect on each other… surely two grown adults are capable of behaving themselves long enough to have a serious conversation. It was a silly aspect of an already silly story… and one that was too over-the-top for my taste in an episode which had no shortage of such moments.
I was also disappointed that, after all the buildup to Doug’s arrival, we didn’t actually see him do anything of consequence to the plot. The writers and producers chose to show Doug – played by wonderful guest star Patton Oswalt – flirting with Una, sharing an awkward drink with Spock, and then doing whatever Vulcan magic he did entirely off-screen, before reuniting for one final flirty scene with Una. “Show, don’t tell” is something they teach every budding writer in their first ever lesson… and with Doug’s Vulcan katra magic being the climax of the episode’s story… it felt wrong that it happened entirely off-screen. Was it really straightforward? Did Doug just… snap his fingers, putting everyone to rights? Or did it take him a week of intense study, meditation, and working in a lab? We don’t know because we saw zero seconds of any of it.
Doug.
Four-and-a-Half Vulcans was funnier than I expected, and a better episode all around than I feared it would be from the photos and promo clip. But it wasn’t fantastic, it still has some significant weaknesses and contrivances, and above all, it relies on a premise that Strange New Worlds has thoroughly burned out. Please… please… let this be the last “Vulcan comedy” episode we get in this show. I can handle more light-heartedness, and I’m fine with more episodes that use overtly comedic premises and styles. But not another one where the focus is Spock and the Vulcans. We get it: Vulcans can be funny. But that’s enough for now. Try something else with the Vulcans, perhaps. Or give Spock a storyline that isn’t either slapstick comedy or depicting him slowly sleeping his way through every female member of the Enterprise crew. If you can’t think of anything that fits the bill… sideline Spock for an episode or two and do something else. Because I am thoroughly, utterly, and completely done with these kinds of stories at this point.
So that’s all for now, I guess! I didn’t hate Four-and-a-Half Vulcans. I didn’t even dislike it as much as I half-expected, half-worried that I would. But I did find it repetitive, perhaps a little too silly or over-the-top in places, and its strengths – like a genuinely good storyline for Kirk and Scotty – couldn’t outweigh its weaknesses. The result is an episode I probably won’t watch very often in the future.
Next week, we have Terrarium, which I know absolutely nothing about at this stage. The name doesn’t give very much away, and there haven’t been any photos or clips released ahead of its premiere yet. Maybe that’s because there’s some big secret being kept? “Terra” could hint at the Mirror Universe, perhaps – though I hope that’s not the case, to be honest! Or a “terrarium” could refer to an enclosure, perhaps suggesting Pike and the crew will become trapped. Those are total guesses, though. I guess we’ll have to tune in to find out!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance and/or Paramount. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Minor spoilers are present for Picard Season 1, The Original Series, and Deep Space Nine.
What Is Starfleet was incredibly creative and well put-together. It draws clear inspiration from modern documentary films and investigative journalism, splicing action with interviews, and the way it unfolded made it a genuinely interesting watch. It could also feel intrusive and more than a little frustrating, particularly as the action would cut away from what was unfolding to focus on another interview or clip that didn’t seem to move the main story along. The overall result? An episode I have mixed feelings about, I’m afraid.
The documentary’s title card.
Beto is not a totally brand-new character, having been built up over several earlier episodes. That should be a saving grace for What Is Starfleet, because we’ve at least started to get to know Beto, and we’ve seen him interacting with and getting to know some of the characters on the show already. But… the way this documentary was presented felt intrusive to practically all of the other characters. And because they are our real protagonists and have been for two-and-a-half seasons already… we’re on their side more than on Beto’s, even when naked plot contrivances seemed to be painting Starfleet and Captain Pike in a less flattering light.
It was obvious that the only two characters who were even potentially interested in being interviewed were Uhura and Erica Ortegas – and both of those come with caveats. Captain Pike, Dr M’Benga, Spock, Una… none of them were okay with this. They were complying because they’d been ordered to, but they really weren’t game for having their personal and professional lives exposed and dissected on camera. And again, because they’re the people we care about more than Beto, a significant chunk of What Is Starfleet felt uncomfortable, like it was being presented from the wrong character’s point of view.
Most characters – like Dr M’Benga – were unwilling participants in the documentary.
Maybe that’s supposed to be part of the point. Some films and TV programmes want you to feel uncomfortable, want to show off negative or less-positive traits from some of their characters, and this documentary format is particularly well-suited to doing that. But if that was how it was meant to come across, then I question both the intent and the execution. What would be the point, in a series like Strange New Worlds, of trying to light up in neon some of the main characters’ ambiguities and questionable backstories? What do we gain by that? Because it feels like something that was contrived for the sake of being an uncomfortable experience… not to lead to any kind of character growth or narrative payoff.
And we aren’t just considering this documentary within the confines of Strange New Worlds – but in the context of 950+ Star Trek stories over almost six decades. Impugning the character, values, and overall decency of Starfleet, as Beto seems to aspire to do in the beginning… it doesn’t sit right.
Dr M’Benga’s wartime record.
This side of the episode also horribly mixed its metaphors. Though I question whether it could be successfully pulled off, presenting the Federation and Starfleet as akin to an “empire,” ruthlessly expanding, using questionable weapons of mass destruction, threatening non-members… there could be real-world parallels there. It’s the distinction between how the United States likes to see itself – a paragon of virtue, extolling democracy and freedom – versus how the country can be seen by other countries around the world. Asking us as the audience to consider, even for a moment, whether non-Federation members and non-Starfleet personnel might see these organisations in that way has potential. It worked in Deep Space Nine with stories about Bajor and especially with the Maquis.
But the ending completely undermines all of that. Beto goes from making a hard-hitting investigative piece, complete with implicit accusations of war crimes and empire-building, to making a puff piece; basically pro-Starfleet propaganda. Though I don’t think this story, told in this format, had the kind of complex morality that would’ve lent itself to a discussion of Starfleet as a tool of imperialism… if that’s the angle you want to go for, you kind of have to commit to it. What Is Starfleet didn’t, resulting in an ending that felt abrupt and tonally wrong compared to everything that led up to it.
The end of the episode came across like a puff piece – or a recruitment commercial.
In an episodic show, you get contrivances sometimes – it’s part of episodic storytelling. In order to get to the main event, sometimes you have to brush aside an important point or sideline a character. It’s never great, but it’s a compromise of the medium. Even with that context, though… Starfleet’s off-screen orders for the Enterprise to work with this alien race and deliver their biological weapon felt incredibly flimsy. It was clearly set up to be as dark and negative as possible, so that the episode (and Beto as the filmmaker) could imply as many bad things as possible.
And again, contrivances are a hazard of episodic TV. There are many instances in Star Trek where the Enterprise has been ordered somewhere “just because,” jump-starting the events of a more interesting storyline. But there really aren’t that many episodes I can think of where the reasoning behind Starfleet’s orders is so deliberately obtuse.
There was no reason for Starfleet to be so annoyingly secretive other than “because plot.”
There was scope for a potentially interesting conversation about the “Nuremberg defence.” If you’re unfamiliar with that term, it refers to the expression “I was only following orders,” something many of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials after World War II would go on to claim. In the context of this story, Starfleet basically ordered Pike and the crew to transport a pretty terrifying weapon – a weapon created by interfering with a sentient life-form. The secrecy and “need-to-know basis” for the information pertaining to the mission at least suggests or hints at Starfleet’s higher-ups being aware of what they were doing.
But What Is Starfleet doesn’t do that. It flips things around, showing how Starfleet is “just us, the good people who serve,” and that kind of ignores a massive in-universe point about the nature of orders, who’s giving them, and what outside agendas might be involved. We didn’t get a satisfactory explanation for why Starfleet was inserting itself into this war between two non-Federation worlds, nor whether they knew of the capabilities of this sentient, genetically-modified weapon of mass destuction. “I was only following orders” is not an acceptable defence today, in the modern world, for something like the trafficking of sentient beings, let alone transporting weapons of mass destruction to one side in a war your state is not a participant in. So why would that be okay in the 23rd Century?
The episode sets up an interesting and morally complex idea – then dumps it right when it could’ve mattered.
What Is Starfleet could’ve posed those kinds of questions – but when it came to the crux, the episode’s writers and director baulked. They teed up these questions about Starfleet inserting itself into someone else’s war, not as a peacemaker but as a gun-running, human trafficking ally, and about how the chain of command operates. But then, after an admittedly emotional chat with Uhura about his personal agenda and ulterior motive, Beto does a complete 180 and turns his documentary’s final act into a celebration of all things Starfleet that’s so sickeningly upbeat that it comes across like propaganda or an enlistment ad.
And so… from both an in-universe perspective, and for us as the audience, Beto’s documentary feels fundamentally unsatisfying and tonally wrong. It’s as if you’d sat down to watch what you thought was a hard-hitting episode of PBS Frontline or Panorama about the war in Iraq, the lies that led to the war, and the criminal actions of the military… only for the film to end with a feel-good story about camaraderie and friendship, and an ad to join the army at your nearest recruitment station. Starfleet is – as the documentary points out – the Federation’s military, after all, so when the episode and the documentary end with this kind of puff piece… that’s how it comes across to me, at any rate.
This didn’t feel like the right ending.
A couple of weeks ago, Pelia was one of the most fun and engaging characters when dealing with Beto and his camera. She seemed to relish in hamming it up, almost hoping for her turn in the spotlight. That could’ve added a small amount of levity to what was a quite heavy story this time, and What Is Starfleet could’ve looked at the connection between Pelia and Beto, as well as, perhaps, how a filmmaker might deal with an overly enthusiastic participant. But, for no discernible reason, Pelia was entirely absent.
Given the Jikaru’s energy/electromagnetic abilities, and the damage sustained to the ship and shuttle, there was scope to bring in an engineering character, but neither Scotty nor Pelia appeared. If I had to choose just one of them, I’d have picked Pelia – I just think she brought something completely different to the table when dealing with Beto. It would’ve been fun for us to see him having to deal with her antics, but she could’ve also had a role in the story. Not only could we have seen her attending to the Enterprise’s shields, and perhaps Beto struggling to keep his composure during an interview, but Pelia could’ve also helped Pike deal with the intrusion of having a camera in his face. I’ve felt her absence in several stories this season – but none more so than this one.
Where were Pelia and Scotty during all of this?
All of this must make it sound like I hated What Is Starfleet. I didn’t. I liked the creativity. I liked that, after 950+ episodes and films, Star Trek can still break new ground and try different things. I liked that, hidden underneath the documentary format, there was a classic Star Trek story which felt like it came straight out of The Original Series or Deep Space Nine. And I liked many of the character moments – particularly Pike’s conversations with Una, and Uhura’s with Beto. I just think that some of the episode’s goals weren’t clear, and that maybe there was a bit of story meddling which ultimately led to quite a jarring shift in tone.
This was a non-linear approach to storytelling – the narrative was broken up by interviews and vignettes, but underneath it there was a classic Star Trek episode. I’d still have the same complaint about Starfleet Command’s unnecessary secrecy and obtuse orders without the documentary format, but on that side of the story, that’s pretty much the only weak link. The tale of an alien race corrupting a life-form for its own selfish purposes, and Starfleet intervening, coming down firmly on the side of protecting sentient life? That’s a classic “morality play” right out of The Original Series. And the idea of Starfleet potentially investigating this kind of weapon, inserting itself in a foreign conflict? The same kind of morally challenging storytelling was on display in Deep Space Nine.
The Jikaru and the Lutani warship.
I think the core story at the heart of What Is Starfleet would’ve made for a perfectly entertaining episode in its own right. And maybe, without the documentary trappings, it might’ve even been a bit more fun! I like when Star Trek gets into these morally grey areas – why was the Enterprise ordered to help this non-Federation member with Klingon ties? Did Starfleet Command know that the Lutani were illegally enslaving a sentient species to serve as weapons of mass destruction? Seeing Pike and the crew coming to that realisation was great… but without the unique format, I can’t help but feel it might’ve worked even better.
Because the interviews didn’t really expand our knowledge or understanding of any of the featured characters, basically just re-telling things we already knew, like Uhura’s family, Ortegas’ injury, Spock’s half-human side, or Dr M’Benga’s war record, there’s a strong case to be made that they… got in the way. And that what could’ve filled that space had they not been present was a more in-depth look at the Lutani, their unethical experiments on the Jinkaru, and Captain Pike’s realisation that his orders were morally wrong. That version of the episode – one played straight, without the documentary fluff – would have been fun to see.
Captain Pike.
There are a couple of other in-universe points I want to tackle re. the documentary, then I promise we’ll move on to discuss other parts of the episode!
Firstly, this documentary idea leaned on something modern Star Trek has done that I’ve never been particularly comfortable with. In short, the idea of making a documentary about the crew of the Federation flagship means that, to the ordinary Federation citizen, Captain Pike and at least some members of his crew are gonna be akin to celebrities. The implications are that either people knew who they are already, or that the documentary is going to raise their profiles and make them famous, for want of a better word.
I’ve never really liked that idea. In some Star Trek stories, it could work. When Enterprise did it in Season 4, turning members of its crew into heroes, there was a narrative purpose – but when we’ve seen similar attempts, such as in Picard’s premiere episode, or with Boimler in Lower Decks fangirling about certain Starfleet officers, it just felt weird and uncomfortable. I like to see the characters in Star Trek as everyday folks doing their jobs in this fun future setting. Some of them are exceptional, yes, but part of that is because they live in a post-scarcity future where “exceptional” is becoming the norm. They aren’t meant to be their world’s equivalent of celebrities, so this idea of a documentary all about them – making them famous people in the 23rd Century – just isn’t sitting right.
Uhura and Spock.
Then we have an interesting in-universe question: would a documentary like this actually make it to air? Would Starfleet be okay with a documentary implying one of its senior medical personnel is a war criminal? Or that showed a sensitive mission involving a non-Federation member, a weapon of mass destruction, and classified orders? If this was an independent production, maybe. But the whole idea behind Beto’s work is that he’s been commissioned by Starfleet to make this film – Pike and the crew are basically under orders to work with him and let him observe them, otherwise you can bet Pike wouldn’t have allowed him on the bridge. With that context, would Starfleet be okay with this film?
Starfleet Command would undoubtedly like the ending – how could they not? It’s basically pro-Starfleet propaganda and a recruitment ad rolled into one. But the rest of the film really does portray the organisation and several members of the crew in an extraordinarily negative light, so the idea that the people at Starfleet HQ who originally wanted this documentary to be made would give it the green light is ridiculous. And, also from an in-universe perspective, I’m not sure I buy the idea of Starfleet declassifying all of this footage of its operations, broadcasting it to all and sundry. Maybe that’ll become an issue in another episode – perhaps the Klingons watched Beto’s documentary, figured out some weakness in the Enterprise, and are planning an attack. I doubt it, but it could at least be a way to incorporate the documentary into a future episode.
Might the Klingons have watched Beto’s documentary?
Okay, that’s enough about the documentary for now.
So I guess Strange New Worlds isn’t going in the direction I thought it was with Ortegas and her hinted at PTSD-like condition. Her scenes in the documentary this week, in which she discussed her injury and recovery, seem for now to be the culmination of that storyline, and I don’t really see how, with three episodes remaining this season, this storyline can come back in a significant way. It was understated and not what I expected, but I can respect What Is Starfleet for the undramatic and mature way it approached this storyline.
I confess I’d been expecting more of an ending, though. I don’t think it feels unsatisfying, but Ortegas’ storyline had been set up right at the start of the season, then we got her big blow-up with Una in Shuttle to Kenfori, and I’d been sort of waiting ever since for this unnamed PTSD-adjacent mental health condition to return. With Ortegas never having gotten a major storyline of her own, this could’ve been her turn in the spotlight. I think there’s value in a storyline that basically says, “yeah, I was struggling, but with determination and time I’m doing better.” I wish we’d seen a bit more of it over the course of the season, though; Ortegas seemed to go from struggling badly to snapping out of it in between episodes, where recovery and coming to terms with trauma is a process, not an instantaneous thing.
I wish we’d gotten a bit more time with Ortegas this season to explore her mental health – but this ending was solid in an understated way.
Uhura was at the heart of What Is Starfleet, and her connection with Beto was interesting. However, there was a moment towards the end where Uhura seemed to go from “I can’t believe you’re recording this, leave me alone” to “I’m having an invasive medical procedure, bring your camera” in no time at all. Conflict between characters is great; it adds to the extension in a situation like this. And I get that Uhura was absolutely the right character to call out Beto on his agenda and potential conflict of interest. But I think we needed at least one scene in between their blow-up in the ready room and Uhura’s visit to sickbay to sell that they’re still on speaking terms.
That being said, Beto’s realisation that he was compromising his work and coming into it with an agenda was played incredibly well. I liked how the camera lingered on Beto – picking up on his line a couple of weeks ago about the camera being programmed to follow the strongest emotions in the room – as he sat with the idea that he was projecting onto Starfleet his anger and fears after what happened to his sister.
Beto.
The scene was also incredibly well-written, and it built on Uhura and Beto’s established relationship particularly well. I think we were getting to a point where, in theory, anyone *could* have called out Beto for his anti-Starfleet agenda, but if it had been Pike or Dr M’Benga, for example, it wouldn’t have packed as much of a punch. It took Uhura to see through Beto – not only what he was doing, but why he was doing it and why he felt the way he did. It was a great way to build on a fun character dynamic from earlier in the season, taking the pair in a more serious and dramatic direction.
Has it killed any possibility of an Uhura-Beto romance, though? After she called him out like that, and after Beto had been pushing his agenda the whole time, I can see both of them not wanting to take things any further. Maybe that’s a reach – or maybe Beto will be gone after this episode, now his documentary is over – but I liked the idea of giving this younger version of Uhura some kind of romantic entanglement. Spock can’t be the only one who gets to have that kind of storyline, after all!
Beto and Uhura made for a fun pair earlier in the season.
One thing I really liked about Beto, and I admire about the character on a personal level, is how he left all of that in the documentary. He could’ve said “cut!” and left out the part where Uhura basically calls him out on his own show for his bias and anti-Starfleet sentiments. But he didn’t. It added to the feeling that this was the kind of “warts and all” investigative piece that What Is Starfleet’s writers were drawing inspiration from. And I think it (belatedly, perhaps) paints Beto in a positive light. For all his flaws, he was dedicated to the truth more than to his own image.
I felt echoes of Jake Sisko in this side of Beto. In the DS9 fourth season episode Nor Battle To The Strong, we see Jake and Dr Bashir diverted to a warzone – where Jake fails to distinguish himself in combat. Jake writes up his experiences for the Federation News Network, including his cowardice, his abandoning of Bashir, and the sheer dumb luck for which he was hailed as a hero. Beto, in What Is Starfleet, does something similar by allowing his conversation with Uhura – and by extension, the agenda he had going into the documentary – to make it into the final cut. Both men exposed their own flaws and vulnerabilities. As I’ve said before… Star Trek doesn’t copy itself, but sometimes, story beats just rhyme.
Like Jake Sisko in Nor Battle To The Strong, Beto kept his documentary open and honest, even about his own flaws.
I’m not sure that this was a particularly good episode for Captain Pike. I don’t mean that in terms of screen time, but characterisation. Pike went hard on the “need-to-know” aspect of his orders, which made sense in the context of the story, but didn’t do wonders for a man who’s supposedly on friendly terms with his crew. There was a bit of broken trust there, I felt, and it begs the question of how much Pike knew about the Jikaru and what the Lutani had been doing to them before the mission got underway.
It was nice to see how Pike – eventually – came around to the idea that the Jikaru was sentient, and that interfering with it was morally wrong, even if it was within the scope of his orders. But it took him a while to reach that conclusion, even after Uhura and Spock had pressured him about it. And it doesn’t account for what he may or may not have known about the mission and the circumstances surrounding the Lutani and their unethical experimentation on a sentient life-form. Sometimes less is more… but here, we needed to know from Captain Pike, firsthand, that he was as surprised as everyone else about what was going on.
Pike with Una, Uhura, and Dr M’Benga.
Though we didn’t spend much time with the Lutani, I enjoyed the two characters we got to see. The first scientist died in a pretty gruesome way, succumbing to her injuries in sickbay. The second Lutani, the commander of their warship, got a one-on-one with Captain Pike, and I liked this character. There was a desperate edge to him; pleading for this unethical super-weapon his people had developed as it was, in his view, a last line of defence.
The actor, Shaun Majumder, reminded me of DS9′s Armin Shimerman in terms of how he spoke, and that was kind of fun to listen to! The Lutani are probably going to be among Star Trek’s many one-time-use aliens; I don’t expect we’ll see them coming back in a big way. But they had a neat design – the silver-grey colour at least helps them stand out from other “nose and forehead” humanoid aliens. Nothing to write home about, perhaps, but a solid and pretty nuanced antagonist for the story they were a part of.
The Lutani commander.
Ever since Discovery debuted, live-action Star Trek has used a cinematic “letterbox” aspect ratio… and I hate it! Okay, “hate” might be too strong a word, but c’mon… what’s wrong with a standard widescreen ratio that actually fits properly on most people’s TV screens? It feels like every episode has content cut off; like I should be seeing more of the action. What Is Starfleet finally ditched that – and it was consistent in using a 16:9 aspect ratio for the entire episode, unlike A Space Adventure Hour, which only used it for its show-within-a-holdeck-programme-within-a-show segments.
I admire Strange New Worlds’ producers for going all-in with whatever ideas they have. We got the animated ending to Those Old Scientists in Season 2. We got the a cappella opening theme in the musical episode. We got a 16:9 aspect ratio this week, mimicking those TV documentaries and investigative news pieces that the episode drew inspiration from. Long may this experimentation continue!
A phaser pistol in the armoury.
It was a ton of fun to see the shuttle Galileo again. The Galileo was made famous in The Original Series episode The Galileo Seven, and a shuttle bearing the same name has been a mainstay in Strange New Worlds since Season 1. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I felt the design of the shuttle that we saw this week was much closer to that TOS presentation than to earlier Strange New Worlds episodes – it felt a lot more familiar to me, at any rate.
The sequence aboard the shuttle was one of the most tense in What Is Starfleet, with Spock attempting a long-range mind-meld with the Jikaru. I’m not sure how we went from “Spock’s the only one who can do this because of Vulcan telepathy” to “anyone can thanks to this gadget,” but I guess that’s a minor point. The danger of the shuttle mission was well-established, and as the camera lingered on Pike, you could see how worried he was for the safety of the away team.
The Original Series concept art showing the shuttlecraft interior. Image Credit: Matt Jeffries via Forgotten Trek.
I’ll continue to compliment Strange New Worlds for taking a step back from Spock’s love life. When Chapel joined the away mission (why not Dr M’Benga?) I was a little worried that they’d drag that up again, but I was pleasantly surprised. There’s so much more Strange New Worlds can do with Spock than either comedy or romantic storylines, and I’m glad we got to see him in that kind of role this week. What Is Starfleet leaned into Spock’s role as the Enterprise’s science officer, but it also allowed him – in his own words and at his own pace – to touch on his half-human heritage.
This continues a trend from Enterprise (and really, as far back as The Original Series) of Vulcans being a pretty prejudiced lot. Despite their lofty claims of enlightenment and aloof nature, Vulcans are just as prejudiced as humans when it comes to race and racial purity. Enterprise took a deep dive into this side of the Vulcans, but it was always present. I remember Sarek’s line of Spock being “so human” in The Final Frontier, just as one example. Considering that next week’s episode is titled Four-and-a-Half Vulcans, calling attention to Spock’s heritage in What Is Starfleet might prove to be some clever foreshadowing. Or just a timely reminder.
Part of Spock’s training/meditation.
Alright, let’s start to wrap things up.
What Is Starfleet was a creative idea for an episode. Beto’s earlier appearances this season built up to it, meaning the idea of a full-blown documentary episode didn’t come from nowhere. The writers, producers, director, and editors clearly had a lot of fun researching documentary films and investigative news pieces, and the resulting episode emulates that style incredibly well. There were also great moments of characterisation for Beto and Uhura in particular, with Mynor Lüken and Celia Rose Gooding putting in incredible performances to bring their characters to life.
However, there are some flaws that keep What Is Starfleet from really soaring. I really felt the absence of Pelia, as her chaotic energy and previous run-in with Beto could’ve added a lot. I can’t help but feel that a more traditional episode, playing the story straight without the documentary style, might’ve been a better fit for this story of the Jikaru and Lutani, and would’ve allowed a bit more time for characters like Pike to shine. And, unfortunately, the documentary itself feels quite jarring, with a massive tonal jump from “investigative hit piece” to “recruitment ad” right at the end.
Spock.
A bit of a mixed bag, then. Nothing was out-and-out bad, and I will happily watch What Is Starfleet again. It’s a self-contained episode, one that doesn’t require a lot of background information from earlier stories to shine. Ortegas’ storyline is probably the most reliant on what came before, but I think it’s explained well enough within the documentary itself – and particularly through Uhura’s conversation with Beto – that even that aspect can be understood without much prior knowledge. I’m a little underwhelmed by this apparent resolution to Ortegas’ story, but at the same time I can respect Strange New Worlds for going for a more realistic and less drama-laden ending to her struggles.
We caught a glimpse of Captain Batel in the dinner party sequence right at the end, but this is now the second week in a row where her deadly, near-fatal illness and unconventional treatment haven’t been mentioned. As above, I love episodic television, and I don’t want Strange New Worlds to turn into a serialised show like Picard or Discovery. But… sooner or later, we have to pick up this storyline, right?
Next week, we have Four-and-a-Half Vulcans. I’ll level with you: I’m not looking forward to another “Vulcans are so stuck up, let’s use that for laughs!” story outline. Strange New Worlds has scope to do so much more with Spock and the Vulcans, yet almost every time they’ve appeared it’s been in a comedy story with a flippant tone. I hope I’m misjudging Four-and-a-Half Vulcans, and I’ll do my best to go into it with an open mind! But I’m concerned at this early stage. I guess we’ll find out, though!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance and/or Paramount. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Minor spoilers are also present for Star Trek: The Original Series.
When Strange New Worlds was first announced over five years ago, I wrote that, were I in charge, I’d plan ahead for the series finale. The final episode I envisioned would’ve seen Captain Pike handing over the Enterprise to someone we’re all familiar with: Captain James T. Kirk. Kirk’s arrival on the Enterprise’s transporter pad would’ve been his first on-screen appearance… and the final shot of the series. But ever since the end of Season 1, where a younger version of Kirk appeared, it’s been clear that Strange New Worlds’ writers want to bring in the character in a much larger way. We got to see that this week, in what was in large part a Kirk episode.
The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail was interesting and, for the most part, an enjoyable romp. We got to see the first mission Kirk undertook with several members of his iconic crew – Spock, Uhura, Scotty, and Chapel. And it was set against the backdrop of a massive villainous starship that was simultaneously terrifying and ridiculous in its appearance. Most of this side of the episode stuck the landing, but it was also a busy story with a lot going on. That meant the villains weren’t as well-developed as I’d have liked, and a couple of characters aboard the Enterprise drew the short straw in terms of screen time.
Ortegas and Mitchell.
I think I’ll start with the negative points and criticisms before moving into the positives. The design of the scavenger ship was just plain silly. Its “face” with a gaping, monstrous maw was supposed to be intimidating or frightening – but it absolutely failed, and the visual impact of this floating mouth made the whole thing look ridiculous. At the beginning of the episode, when the scavenger ship went unseen, the reactions from Kirk and others definitely sold the illusion that they were seeing something terrifying. But when we saw the ship for ourselves… it just looked really bad.
The best way I could describe the design of the scavenger ship would be to say it’s the kind of thing a seven-year-old might draw if you told them to make you a picture of a “space monster.” It was equal parts cliché, over-the-top, childish, and silly – leading to one of the absolute worst starship reveals that I can remember in any Star Trek story. The design of the scavenger ship ended up detracting from some genuinely great performances; I could scarcely believe that the likes of Kirk, Scotty, and Uhura would be frightened of this ship because of how amateurish and silly it looked.
I found the visual impact of the scavenger ship to be pretty weak and silly.
Star Trek stories often have a broader point they want to make, and aliens or villainous factions can be seen as metaphors for events, issues, and even people out here in the real world. For the most part, The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail was a story about Kirk – about how he had to come to terms with firing the shot that killed thousands of people. And that part of it genuinely worked and stuck the landing; we’ll talk about it more in a moment. But I felt the episode’s writing was very muddled with the revelation that the scavengers were humans. What was the point the writers wanted to make – except that Kirk needed more of a reason to feel bad?
If we’re returning to the well of environmentalism, climate change, and the state of the world today… then I’m afraid this really didn’t work. The scavengers’ ancestors may have left Earth because the environment was suffering and they felt the need to lead humanity to the stars, but that doesn’t explain how, over the intervening centuries, they became twisted into genocidal murderers. Nothing in the story explained this transformation – and the episode didn’t really know what it wanted to say, either. Is the point that well-meaning people can end up doing awful things? Is it that we shouldn’t take the “Elon Musk” approach of fleeing Earth in a spaceship and instead try to fix the climate crisis? Is it that humans are, fundamentally, absolute trash without a strong government to guide us? I genuinely don’t get what – if anything – the scavengers are meant to represent, other than a reason for Kirk to sulk.
Who were the scavengers, and why are we supposed to care?
There are plenty of aliens or villains in Star Trek who only appear once, but still manage to feel believable, fleshed-out, and real within the confines of a single episode. Whether we’re talking about the First Federation, the Sheliak, or the Abronians, there are literally hundreds of one-off aliens or adversaries who still manage to feel real and well-rounded. Because The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail didn’t have a lot of time to explore who the scavengers were or what their driving force might’ve been… the end result was that they feel pretty flat, one-dimensional, and just not very interesting.
I absolutely adore how Strange New Worlds has largely returned Star Trek to a more episodic format. But for me, these scavengers fall into a trap that can sometimes hamper episodic storytelling: we just don’t know enough about them to feel much of anything. The big reveal – that they were actually humans all along – didn’t land as hard as it should’ve because we just hadn’t spent enough time with them, heard any of them speak, or come to know them at all. They were your bog-standard aggressive monsters for basically the entire story, so the revelation at the end didn’t really feel as impactful as I think the writers wanted it to be.
The Farragut and the scavenger ship.
Episodic storytelling is by far my favourite, not just in the Star Trek franchise but on TV in general. But not every episode ends up feeling as strong or as well put-together, and for me, the scavengers in The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail just don’t really stand up to even other one-off villains in past iterations of Star Trek. And it’s such a shame, because I can see most of the pieces to build such a faction hiding just beneath the surface – and a more focused episode could have done a lot more with the scavengers, making the ending hit harder.
Some of the dialogue dedicated to setting up the scavengers felt like naked exposition, with characters claiming they’d heard rumours of something deadly and dangerous in this part of space. This setup felt pretty weak. It isn’t easy to establish a villain, show how dangerous they are, and come up with a plan to take them down all inside of forty-five minutes – and I get that. But that kind of storyline has been done before, and done way better, in other Star Trek shows.
This scene felt quite heavy-handed with its exposition.
There is something uniquely frightening about an incomprehensible enemy. This is what made the Borg so scary in their initial appearances in The Next Generation – they weren’t someone you could reason with or dissuade; they saw the Federation as a resource to be acquired, and nothing more. The scavengers, with their single-minded desire to harvest resources, could have leaned into that. But it would have required a different ending to the episode, and almost certainly a less-silly starship design, too.
In short, by trying to explain that the scavengers were human – but not having enough time to properly dissect the implications of that, nor really consider why the scavengers were acting in that way – The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail gets the worst of both worlds. It removes any ambiguity or mystique from the scavengers, but what replaces it isn’t strong enough in the way it was handled – and didn’t get enough screen time – to balance that out. The ending of the episode, while really well-played from a character standpoint, ends up feeling pretty muddled as a result. And for us as the audience, the revelation that these nameless scavengers – not one of whom did we actually meet, let alone get to know – are humans… it just didn’t have much of an impact.
The scavengers’ 21st Century ancestors.
Then there was Pike and La’an’s run-in with the scavenger boarding party. This part just felt under-developed, as Pike seemed to sense hesitation in the scavenger when he had the upper hand in their fight. So… why didn’t the scavenger fire? Is it because he recognised Pike as human? In a galaxy populated by humanoid aliens (some of whom, like Betazoids, are completely indistinguishable from humans) would they even make the connection? If this was supposed to set up the ending of the story, adding to Kirk’s feelings about what he did… then shouldn’t Kirk have found out about the scavenger’s hesitation to fire? Was that supposed to set up a storyline about a possible peaceful resolution?
A lot of Star Trek stories are about communication and connection – finding a non-violent solution, even when an enemy or alien seems to be impossibly aggressive. Perhaps The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail wanted to make a comment on that – either that some enemies can’t be talked down or reasoned with… or that Kirk and Pike didn’t even try. But this idea wasn’t in focus for long enough to matter, and I can’t even tell what – if anything – the writers were going for here. The sequence at the end – where Kirk and Pike found out about the scavengers – was cleverly edited and put together, though, and I liked seeing them both come to the realisation at the exact same moment.
Pike with the dead scavenger.
Earlier in the season, Strange New Worlds threatened to give Lieutenant Ortegas a significant storyline for the first time. After her injury in the season premiere, Ortegas seemed to be suffering from some kind of PTSD-like condition related to her Gorn captivity and near-death experience. That was a great setup, and I was keen to see it progress. But this is now Ortegas’ third appearance since being relieved of duty for misbehaving where none of that was even alluded to. It’s reaching a point where, if Ortegas’ mental health ever does come back into play, it’ll feel like a significantly weaker story.
Although we haven’t spent a ton of time with Ortegas in recent weeks, she’s been present – and most importantly, she seems to be doing okay. No one’s asked her how she is, the story hasn’t lingered on how she’s feeling or what she might be going through… she just gets on with the job. The danger here is that, if the writers remember their earlier setup in a future episode, it won’t land in the same way any more. There are definitely stories to tell about how people put on “the mask,” as I used to call it, and pretend to be okay while they’re suffering on the inside. But do we think that’s what Strange New Worlds’ writers are going for? Or is it just a case of Ortegas being put on the back burner so we can get stories featuring Kirk, Spock, and other TOS characters?
Season 3 is running out of time to pick up the dangling threads of Ortegas’ story.
This is, I admit, less to do with this week’s episode. And it’s absolutely possible that Ortegas’ mental health/PTSD story will come back and absolutely nail it. I’m rooting for that to happen! But it’s at least notable that Strange New Worlds set up this storyline for Ortegas but hasn’t returned to it for several episodes in a row. And her appearance here – taking her job seriously, working well under immense pressure, and basically saving the day with her piloting skills – risks detracting from that kind of story if what the writers want to do is show Ortegas struggling with her mental health.
The Farragut’s captain (whose name I had to look up because of how generic and forgettable she was) didn’t wow me in this week’s episode. There are plenty of ways to create memorable secondary or one-off characters, but this Captain V’Rel didn’t leave much of an impression. As a minor character I guess you can say that’s okay, but her command style was supposed to be something Kirk was butting heads with, and it just didn’t really seem to matter all that much. Also, given the unimportance of this character (at least so far), was there a lot of point in making her a Vulcan? Part of the fun of Kirk and Spock’s friendship was that it transcended that particular cultural divide; seeing Kirk paired up with another Vulcan a few years prior risks detracting from that, I fear.
Captain… Whatshername.
Although I felt the exposition was handled pretty poorly, the scavengers and their ship were supposed to be a kind of “boogeyman,” prowling this region of space and frightening everyone from the Gorn to the Klingons. So… does it make sense that their extremely powerful ship could be blown up so easily right at the end? The badly-damaged Farrgut – with no warp drive, a skeleton crew, and an array of damaged systems – fired three torpedoes, and that was it.
This ship was supposed to have been haunting this part of space for centuries, preying on even strong and powerful vessels like Klingon battle-cruisers – and had the capability to devastate entire planets. I know that Scotty and Kirk came up with a great plan to lure the scavengers in and disable their defences… but even so. Three torpedoes was all it took to take down this supposedly legendary ship.
The scavengers meet their end…
Okay, I think that’s enough negativity.
When you boil it down, The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail is an ensemble episode – which I love – and a character piece with a focus on Kirk. Both of those elements work well, and it was nice to see most of the main characters in action. At the climax we had three different storylines on the go at once: Pike and La’an on the Enterprise’s lower decks, Pelia and Ortegas coordinating the ship’s sensor-less escape, and Kirk and the away team attacking the scavenger ship. All three stories came together magnificently, and it took all three groups of characters to aid in the Enterprise’s escape and the scavengers’ ultimate defeat.
That isn’t an easy thing to pull off. The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail was a busy episode, but its main story arcs all felt like they mattered. In order to escape, the Enterprise needed a distraction and damage to the scavengers’ ship, which the Farrgut and away team provided, it needed the fuel-siphoning pipe thing disabled, which La’an and Pike managed, it needed communication between the thruster control panels and the bridge, which Pelia set up with help from M’Bena and Una, and it needed someone on the bridge to fly out – which Pelia and Ortegas managed with help from Mitchell. Practically everyone got something significant to do at the episode’s climax, and it takes some skill to pull that off in a short runtime.
Dr M’Benga firing the thrusters.
Of these storylines, obviously we spent the longest with Kirk and the away team. Though this was clearly pitched as a Kirk-Spock story, I genuinely enjoyed the rapport Kirk built up with the others, too. This was his first canonical meeting with Scotty, and I liked how it wasn’t a smooth start for them. If Strange New Worlds plans to follow this up and develop Kirk more with the episodes remaining, there’s a foundation for the Kirk-Scotty relationship to build on.
They may not have gotten off to the best start, but Kirk genuinely tried to make up for it later on, and we got a storyline full of technobabble that felt like classic Star Trek in the best possible way! All that talk of anti-protons and making the Farragut a tempting target for the scavengers felt like something straight out of The Original Series, as did Scotty’s earlier line about pushing the wrecked ship too hard. These characters do genuinely feel like younger versions of the people we remember, and that’s not always an easy feeling to conjure up. I wouldn’t have suspected Kirk’s first mission with Scotty would’ve been so high-stakes – or would’ve gone so awry – but it was really fun to see them working together in this way. It expands our understanding of both men and the bond they had during the events of The Original Series.
Kirk and Scotty didn’t exactly get the best start to their friendship.
Uhura also called back to the events of Lost in Translation, which saw her first encounter with Kirk. That was a good way to bring in Uhura’s empathy and sensitivity, setting the stage for Kirk’s rehabilitation after suffering a loss of confidence. The idea that his colleagues – who would later become his friends – were able to pull him out of that moment was impactful, and again, I think it sets the stage for how they relate to one another during The Original Series.
I’m glad that, on this side of the story, the writers chose to drop the whole “Spock love triangle” debacle. When La’an, Kirk, Spock, and Chapel were all together early in the story, I genuinely worried we were gonna get some kind of forced drama between them, like we’ve seen in prior entries this season. So I’m really glad that, for once, Strange New Worlds managed to step away from that and focus on something else. It was a blast to see this early mission of Kirk and some of the members of his crew; complicating it with that kind of romantic angle wouldn’t have added anything to what was already a busy episode.
Kirk, Spock, and La’an.
Speaking of romance… are you familiar with the term “Spirk?” Also known as “Kirk/Spock,” this is the fan theory or head canon idea that Kirk and Spock were or are engaged in either a sexual or romantic relationship. Personally, I’ve never been interested in that idea. I felt TOS established quite early on that Kirk at least prefers heterosexual encounters, and Spock – aside from his pon farr – is basically asexual! But one of the nice things about Spirk as a theory was that it always seemed plausible for fans who wanted to believe it. Even if we never saw anything on screen… fans could, if they so chose, read between the lines.
With all of Spock’s romantic entanglements in Strange New Worlds, I can’t help but feel that the writers are almost deliberately trying to erase Spirk as a viable fan theory. They’re much more interested to give Spock female romantic or sexual partners, as if to say “no, you’re wrong, there’s nothing queer going on here!” And I just think that’s a bit sad. I’m not saying I wanted to see an 18+ sex scene with Kirk and Spock! And I really didn’t want or expect the series to lean into the romantic side of their relationship – if such a side even exists. But I think it’s a bit of a shame for fans who did like the Spirk theory that Strange New Worlds is so intent on taking steps away from it. I like a good bromance as much as anyone else, and for me, Kirk and Spock have always felt more like besties than lovers. But having that possibility there, existing just out of sight, for fans who wanted it has been a part of the Star Trek fan community since the ’60s, and I don’t think I’d have chosen to walk away from it like this if I’d been in the writers’ room.
Spock and Kirk.
Am I right in saying that Strange New Worlds no longer has a main engineering set? I’ve wondered about its absence a few times this season, but The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail had multiple stories that could’ve featured engineering – but didn’t. I felt this most with La’an; she was sent to retrieve some baryons from engineering, but did so entirely off-screen. Pelia seemed to very quickly wave away Pike’s efforts to reach engineering, with the room being flooded with dangerous gas. Combined, those two things felt like Strange New Worlds barricading main engineering and telling us to go away!
The science lab set, which was used in this episode and which we’ve seen a few times this season, seems to be replacing engineering. But with two engineers on the show, now – Scotty and Pelia – I can’t help but feel that might be an odd decision! How are we meant to see Scotty growing in his engineering prowess if we don’t have, y’know, main engineering? It doesn’t have to be the main setting for most episodes, but in some stories – like this one – a visit to engineering feels almost compulsory!
It might’ve been nice to see Scotty in engineering.
I felt this week’s take on Spock was much closer to the man we remember from The Original Series. Spock was much more straightforward and logical – stoic, even. There’s still wiggle-room in Strange New Worlds’ take on the character, and ways for him to grow and change. And I think next week or in a couple of weeks’ time we’ve got a Vulcan episode where “Spock comedy” could be back on the agenda! But speaking for myself, this version of the character – who we might call “classic Spock,” for want of a better term – is far and away what I prefer to see.
It was fascinating to see Spock’s first one-on-one with Kirk. Spock was the one to give him a much-needed pep talk after the Farragut’s engines gave out, and that entire sequence could’ve been lifted almost word-for-word from The Original Series. It really was a powerful, well-written storyline, and both Paul Wesley and Ethan Peck excelled at bringing these younger versions of the characters to life in a way that felt real, believable, and in keeping with past iterations of Star Trek.
Spock approaches Kirk in the ready room.
Kirk’s story of struggling under pressure was well-written. We saw glimpses of a classic Captain Kirk: bold, adventurous, and willing to break the rules because he can get away with it. But we also saw the vulnerability that comes with youth and inexperience; Kirk broke the rules, as he’s done before, but hit the wall when his rule-breaking didn’t pan out the way he’d hoped.
I liked Kirk’s log, too; it makes perfect sense how an officer like Kirk would be phenomenally bored if all he could do was conduct survey after survey of dull planets from orbit. Someone like that needs adventure – but, as in many classic novels and stories, the adventure-seeker got much more than he bargained for! Catching this glimpse of Kirk’s early career, though, without time-travel, alternate realities, or contrived ways to bring him aboard the Enterprise… it was pretty special. We got to see Kirk as the Farragut’s first officer, serving on a bog-standard survey mission aboard a less-important ship. There have always been these kinds of vessels in Starfleet; not everyone can serve aboard the flagship on a mission of exploration! But putting Kirk in that position – and showing how much it grated on him – was a genuine change of pace.
It makes sense that someone like Kirk would be bored on a mission like this!
Despite my misgivings about the scavengers as an antagonist (and the design of their ship), the reveal at the end hit Kirk hard, and Paul Wesley did a great job conveying that. The scene between Pike and Kirk was touching, too, and it was a bit of fun to see Pike’s influence on the younger Kirk before he assumed command. I can see Kirk taking those words to heart, particularly about regretting a decision but making it anyway. Knowing what’s in store for Captain Pike, that line was pretty impactful – and carried extra weight.
This moment felt like it was consciously setting up Kirk for the captain’s chair. Though Kirk would famously claim that he doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios, there are going to be impossibly difficult decisions to make when in the captain’s chair, and this felt like a bit of a trial by fire for the future Enterprise captain. Coming to terms with what he did – and why he feels so bad about it – is an important stepping stone between the younger, less-experienced officer we’ve been spending time with and the character we’re familiar with from The Original Series.
Kirk in the captain’s chair.
This is the kind of story to tell if you’re gonna do a prequel featuring familiar characters. Spock, Uhura, and Chapel felt very similar to their TOS presentations in this story – but Kirk and Scotty didn’t. They butted heads over engineering issues, Kirk tried to push the ship too hard, and Scotty – the future miracle-worker – wasn’t able, in the end, to keep the ship flying. I think that shows how both men have room to grow – Kirk in terms of his leadership abilities, and Scotty with his engineering miracles!
A storyline like this makes way more sense to me than one showing Spock shacking up with different members of the Enterprise’s crew. What we got in The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail was a genuinely interesting look at the younger days of some of our favourite characters. Most of the pieces are there – they’re a stone’s throw away from how they will be in The Original Series. But whether it’s youth, a lack of confidence, inexperience, or some combination thereof… they aren’t quite there yet. That’s genuinely fun and interesting to see, and it expands our understanding of these characters instead of just throwing them into random situations and hoping romance or drama will be enough.
Spock, Scotty, Chapel, and Uhura… with an empty captain’s chair.
I really do like Pelia. She’s such a fun presence on the show, and she can be a complete change of pace from other, more straight-laced and stoic Starfleet officers. I think we got to learn Pelia’s age here – she’s over 5,000 years old. Her quarters are just pure hoarder-y chaos, and I love that! And her collection proved invaluable to the crew as they were able to wire up a handful of old telephones around the Enterprise – Battlestar Galactica-style – to coordinate the emergency thrusters during the escape sequence. The whole thing was a ton of fun.
Pelia was also, I guess, the ranking bridge officer during the escape sequence. That was kind of interesting for her, and a bit of a change of pace from her usual secondary or advisory role. We didn’t see her giving a lot of orders or anything like that, but she was a fun presence on the bridge with Ortegas and Mitchell during the escape.
Pelia in her quarters.
The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail was a solidly entertaining Star Trek episode. It was held back from reaching the top tier by a pretty flat antagonist with a silly spaceship design, and that did ultimately impact how I viewed parts of the story – the ending in particular. But as a character piece about Kirk, seeing him growing in confidence as he’s on the path to become the captain we know and love, it was genuinely well-written. Kirk’s first outing with some of the members of his iconic crew was, by and large, a lot of fun.
I also appreciated that The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail gave the rest of the characters things to do at the climax of the story. It took everyone working together to save the Enterprise – and the inhabited planet – and that’s not an easy thing to pull off within the runtime of a single episode. It did come at the expense of a couple of characters who felt less-developed or who got a bit less attention than they otherwise might’ve, but that’s okay.
Next week we have the curiously-titled What Is Starfleet? I’m really not sure what to make of that one – but I guess time will tell.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance and/or Paramount. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series Season 1, The Next Generation Seasons 5 and 6, and Discovery.
When Star Trek uses an episode title like “Through the Lens of Time,” it certainly makes it sound like time travel is gonna be on the agenda! Since time travel stories are usually not my favourites in the franchise (or in sci-fi in general, really), I went into the episode with a little trepidation. But Through the Lens of Time was absolutely not what I was expecting – and I really do mean that in the best way possible.
There were some weaker parts of the story this week, sure. And we’ll get into them in a moment, don’t worry! But despite that, I honestly found Through the Lens of Time to be incredibly creative and just a ton of fun. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s the highlight of Season 3 so far, eclipsing both the zombie episode a couple of weeks ago and the cliffhanger-resolving premiere. I was on the edge of my seat practically the entire time, and I genuinely did not know what was going to happen next every step of the way. After more than 950 Star Trek stories across almost six decades… the fact that the franchise can still feel fresh, creative, and new is nothing short of astonishing. Episodes like Through the Lens of Time are why I love modern Star Trek so much – and I’d challenge any “nu-Trek” avoider to give it a try.
The away team.
So with all of that said… where to begin?
I guess we’ll get the negative or less-positive points out of the way first, then we can spend the rest of the review gushing about just how awesome Through the Lens of Time was!
I’ve said this before in both my pre-season commentary and other episode reviews, but I’m not keen on the whole “Spock relationship drama” stuff. When it was just Spock and Chapel it was more tolerable, but this whole love triangle/love quadrangle that he’s tangled up in with Korby and La’an too… it’s too much. It’s too soap opera-y, too similar to what Discovery tried to do (with very limited success) and I’m just not into it at all.
I’ve had enough of this.
Furthermore, I think this “Spock in love” idea has well and truly run its course. Between episodes involving T’Pring, Chapel, and now Korby and La’an, Strange New Worlds has dedicated a significant amount of its runtime across three seasons to Spock and his love life. It’s come to the end of the road as an interesting or funny story idea, and I really hope that the writers will drop it – soon.
Past iterations of Star Trek could be static in the way Vulcans were depicted, showing them as rigid, emotionless, and some might say stuck-up! But even with that underlying concept of the Vulcans, we got episodes like The Next Generation’s Sarek, or The Andorian Incident in Enterprise, showing off different sides of the Vulcans and how they could be more complex. In short: we don’t need episode upon episode showing Spock getting jealous, grumpy, or pissed off to understand that there’s more to Vulcans than just a lack of emotion. And for Spock’s own character journey – an arc which should be bringing him closer to his Original Series persona as the series has now passed the halfway point – what do we gain by a second “Spock love triangle” or “Spock’s jealous of Korby” storyline? At some point, enough is enough. Right?
We did a Spock-versus-Korby episode just a couple of weeks ago.
I don’t think any of this fundamentally damages Spock’s character or makes him harder to root for as a protagonist. But we’ve tried out these same story outlines too much at this point, and I’d like to see Strange New Worlds do something different with Spock now; something besides “Spock comedy” or “Spock in love.” And if the writers can’t think of a better use for Spock… give him a scientific puzzle. Or sideline him for an episode or two and let other characters share the spotlight. This isn’t the Spock show.
The sequences with Chapel speaking to La’an and later to Spock were just unnecessarily cringeworthy; the kind of thing we’d have expected to see in Discovery with Burnham. And unfortunately I don’t mean that as a compliment. There’s room in Star Trek for these kinds of storylines, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think Star Trek should be just action and science with no love or relationships. But when one character seems to get 90% of these kinds of storylines – especially when that character is not naturally well-suited to them – it starts to wear thin. And for me, storylines about Spock’s love life ran out of steam somewhere near the beginning of Season 2.
La’an and Chapel chatted about Spock.
A couple of weeks ago, I said that I felt Ensign Gamble might not be long for this world – and that prediction was born out this time. This isn’t a criticism exactly, because I liked what earlier episodes did to build up Gamble to be more than just a typical Star Trek redshirt. But that being said, from the moment he was assigned to the away team… it seemed pretty obvious that his fate was sealed! Or at least it did to me. The manner of his death was still awfully shocking, though.
Despite making a reasonable guess at Gamble’s fate, I think Strange New Worlds did better with him than Discovery did with the likes of Airiam – or than Picard did with basically all of its non-legacy characters! We got to know just enough about Gamble over the span of several episodes that his death really did hit hard. Perhaps not quite as hard as it might’ve if he’d been part of the show for an entire season, or he’d gotten a few more scenes, but hard nevertheless. And even though I felt it was predictable from the moment he joined the away team… the manner of his death, and how gruesome it was by Star Trek standards, was still a genuine shock.
First rule of away missions: don’t touch the glowing orbs.
One aspect of Through the Lens of Time reminded me of Power Play – a fifth-season episode of The Next Generation. That story also involved an alien prison where inmates were kept in non-corporeal form, and also saw some of them escape by taking over the bodies of some of our heroes. This wasn’t meant as a callback, obviously, but sometimes Star Trek episodes just… rhyme! There are huge differences in who the prisoners are, the kinds of powers they possess, how they were imprisoned, how many of them were able to escape, and so on. But there were echoes of that older story, and when I realised we were looking at a prison, that was the first comparison that sprang to mind!
At this stage, I can’t tell if the Vezda alien prisoners will be revisited. I have to assume that the captive aboard the Enterprise will be at some point – I mean, they have to be, surely. The flickering screen at the end of the episode, and the fact that we got no real closure on who they are or what they might want, definitely hang over the ending of Through the Lens of Time. But the rest of them? Unless Strange New Worlds plans to make these aliens some kind of ongoing antagonist, I think we probably won’t be back to this planet or the interdimensional prison.
Surely we haven’t seen the last of this alien visitor…
Speaking of the Vezda alien held captive aboard the Enterprise: modern Star Trek loves its transporter pattern buffers, doesn’t it? Discovery has used the pattern buffers to store people, Strange New Worlds did it with Dr M’Benga’s daughter – who was name-checked in this week’s episode – and then we saw Scotty do it with the malevolent alien right at the end. When this idea of using a transporter for storage was first broached – in Relics during the sixth season of The Next Generation – it was presented as a kind of janky, improvised solution when Scotty had run out of options. In Strange New Worlds, it basically seems like the transporter has a separate compartment just for storing all of the missing children and random aliens that the crew want to bring along for the ride!
Jokes aside, I don’t think this is some kind of henious “violation of canon,” or anything like that. And it was a somewhat creative way to trap this mysterious and powerful alien. One thing I think this moment missed, though, was showing the broken orb-like container before Scotty swooped in. When Gamble was injured, it looked like a glass container which had shattered. When Scotty grabbed it and trapped the Vezda alien, it looked like it had broken neatly into two pieces. If we could’ve gotten just one close-up shot of the broken container, this moment might’ve felt a tiny bit better. And yes, I know that’s a bit of a nitpick.
The Vezda alien leaving Gamble’s body.
After being absent since the season premiere, it was lovely to welcome Pelia back to Strange New Worlds. Through the Lens of Time is a great example of how a story can use both Scotty and Pelia, even when engineering isn’t the main focus of the episode. There is room for both characters to coexist, and I hope we can spend more time with Pelia across the next few episodes. Scotty is great, don’t get me wrong, and Martin Quinn is doing a fantastic job bringing this younger version of the character to life. But Pelia is still the ship’s chief engineer – and what’s more, she’s a quirky and incredibly entertaining presence, as we saw in the briefing room this time. I said last week that her absence was noticeable, so I’m glad she’s back.
Pelia got some fun banter with Pike and Beto this time, particularly surrounding Beto’s camera and documentary work. I’m glad that Strange New Worlds brought back Ortegas’ brother for another outing – he has great chemistry with Uhura, and I think we saw this time that there’s potential as he mixes with other characters, too. I don’t know if he’s going to be a recurring character going forward… but why not? Pike seemed to suggest that Beto might be sticking around for more than just one mission, and if he does, I hope he gets another encounter with Pelia!
Pelia.
Dr Korby’s second outing felt a lot stronger than his first. I liked that Through the Lens of Time really leaned into his work, showing how he operates just outside of the Starfleet chain of command. Because he was the co-lead on this away mission, and because this was his area of expertise, we got a much more rounded and interesting portrayal. I could see Strange New Worlds’ writers had watched and understood Korby’s Original Series appearance, and there seemed to be a conscious effort to lean into that, using the events of What Are Little Girls Made Of? to inform his research and his enthusiasm.
This was something I argued we didn’t get very much of in Wedding Bell Blues – and I’m glad to see we got more of it this week. Cillian O’Sullivan, who plays Korby, did a fantastic job presenting a multi-faceted character – someone driven and passionate about his work, but who also has time to build a genuine relationship. I would’ve preferred, perhaps, not to pair him up with Spock for such a long time, as I felt we got enough of that in Wedding Bell Blues, but Korby was a much more engaging and interesting character than he had been in that earlier episode.
Dr Korby looks back at the artefacts he had to leave behind.
Gamble’s injury was horrifying, and the prosthetic makeup used to bring it to life was very creative. It was a huge shock to see Gamble not instantly killed (in the style of past redshirts), but rather maimed in this way. It really was a stunning and quite horrifying visual effect, and the execution of this moment was pitch-perfect. As I said earlier, I felt Strange New Worlds had been rather “fattening up” Gamble for the slaughter earlier in the season, so I definitely viewed his assignment to the away team with that in mind! But even so, I wasn’t expecting something quite so horrific.
I wondered at first if Gamble’s blinding was going to lead to some kind of Geordi-like visor being created for him. That could’ve been a fun connection to The Next Generation era, even if it had only been mentioned instead of being depicted on screen. The device Dr M’Benga placed over his eyes didn’t really look like a visor, but it wasn’t a million miles away, either. Given that Gamble isn’t going to stick around, maybe it could’ve been a fun little easter egg if, instead of talking about re-growing bio-engineered eyes, Dr M’Benga had said something about a new wearable visor that could help him see. It would’ve been a tiny reference, sure, but a fun one.
Gamble with the eye-growing machine.
The episode seems to have implied that Gamble died instantly, and that the entity that took control of him was using his residual thoughts and memories to inhabit his body and pretend to be him. That’s how I interpreted Dr M’Benga’s comments on Gamble’s brain death, and Pelia saying that he “isn’t in there.” There’s obviously more going on here with the malevolent alien entities – but I don’t think they can be from a familiar Star Trek race.
The Vezda aliens obviously aren’t Gorn – otherwise Captain Batel’s Gorn DNA wouldn’t have kicked in in the way that it did. Yes, we seemed to see a Gorn-like figure when we saw Spock’s point-of-view, but I don’t think that explains it. Other noncorporeal aliens come to mind: the Prophets, the Organians, various nebula-dwelling life-forms, like those seen in Voyager, and even the Q… but I don’t think any are the right fit. So these are, in my view, gonna be a new species… unless they’re connected, somehow, to something like the Mirror Universe (yes, all that talk of other dimensions made me go there!)
Who are these Vezda aliens?
Pelia described these as very ancient, and the Vezda alien possessing Gamble referred to Pelia – the oldest Enterprise crew member at several hundred years old – as a “child.” But these Vezda aliens clearly have some kind of connection to the Gorn, too, as we saw with Captain Batel. Maybe Pike will have to ask the Gorn for help! Who knows? But I like that we’ve got a genuinely engaging mystery out of this episode, and with the life-form stored aboard the Enterprise… I think we’re prepped to find out a bit more about who these Vezda aliens are.
Captain Batel’s arc moved along. I think all the talk of “re-absorbing” the Gorn DNA and “hybridising” it definitely left room for this kind of story, where the Gorn DNA could somehow take over. There wasn’t a ton of time dedicated to this idea here, but it’s obviously going to be picked up in the next episode (or later in the season), so we definitely haven’t seen the last of Batel’s Gorn woes.
What do the Gorn know about the Vezda aliens?
As an aside: there’s a theory doing the rounds that Captain Batel’s infection is going to lead to her being transformed into a Gorn-human hybrid… a creature which will look and behave just like the Gorn in Arena. Some have even suggested that Batel could be the Gorn captain from Arena. I… I cannot express how profoundly I hate this idea. Strange New Worlds has reimagined or reinterpreted the Gorn. Great. That’s fine. Now have the balls to stick with it! We don’t need another “Klingon-augment virus” storyline to explain why the Strange New Worlds Gorn and the Arena Gorn look different. Maybe some fans feel that the differences demand an on-screen explanation, but I really don’t. I noted when I re-watched Arena that the building-blocks of Strange New Worlds’ Gorn are all present; the only real difference is that the Gorn captain in Arena spoke to Kirk.
When Enterprise introduced the Klingon-augment virus in its fourth season, I felt it was silly, convoluted, and unnecessary. And if this is the route Strange New Worlds intends to take, I’ll feel the same way. This just isn’t something that needs an on-screen explanation, and I’m quite happy to watch both versions of the Gorn in their respective stories. I love that fans speculate and theorise – and I’ve done more than my fair share of that over the past few years here on the website! But I really hope this is one theory which doesn’t pan out.
This better not be Captain Batel…
To get back on topic: the alien prison was incredibly creative, and it showed off how much Star Trek can do with a fairly straightforward set – and the AR wall! It felt almost like a level from a video game in some respects; an ancient tomb with puzzles to solve just gives me like Tomb Raider or Uncharted vibes – though Jedi: Fallen Order might be a better point of comparison. Having to think in a totally non-linear way – because the same room existed in different states in different dimensions all at the same time – was exceptionally fun and different. Separating the characters (albeit in pairings I wouldn’t have chosen) also made for a very tense away mission.
I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around the whole “time can be non-linear” thing, and using a paradox as a way out when the story has been written into a corner is often something that irks me. But in this case, having to cross an apparently empty space to activate the bridge was played just right. Spock’s explanation about effect coming before cause was pure technobabble, and I could absolutely feel the emotions of Chapel, La’an, and Dr Korby as they prepared to take a leap of faith. It was a well-constructed moment, and the temporal paradox was actually the hook for some genuinely great and emotional storytelling.
The away team prepares to take a (scientific) leap of faith.
It was interesting to get a look at an away mission with diplomatic hurdles, and I felt it was set up quite well at the beginning of the story. Obviously this was done to explain why the away team couldn’t have been larger, and to manoeuvre characters into position! But because it was established at the beginning that Vadia IX and the M’Kroon were not Federation members, when that issue reoccurred later in the script, it made perfect sense. It was kind of neat to see Pike and the crew having to navigate that kind of issue when the stakes were so high.
This is the kind of thing I like to see in Star Trek. Moments like this flesh out the world and make it feel more lived-in and real. Having to deal with ambassadors and governments while trying to resolve a dangerous situation is a complication, but it’s an understandable one given the setting. It just helps the Star Trek galaxy feel like a real and complex place.
Pike had to jump through diplomatic hoops.
Uhura and Beto continue to make a fun pair. Mynor Lüken and Celia Rose Gooding have great on-screen chemistry together, and giving Uhura this kind of cute “crush” works well for a younger version of the character. There’s absolutely room for this to grow in future episodes, and I hope we haven’t seen the last of Beto. But at the same time, I don’t think Strange New Worlds desperately needs to take this relationship a lot further. It can be fine as a cute “crush” and a bit of flirting. It was a bit of a shame that Erica Ortegas couldn’t be present anywhere on this side of the story, though, as her reaction to Uhura and Beto was part of what worked so well last time.
One thing that was great about Uhura’s storyline was it showed how much she’s grown. Uhura came aboard the Enterprise in Season 1 as a cadet, and it took her a little while to find her feet and grow in confidence. One of the highlights of Subspace Rhapsody last season was that story’s demonstration of how far Uhura has come – and Through the Lens of Time doubled-down on that with Uhura’s scenes with Beto. It fell to her, as the experienced Starfleet officer, to remain calm, offer comfort, and work to find a solution. Beto wasn’t a complete damsel in distress, but pairing him up with Uhura for this portion of the away mission was a great narrative choice.
Uhura and Beto.
Captain Pike hasn’t been as present in Strange New Worlds really since the end of Season 1. There have been quite a few moments in a bunch of episodes where I felt this absence. While Pike wasn’t all over Through the Lens of Time by any means, I wanted to highlight a couple of appearances where he made a big difference. Obviously, we have his moments with Captain Batel. Batel does a lot to bring Pike down to earth and really humanise him, giving him an emotional anchor. Her condition is also a massive problem that Pike can’t just instantly solve, so seeing how he deals with that has been interesting.
Then we have Pike’s one-on-one with Dr M’Benga. I could’ve spent a bit longer on this chat, and seeing Pike do more to comfort Ensign Gamble, but I really liked seeing the moment he and Dr M’Benga shared while discussing Gamble’s condition. It’s a reminder that Pike has friends among the crew – not just underlings or coworkers. We got a lot more of that in Shuttle to Kenfori, but this week we definitely built up more of the M’Benga-Pike relationship, which was great to see.
Dr M’Benga and Captain Pike.
Through the Lens of Time was fantastic. It’s the best episode of the season so far, and one of the highlights of the entire series. We got a very creative adventure in an ancient ruin, some advancement of Captain Batel’s mysterious condition, and plenty of fun moments with most of the main characters. Ensign Gamble’s demise – while arguably signalled ahead of time – was incredibly shocking thanks to its gruesome nature. And maybe we’ve picked up an interesting new alien faction to explore in the future. Set aside the “Spock love quadrangle” stuff, and there’s really not much to complain about!
So I had a great time with this week’s outing. What started as an interesting jaunt to an alien ruin quickly turned into something a lot darker, and arguably teed up Dr Korby’s Original Series role, too. There was some great set design and clever use of the AR wall, some shocking special effects, and even a couple of jump-scares and startling moments. Through the Lens of Time is definitely going to be seen as one of the highlights of the entire show, I have little doubt about that.
Next week, we’ll have The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail. A Sehlat is a Vulcan animal, so could this be a Vulcan story? Or is the title referring to a fable or parable that will be referenced in a different kind of story? The latter is my guess – but you never know.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for: The Original Series Season 1, The Next Generation Season 2, and The Undiscovered Country.
After last week’s horrifying zombie story, Strange New Worlds completely changed direction in A Space Adventure Hour. There were elements of comedy and drama, as well as a light-hearted pastiche of Star Trek: The Original Series which, I suspect, will have worked better for some fans than others. Star Trek legend Jonathan Frakes returned to the director’s chair for the first time this season, and while I wasn’t wild about the story at first… it grew on me over its runtime.
A Space Adventure Hour deliberately ignored almost all of the season’s ongoing storylines: Captain Batel and her illness weren’t mentioned, Ortegas was reinstated with a hand-wavy line of dialogue, and the story really zoomed in on two characters: Scotty and La’an. I generally enjoy Strange New Worlds’ episodic nature, so I don’t mind when an episode does something like that. But at the same time, I hope we’ll return to the aftermath of the Enterprise’s run-in with the Gorn before too long. Setting it aside was fine on this occasion, though.
A horrifying monster from outer space!
Before we go any further, let’s just say this: I fucking loathe Paramount’s ridiculous “America First” attitude. It’s self-defeating and stupid. A Space Adventure Hour was made available for free on YouTube and Pluto TV – but only in the United States. We can debate whether this was the right episode to try to use to entice new viewers (I don’t think it was, by the way) but why – why?! – does Paramount insist on this pathetic “America First” fetish? It isn’t the 1960s any more – Star Trek, and really all of Paramount’s shows – have a worldwide audience. That’s why Paramount+ exists in other countries. Why offer something like this to a tiny fraction of that audience but nobody else?
We’ve seen this time and again with Paramount and the Star Trek franchise, and it’s got to stop. In this case it was a “freebie,” but it’s not just that – it’s marketing. Offering a free episode on YouTube is a marketing stunt to try to draw attention to Strange New Worlds and the broader franchise. But why only do that in the United States when the internet is one massive, global, interconnected space? Strange New Worlds is only available on Paramount+ in countries and regions where Paramount has actually bothered to launch the service, so there’s no argument about who has the rights to broadcast new episodes. It’s just so stupid to have these big marketing stunts only to ruin them by cutting off fans from the rest of the world. As it happens, it wouldn’t have made much difference to me as I have a Paramount+ subscription. But the whole point of doing something like this is to attract new eyes to the show. So why only offer that to folks in America when there’s an entire world watching and waiting? Star Trek might be owned by an American corporation, but the fanbase is global and the franchise’s name is known all over the world. A Space Adventure Hour streaming for free could’ve sold new Paramount+ subscriptions from Tierra del Fuego to New Delhi. If only Paramount’s executives weren’t “America First” morons.
A “blooper.”
Alright, rant over.
A Space Adventure Hour looks like it would’ve been a ton of fun to work on for the cast and crew. Getting to step out of character and try something new is always going to be enjoyable for folks working on long-running productions. But at only twenty-four episodes in (i.e. the equivalent of one season of Star Trek a few years ago) I’m… I’m not quite sure that Strange New Worlds has earned an episode like this just yet. Especially when we consider episodes like The Elysian Kingdom already did something very similar in Season 1… to say nothing of last season’s Subspace Rhapsody. There’s absolutely room for episodes like A Space Adventure Hour… if we were talking about a series that was gonna run to 170+ episodes over seven seasons. But with the recent cancellation news, I’m acutely aware of Strange New Worlds having a time limit. While there absolutely were interesting ideas and elements in the mix here, I just don’t think this is the kind of story I’d have personally chosen to greenlight if I was in charge!
That being said, I didn’t have the almost visceral, bowel-churning hatred of this episode as I did for last season’s musical outing. There were fun elements in the narrative, and on the “real world” side of things – outside of the story taking place on the holodeck – we got some interesting tidbits of lore.
The holograms in La’an’s murder mystery.
I’m a little disappointed that Strange New Worlds seems to be shoving Pelia aside in favour of Scotty. I feared this would happen when Scotty emerged at the end of Season 2, and while it’s interesting to catch a glimpse of Scotty’s younger days… I’m just concerned that it’s coming at the expense of first Hemmer, and now Pelia.
However! I’m glad that A Space Adventure Hour continued the theme of Scotty having room to grow. In this case, he wanted to solve everything completely by himself, to such an extent that he didn’t even tell the Enterprise’s senior staff about the problems he was having. We saw glimpses of the more familiar Scotty – the self-reliant, confident miracle-worker from The Original Series. But mixed in was an intensely vulnerable man, someone struggling with the loss of his previous ship. I don’t think his comments about the Stardiver somehow explain everything about Scotty, but it was interesting to learn a bit more about why he feels so hesitant to ask for help and why he tries to shoulder all of the burden himself.
Scotty working on the holodeck.
It was genuinely fun to see Scotty in the science lab, trying to desperately balance the needs of the holodeck with the rest of the ship. We got a real mix of both TOS Scotty – with his incredible engineering prowess – and a younger, less confident version of the character, who was clearly feeling overwhelmed. It made for an interesting presentation, and Martin Quinn managed to walk the line exceptionally well.
What we’re really seeing is how Scotty’s raw, unrefined talent is being honed. And that’s where I felt Pelia’s absence. Instead of saying “oh, she’s on shore leave,” why not have Pelia be the one to set up the holodeck, but then get called away for some other emergency, leaving Scotty to pick up the pieces? At the very least, Pelia could’ve come in at the end of the story to coach Scotty on what he did right and where he went wrong. Those roles ultimately fell to Una and Uhura, which was fine in theory – and getting some interaction between Scotty and Uhura was definitely fun to see. But if the idea behind bringing Scotty into Strange New Worlds is to show how he has room to grow, and how he can take his undeniable talent and hone it into something more practical… we need his mentor to be present for at least part of that.
Scotty with Una – but where’s Pelia?
So… Spock’s just gonna romance his way through the Enterprise’s female crew members, I guess. First it was Chapel, now it’s La’an… who’s next? Una? Uhura? Pelia?
To me, it feels like Strange New Worlds’ writers have latched onto two story outlines with Spock, and don’t really know what else to do with him. We have the “Vulcans are stuck-up and rigid, so let’s use that for laughs” that we’ve seen in basically every Vulcan episode so far, and now we have the “Spock has no emotions, but what if he fell in love?” that we’ve seen with Chapel and now apparently with La’an too.
Spock can be a fun character, and putting him in situations that aren’t identical to what he went through in The Original Series is absolutely worthwhile. But… I can’t help but feel we’ve taken the “Spock in love” story outline as far as it can reasonably stretch. With T’Pring and Chapel, we’ve already explored this side of Spock. And with Strange New Worlds on the clock, if the aim is to bring Spock closer in line with his TOS version ahead of the show’s finale, we need to see more movement in that direction. A new relationship won’t help.
La’an and Spock.
Spock and Chapel’s relationship evolved kind of naturally from TOS foundations – particularly Chapel’s apparent “crush” on Spock. While I felt we caught a glimpse of… something, between La’an and Spock in Wedding Bell Blues, where they danced together, I’m just not sure that this is the right way to go for either of them. I guess you could frame it as a “rebound;” for La’an after getting her heart broken by Kirk, and for Spock after his relationship with Chapel fell apart. And there could be something to gain from a “Spock on the rebound” story, I guess. I just don’t think this has the legs to go much further, and I don’t think it’s a storyline I’d have chosen to include.
Maybe this is because I’m asexual, but I don’t really think a show like Strange New Worlds needs this kind of relationship drama to be entertaining or engaging. There have been relationships between characters in past iterations of Star Trek – Troi and Riker, Worf and Dax, Trip and T’Pol – but again, those shows were longer, and the relationship stuff took up comparatively less time. Of the twenty-four Strange New Worlds episodes so far, three have included T’Pring, and four have included Spock’s relationship with Chapel in some way. Now we have another episode – and presumably at least one or two more to come – that will feature Spock and La’an. It’s just kind of a lot, especially for a character who had previously been so famously unattached – aside from his brief Pon Farr infatuation!
How many romances is Spock gonna have?
Here’s a question: did you guess A Space Adventure Hour’s big twist? I half-guessed it! It seemed pretty clear to me that the “Spock” La’an was talking to on the holodeck was, in fact, a hologram – but I didn’t go quite so far as to pin him as the murderer. In that sense, I think this side of A Space Adventure Hour was pretty creative, and it used the holodeck exceptionally well. We’ve had plenty of “the holodeck done goofed” stories in Star Trek before, but none quite like A Space Adventure Hour in terms of its twist. The story took the same core premise as the one from Elementary, Dear Data – but did something quite different with it. It was creative, and a great way to include this staple Star Trek technology in a new and fun way.
Speaking of the holodeck, it was a lot of fun to see the technology’s origins. It’s a bit of a timeline stretch, perhaps, to say that the holodeck was developed in the 23rd Century but wasn’t widely used nor installed aboard starships for basically another 100 years, but it’s still really interesting to delve into the history of how holodecks developed. Seeing Scotty as one of the early holodeck pioneers is a fun little tidbit, too. I don’t think it really clashes with Relics, where Scotty encounters a 24th Century holodeck, either – though I can see that being a bone of contention for some Trekkies, I guess!
La’an on the holodeck.
I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy when Star Trek takes the time to explore its technologies in a bit more detail – and I think we got an interesting exploration of the holodeck here. Seeing how the holodeck was wired into the rest of the ship could explain how some stories in The Next Generation era unfolded, particularly ones where a malfunction occurred! After the holodeck debuted in The Next Generation, we just kind of accepted that it’s something starships have – even though it could go wrong, sometimes.
Seeing the early development of this technology was fun. But it also presented an opportunity for Strange New Worlds to talk a little about renegade computer programmes – something that’s definitely relevant in 2025 as artificial intelligence software and large language models continue to improve and grow. I don’t think the episode kept this side of things in focus for very long, but the idea of a computer programme being smarter than the people who think they’re in charge of it, and using its generative technology for the purposes of deception? Those are very real and very valid points to touch on!
La’an with holo-Spock.
Where do we draw the line between a funny, self-referential parody or pastiche and something mocking and mean-spirited? I don’t believe that the writers intended for their “Last Frontier” segments to come across as rude, offensive, or mocking The Original Series, William Shatner, or Star Trek fans… but I’m not gonna lie, part of me feels like that’s exactly how it landed. Paul Wesley channelled his inner Shatner to deliver a very on-the-nose impersonation, and other parts of those segments included exaggerated set design, cinematography, and even writing. It felt like something you’d get on a comedy sketch show. And… I don’t think that’s a compliment.
Self-parody is already a difficult thing to pull off. Make one wrong move and it comes across as either masturbatory self-congratulation or a very niche in-joke that only hard-core fans are likely to understand. Both of those problems are present in parts of A Space Adventure Hour, but also… some of those sequences didn’t feel respectful. The tone felt almost aggressive or mocking, as if the writers were saying “look at how silly your stupid little space show is,” and by extension, “you’re idiots for enjoying this crap.” It’s almost like Shatner’s infamous “get a life” skit back in the 1980s – but worse, somehow, because it’s so earnest.
The “USS Adventure.”
There is room in Star Trek for this kind of light-hearted take, and for episodes or storylines that call attention to some of the franchise’s weirder or less serious elements. That’s a big part of what Lower Decks did, if you think about it. But they have to be handled with at least some degree of sensitivity so they don’t come across as mean-spirited or looking down at Trekkies. For me, parts of A Space Adventure Hour strayed uncomfortably close to that line – and I already know some fellow Star Trek fans are gonna absolutely despise what this episode did with this parody.
As I said, I don’t think this was intentional. At least, I certainly hope it wasn’t! But it’s surprising to me that nobody involved in the production of the episode suggested… I dunno. Toning it down a notch or two? I can take a joke; I’m not some kind of stuck-up old fusspot who insists that “Star Trek should be 100% serious all the time!” Just look at my coverage of other episodes with comedic premises; I like comedy in Star Trek and there’s definitely a place for it. And I can see a version of A Space Adventure Hour where this kind of idea worked better. But the way it came across in the finished product… I think it was too much. It was too harsh, too aggressive, and where it could’ve been a funny little nod and wink to fans, it came across as laughing at us rather than laughing with us.
What did you make of the parody?
There were things to appreciate with the “Last Frontier” parody, though. Parts of the sets felt silly and exaggerated – the levers on the bridge in particular. But in other ways the sets were reminiscent of that kind of mid-century sci-fi series; the coloured lights reminded me very much of The Original Series, as did Kirk’s chair and the other console to one side on the bridge.
Though I didn’t really like Paul Wesley’s Shatner impression, it took a lot of skill to pull it off, and I can respect that. The soft filter on the camera, the way lighting changed, and the use of dramatic close-up shots were also all drawn from The Original Series, and added something to this pastiche. Holo-Kirk’s comment about a “female first officer” harkened back to The Cage, “Number One” being a woman, and Pike’s comment about women on the bridge of his ship. Or at least, I felt that it did.
There were some creative ideas here, but the tone let it down.
The rest of the holodeck adventure was a ton of fun. I think there were some pretty tropey over-acted performances from, well, pretty much all of the main cast as they took on these new roles, but that’s not necessarily a negative in this instance. It’s basically what the script called for – and these kinds of mid-century murder mystery stories (I’m loathe to call it “noir”) were populated by wildly exaggerated characters. For the kind of story A Space Adventure Hour wanted to be, the tone was pretty good.
It was also neat to see La’an in this kind of informal environment, as well as learning a bit more about her. La’an can be rigid and formal, though Kirk certainly helped break down her emotional walls! But until now, we hadn’t really gotten to know much about La’an as an individual, and some of the things she likes outside of her work in Starfleet. Season 3 already introduced us to dancing, which is apparently a hobby of hers, and now we’ve gotten to see these “Amelia Moon” detective stories. It was a nice inclusion, and a way to expand her character with something a bit less formal – and dare I say even a little childish – while still being in keeping with what we know about her role as a security officer.
This was a good episode for La’an.
The conversation between La’an and holo-Uhura about fandom was also not lost on me. If the earlier “Last Frontier” parody had been a bit too much, this conversation did succeed at bringing things back, and I appreciated what the writers wanted to say about Star Trek inspiring generations of viewers. I know Star Trek has inspired me – and if you’re reading this, I assume you’re also a fan and that Star Trek means something to you, too. I’m glad that the writers didn’t just leave the parody to speak for itself, but also included this conversation about how this fictionalised version of The Original Series could inspire people in the future.
For La’an, this hit especially close to home because of her connection to the Amelia Moon stories. I interpreted that as kind of a Nancy Drew or Famous Five type of children’s book, not necessarily something as grown-up as Sherlock Holmes! Speak of Holmes, did you notice Spock’s claim to be a descendant of Arthur Conan Doyle? I think the writers thought they were resolving a decades-old “plot hole” with that one! If you don’t recall, in The Undiscovered Country, Spock quoted Holmes and referred to the character as “an ancestor of mine,” which led to discussions in the fan community about what he meant, whether Sherlock Holmes was a real person in this setting, and so on. Strange New Worlds seems to have clarified that Spock was referring to Conan Doyle – and perhaps claiming that he’s an ancestor of Spock’s mother, Amanda? I don’t think it’s the kind of thing which needed clarification, but it’s interesting to note that Spock’s Sherlock Holmes connection goes back a long way!
La’an on the holodeck.
After the opening parody sequence was over, and we settled into the story with La’an, holo-Spock, and Scotty, I felt things improved a lot. The murder mystery looked tropey and silly at first, but then it kind of clicked for me and I found myself getting more invested in it. And on Scotty’s side, while I missed Pelia and felt she could’ve added a lot, it was undeniably a lot of fun to see the origins of the holodeck. Scotty played a big role in the development of that technology, which is certainly interesting!
Strange New Worlds is an episodic show. It remains a lot of fun to shake things up, try new things, and really push the boat out, sometimes. For me, parts of A Space Adventure Hour stuck the landing and showed why episodic Star Trek is still the best kind of Star Trek! Others… didn’t land quite as well as I’d have hoped. Overall, the episode was a bit of a mixed bag, then, but because the least-enjoyable parts were mostly out of the way within the first few minutes, I’d say the episode picked up as it went on, and by the time it ended, I was feeling a lot happier.
Uhura and Scotty.
I would say, though, that this was a truly stupid choice of episode to offer for free if the goal was to bring in new viewers on YouTube and Pluto TV. It’s a very self-referential, navel-gazing, “meta” episode of Star Trek, and it wouldn’t make for a good first contact either for Trekkies who want to get started with Strange New Worlds or for a more casual viewer looking to try Star Trek for the first time. In that sense, I don’t understand why Paramount would choose this story – of all the Strange New Worlds episodes we’ve seen so far – for this kind of marketing stunt. But then again, I don’t understand why the morons in Paramount’s marketing department make basically any of the decisions they make. The sooner the Skydance team takes over, the better!
So that was A Space Adventure Hour. I didn’t hate it. Well… most of it. And there were some interesting ideas and character moments in the mix. I continue to appreciate that Strange New Worlds is an episodic project, even when some of the episodes veer into narrative or thematic territory that doesn’t do much for me personally!
Next week, we have Through the Lens of Time, which I hope is gonna be a ton of fun. Time travel stories (which I’m assuming this one will be) aren’t always my favourites in Star Trek, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Oh, and let’s hope Pelia can make a return to the show soon, too!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3.
By my reckoning, Shuttle to Kenfori marks the halfway point of Strange New Worlds’ run. We learned ahead of Season 3’s premiere that the series will be cancelled after a cut-down fifth season, clocking in at forty-six episodes in total. With this being the show’s twenty-third outing… that’s it. The halfway point. Does that change how we approach Shuttle to Kenfori? It shouldn’t… but it seemed like something that was worth mentioning before we get started.
Going into Season 3, the “Klingon zombie episode,” which had been teased in one of the trailers, was definitely one of the stories I was most curious about! I’m not the world’s biggest fan of horror, but there have been some fun zombie flicks over the years, and after more than 950 episodes and films… I like that Star Trek can still try new things and surprise me! We’ve had horror-themed episodes before, from Empok Nor to Strange New Worlds’ own All Those Who Wander, but this is Star Trek’s first fully-fledged zombie episode. And while I don’t think it was perfect, Shuttle to Kenfori showed why it was worth trying out this kind of story.
Zombies! Aaahhhh!
Let’s get a couple of negative points out of the way first, then we can gush about how great other parts of Shuttle to Kenfori were!
Firstly, the episode’s opening act was too short and too abrupt. We went from “everything’s fine, Captain Batel is getting her own command” to “she has days to live” in a heartbeat. Compounding that was how curtailed the scene in sickbay felt with Pike, Spock, Chapel, and M’Benga. We would later learn that Captain Batel, Spock, and the medical duo had discussed her condition off-screen, but that didn’t make the scene feel much better. In the moment, watching the episode unfold, this foundational sequence needed much longer to play out.
In a matter of seconds, Dr M’Benga and Spock laid out that Captain Batel’s infection was back and that they happened to know of the only plant in the galaxy capable of curing her. Then we got a very short discussion of where the plant might be found… and that was it. It kick-started the story, sure, and the subsequent revelation that the rest of the characters had discussed it off-screen kind of helps, but it still felt very rushed. Going from “the infection’s back” to “but we already have a cure in mind” to “let’s undertake a dangerous off-the-books mission” in less than two minutes just… it’s poor pacing.
This sequence needed to be longer.
I get that this moment isn’t what Shuttle to Kenfori is all about. But we’ve gone from Captain Batel being cured and ready to take command of a new ship to being days or even hours away from a Gorn-induced death in practically no time at all. All of Shuttle to Kenfori’s story arcs hung off this moment in the opening act… and it was just way too short. Past Star Trek stories would’ve lingered here for several minutes, scanning Captain Batel, realising her infection has returned, throwing out half a dozen technobabble cures then shooting them down… heck, we could’ve gotten an entire montage of Chapel, Spock, and M’Benga running through different possible ideas before settling on the flower. It wouldn’t have needed to last more than, say, five minutes… but it would’ve given the rest of the story a much stronger foundation.
While I wouldn’t say that the rushed opening act soured me on Shuttle to Kenfori from the beginning, I was definitely left with a sense of “wait, was that it?” as the episode’s main storylines got underway. I also felt that these problems of pacing and perhaps a slightly too-short episode were present in Hegemony, Part II last week – so I hope this isn’t going to be a running theme throughout the season. I’m all for stories that are bold and try to do a lot with their runtime, don’t get me wrong! But when the opening act is blitzed through too fast, there can be implications for the rest of the story, no matter how strong it might be.
The plan to acquire this flower was arrived at very quickly.
The second major critique of Shuttle to Kenfori is its Klingon storyline. In short… there was a lot going on when Pike and Dr M’Benga touched down on the titular planet, and I’m not convinced we needed this additional villain and complication. It made the zombies themselves – which, surely, should have been the episode’s fear factor and main antagonist – kind of secondary, especially towards the end, and there just wasn’t any need for it.
Narratively, I liked Dr M’Benga’s involvement with the Klingons – we’ll get into that later when I talk about some of the things I liked about Shuttle to Kenfori. But as a concept, in an episode that was already busy with several characters competing to be in focus? I think it was a bit of a misfire, to be honest. Star Trek’s first ever zombie story should’ve done more with the zombies – zombies that were genuinely frightening and must’ve taken a ton of work in the makeup department! Instead, the zombies were relegated to background status pretty quickly, literally looking in from the outside behind an impenetrable narrative force-field as Dr M’Benga’s Klingon adversary took centre-stage.
This episode didn’t need a second antagonist. The zombies were more than enough on their own.
I was kind of reminded of later seasons of The Walking Dead with how this played out. If you know me, you’ll know I’ve said more than once that The Walking Dead – AMC’s zombie apocalypse TV series – should’ve ended after perhaps three seasons, because it wore out its core premise and its zombies stopped being the main focus. The Walking Dead’s writers switched things up and started finding human antagonists for Rick Grimes and his group to deal with, most of whom in the later years were pretty repetitive and basic. That show needed to do that because its core premise – the zombie apocalypse – was itself tired and worn out. But Shuttle to Kenfori is brand-new and its zombies have literally never been seen in Star Trek before. We just didn’t need a sentient antagonist when the undead monsters were already filling that role.
For me, I’d have preferred Shuttle to Kenfori if Pike and M’Benga were trapped in the zombie-overrun research facility with no Klingons present. And then, in another episode, Dr M’Benga could’ve gotten his Klingon enemy and ritual combat, because I genuinely liked what Strange New Worlds did with this storyline. I just feel that smooshing them together into one didn’t let either the zombies or the dishonoured Klingon Bythra truly shine. If we were three seasons into a Star Trek zombie show, and the zombies were beginning to wear out their welcome, then I could see why you’d do a story like this – it’s what The Walking Dead has been doing since about Season 4 of the main show and in most of its spin-off projects. But this zombie idea was so creative and new that having a Klingon antagonist just wasn’t necessary – and I wish we’d gotten to see more of Pike and Dr M’Benga taking on the zombies.
Captain Pike killed a zombie.
I will caveat all of that by saying that the Kenfori zombies could return later in the season. There were promotional posters for Season 3 released a few weeks ago, and one of them showed Pelia and Scotty seemingly surrounded by zombies. Scotty was present in Shuttle to Kenfori, but he stayed on the Enterprise, and Pelia was entirely absent. So maybe I’m reaching and maybe it’s a stretch, but could there be a second zombie story in the offing? If so, and if the zombies are the main focus… maybe we can revisit this side of Shuttle to Kenfori and be a little kinder in hindsight.
There were plenty of ways to turn the zombies into the story’s main adversaries. After Pike and Dr M’Benga retrieved the flower sample, they could’ve been confronted and chased by a small group, becoming trapped in the facility. Looking outside, they’d realise their shuttle was cut off by a massive horde of zombies, and that they’d have to hunker down and wait for extraction. Rushing from room to room in the abandoned facility, they’d have to find shelter – all the while Spock and Una would be conspiring to make them wait longer and longer for a rescue, just as happened in the actual episode. We could’ve got more zombie action, more conversation between Pike and Dr M’Benga about Captain Batel’s condition, and – as a nice little bonus – a longer opening act that didn’t feel so rushed! Two birds with one stone, as they say.
Another zombie.
Alright, that’s enough about that for now. With those two issues aside, I really liked Shuttle to Kenfori. It was a ton of fun to get this kind of Star Trek zombie story, seeing zombified Klingons was somehow even scarier than human zombies, and the zombie sequences at the abandoned research base were pitch-perfect. The sets were decrepit and decaying, the prosthetics used to create the zombies were fantastic, there were some neat uses of the AR wall, and props used to create the Klingon skeleton, the important flower, and the half-eaten leg were all either gruesome or beautiful.
On the practical side of things, Strange New Worlds has been absolutely wonderful. Puppets, prosthetics, and physical props are back – and they’re back in style! CGI can work wonders, sure, but there’s something about physical props and practical effects that – for me, anyway – can’t be beat! They’re part of what makes Star Trek feel like Star Trek, and Shuttle to Kenfori had plenty of prosthetics for the zombies and some absolutely phenomenal props. I don’t think a Klingon d’k tahg (dagger) has ever looked better or more realistic in any episode, we saw a classic Original Series-inspired tricorder, and everything about the research base just screamed “danger.” I love it!
There were some fantastic props in Shuttle to Kenfori – like this d’k tahg.
Star Trek is science-fiction, and while it’s never been “realistic,” Star Trek stories have always gone out of their way to emphasise the science side of things. Even when dealing with wacky and ridiculous storylines, the franchise has always tried to ground those things in its own fictional science. Races like the Q or the Prophets were always perceived as “just another alien,” not some kind of god or deity, for instance, and even the silliest stellar phenomena – like Season 2’s improbability field that caused everyone to burst into song – were presented as having a scientific basis which could be scanned, studied, and understood.
Shuttle to Kenfori does the same with its zombies. They’re the result of an infection of moss spores, not some kind of supernatural entity or undead monster, and I really appreciated that. It doesn’t lessen the fear factor to know where the zombies came from or why they exist, but it keeps the franchise’s scientific tone. There was also kind of a The Last Of Us vibe as a result; these zombies, like the ones from that franchise, are a natural phenomenon caused by plants. The episode clearly leaned on other zombie properties, too: the title is reminiscent of the Korean zombie film Train to Busan, and even the name of the planet Kenfori is derived from actor Ken Foree, known for his role in Dawn of the Dead.
Whose leg is this?
Star Trek has arguably told zombie-adjacent stories before. The biggest example of this, as I’ve discussed before, is the Borg: Star Trek’s own cybernetic zombie faction! But the Borg are also a different kind of villain presented in a different way; there’s something about Shuttle to Kenfori’s mindless, monster-like moss-zombie abominations that’s totally unique. I love that Strange New Worlds has been bold enough to go there – and to tell these horror-inspired stories. We’ve seen it with the Gorn, and now we’re getting this new and creative zombie idea.
If the Borg represent your typical Night of the Living Dead zombies – shuffling around at a slow pace – then the zombies in Shuttle to Kenfori were closer to those from more modern titles like 28 Days Later or the aforementioned Train to Busan. Sprinting at full pelt after Captain Pike and Dr M’Benga, these zombies were truly scary! The jump-scare at the window about made me piss my pants, and the way the horde of zombies tumbled over one another desperately trying to grab our heroes… it was riveting stuff right out of a modern horror film!
These zombies were terrifying – and this was a great jump-scare.
Here’s a question I bet you weren’t expecting: did Shuttle to Kenfori make you think of Tuvix? Voyager’s “meme episode” definitely came up for me, with a flower that can merge DNA seeming quite familiar! I don’t think that means we’re gonna get a half-Gorn Captain Batel at the end of the day, or some kind of horrific Batel/Gorn “Brundlefly,” but it was interesting to hear about this flower and its unusual properties.
There was more to Shuttle to Kenfori than just the zombies – so let’s talk about that next!
Captain Batel’s Gorn infection coming back was something I kind of predicted last week after the opening pair of episodes. There was a lot of talk about her “re-absorbing” the Gorn DNA, especially in Wedding Bell Blues, and I just felt it hinted at there being more to this story than met the eye. In that sense it wasn’t a total shock – though I stand by what I said in my review of Hegemony, Part II: spoiling her survival in trailers and marketing material was a mistake. But I do think it’s interesting that, despite the Gorn themselves apparently taking a little nappy-nap, their influence and impact on our characters is going to stick around.
Captain Batel isn’t feeling too well…
The mind-meld sequence really hammered home how dangerous and unsettling this idea of a Gorn infection truly is. Spock seemed to perceive not only Gorn DNA but an actual individual Gorn somehow inside of or sharing Captain Batel’s body, and that concept is pretty horrifying, if you think about it! The parasitic Gorn eggs draw a lot from the film Alien, where the xenomorphs infect humans in a similar way, and I noted in Hegemony, Part II how truly grotesque the latter stages of that infection looked – brought to life, again, with some fantastic physical special effects work.
The inclusion of Gamble – the new nurse – was also interesting on this side of the story. I said last time that I wondered if Strange New Worlds was teeing him up as either a baddie in disguise or as a secondary character who could be killed off later in the story; when Spock flung him across the room in a Gorn-induced rage, I wondered if that might’ve been poor Ensign Gamble’s end! I like that Strange New Worlds is at least trying to add to its cast – and not just with returning legacy characters. Gamble is still a character I can’t quite place; if he is going to be killed off, fleshing him out and keeping him around in sickbay sequences makes a lot of sense. And if he’s going to take a villainous turn, I think it’s concealed well enough at this stage that the twist will still work!
Ensign Gamble with Captain Batel.
The mind-meld also gave us some very creative camera work/CGI. I love the idea that we were seeing things from a kind of “Gorn eye view,” percieving the world the way they might, with distorted colours and sensing things like heat from their prey. I can’t quite remember if All Those Who Wander did something similar… but I think so. Right? Regardless, this effect was creative and fun, and it really hammered home how this alien entity is still – somehow – alive inside Captain Batel. The CGI camera filter, with its hexagonal shapes, also harkened back to the original depiction of the Gorn captain in Arena – with his trademark silver, insect-like eyes.
Spock’s mind-meld also raised the stakes. The infection isn’t just going to kill Captain Batel, but it could spawn another Gorn – or perhaps multiple Gorn. And we saw in Season 1 how even juvenile Gorn and hatchlings can be deadly! So in that sense, Captain Batel’s infection isn’t just a danger to her, but it’s a potential danger to others, too – like the aforementioned Ensign Gamble! If I had to make a prediction or theory, by the way, I’d speculate that the young nurse will be killed in some kind of Gorn incident related to Captain Batel’s condition!
A Gorn’s view of the world.
Also on the Gorn side of things, we had Lieutenant Ortegas. I touched on this last time, as she’s clearly suffering from some kind of Gorn-induced PTSD-type condition. Una and La’an noted that she’d passed her psychological evaluation and was deemed fit to return to duty, but there’s clearly more going on. We didn’t get anything as explicit as last week’s Gorn reflection/haunting (I’m loathe to say it was an out-and-out “hallucination” without more evidence), but Ortegas is clearly being reckless and insubordinate due to how she’s feeling.
This has potential, but I think it needs to be handled with care. As a secondary or even tertiary story element in an episode which was largely focused elsewhere, there wasn’t a ton of time to dedicate to Ortegas. While what we saw was interesting and does hint at her mental state not being great… I also feel echoes of some of Discovery and Picard’s half-arsed mental health story attempts. Modern Star Trek has admirably tried to include these kinds of stories… but hasn’t always done so with care. An exploration of post-war or post-captivity PTSD is a genuinely interesting narrative concept, and one that could be heart-wrenching if done well… but it’s also a storyline which needs sufficient time dedicating to it. That doesn’t mean an entire episode, but it does mean more than just a few scenes and sequences.
Ortegas on the bridge.
Ortegas’ run-in with Uhura kind of encapsulates this for me. At the briefing, Ortegas interjected with her own riskier but faster rescue plan. But when Una opted for Spock’s slower approach, Ortegas seemed to lash out at Uhura for not backing her up. But this lasted all of a few seconds, and didn’t come up again. Ortegas’ main conflict – if we can characterise this kind of thing as a “conflict” – was with Una. This left her interaction with Uhura kind of sticking out; it needed more than just a couple of lines’ worth of setup, and more of a payoff. If that pattern repeats across this storyline… I worry it won’t achieve everything it aims for.
And that would be a real shame. Melissa Navia, who plays Ortegas, was genuinely compelling to watch this week, and after the Gorn attack, it stands to reason that someone would be suffering some lingering effects. Given Ortegas’ background in the Klingon war as well, there’s a real opportunity to talk about post-traumatic stress, grief, fear, and the lingering after-effects of trauma. I just hope that this opportunity will be fully seized and not fumbled – like Picard and Discovery arguably did.
This Ortegas storyline clearly has room to run.
On a more positive note, I felt Ortegas’ frustration as her plan was shot down. When you’re already on edge, suffering, or just not feeling your best, frustration can boil over – and in a chain-of-command situation, like there is in Starfleet, if your superiors don’t go with your idea, that can absolutely be the kind of thing that sets people off! This side of the story was handled well, and I kind of like the idea of leaning into this and showing Ortegas going rogue, trying to force the situation.
One way or another, this will be resolved. And it’s more realistic than in earlier iterations of Star Trek, where characters would go through some horrible trauma one week and be totally fine the next. I appreciate that Strange New Worlds – which is more episodic in nature than other recent projects – still keeps these ongoing character arcs. It makes people like Ortegas feel more well-rounded; fleshed-out people not just characters. I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping that this PTSD-type storyline manages to stick the landing when it counts.
The Enterprise.
On this side of the story, we got to see Una in command. She’s sat in the captain’s chair before, of course, but this was one of her first real outings where she had to make impactful command decisions; really embracing the role of first officer. Una was clearly taking inspiration from the way Captain Pike runs his ship, but there were enough differences in her approach and the way she handled both the briefing and the Ortegas situation to keep things interesting; she wasn’t just a stand-in for Pike in those moments.
XOs in Star Trek shows have a challenging role: they can’t outshine their captains, but they can’t be too different from them when in command, either. I think we got a great example of how a first officer should behave when left in command in Shuttle to Kenfori – Una was her own person, running the briefing and commanding the ship in her own way. She clearly had the respect of her colleagues – Ortegas’ misbehaviour aside! But she’s also leaning into Captain Pike’s style of command, listening to people, taking suggestions, and then deciding on a plan based on the best evidence available to her. It was a fun sequence, and I’m glad we got to see her taking the reins for a change.
Una got a turn in the captain’s chair while Pike was away.
Although I criticised the inclusion of Bytha and her Klingon band, there was a lot to love on this side of the story. Set aside questions of whether the story needed to be told alongside Shuttle to Kenfori’s zombies for a moment and consider it as a standalone thing. We got a callback to Dr M’Benga’s war service, in which we know he was notorious for killing dozens of Klingons. It also connected to the Season 2 episode Under the Cloak of War in a big way, too. But moreover, what we got on this side of the story was one of the most “Klingon” performances in modern Star Trek.
Discovery’s Klingons could feel a bit muddled, sometimes. They were still Klingon, don’t get me wrong, and there are things to admire with that show’s Klingon war arc. But Strange New Worlds has returned the Klingons to a more familiar visual style and also a tone closer to “classic” Klingons, if you take my meaning. Bytha, who was the daughter of Dak’Rah, was very concerned with matters of personal honour and the standing of her family’s house in Klingon affairs – and this felt like something out of The Next Generation era in the best way possible.
Bytha firing her disruptor.
Bytha was an interesting character, and I liked that her motivation was more complex than just “revenge.” It tied into what we know of Klingon houses and concepts of honour, harkeing back to stories involving Worf, Gowron, and Martok in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Even when surrounded by zombies and with her team dead, Bytha couldn’t stop herself challenging Dr M’Benga to ritual combat in line with Klingon codes of honour, and I found that fascinating and realistic based on what we know of the Klingons.
Bytha’s death was also particularly gruesome! She went out on her own terms, staying true to her beliefs and restoring her honour. I liked Dr M’Benga using honour against her, by beating her and refusing to finish her off. This set the stage for Pike and M’Benga being able to escape, but also gave Bytha an ending to her story that was, if nothing else, fitting. There wasn’t a ton of time to develop Bytha, but we got to know enough about her to understand why she was there, what she wanted, and who she was as a character. Christine Horn, who played the character, did a great job, too – she avoided falling into the trap of going over-the-top or leaving Bytha feeling one-dimensional. Though not in focus for the entire story, I felt she was a compelling villain – even if I’d have preferred to see her in a different episode, perhaps!
Bytha was an interesting Klingon character.
At the end of the episode, we saw Pike and Captain Batel reunited. And this was one of the most emotional sequences in Shuttle to Kenfori. Captain Batel tried to explain why she didn’t tell Pike everything straight away, and there were a couple of pertinent lines in there. “I don’t have the space to worry about how my dying hurts your feelings” is a powerful sentiment, and I think it encapsulates how she’s been feeling and how Pike can react. I don’t think Pike is actually that selfish, by the way, but we’ve seen over the course of his relationship with Batel that he isn’t the perfect partner and doesn’t always know what to say.
There’s also a message about medical consent and terminal illnesses. Pike’s story, going back to Discovery’s second season, has been building up to his own impending accident and disability. With Captain Batel, Pike is the one on the outside having to deal with her worsening health and potential terminal illness, and I think we got a powerful sequence exploring that. The failure of a treatment, an almost desperate, last-ditch attempt to find a new solution, and Captain Batel keeping Pike out of the picture because of how he might’ve reacted. It was riveting, dramatic stuff – but I’m glad that they came back together at the end. I’m curious to see what will come of this treatment – something tells me Captain Batel isn’t out of danger just yet.
Pike and Batel embrace.
So that was Shuttle to Kenfori. With the exception of a rather rushed opening sequence and a Klingon villain who, while compelling in her own right, was ultimately unnecessary for the zombie story, I think it was an outstanding episode. The horror theme was present throughout, the zombies themselves were frightening and incredibly well-designed, and we moved along key storylines involving Pike, Captain Batel, Ortegas, Dr M’Benga… and possibly our new Ensign Gamble, too!
Obviously, though, this episode will be remembered for its zombies. While I don’t want Strange New Worlds to spend too long on any one storyline – as its episodic nature has been one of the best things about the series – I’m kind of hoping we revisit the zombies in the future. It seems strange for Starfleet to just abandon the planet Kenfori with its zombie infestation, and I’m sure the scientists would be very interested to learn more about this contagion, how it spreads, the moss that causes it… and maybe if it could be weaponised. That seems like something that the Klingons might be interested in, too – and if Bytha’s statement is anything to go by, the Klingons knew what they were about to walk into. Then there’s the Scotty and Pelia poster I mentioned earlier – is that hinting at a second zombie story later this season?
Are more zombies on the agenda later this season?
But that’s all for today. A tense, gruesome, and occasionally frightening episode – but it was a lot of fun! As Strange New Worlds hits the halfway point, I can already tell I’m not gonna be ready to let go of this wonderful series when the moment comes. It really has been the high-water mark of modern Star Trek, returning to the franchise’s episodic, exploration-focused roots – while also being brave enough to try completely new and different things.
Next week we have the retro-inspired Space Adventure Hour, and also the apparent return of Kirk. This will almost certainly be a total change in tone from Shuttle to Kenfori’s horror offering, so if this wasn’t to your taste and you’re hankering for something a bit more light-hearted, I think you’re in for a treat!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series Season 1, The Next Generation, Voyager, and Picard Season 2.
After an explosive and action-packed season premiere, Strange New Worlds opted for a complete change in tone in Wedding Bell Blues. There were some lighthearted sequences, a callback to a fan theory that’s been kicking around for literally decades, and, unfortunately, a bit too much cringe humour for my taste. Despite that latter point, Wedding Bell Blues had its moments, and the apparent confirmation of that decades-old fan theory was worth the price of admission alone!
For me, though, I suppose Wedding Bell Blues is going to be another episode that I don’t revisit very often. This obsession that the show’s writers have with putting Spock in situations that are emotional or just wacky and cringeworthy… it’s overstayed its welcome. And while I will happily admit that there can be humour in that premise… I’m thoroughly done with it at this point. Spock Amok, The Serene Squall, The Elysian Kingdom, Charades, and Subspace Rhapsody all included some kind of “Spock comedy” or “Vulcan comedy,” and I just think that we’ve really reached the end of the line with it. Any joke – even great ones – stop being funny when they’re repeated too often, and this whole “Vulcans are stuck up and rigid, so let’s turn that into comedy” idea wasn’t especially strong to begin with. At this point… well, let’s just say I hope we don’t get too much more of that going forward. And yes, I’m aware that we have Four-and-a-Half Vulcans still to come later this season.
I’m done with “Spock comedy” at this point.
That being said, there were some interesting and entertaining moments in Wedding Bell Blues, and when the episode switched to Spock and Dr Korby trying to undo the damage, things largely improved. Dr Korby made for a fun character, even though his introduction as Spock’s rom-com/Hallmark movie dating rival wasn’t spectacular! Dr Korby originally appeared in The Original Series first season episode What Are Little Girls Made Of? where Kirk and the crew encounter him – after a fashion – on a frozen planet.
It’s been a while since I re-watched What Are Little Girls Made Of?, so my recollections of that story are a little fuzzy! But from what I remember, the “Dr Korby” that the crew – and Nurse Chapel – encountered wasn’t quite the same, either due to the mind-transferring process he went through or, perhaps, because of years in isolation and the traumatic experiences he went through. I’m not sure if Strange New Worlds’ version of Dr Korby is going to appear again after this episode. If he doesn’t, I think we’ll look at Wedding Bell Blues as a bit of mildly interesting backstory. But if he does come back, I think there’s potential to expand the character further, and perhaps show us a glimpse of a darker side, something that might inform his TOS appearance. Because I didn’t really get much of that from Wedding Bell Blues, to be honest. If Dr Korby had been substituted for a brand-new character, it wouldn’t have made any real difference to this particular script.
Dr Korby in Spock’s cabin.
We’ll come back to Chapel, Korby, and Spock, because I really want to get into this Trelane and Q connection!
For some background information: Trelane was a character who first appeared in the episode The Squire of Gothos, also from the first season of The Original Series. He was portrayed as a trickster, capturing and toying with Kirk and the crew – before being reprimanded by his parents. When Q appeared at the beginning of The Next Generation some twenty years later, fans immediately made the connection. Q and Trelane felt so similar that “Trelane is a Q” became a popular theory in the Trekkie community. But it was never confirmed, despite Q making repeated appearances in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Even a visit to the Q Continuum itself didn’t confirm it!
The character in Wedding Bell Blues is credited simply as “Wedding Planner,” and John de Lancie – Q from The Next Generation – is credited as voicing “Wedding Planner’s father.” However, ahead of the season we were told that Rhys Darby – who played the “Wedding Planner” – was playing the role of a familiar character, and after Wedding Bell Blues aired, showrunner and executive producer Akiva Goldsman confirmed that the two are the same character. With that in mind, I shall be treating the “Wedding Planner” as Trelane and the other energy life-form as Q.
Trelane with a pint-sized Spock.
I love that Strange New Worlds went out of its way to confirm this old fan theory and really lean into the Trekkie community. Moments like this connect disparate parts of Star Trek together, and while we can argue the toss about changes to the Gorn from one show to the other, Trelane’s appearance here was pitch-perfect. It was right in line with The Squire of Gothos, and the fact that John de Lancie returned to voice Q at the end of the story just made it so much better.
As an aside: have we finally seen the Q in their “true” form? Q has always been able to change his form, but in all of his appearances – and the appearances of other members of the Continuum – we never got confirmation of what the race actually looks like in its native form. I think there’s a case to be made that the energy cloud from The Squire of Gothos and Wedding Bell Blues is what members of the Q Continuum look like when they aren’t deliberately assuming another form. And that’s kind of cool!
Is this Q’s true form?
So after almost forty years, we’ve gotten an explicit connection between Trelane and the Q! I don’t know about you, but I think that’s exceptionally cool, and a great little wink to fans of both The Original Series and The Next Generation. It was also subtle enough that new viewers who aren’t familiar with any of those shows wouldn’t have been left scratching their heads. The ending to The Squire of Gothos was repeated in a pretty similar way, and the meaning behind it – that this entity was little more than a child, toying with living beings – still works even without any of that prior knowledge of Star Trek. It works just as well in 2025 as it did in 1967!
After such a long time, with fans speculating about Trelane and Q since before there was the world wide web… there were risks to this storyline. And I just love that there was enough boldness in the writers’ room to go there. I can see this point being contentious with some older fans, perhaps; not everyone was on board with the “Trelane is a Q” theory. You don’t have to look too far to find old forum threads and blog posts denouncing the notion! But for me, this storyline was well-executed, it doesn’t really prevent you from enjoying any of the Q episodes or The Squire of Gothos in isolation, and given that Trelane seems to have been in disguise most of the time, we can even argue that Spock, Uhura, and Scotty not remembering this encounter makes sense. Heck, if you need a head canon explanation for that: Trelane used his Q powers to make everyone forget about this by the time of The Squire of Gothos!
Trelane is officially a member of the Q Continuum!
Star Trek was one of the entertainment landscape’s first real “shared universes;” pioneering the idea before the name even existed. And it’s nice to get little reminders, now and then, of storylines set in other eras or of fun episodes we remember from older Star Trek shows. There are good ways and bad ways to do this; Wedding Bell Blues, for me, stayed on the right side of the line. There’s enough wiggle-room for people who hate this idea to say that, well, maybe the Wedding Planner and Trelane aren’t one and the same, or that nothing we saw on screen explicitly proves that it was The Next Generation’s Q who showed up at the end. But for fans who’ve bought into the Trelane-Q connection over the years, I think it’s great to see that theory finally confirmed.
Rhys Darby was fantastic as Trelane, too. Informed, perhaps, not only by the original performance of the character by William Campbell in The Original Series, but also by John de Lancie’s Q, I felt we got a complex take on the character. Trelane’s lighthearted, positive energy masked some truly dark impulses and urges, and his total disregard for forms of life he considered “inferior” or beneath him really shone through. There was a distinct creepiness to Trelane, even when he was mincing around, talking about wedding dresses and cake samples. Darby put in a fantastic performance to bring the character to life and make him believable, despite the very unusual situation.
Rhys Darby was great in this role.
Speaking as we were of head canon, here’s one that I think makes some character moments in Wedding Bell Blues flow better! When Spock and Dr Korby approached various characters to explain the “mass delusion” phenomenon, even people who should be receptive to that conversation completely brushed them off. Worse, people like Captain Pike even seemed to ignore or forget what Spock was telling them moments later, and just generally acted out-of-character. When Spock left his own bachelor party, for instance, none of the other attendees – his friends – bothered to go after him or find out what was wrong.
So my head canon is that Trelane’s magic wasn’t just causing the delusion, it was also forcing everyone to react in this way. They were all 100% wedding-focused, and anything that didn’t gel with Trelane’s new scenario was either not retained or pushed aside. That’s really the only way I think we can account for people like Pike behaving the way they do; refusing to listen to his science officer and a prominent, well-respected doctor when confronted just doesn’t fit his character otherwise. For me, this head canon explanation fits pretty well, but I can understand why some viewers might not like the behaviours of Captain Pike and some of the other characters in the episode.
The bachelor party.
The idea that only strong emotions – like anger or love – could break through Trelane’s spell was interesting, and it’s an idea which feels very “Star Trekky,” if that makes sense. It’s a bit of a cliché, sure; love being this supremely powerful emotion capable of saving the day can feel like a worn-out trope. But here, I think it worked well enough. Perhaps if we’d got just an extra line or two between Korby and Spock to technobabble some nonsense about love generating strong brainwave frequencies or something, maybe that would’ve been an improvement. Not essential, perhaps… but an improvement.
Love breaking through the delusion also set up the end of the episode, and Spock being able to get through to Chapel. Calling back to the story about her and Dr Korby climbing a mountain and looking out over the stars was creative and also cute, and despite my overall feelings about Spock being pushed into this love rivalry story that felt like something out of a low-budget Hallmark movie, this moment worked. Spock knew what he had to do; he took a chance on what he felt was the only way to break the illusion for Chapel, and hoped that doing so would shatter it for everyone else.
Chapel breaks free from the spell.
In The Squire of Gothos, the crew of the Enterprise arrive at a planet where Trelane is already present. Yet here, in Wedding Bell Blues, it appears as if Trelane has travelled to Earth… and I wish we’d learned a little about that. Why was Trelane interested in Earth, and why did he feel drawn to Spock when he had ten-plus billion people to potentially toy with? I just didn’t feel we got a satisfactory explanation for that, really. Yes, Trelane is a trickster and a child, but at least encountering him where he is – out in space – made a degree of sense. And for Q, he set puzzles and challenges for Picard, Janeway, and Sisko… but they always served some kind of purpose. Trelane is just playing around, which is the point of the story, but even kids who are playing have reasons for choosing the games they play.
One other thing I liked about Trelane, though, is how we can read his story of wanting to help people fall in love through the lens of what we know about Q. If you know me, you know I generally disliked Star Trek: Picard’s second season, in which Q prominently features. But at the end of that story, we learned that Q cares, in his own way, about things like love – and he has some kind of innate desire to help people fall in love. Or at least he does for certain select people! But this kind of connects with Trelane in Wedding Bell Blues; he saw how down Spock was about losing Chapel and he wanted, in his own somewhat twisted way, to “help.” That interpretation is there, even if it’s built on less solid foundations.
Trelane’s story can arguably connect to Q’s in Picard Season 2.
Love could be blossoming in Strange New Worlds this season. Spock and La’an seemed to share a moment towards the end of the story, dancing together. I interpreted their earlier scenes as purely friendly, with La’an – who apparently has a hidden talent for dancing – helping Spock learn to dance ahead of the Federation Day celebrations. But their moment at the end of the story, with La’an joining Spock as he sat alone, then asking him to dance? Maybe I’m reaching… but in the kind of rom-coms that Wedding Bell Blues borrowed from, those sorts of moments can lead to big romantic entanglements!
In addition, we also have the clearly burgeoning relationship between Uhura and Beto – Lieutenant Ortegas’ brother. When I saw Uhura and Beto in a pre-season promo photo, I thought he might’ve been some kind of villain; perhaps the photo wasn’t a particularly flattering one, but he was giving me a bit of a creepy vibe! In the episode itself, though, we got plenty of flirty banter between the two. Unlike with Spock, Chapel, and Korby, which I found way too cringeworthy, I generally enjoyed this sub-plot. Giving Uhura a love interest, particularly one with a connection to another member of the crew, could be a lot of fun.
They’re just friends… right?
Could Beto’s drone-camera and his filmmaking job become plot points in another story? I wondered if he might’ve had a role to play in Wedding Bell Blues while I was watching the episode; his camera, I suspected, might be able to see through Trelane’s disguise even if no one else could, and that could’ve led to the mystery unravelling. In any case, Wedding Bell Blues set up this hobby/job of Beto’s, and then called back to it to reinforce it, so I can’t help but think we might get something out of it further down the line. Watch this space, I guess.
Uhura got one of the best costumes in this episode! Not at the wedding/Federation Day party… her very 1960s-inspired outfit that she wore to the bar earlier in the story. Strange New Worlds has leaned into a ’60s aesthetic in a way that Enterprise and Discovery never really did. There are still a ton of thoroughly modern trappings, but the show has those connections to The Original Series. Uhura’s outfit was fantastic – but I wouldn’t say it looked out of place aboard this version of the Enterprise. That isn’t an easy line to walk, and generally I think Strange New Worlds gets it right most of the time. Uhura’s new hairstyle, which debuted in this episode, looks fantastic, too.
I love Uhura’s outfit in this sequence.
After the dust settled on the wedding/Federation Day, there are still a couple of lingering Gorn-related questions. I noted last time that Spock and Chapel’s plan to save Captain Batel didn’t involve removing her Gorn infection, but changing how they approached it so that the Gorn would be “re-absorbed” by her body. That line didn’t stick out too much at the time, but the fact that “re-absorbtion” and Captain Batel’s ongoing treatment was mentioned again here? It raises some questions! Is she going to be suffering some kind of ongoing Gorn-related health issue? And if so, could we see the Gorn return in a future story? Could the Gorn infection ultimately still claim her life?
I was surprised to see La’an so casually brushing off her Gorn encounter. I get why it had to happen for narrative reasons – with Ortegas clearly suffering after her near-death experience, having another character going through a similar Gorn PTSD-type situation might be too much. But La’an is a character who has been thoroughly defined by her encounters with the Gorn, both in the show and as part of her backstory. Yes, there’s a three-month time-jump at the beginning of Wedding Bell Blues, and we can argue that La’an might’ve processed some of what happened off-screen. But something about her line to Spock about the Gorn threat being over now… it didn’t sit quite right.
Is Captain Batel in the clear?
However, as mentioned it’s Lieutenant Ortegas who seems to be in focus for a lingering Gorn storyline. Although she seems to have physically recovered, there’s a psychological toll that she doesn’t seem to have addressed yet. She may not have even admitted to anyone that she feels haunted by the Gorn and by her experiences in captivity. This is clearly going to run for more than one episode, perhaps blowing up later in the season in a big way – or conversely, with Ortegas seeking help from someone like Captain Pike, Dr M’Benga, or even La’an. I felt that, if La’an had been the one to get this kind of PTSD-type storyline, she had a great connection already with Una, so she could’ve been someone to turn to.
Ortegas hasn’t been in focus as much across the first couple of seasons, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that she doesn’t have a “bestie” in the same way as some of the other main characters do! That’s a limitation in some respects, but it also means that she could potentially talk to anyone – so maybe it’s better to say it opens up different possibilities. Dr M’Benga would be interesting both for his medical expertise as well as his own traumatic backstory from the Klingon war. Captain Pike could be very sympathetic, too. And La’an, I think, might make a particularly compelling character for Ortegas to seek out. Not only does La’an have that Gorn experience, but she was the one who rescued Ortegas from captivity, saved her life, and then carried her to the ship they used to make their escape.
Ortegas is clearly haunted by her Gorn encounter.
As an aside: Wedding Bell Blues was creative in its use of reflections creative camera shots. We caught a glimpse of Trelane through the window before he first appeared, we saw the view directly from Beto’s camera-drone, and at the end, Ortegas’ feelings of being haunted by her Gorn experience were shown through a reflection in the window.
What do we make of the new nurse? The ensign that Una and Dr M’Benga went out of their way to keep aboard the Enterprise? Is he – as I suspect – going to take a villainous turn? Or is he being set up as a glorified redshirt; a Discovery-esque secondary character with minimal backstory, being fattened up to be slaughtered? Those are my two guesses!
Some of that may come later in the season… or not, if I’m totally overreaching. For now, it’s sufficient to say that I liked some of what Wedding Bell Blues had to offer – but I was less keen on its Hallmark movie plot. Spock and Chapel have run their course as a couple, and I’m glad that the series is finally seeming to put that idea to bed. But I’m not wild about all of these “emotional Spock” and “comedic Spock” storylines. There are other ways to include the character, other ways to demonstrate his growth, and other things to do with Vulcans besides joke about how formal and stuck-up they are.
Redshirt or secret bad guy?
I’m glad that Strange New Worlds doesn’t double up its episodes every week. Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to pay less for Paramount+, and a shorter season would help with that! But two episodes at once is a bit much; binge-watching some shows is a ton of fun, but for a brand-new season of Star Trek? I like to give the episodes room to breathe. A nice week-long gap is what I need!
So we’ve reviewed both of the Season 3 premiere episodes. They were pretty different, and obviously my preference would be Hegemony, Part II by quite a long way! But I did enjoy the Trelane-Q fan theory being confirmed all these years later, and it was fun to get a kind of Q-ish or Q-adjacent storyline for Spock. Dr Korby, despite a pretty disappointing love triangle story and a weak introduction, was a fun character, and a good foil for Spock as he was forced to team up with arguably his least-favourite human! And we got some fun moments with Sam Kirk, Uhura, Chapel, Ortegas, and her brother, too.
Not my favourite episode, thanks to its cringe humour and Spock-Chapel-Korby love triangle. But an episode with plenty of redeeming features.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform exists. The first two seasons are also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Strange New Worlds Seasons 1 and 2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and Discovery.
Charades was an episode of two halves. One of these halves worked well, and the other… well, let’s just say that the other was not to my taste. It was undeniably a Star Trek episode to its very core, bringing to the fore concepts that the franchise has used going all the way back to The Original Series. We also got an interesting exploration of a previously unseen aspect of Vulcan culture, character development for both Spock and Nurse Chapel, and some comedic moments that stuck the landing.
On the other hand, Charades relied far too heavily on the kind of “cringe humour” that defined sitcoms like Friends, with parts of the “Spock must pretend to be Vulcan” storyline evoking the same kind of feelings as watching Robin Williams’ character try to be in two places at once in Mrs Doubtfire. That kind of situational humour really isn’t my cup of tea… and while I can tolerate it in small doses and for a one-off story, it means that Charades is unlikely to be an episode I’ll choose to revisit very often in future.
I watched most of the episode with this kind of expression on my face…
It was a treat to welcome back Mia Kirshner as Spock’s mother, Amanda. Kirshner reprised her role from Seasons 1 and 2 of Discovery, where she was seen alongside both Spock and Michael Burnham. Burnham wasn’t mentioned on this occasion, which I suppose is an interesting omission given that the story called back to Spock’s childhood and had a focus on the divide between humans and Vulcans. But Amanda’s presence was more than enough to carry this storyline – and I found it to be the most interesting and certainly the most impactful part of Charades.
It was hinted at, even as far back as The Original Series, that being a human married to a Vulcan could be difficult. Enterprise greatly expanded our knowledge of human-Vulcan relations, and showed how Vulcans could take an almost sneering view of a species they regarded as not as sophisticated or developed. Through Amanda’s story in Charades, we get to see how that manifests on an individual level, and how Vulcans can discriminate against humans – or even show revulsion and hate.
Charades was an unexpectedly strong episode for Spock’s mother, Amanda.
This ended up being a particularly powerful storyline. Amanda, as Spock came to realise, had to endure a great deal of hardship as a human living on Vulcan. Even as Vulcans came to accept him as one of their own, Amanda remains a perpetual outsider, constantly subject to being talked down to, shunned, disregarded, and treated differently because of who she is. The cool intellectual and logical nature of Vulcans means that this discrimination manifests differently – but it’s there nevertheless, and we come out of Charades with a much stronger appreciation for Amanda and her strengths after having seen what she continues to experience.
This idea that Vulcans’ aloofness and intellectual prowess can easily slide into a sense of superiority is nothing new in Star Trek; it was front-and-centre in depictions of the Vulcans in Enterprise in particular. But this very personal, individual exploration of that – and the impact it can have on non-Vulcans who have to endure it – is something different and interesting. Strange New Worlds has found a new way to build upon the lore of Star Trek, expanding our understanding of one of the franchise’s most iconic races – and their flaws.
Through T’Pring’s mother we saw some of the flaws that Vulcans can fall victim to.
Star Trek has done the “character transformed” idea in multiple ways on multiple occasions, from Jadzia Dax’s friends embodying her Trill symbiont’s past hosts in Deep Space Nine through B’Elanna Torres being split into human and Klingon personalities in Voyager. So in that sense, Charades’ “Spock gets turned into a human” premise isn’t entirely original. But for a character who’s been struggling with his human and Vulcan sides, it was an interesting move.
However, I’d argue that Season 1’s The Serene Squall had already done much of the heavy lifting on Spock and his internal conflict. That episode reframed the idea as a kind of analogy for gender identity, and made a great deal of progress for Spock in terms of his character arc in this series – an arc that has to take him from the more emotional presentation seen in Discovery and get him much closer to the way he was in The Original Series. We also got Spock Amok in Season 1, which focused on Spock’s relationship with T’Pring and the stresses that his role in Starfleet and his half-human side was taking. On its own merit what Charades did in that regard was interesting – but given that The Serene Squall was a mere eight episodes ago… its impact is, I would argue, lessened.
Spock and T’Pring.
And I think that speaks to a broader concern about Strange New Worlds as a whole: its focus on legacy characters and their characterisations. Out of fifteen episodes that have been broadcast so far, we’ve had two that focused primarily on Spock and his relationship with T’Pring, and two more in which Spock and Nurse Chapel’s relationship was a major plot point. Season 2 has also spent a disproportionate amount of time so far on legacy characters, with Una, Nurse Chapel, Dr M’Benga, Spock, Captain Kirk, Uhura and latterly Captain Pike all getting moments in the spotlight. This is starting to come at the expense of other characters.
Pelia, the Enterprise’s new chief engineer, was mentioned by name in Charades but hasn’t been seen on screen for a couple of episodes now. And while La’an and Ortegas both had lines of dialogue this week, they were swept along by a narrative current outside of their control. I’m all for learning more about Spock’s background, don’t get me wrong. As a Trekkie, and as someone who’s firmly invested in this world, I like the idea. But Strange New Worlds has a limited amount of time at its disposal; the show runs ten-episode seasons, and after this, only one more season is guaranteed to be produced. As fascinating as it is to spend time with Spock, given that this episode’s core story felt more than a little derivative of what we got in two episodes of Season 1, its main story is one that could have been reduced – if not skipped outright – in favour of stories focusing on some of the show’s new characters.
La’an had a minor role this week.
Charades’ style of “cringe humour,” something often seen in American sitcoms, really isn’t my thing. I found a few moments in the episode damn near painful to watch, particularly when jokes and gags were made at Spock’s expense. That is, however, purely a matter of personal taste, and as far as I can see, the episode’s sense of humour stuck the landing and achieved what it was aiming for… even if it isn’t something I personally enjoyed. There were absolutely some laugh-out-loud moments, moments where I had to pause Charades for fear of missing what would come next as I was laughing so hard. The premise of the episode is inherently silly: Spock being transformed into a human right before an important dinner with his fiancée. And as one of Strange New Worlds’ more lighthearted offerings, that side of the story worked as intended.
There is a slightly uncomfortable edge to some of this humour, though – and while I have no doubt that this was unintentional on the part of the writers and producers, it’s still worth acknowledging. Going all the way back to The Original Series, the character of Spock has stood apart from his crewmates. Though mental health, autism, and neurodivergence were never stated explicitly in Star Trek, Spock has, for the longest time, been someone that folks who are autistic or neurodivergent have related to. Charades stripped away part of this presentation, and did so largely for comedic purposes. That wasn’t always the most comfortable thing to watch, especially with the aforementioned “cringe” aspect to the episode’s humour. I don’t think we need to zero in on this, nor spend too long criticising Charades here, but it’s absolutely worth acknowledging this aspect of the story.
Charades seemed to poke more than its share of fun at Spock.
Conversely, and to be fair to Charades, it showed us a different side to Spock – but one that was equally rooted in many of the same neurodivergent aspects of his character. The episode’s script compared Spock’s handling of emotions to that of an adolescent, but if we continue our analogy for Spock being autistic or an “outsider” to the world of human emotion, what we see is someone experiencing these emotions in their strongest, most raw form. Just as many neurodivergent folks struggle to understand emotion, others feel them intensely, and this intensity was something new for Spock – but something no less interesting to see.
Again, the way this was played was largely for comedic effect, as Spock’s over-exaggeration of some of his feelings and emotions was part of this “cringe humour” thing that Charades had going on. But if we can look past that, I think there’s a case to be made that we saw a different side to Spock, one that flipped his logic and cool, usually emotionless presentation on its head – but it was a presentation of Spock that was no less relevant or relatable than it has been in the past.
We got a very different presentation of Spock this week.
There was a comment made before the season aired by one of the show’s executive producers (a comment I’ve now lost so I can’t find to quote from directly) that said something along the lines of “Strange New Worlds will push the boundaries of canon.” That alarmed me somewhat, because the series has to fit into a long-established world, and sometimes what producers and writers call “pushing the boundaries” can actually mean “ignoring and/or erasing.” And I think in Charades’ development of Nurse Chapel’s relationship with Spock, we get to see an example of this pushing of the boundaries.
The Original Series implied on several occasions that Chapel had feelings for – or at least a crush on – Spock. But it never went beyond that; the two characters, when they interacted, maintained a level of professionalism and perhaps friendship… but never anything more. There was no hint at a background of having once been lovers or ex-partners, and while nothing in The Original Series should explicitly rule out the kind of relationship that we see the two seemingly ready to embark upon in Charades, it’s certainly something that takes these two long-established characters and pushes them in a new direction.
What will become of the relationship between Spock and Chapel?
In the context of Strange New Worlds itself, this relationship works well. Pairing up Spock and Nurse Chapel succeeded in Season 1, and their relationship has only deepened since then. In a way, we could argue that this adds to our understanding of the characters and where they were in The Original Series – and as they interacted so infrequently in Star Trek’s first incarnation, it’s perfectly fine to bring them together in this way. It’s also not the only change made to either character from their original appearances.
That being said, putting Spock and Nurse Chapel into this kind of romantic (or at least physical) relationship is something that works best when taking Strange New Worlds in isolation. As new characters on a new show, they absolutely have the potential to do this. But for both characters, Strange New Worlds is a prequel, and it’s unclear how this relationship will work for either of them – nor how it will move either character closer to their TOS presentation.
Spock and Chapel share a kiss.
In terms of visual effects, Charades excelled. The mysterious anomaly on the surface of the moon was interesting, and its pale blue hue made it look different from other similar anomalies seen elsewhere in Star Trek. Within the anomaly itself, where Uhura, Ortegas, and Chapel ended up, I felt the “interdimensional space” set was perhaps a little small, but nevertheless succeeded at feeling sufficiently otherworldly. When compared to similar VFX sets, especially the Trill memory world from Discovery’s third season, there’s no contest, and it’s great to see that Paramount has massively improved its animation work.
There might’ve been a little of Season 1’s Children of the Comet in the set design used for the Kerkhovian interdimensional realm, but for most viewers I daresay that would pass unnoticed. Overall, it was an excellent and suitably “alien” space, both in terms of its appearance as an anomaly in space and when the away team arrived there in person.
The shuttle and the anomaly – a great CGI creation.
With a return to Vulcan and a focus on Spock’s family, there was the potential to bring back Sarek as well as Amanda. James Frain played the role of Sarek remarkably well in Discovery, and it would have been interesting to have seen more of the Spock-Sarek feud that was alluded to in The Original Series. Spock made the barest of references to their estrangement in Charades, but there might’ve been scope to do more had the episode retained a tighter focus on Vulcan and Spock’s family.
While T’Pring’s mother certainly leaned into the Enterprise style of aloof and arrogant Vulcans, I wasn’t really sure what to make of her father. T’Pring’s father seemed to be the archetypal “henpecked” husband, doing little more than agreeing with her and backing up her opinions. This kind of stock character has very little personality, and while it was intended to be lighthearted, I’m not sure how well it works in-universe when we think about how Vulcans tend to act. Is his behaviour logical?
T’Pring’s father.
Despite the inherent silliness of Spock’s sci-fi ailment, I was impressed by Nurse Chapel’s dedication to her patient. This side of the story took on a much more serious tone, and if we set aside the relationship drama angle for a moment, we got to see a great example of two dedicated medical professionals working against the clock to help a sick patient. Star Trek can do medical drama well, and while this wasn’t the main focus of Charades, it’s still a good example of how well medical stories can work in the franchise.
For Nurse Chapel we also got to see a bit more of her professional life – the “archaeological medicine” fellowship that she hoped to work with. This was interesting, as it seems to harken back to something we learned about Chapel in The Original Series: her engagement to a Federation archaeologist. The episode What Are Little Girls Made Of? introduced this relationship, and it’ll be interesting to see what – if anything – comes of it in Strange New Worlds, especially given Chapel’s newfound relationship with Spock. Will she break things off with Spock to pursue another partner? If so, what impact will that have on Spock? Maybe we’ll find out later this season… or in Season 3!
Nurse Chapel and Dr M’Benga in sickbay.
So I think I’ve said all I can about Charades for now. Its use of cringe humour means it ranks quite low on my list of Strange New Worlds episodes… but that isn’t to say it was out-and-out “bad.” It did its own thing and did it well, at least as far as I can tell. That style of humour simply isn’t to my taste, and it’s for that reason more than any other that I found it to be a less enjoyable experience than other episodes that the series has offered.
It took me a while to get around to this review, and I’m still getting caught up on Strange New Worlds after a longer-than-expected break. Thanks for bearing with me, and I promise to get around to full reviews of the remaining episodes of the season in due course!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-2 are available to stream now on Paramount Plus in countries and territories where the service is available. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds – 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1 and 2. Spoilers are also present for Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek: Discovery, and Star Trek: Picard.
Welcome to the first of my Strange New Worlds episode reviews! Unfortunately, some truly idiotic decisions at Paramount blocked off Season 1 and prevented fans in most of the world from being able to (lawfully) watch it at the time it was broadcast, so for that reason I elected not to write individual episode reviews here on the website. But because Season 2 is more widely available, I intend to cover the series from this point forward. Individual Season 1 episode reviews/re-watches may also appear from time to time.
Strange New Worlds’ first season was probably the best thing I watched in all of 2022. The show was a wonderfully welcome return to an older, more episodic style of storytelling that I think is a perfect and natural fit for the Star Trek franchise. As I said in my spoiler-free review of the season, there really weren’t any episodes that I felt didn’t hit the mark last time around. Season 2 has a lot to live up to, then!
The Enterprise departs Starbase 1.
And on balance, I have to say that The Broken Circle was a decent continuation of the series. It arguably wasn’t as strong as the final two episodes of Season 1, which were both phenomenal, and I have some specific criticisms that we’ll get to. But in terms of entertainment value, I can tell you that I was gripped the entire time! The Broken Circle was an action-packed episode that started the season with a bang.
There are a couple of points of concern that were raised that kind of fall outside of the story told in this week’s episode, and I want to look at that before we get into the rest of the review. Where Strange New Worlds succeeded last time was in its blend of episodic storytelling with some character arcs and storylines that ran across multiple episodes. This modernised the format, allowing for the likes of Dr M’Benga’s story with his daughter or Captain Pike’s struggles with his impending accident to not be forgotten, but the focus was still very much on distinct and individual stories week-to-week.
Spock seems upset…
In contrast, The Broken Circle feels very much like “Part 1” of a larger, much more serialised story. Captain Pike took off on a mission to help Una, who’s on trial. Pike’s destination, who he plans to visit, and Una’s trial were all stories that were started briefly but then paused. La’an’s status as an ex-Starfleet officer was also set up, but left unresolved by the time the credits rolled. And most significantly, as the episode was drawing to a close we saw Admiral April and another senior Starfleet officer looking at a report of a possible Gorn incursion – something that is clearly setting up a story thread that the next episode or episodes will follow.
I’m not wild about this new direction, and it feels that Strange New Worlds has taken some big steps down a path much closer to serialisation. When the show’s semi-episodic format had been working so well, this change simply isn’t one that I’d have made – and while I’m not averse at all to the idea of character arcs, two-part stories, or even cliffhanger endings… the season premiere seemed to bring a lot of those serialised elements into play all at once, leading to it feeling like the first part of an ongoing story rather than a classic Star Trek episode that could be enjoyed as a purely standalone affair. That the episode leaned heavily on characters and storylines that had been set up in Season 1 only added to this feeling.
Is this the beginning of a season-long serialised story?
There will be time in the weeks ahead, though, to assess how far down this serialised path Strange New Worlds may venture in its second season. For now, we still have a lot to get stuck into from this week’s outing – and I have to say that it was a blast to welcome back the Klingons.
I wasn’t sure to what extent Strange New Worlds would make reference to Discovery’s Klingon War storyline, but this week’s story connected back to it in a very clever way. Nothing in Discovery was truly “required reading” to make sense of events in The Broken Circle, but for fans who recall Discovery’s first season, the connections were there. The story stood on its own two feet without relying too heavily on Discovery, and could be enjoyed by fans and newcomers alike as a result.
I liked what this episode did with the Klingons.
The Klingons in The Broken Circle were much closer, both visually and in terms of their actions and temperament, to how they appeared in much of Star Trek prior to the Kelvin timeline films. For fans who weren’t wild about those more recent depictions, that’s got to be seen as a positive thing! For me, I think there’s room enough in Star Trek for a more diverse and varied look at a familiar race like the Klingons – but I can’t deny that it felt incredibly fun to see them laughing and drinking bloodwine.
The idea of rogue humans and Klingons on a shared world seeking to re-start hostilities for profit was also a genuinely interesting idea, one that the episode did well to explore. Star Trek doesn’t always give us a look at the denizens of the galaxy outside of Starfleet or the main factions – but in a galaxy so vast, there are bound to be settlements like this one, populated by people who’d do anything to make themselves rich. This felt like a glimpse at that world – and it was genuinely interesting.
Cajitar IV is the kind of place Star Trek doesn’t always show us.
Building an entire starship underground felt like a bit of a stretch in some ways (and if this gang had the resources to do that, did they really need to start a war to make more money?) but it was a neat idea nevertheless. It was also a creative way to recycle some of the sets built for the Enterprise, and to get away with a very minimal redress! These sets, which were supposed to be part of the gang’s newly-minted ship, were integrated well into the story. Not every Star Trek episode in recent times has made good use of redressed sets, but on this occasion we can say that it worked well in context.
It was also neat to see a different kind of starship design, one that seemed to use a Crossfield-class saucer section but on a much smaller star-drive and with different nacelles. The Crossfield-class – famous, of course, for being the USS Discovery’s class – was even name-checked in the episode itself, which was neat. In some ways this design felt like an old-school “kit-bash;” a name used for starships that were often created out of spare parts or leftovers in the days when physical models were still used. Some well-known Star Trek ship designs started out life as kit-bashes!
I liked the “kit-bashed” design of the rogue ship.
On the negative side, I felt that Admiral April’s “request denied” was a rather paper-thin setup to the main storyline. We’ve seen in many Star Trek episodes how by-the-book admirals could be little more than bumps in the road, getting in the way of what our heroes needed to do. And this felt very much like that. April had a reason, namely that the Klingons would interpret any incursion to the shared world as an act of aggression, but didn’t seem at all willing to consider other ideas or alternative proposals – even though La’an’s message, as communicated by Spock, suggested that the situation was dire and that the Federation was in danger.
This was disappointing, and there were other ways to get the story to this shared planet without presenting April as a “badmiral” who was getting in the way. In fact, this entire section of the episode didn’t really get any kind of narrative payoff, with Spock’s decision to steal the Enterprise not seeming to give him much trouble, and with April dishing out what amounted to no formal consequences. It ended up feeling a bit artificial; some forced drama to up the stakes.
Spock and Admiral April.
While we’re talking about Admiral April, I’m not thrilled with where his story seems to be going. If there is to be some kind of Gorn conflict that could be interesting, but why present April as someone who has something to hide? It makes sense that any organisation would share information carefully, but the end of The Broken Circle seemed to be saying that April and one of his co-conspirators at Starfleet Command were deliberately concealing information and not sharing it with their crews in the field.
Perhaps this is something that will be resolved or paid off in a future episode – and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that! I don’t want to see someone like April – who seemed like a decent, upstanding officer last time around – in any kind of negative light. Discovery has done great things in its third and fourth seasons with Admiral Vance, bringing a wonderful character to screen as head of Starfleet. I’d very much rather see April go down that route instead of becoming a typical “badmiral.”
I wasn’t wild about the way April was presented here.
It was a very bold choice for the premiere episode of Season 2 to sideline Captain Pike. Every Star Trek season has episodes in which some characters are in focus and others are not, but Pike is not only central to Strange New Worlds – without him, and without Anson Mount’s incredible portrayal, the show wouldn’t have come to exist at all. So while the decision to send him off on his own little mission made perfect sense in-universe, it was a brave narrative decision by the writers and producers. And arguably a strange one, too.
Strange New Worlds is, for many folks, “the Captain Pike show.” Pike was present in all ten of the first season’s stories, and as the captain of the ship is a key part of the series. His absence gave Spock a turn in the captain’s chair for the first time – which was great to see, don’t get me wrong – but I can’t help feel that there must’ve been a way to include Pike in a larger way. Maybe I’d have chosen to restructure the season to place Pike’s solo adventure first, and then this episode second – just as one example.
I have a theory in the pipeline about who Pike may be going to visit – so stay tuned for that before the next episode airs!
Doing “the Captain Pike show” without Pike?!
Season 1 spent a fair amount of time with Spock, and looked at his inner conflict between his human and Vulcan sides. The Broken Circle threw Spock into a brand-new situation for him… and he didn’t necessarily react the way I’d have expected. This version of the character, perhaps inspired more by his adopted sister and their adventures in Discovery’s second season, seemed much quicker to break the rules when faced with opposition from Starfleet. If we hop over to the Kelvin timeline for a moment, in that reality, Spock told the unvarnished truth about Kirk in a written report and ended up getting him demoted. In The Original Series we could see Spock as a stickler for rules and protocol, too, often butting heads with Dr McCoy and others as a result. I don’t want to say he acted “out-of-character” here, because we are dealing with a younger Spock, a Spock who is still finding himself and finding his feet. But it’s certainly interesting to see how he behaved very differently from the man we might remember.
The theme of Spock’s conflicted nature and how he “isn’t like other Vulcans” came to the fore in The Broken Circle in more ways than one – and was arguably part of the episode’s resolution. Spock’s interaction with the Klingon captain was fun, and I enjoyed seeing him drinking bloodwine and finding an unorthodox route to peace.
Spock negotiated successfully with the Klingons.
This final part of the episode didn’t feel especially strong, however. The climax of the story arrived slowly, and The Broken Circle did a good job at building up its Klingon-human shadowy conspiracy. But the resolution to this conflict seemed to be rushed through, with both the Klingon commander standing down at the drop of a hat and Admiral April back at Starfleet HQ agreeing very quickly to overlook Spock’s actions.
This is something that I’d have liked to have seen a few more minutes dedicated to. We could have drawn out the standoff over the planet, with Spock and the Klingon commander talking around one another with the threat of war hanging over their heads. Seeing Spock handle this situation was great – but it didn’t last very long. And Admiral April gave Spock a pass for desertion, theft of the flagship, violating a peace treaty, and a dozen or more other crimes. Again, this was something that needed more time – especially as the payoff to April’s earlier intransigence.
A Klingon D-7 battlecruiser.
A character like La’an can fall into the trap of stereotyping, or can feel left out as writers don’t always know what to do with a security officer who doesn’t seem to have much by way of a softer side. So it was fantastic to see The Broken Circle really giving her something to do, and doing it in a way that felt natural for her. We saw her past experiences with the Gorn come to the fore in Season 1, and The Broken Circle built on that foundation, taking La’an away from Starfleet for a cause close to her heart.
Seeing her with Oriana really humanised La’an, showing that she can care for others and has more to offer than just her skills with a phaser. The only disappointing thing, as mentioned, was that The Broken Circle didn’t wrap up La’an’s leave from Starfleet one way or another. This is something that may come back into play if a more serialised story is unfolding, and there are sure to be plenty of ways an ex-Starfleet officer could be of use on “the outside,” but in terms of her character arc this week, the lack of a conclusive ending makes it feel like there was something missing from La’an’s story.
Oriana and La’an.
Where La’an’s story built on what had been set up last year, the stories of Dr M’Benga and Nurse Chapel sort of felt like they came out of nowhere. Of course we know about the Klingon War; that was discussed in the episode itself. But even in the recap at the beginning of The Broken Circle, it was noted that the Enterprise and her crew didn’t take part in the conflict. If that’s the case, it obviously means that Chapel and M’Benga came aboard later and did take part – but that was a little confusing and not particularly well-established.
I didn’t re-watch all of Season 1 prior to sitting down to watch The Broken Circle, so my ageing memory may be missing a trick, but I don’t recall either Dr M’Benga or Nurse Chapel discussing the war last season. I don’t think it necessarily matters in a big way, but it was undeniably something that I felt came out of the blue. It certainly succeeded at ramping up the tension as the pair were caught by the Klingons and trapped aboard the fake Starfleet vessel, but it wasn’t a point that felt particularly strong in terms of its setup. If I’m wrong, and if their prior service in the Klingon War was mentioned last year, then I’ll be happy to rescind this point of criticism!
Nurse Chapel and Dr M’Benga.
Being ejected into space is usually a death sentence in Star Trek – and in sci-fi in general! In Picard’s recent third season, a character was killed in precisely this way. So it was odd, in a way, to see Dr M’Benga and Nurse Chapel survive such a harrowing experience. I’m glad they did, of course, and the buildup to their being blown out into space was a tense and deeply emotional sequence. But it does feel a tad inconsistent with what we’ve seen in past Star Trek stories – and rather like the two were given some particularly heavy plot armour.
That being said, it was great to see Dr M’Benga and Nurse Chapel paired up for an adventure that took them outside of sickbay. They work incredibly well together and made a fun pair, and I hope we get to see more of them. It would be fun to explore their history, too – did they serve together during the Klingon War, as The Broken Circle seemed to imply? If so, what was that like? Are they still friends, or have their wartime experiences changed them and driven them apart? And the strange drug that Dr M’Benga keeps in his medical case… what is it? I wonder if it might be some kind of Section 31 invention.
Chapel and M’Benga were blasted out into space!
When we were first introduced to Commander Pelia, I confess I wasn’t particularly blown away. She’s replacing a character in Hemmer who I felt was hard done by in Season 1, and was someone I’d have liked to have had the opportunity to spend more time with. There was a uniqueness to Hemmer, not only as a blind character or as the first Aenar to be a major character on Star Trek, but as an avowed pacifist. We’ll have to deal with Hemmer’s wasted potential in more detail in a standalone piece one day, because there’s a lot more to say!
But suffice to say that I was impressed by Pelia’s chaotic energy, and the revelation that she’s a member of a previously-unseen species – one that is especially long-lived and that has lived amongst humans for a long time. Her connection with Spock’s family is also an interesting angle that The Broken Circle set up that I hope will be further explored in future stories.
Commander Pelia is a brand-new character for Season 2.
Pelia’s scenes on the bridge with Spock (and others) were cute, and I liked the way that she was dancing around what was going on without just coming out and saying it. And it was a fun subversion that this older, higher-ranking character who sussed out the truth didn’t immediately turn Spock in, but actually wanted to come along for the ride. That was fun, clever, and a somewhat unique way to introduce this new character.
Pelia has an almost child-like charm, despite being such a long-lived character, and I’m now especially curious to see her in an engineering setting. We only got the barest of glimpses of her in main engineering this week, but I’m sure she’ll have a lot to offer. It’s premature to be thinking about adding too many more characters, but the idea that Pelia might’ve been a mentor of sorts to Montgomery Scott is a fascinating one that I wonder whether the series might explore in future. Perhaps that’s an idea for Season 3, 4, or even 5!
Spock and Pelia have a connection already.
So I think that’s all there is to say for now. The Broken Circle was a solid start to Season 2 – albeit one that wasn’t quite at the level of the episodes that immediately preceded it. There were some contrivances in the story that left some moments feeling rather flimsy or too short, but overall I had fun with Spock and the crew of the Enterprise as they went off on an unsanctioned mission.
I’m curious to see whether some of the storylines set up or teased this week will turn Season 2 into a fully-fledged serialised affair, or whether they’ll be revisited in some other way. My hope is that Strange New Worlds can find a way to course-correct and return to the semi-episodic style that it employed so perfectly last time around. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-2 are available to stream now on Paramount Plus in countries and territories where the service is available. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds – 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, and Star Trek: The Original Series.
Though we still haven’t seen a trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, which is on the schedule for next year, last week’s Star Trek Day broadcast finally introduced us to members of the crew of the USS Enterprise who will be joining Captain Pike. Along with Pike, Spock, and Number One, who are returning to their roles from Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, we briefly met six other characters.
We’ll look at each of these characters in turn to see what we can gleam and if we can figure out anything about the direction of any of Strange New Worlds’ plotlines, but first I wanted to cover an omission. Ever since Strange New Worlds was announced last year, fans had been speculating about who may or may not join Captain Pike on the Enterprise, but one character I felt had a strong chance of making an appearance was Cadet Sidhu.
Captain Pike with Cadet Sidhu in engineering.
Cadet Sidhu was introduced in the Short Treks episode Ask Not in 2019, and played a major role in that story alongside Captain Pike. Though Ask Not was primarily a vehicle for Anson Mount to reprise his much-loved role, almost any story aboard the Enterprise could’ve been invented for that purpose. To tell a story that focused on Cadet Sidhu and her being assigned to the USS Enterprise felt like a deliberate character introduction, and even though Strange New Worlds hadn’t been announced at that point, the series was clearly something that Star Trek was building up to.
I felt that Ask Not was a strong story, and that Sidhu actor Amrit Kaur put in a solid performance. It was a little surprising to see that she wasn’t part of the main cast at Star Trek Day, and while it’s still possible the character could return in some form, the inclusion of Cadet Uhura – whose role we’ll come to in a moment – seems like it’s potentially occupying a very similar space to the role that Sidhu might’ve played. Although the two characters are in different departments – Sidhu in engineering, Uhura in communications – in terms of narrative structure and character roles it seems unlikely that Strange New Worlds would have space to do justice to the stories of two cadets. If Sidhu is included, then, it seems certain that her role will be much less prominent than I’d have initially expected.
Cadet Sidhu doesn’t seem to be coming back – despite Ask Not seemingly setting her up for a role aboard the Enterprise.
Now that we’ve covered one non-appearance, let’s look at who will definitely be part of Season 1! The character about whom we know the least right now is Erica Ortegas, played by Melissa Navia. This lieutenant appears to occupy a role on the bridge, perhaps in either the helm or navigation positions in front of Captain Pike. Wearing a red shirt, however, could mean she has a role as a security officer, tactical officer, or engineer either in addition to or instead of a permanent role on the bridge.
Lieutenant Ortegas does not appear to be connected to any known Star Trek characters, either from The Original Series era or any other Star Trek production, so that speculation is really the extent of what we know! We can assume that she’s of Spanish, Latin American, or Hispanic-American origin simply based on her name and casting, which would make her the first major character in the franchise to be from one of those backgrounds.
Lieutenant Ortegas on what appears to be the bridge of the Enterprise.
Interestingly, the name “Ortegas” is not new to Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry’s original pitch for Star Trek, prior to commencing work on The Cage, included a character named José Ortegas who would occupy the role of the ship’s navigator. By the time The Cage entered production, however, this character had been changed. José Tyler (whose first name wasn’t mentioned on screen) replaced Ortegas. This subtle nod to Star Trek’s origin is incredibly sweet, and if we can infer anything at all from this connection, it could mean that Lieutenant Ortegas will indeed occupy the role of navigator on the bridge.
Up next is the other character who appears to have no connection that we’re aware of to anyone else in Star Trek: Hemmer, played by Bruce Horak. Horak was not part of the announcement of the cast of Strange New Worlds earlier in the year, so his inclusion was a bit of a surprise for more than one reason! Most interestingly, though, Hemmer appears to be an Aenar – an Andorian race first encountered in Enterprise.
It’s Hemmer time!
Most Aenar were known to be blind, and actor Bruce Horak is himself legally blind. This aspect of Hemmer’s character wasn’t discussed at all during Star Trek Day, which was a little odd considering it’s a significant step for the franchise. The character of Geordi La Forge in The Next Generation was also blind, but in his case a visor allowed him to see. Hemmer will potentially be the first blind character on Star Trek whose sight hasn’t been restored through technological means. What that means for his role aboard the ship isn’t clear, though.
Hemmer was wearing the red shirt of the security or engineering departments, and the very brief clip of him appeared to show him in a different area of the ship. Perhaps we can infer from that that he isn’t a bridge officer and may work in engineering. The Aenar in Enterprise were known to have extensive telepathic abilities, which could give Hemmer an edge when it comes to things like diplomacy or even a medical field. Hemmer is already a fascinating character, and I love the nod to Enterprise. His inclusion is a positive one for the visually-impaired, and for folks with disabilities of all kinds. Not only that, but it was done in a very “Star Trek” way – casting a character who is a member of a blind race of aliens doesn’t tread on the toes of things like Geordi’s visor and the prospect of offering a cure for blindness in Star Trek’s optimistic future.
Geordi La Forge in The Next Generation.
Now we’re coming to characters who may be a little more familiar. La’an Noonien-Singh, played by Christina Chong, shares a family name with Khan Noonien Singh (albeit with a hyphen, though that could be a mistake). It seems incredibly unlikely to me that that’s a coincidence, so the question it raises is to what extent is La’an connected to Khan? At this point in the timeline, Khan is still in stasis aboard the SS Botany Bay. He wouldn’t be encountered by the Enterprise and awakened until after Captain Kirk assumed command of the ship, so La’an seemingly can’t be a direct relation.
It’s possible that she’s a distant descendant, then. Though Khan was genetically augmented, the practice was banned after the Eugenics Wars and thus it seems unlikely that La’an could be an augment herself. However, genetic traits found in Khan may still be present after several generations and she may have increased strength or mental faculties as a result.
La’an may be in sickbay during this scene.
One storyline that could be interesting for a character like La’an is how she might want to move away from her family history. Assuming that she does have a family connection with Khan, the choice to either embrace or reject his legacy could be something we see the character struggle with at points. Some people struggle with a family name and family legacy, and this can be a source of drama in fiction. Though Kylo Ren’s story went completely off the rails in the Star Wars franchise, it began with lofty ambitions of depicting a man struggling with different parts of his family history. Perhaps we’ll see something similar with La’an Noonien-Singh.
Other than that implied connection with Khan, all we can say about La’an is that she’s also wearing the red uniform of either the security or engineering divisions. Either could be a good fit if there’s any kind of genetic legacy from Khan and his augments – a security officer with enhanced strength and endurance would have an advantage, and an engineer whose brain works faster than everyone else would likewise be an incredibly useful asset to any engineering team.
What connection might La’an have to iconic Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh?
Those three characters are brand-new to Star Trek – even though there are connections to the rest of the franchise. Strange New Worlds also re-introduced us to three other characters who are returning! These three all appeared in The Original Series. We’ll begin with Dr M’Benga, who appeared in just two episodes. When Dr McCoy was absent, Dr M’Benga appeared to be in charge, so he could’ve been the deputy chief medical officer by the time of The Original Series.
Though never confirmed on screen, the character’s first name was intended to be Joseph, and Dr M’Benga would’ve been born in Uganda in Africa. By the time of Geordi La Forge’s birth around a century later, an organisation called the African Confederation was known to exist, so it’s possible that Dr M’Benga may have originated from there as well. The actor taking on the role, Babs Olusanmokun, was born in Nigeria, so it’s possible that Dr M’Benga’s origin could be changed to give him a west African ancestry.
Dr M’Benga holding a padd in what could be sickbay.
The Original Series clarified one thing about Dr M’Benga – he was somewhat of an expert on Vulcan physiology having spent some time on Vulcan. It’s possible that we could see him strike up a friendship with Spock based on that, or prove useful if Spock requires medical attention. Given Dr M’Benga’s status by the time of The Original Series I’m not convinced that he’ll be the chief medical officer – if so, why would he seemingly have taken a demotion to serve under Dr McCoy a decade later?
Dr Boyce, who we met in The Cage, appeared to be a friend and confidante of Captain Pike as well as the Enterprise’s chief medical officer. It’s possible this character may yet return in some form, and that Dr M’Benga is again a deputy. Or perhaps Dr Boyce has taken a leave of absence leaving Dr M’Benga in charge temporarily. Of the returning characters from The Original Series, Dr M’Benga offers the creative team behind Strange New Worlds the most freedom. We saw him on only a couple of occasions, so his character is still largely unwritten.
Dr M’Benga in Season 2 of The Original Series – played by actor Booker Bradshaw.
Staying in sickbay, we come to Nurse Chapel. Along with Una (Number One), Nurse Christine Chapel was played by Majel Barrett during The Original Series and was a mainstay in sickbay alongside Dr McCoy. Jess Bush is taking on the role for Strange New Worlds, and presumably will share a number of scenes with Dr M’Benga. The two characters knew one another by the time of The Original Series, and even worked together to treat Spock in the episode A Private Little War.
Despite appearing in twenty-five episodes of The Original Series, as well as in The Animated Series and two films, I’d argue that Nurse Chapel is still quite an underdeveloped character open for Strange New Worlds to explore in more depth. Many of her appearances in The Original Series were as an assistant to Dr McCoy, and learning more about her as a person away from her medical duties could be something the new show does.
Jess Bush as Nurse Chapel in what appears to be sickbay.
There’s also the romantic feelings that Nurse Chapel developed toward Spock. Does she have a crush on him at this early stage? If not, perhaps the series will show how that came to be. Though I’m sure her characterisation won’t just be about that – the trope of female characters having nothing to think about but men is a tired one that needs to be retired – it could be one element among many that we see. Chapel was engaged to a man named Roger Korby by Season 1 of The Original Series, and this relationship could also be explored.
As a character that we’re at least a little familiar with, Strange New Worlds will have to tread somewhat carefully with Nurse Chapel. Though there is scope, as mentioned, to dive deeper into her characterisation and learn more about her, there are some constraints based on what we know of her from The Original Series that the show will have to respect.
Nurse Chapel in Season 1 of The Original Series.
Finally we come to the character that got many fans incredibly excited. Strange New Worlds was even trending on Twitter for a time following the reveal that Cadet Nyota Uhura will be a member of the crew. With the exception of Spock and, to a degree, Captain Pike, Uhura is the character fans are most familiar with, as she appeared in sixty-nine episodes of The Original Series, all but three episodes of The Animated Series, and all six films starring Star Trek’s original cast. She also appeared in the alternate reality Kelvin timeline films.
As such, there’s less scope to reshape or change Uhura’s character than there is for any of the others. However, as Discovery did with Spock in Season 2, there’s a lot of potential to show where Uhura came from and how she came to grow into the person we came to know and love during The Original Series. She can’t be too fundamentally different, but she can certainly start in a different place and slowly become the person we’re more familiar with. This was Spock’s journey, in some respects, in Discovery.
Cadet Uhura. We can clearly see Pike in the captain’s chair behind her, so this must be on the bridge.
We know from both her original depiction and her Kelvin timeline depiction that Uhura has a knack for alien languages. Perhaps her unique skillset is what landed her a role on the Enterprise to begin with, as it seems unlikely that a cadet would ordinarily be a regular on the bridge! In that sense we could see her akin to Hoshi Sato from Enterprise – still finding her feet on the ship, but confident in her particular field.
A young cadet or newly-graduated officer is a character archetype that Star Trek shows have used in the past to great effect. Wesley Crusher, Harry Kim, and Sylvia Tilly come to mind first and foremost, but I’d also point to Dr Bashir in his first appearances, as well as Pavel Chekov, D’Vana Tendi, and the aforementioned Hoshi Sato as great examples. These kinds of characters present a strong contrast with the more experienced members of the crew, and can offer different perspectives as a result. Not only that, but any character who’s new aboard the ship makes for a great introduction and point-of-view character for us as the audience. It’s possible that Uhura will fill this role at the beginning of Strange New Worlds.
Uhura in Season 3 of The Original Series.
Before we wrap things up we can also talk about Una Chin-Riley, also known as Number One. She’s Captain Pike’s first officer, and though we spent a little time with her in Discovery Season 2 and Short Treks, there’s still a lot that we don’t know about her. Her depiction in The Cage was as a rather unemotional, straight-laced person. In particular the Short Treks episode Q&A showed us that there is a fun side to her – and this is something we could definitely see more of. Number One seems like someone with a very professional attitude, and perhaps a very clear line between friends and co-workers. Captain Pike and Spock may have bridged that line – but who else will?
Rebecca Romijn, who plays the character, told us that Una is “way more complex” than we might expect, which is tantalising to say the least! She also said that Strange New Worlds will take the opportunity to “flesh out” the character in more detail, which sounds fantastic. Though the original portrayal – and to an extent what we’ve seen in Discovery – does act as a constraint on where the character could go, I think there’s still plenty of scope to explore who Number One is.
Number One passes Spock on what seems to be the bridge.
The uniforms have been redesigned for Strange New Worlds, with most characters sporting a V-neck variant without the high collar or much of the piping and stitching seen in Season 2 of Discovery. Number One appears to have her own unique variant with a zip collar and black undershirt, and more black or dark patches on the sides of the torso. It’s not clear why she gets a special uniform – or indeed if this is what she’ll wear most often. But it’s interesting, and makes her stand out from the rest of the crew.
Of course we also have Captain Pike and Spock returning as well – but I daresay you know at least a little about both of them already! We didn’t really learn too much more about either of them at Star Trek Day, though there was talk of Captain Pike potentially inviting members of his senior staff to his quarters and cooking meals for them. That seems like a neat addition to his character. In Discovery Season 2 we came to see Captain Pike as the embodiment of Starfleet’s values and the epitome of what it means to be a leader. I daresay that side of his characterisation will remain.
Captain Pike wearing the new V-neck uniform tunic.
When it comes to Pike, one element of his story that I’m most interested in is how he’s going to handle the knowledge of his impending accident and disability. He chose that future for himself in Discovery Season 2, and now it’s locked-in. As someone who’s disabled and suffers from a complex set of health issues, I’ve been in the position of knowing something is wrong and only going to get worse. I’ve heard bad news from a doctor, knowing there’s nothing I can do to change the outcome. Seeing how Pike will respond to being in a comparable situation has to be one of the things I’m most anticipating when it comes to his role in Strange New Worlds.
However, I’m also looking forward to spending time with Pike himself outside of that. There’s more to him than just one storyline, and we could see him, for example, attempt to make contact with Vina on Talos IV again, or furthering his friendships with Spock and Number One. I’m curious to see him interact with some of the other members of the crew, particularly those we remember from The Original Series era.
Captain Pike traded his future health for a time crystal in Discovery Season 2.
Finally we have Spock. As the character we know best, and as someone who’s been a major part of Star Trek for practically its entire history, there’s far less scope to radically change Spock. Additions can be made to his character – as we saw with Michael Burnham in Discovery – but at a fundamental level, who he is as a person is set in stone.
We may see Spock’s human and Vulcan sides in conflict in Strange New Worlds as he tries to bury his emotions. At Star Trek Day, producer Akiva Goldsman made reference to The Cage and how Spock was depicted there. How “smiley Spock” became the character we know, perhaps influenced by the loss of Michael Burnham, could be one element of his character that the new show will explore.
Spock aboard the Enterprise.
I think it’s more important for Spock to stay true to his past characterisation than it is for any of the others. Spock has appeared in The Original Series and its films, The Next Generation, and the Kelvin timeline films, and was a major character much of the time. There is still scope to explore unknown aspects of his character – and we could see, for example, how or why he came to have a falling-out with Sarek – but generally speaking this is the character that Strange New Worlds has to be the most careful with.
Production has now finished on Season 1 of Strange New Worlds. Though I fully expect a second season is already being worked on behind closed doors, there’s been no official announcement as of yet. If the show follows a similar pattern to Discovery and Picard, it might not be until the first season is about to premiere that we’ll learn a second is going to happen. Regardless, I think it’s a safe bet right now that, after all the effort and work that’s gone into Season 1, Strange New Worlds won’t just run for a single season!
The cast of Strange New Worlds Season 1. Photo Credit: Rebecca Romijn on Twitter.
Promising a return to a more episodic format, and bringing back Captain Pike and Spock after their excellent roles in Season 2 of Discovery, Strange New Worlds was already high up on the list of shows I’m most excited for. But I have to say, after seeing the casting announcements (and, perhaps, because Picard Season 2 has dropped down a little) it’s now officially right at the top! 2022 can’t come soon enough, to be honest!
Each of the new characters look genuinely exciting and interesting, and the series seems to be doing a good job at walking the line between staying true to Star Trek’s past and carving out its own niche. That isn’t always going to be easy, and the producers have certainly taken on a challenge by bringing back fan-favourites like Uhura. But everything I’ve seen and heard fills me with confidence that Strange New Worlds is going to be utterly fantastic. I cannot wait to see the show when it premieres next year.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be broadcast on Paramount+ in the United States (and other regions where the platform is available) in 2022. Further international distribution has not yet been announced. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, Short Treks, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
Though Strange New Worlds Season 1 is still probably a year or more away from being broadcast, it’s never too soon to start thinking about the next live-action Star Trek show! Each Star Trek project brings something new and different to the table, but Strange New Worlds’ purported return to a more exploration-focused, episodic kind of storytelling is something I’m incredibly interested in and excited for. When I think about upcoming television series that I’m most excited about, Strange New Worlds has to be very close to the top of the list!
In addition to the three cast members reprising their roles from Discovery, we learned earlier in the year that five other major roles have been cast – but we didn’t learn anything about the characters, nor about any recurring or returning characters either. Strange New Worlds is currently in production, but was entirely absent from Star Trek’s First Contact Day digital event in April. We haven’t really heard much solid news from the production for a while!
Strange New Worlds is in production, and looks set for a 2022 broadcast.
Despite that, I thought it could be fun to look ahead to Strange New Worlds’ premiere, and this time we’re going to consider some of the factions present in the Star Trek galaxy that Pike and his crew could encounter! This isn’t going to be a comprehensive list of every Star Trek race or species, just those that I personally consider plausible for the new show.
As always, please keep in mind that I don’t have any “insider information.” I’m not stating that any of these factions will definitely appear in Strange New Worlds, all we’re going to do today is look at some factions from past iterations of Star Trek and think about where they could be in the mid-2250s. That’s all!
With that out of the way, let’s jump into the list!
Number 1: The Andorians
Ryn, an Andorian seen in Discovery Season 3.
As a founding member of the Federation, the Andorians are a firm ally in this era. Despite that, however, episodes like Journey to Babel in The Original Series showed that there is still a degree of mistrust particularly between Andorians and Vulcans. Much of what we know about the Andorians actually comes from Enterprise, where they featured far more prominently than in any other Star Trek series to date. After appearing in The Original Series and in the background in a couple of films, the Andorians were absent for practically all of The Next Generation era.
It would be amazing if one of Strange New Worlds’ main or recurring characters were Andorian! Having an Andorian crew member would be a first for any Star Trek show, and that could be a lot of fun. It would also be possible for the series to delve into Federation politics in a similar way to Journey to Babel, looking at how Andorian relations with other Federation members have improved – or not – over the years. Though he would be well over 100 years old by this point, it’s not inconceivable that Shran, the Andorian commander who tangled with Captain Archer in Enterprise, could still be alive in this era, and perhaps he could make an appearance.
Number 2: Arcadians, Ariolos, Arkenites, and others!
One of the only Arcadians ever seen in Star Trek.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – and several other films starring the cast of The Original Series – followed the Star Wars trend of designing cool-looking aliens and then leaving them in the background or in minor supporting roles. The higher budget afforded to the films allowed for more aliens and different-looking aliens, but subsequent Star Trek projects haven’t brought back races like the Arcadians, Ariolos, Arkenites, and more.
However, Discovery Season 3 briefly featured a Betelgeusian character – the Betelgeusians were another race seen in the background of a film before being ignored in subsequent Star Trek projects. So I think there’s the possibility that one or more races only ever seen in films like The Voyage Home could appear in Strange New Worlds. Perhaps Captain Pike and the crew make first contact with one of them!
Number 3: The Bajorans
Major Kira was a 24th Century Bajoran – and a major character in Deep Space Nine.
The Cardassian Empire would not occupy Bajor until the late 23rd or early 24th Century, meaning that in the 2250s Bajor and the Bajorans will be very different to the way we remember them from Deep Space Nine. Pre-occupation Bajor operated a strict caste-based hierarchy, with very little mixing between castes. Bajorans were known to be artistic, creative, and deeply spiritual, as well as pioneers of space exploration.
This is tied to a pet theory I have that Captain Pike will make first contact with a previously-established Star Trek faction! I feel that the Bajorans are absolutely one of the contenders for such a mission of first contact, and it could be absolutely fascinating to learn more about the Bajorans and how they were prior to the Cardassian occupation. The Bajorans have recently been referenced in Discovery Season 3, so the creative team behind Star Trek clearly haven’t forgotten all about them! Perhaps that could be a hint at a more significant role in an upcoming project?
Number 4: The Barzan
Nhan, a Barzan character in Star Trek: Discovery.
By the mid-23rd Century, at least one Barzan – Nhan – served in Starfleet. Nhan served under Pike’s command on the Enterprise, and though Pike and some other members of the crew know her true fate – that she left the 23rd Century behind to head into the far future with the crew of Discovery – officially she was killed in action during the battle against Control.
I wonder whether Pike might visit Barzan II to pay respects to Nhan, or to convey the news of her being lost to her family. That could be an interesting story, as well as a way for Strange New Worlds to keep a thread of continuity going with Discovery. Despite Nhan’s departure from Discovery midway through Season 3 I’m hopeful she could return. The Barzan were not a Federation member by the mid-23rd Century, so there’s the possibility that Nhan’s death could complicate Federation-Barzan relations.
Number 5: The Benzites
Mordock, a 24th Century Benzite.
The Benzites have only appeared on a few occasions, so I think there’s scope to explore more of their culture and perhaps even show how they came to make first contact with the Federation. The first Benzite we met in Star Trek was in The Next Generation Season 1 episode Coming of Age, where Mordock beat Wesley Crusher to a place at Starfleet Academy. A couple of other Benzites were seen later in The Next Generation and in the background in Voyager and Lower Decks.
All we know about the Benzites is that they were not members of the Federation, and that they had maintained relatively limited diplomatic contact prior to the 24th Century. They’re another possible candidate for a mission of first contact, in my opinion!
Number 6: The Betazoids
Deanna Troi – a half-Betazoid – recently returned in Star Trek: Picard Season 1.
Betazed – the Betazoid homeworld – appears to be relatively close to Earth and Vulcan, at least according to dialogue in Deep Space Nine. If that’s the case, it stands to reason that humans and Betazoids may have already been in contact with one another prior to Captain Pike’s mission of exploration. They were also known to be a Federation member by the mid-24th Century. Another possible candidate for a mission of first contact? Maybe!
Betazoids have telepathic and empathic abilities which have been shown to be very useful to Starfleet in other Star Trek shows, so perhaps a Betazoid main or recurring character could fill a Troi-like role aboard the Enterprise. I think this is less likely, but it’s a possibility!
Number 7: The Borg
A Borg drone seen in First Contact.
Star Trek has made a mess of Borg-Federation contact thanks to revelations in Generations, Voyager, and Enterprise that humanity had contact with (or knowledge of) the Collective prior to Captain Picard making “official” first contact with them. I think it would be very difficult for Strange New Worlds to successfully pull off a Borg story without treading on too many toes, but at the same time I think it could be amazing to see Captain Pike face off against the Borg!
Perhaps this would work best as a time travel or even parallel universe story; perhaps Pike and the Enterprise accidentally cross into an alternate reality where the Borg were successful in assimilating Earth in the 21st Century (as seen in First Contact). They would need to find a way to get home, and may not even be aware of the name of their adversary. A long-shot for Season 1, perhaps, but a possibility! In the 23rd Century in the prime timeline, the Borg should be confined to the Delta Quadrant. They may not have transwarp technology by this point, though their technology should still outpace the Federation considerably.
Number 8: The Bynars
A pair of Bynars seen in The Next Generation.
Interestingly, though the Bynars were only ever seen on screen in The Next Generation Season 1, they were mentioned by name in Enterprise. The Federation were thus at least aware of the Bynars’ existence by the mid-23rd Century, and it’s possible that they had attempted to make first contact with the semi-synthetic race.
Given that modern Star Trek has dedicated a fair amount of time to exploring the relationship between organic and synthetic life, and how the possibility exists for that relationship to turn into conflict, bringing back the Bynars – who are a race connected to a “master computer” on their homeworld – could make for an interesting continuation of that theme.
Number 9: The Caitians
Caitians served in Starfleet since at least the mid-23rd Century.
This feline-inspired species initially appeared in The Animated Series, and has recently been seen in Lower Decks, where Dr T’Ana is a Caitian. Their only live-action appearance to date has been in The Voyage Home, but with the Caitians returning to Star Trek in a big way thanks to Lower Decks, perhaps the time is right for them to make a major live-action appearance again.
The Caitians were presumably Federation members – or at least allies – by the time Kirk assumed command of the Enterprise, so it’s at least plausible to think that there could be other Caitian Starfleet officers during Pike’s tenure. It would be an interesting opportunity to learn more about a race that Star Trek has shown off on a few occasions but never really dug into.
Number 10: The Cardassians
A Cardassian seen in The Next Generation.
As with the Bajorans above, the Cardassians are a faction we know very well from their appearances in Deep Space Nine. What we haven’t seen, however, is first contact between the Federation and the Cardassians, which is something Captain Pike and the Enterprise could be responsible for! There was conflict between the Cardassians and Federation in the early or mid-24th Century, but aside from that – and their occupation of Bajor – much of early Cardassian history is unknown.
Cardassia Prime and Bajor are relatively close to one another, so it’s possible Captain Pike could encounter both if the Enterprise finds itself in that region of space. I really like the idea of Strange New Worlds showcasing first contact between the Federation and a race that we got to know in the 24th Century, so I think the Cardassians could be a great inclusion in the new series.
Number 11: Chameloids
A Chameloid taking humanoid form in the late 23rd Century.
Chameloids were shape-shifters, but were not affiliated with the Dominion. The only known Chameloid seen in Star Trek appeared on Rura Penthe in The Undiscovered Country. This individual played a role in Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy’s escape from the Klingon prison colony.
Shape-shifting aliens have been seen on a few different occasions in Star Trek (excluding Odo and the Founders, of course) and make for interesting adversaries. Perhaps Pike and his crew could encounter a Chameloid – they may even be responsible for “Martia” ending up on Rura Penthe!
Number 12: The Deltans
Ilia, a 23rd Century Deltan Starfleet officer.
We’ve only ever met one Deltan in Star Trek: Ilia, a Starfleet officer in The Motion Picture. The Deltans – and Ilia – were originally created for Phase II, the project which would eventually morph into The Motion Picture in the late 1970s. They were intended to be a somewhat ethereal race, older and wiser than humanity and offering a different perspective on the galaxy.
Deltans were also presented as very sensual, both in their sole appearance in The Motion Picture and when they were referenced in Enterprise’s fourth season. Considering that second mention in Enterprise, Deltans and humanity had encountered one another long before the events of Strange New Worlds. Perhaps Pike and the crew could lead a diplomatic delegation, or witness the Deltans joining the Federation?
Number 13: The Denobulans
Dr Phlox, a 22nd Century Denobulan.
The Denobulans are a race only ever seen in Enterprise, and perhaps Strange New Worlds could tell us why that is! Though I wouldn’t want to see any harm come to Dr Phlox’s people, it’s possible that some kind of disaster befell them in the years after Enterprise, accounting for their absence in the 23rd and 24th Centuries.
If that’s not the case, it would be great to learn what became of them! It seems likely that the Denobulan homeworld was relatively near to Earth and Vulcan, and given their friendly relations with Earth in Enterprise, perhaps the Denobulans became a Federation member relatively early on. A Denobulan could even join Pike’s crew as a main or recurring character!
Number 14: The Edosians
An Edosian seen in Lower Decks.
This three-legged, three-armed race were originally seen in The Animated Series, where Lieutenant Arex was an officer under Kirk’s command. Like many elements from that show, the Edosians seemingly vanished – until Lower Decks brought back an Edosian character last year! It was great fun to see another Edosian Starfleet officer then, and it may be the first of many Edosians that we’ll see going forward.
It was prohibitively expensive in the late 1970s and 1980s to bring an Edosian character to life in live-action, but times have changed and I’d argue that it’s more than achievable in 2021! It’s possible that Arex himself could make a return, serving under Pike’s command on the Enterprise, or perhaps Pike and the crew will encounter other Edosians out in space. Whether they’re Federation members or not is unknown, but maybe Strange New Worlds can clear that up!
Number 15: The El-Aurians
Dr Tolian Soran, an El-Aurian who lived in the 23rd/24th Centuries.
At least one El-Aurian – Guinan – visited Earth in the 19th Century, and based on the fact that the Federation came to the aid of El-Aurian refugees in Generations, they must’ve either been relatively near to Federation space or been able to travel there easily. The El-Aurians were assimilated by the Borg in the late 23rd Century, but Strange New Worlds potentially offers the opportunity to see the El-Aurians in their prime, before the Borg decimated their people.
Guinan is going to be making a return in Picard Season 2, so the El-Aurians are clearly still a factor in upcoming Star Trek projects! Having Pike and his crew encounter the El-Aurians could be a way for Strange New Worlds to tie itself to Picard and the 24th Century.
Number 16: The Kalar
A Kalar warrior in The Cage.
Captain Pike has already encountered the Kalar once! During the events of The Cage, Pike recalled an attack by Kalar warriors during a mission to Rigel VII, blaming himself for the deaths of three officers under his command. In Discovery we saw Pike revisit events with the Talosians and Vina, so perhaps it’s possible to bring back the Kalar too!
The Kalar were depicted as an un-advanced race incapable of spaceflight with technology that looked similar to the early medieval period or dark ages on Earth. It seems unlikely they’d have made any significant advancements since Pike’s earlier encounter with them, but it’s not impossible to devise a compelling reason to revisit Rigel VII.
Number 17: The Kelpiens and Ba’ul
Captain Saru was the first Kelpien to serve in Starfleet.
Captain Pike played a huge role in the development of the Kelpiens and Ba’ul in Discovery Season 2, arguably violating the Prime Directive to aid the Kelpiens by putting the entire species through vahar’ai – a biological evolution which transformed the meek, fearful Kelpiens into apex predators.
There will be massive consequences for what Pike did, and while Saru is arguably the best character for close examinations of the Kelpiens, Pike’s monumental role in shaping their future – and that of the Ba’ul, with whom the Kelpiens share a homeworld – could mean that a revisit to Kaminar is on the cards. The Ba’ul may blame Pike and the Federation for upsetting the delicate balance they had worked so hard to establish, seeking revenge. Or Kaminar may have descended into war, with the Kelpiens and Ba’ul at each others’ throats requiring Pike’s intervention.
Number 18: The Klingon Empire
Chancellor L’Rell was the Klingon leader in this era.
Even if it doesn’t happen in Season 1, I feel certain that Strange New Worlds will eventually feature some Klingon stories! Federation-Klingon relations are rocky after the end of the war seen in Discovery’s first season, and it would be interesting to see how Pike, L’Rell, and others try to maintain the peace in the years before Kirk’s five-year mission.
When considering Pike’s personal story, it was on the Klingon world of Boreth where he secured his fate – his impending disability – in exchange for a time crystal. Pike’s own views and relations with the Klingons are thus particularly complex, and as he comes to terms with what he saw in the vision the time crystal gave to him he may seek out advice from Klingons, or he may even try to revisit Boreth.
Number 19: The Lurians
Morn, a 24th Century Lurian.
The best-known Lurian in Star Trek is Deep Space Nine background character Morn. The first trailer for Discovery Season 3 in 2019 seemed to imply we’d see the Lurians return, as a Lurian guard was shown chasing after Booker and Burnham, but it turned out to be just a cameo! The Lurians were not Federation members as of the mid-24th Century, but appeared to maintain reasonably good relations.
Morn became a Star Trek icon during Deep Space Nine’s run, and I can’t decide if that means bringing the Lurians back in a major way would be a good thing or not! Perhaps it would be best to leave them be, a somewhat mysterious, enigmatic people, rather than bring them into the modern day and risk overexplaining them and losing the magic.
Number 20: The Malurians
A Malurian (wearing a disguise) in the 22nd Century.
The Malurians suffered a tragic fate in The Original Series, being wiped out by a self-aware probe. They also appeared in Season 1 of Enterprise, and seemingly conducted morally questionable actions! The Malurians were visited by the Federation shortly before they were rendered extinct, so it’s possible that the Federation in this era had some kind of relationship with them.
We don’t know very much about the Malurians, but their ultimate fate puts them in a rather unique position in this era. Perhaps we’ll learn that Pike and the crew helped the Malurians settle a small colony somewhere, paving the way for their survival!
Number 21: The Miradorn
A pair of Miradorn twins in the 24th Century.
The Miradorn made an appearance in Deep Space Nine, and were shown to be a race of twins – or at least where twins were commonplace. These sets of twins operated as two halves of a single person, with a very deep connection to one another. As of the mid-24th Century they appeared to be an independent power, maintaining relations with both the Federation and the Ferengi.
The Miradorn are another interesting race that I consider to have first contact potential. The twin aspect of their culture makes them different from many other Star Trek races, and they have a neat design that’s different without being excessively complicated.
Number 22: The Nausicaans
A Nausicaan was responsible for injuring a young Ensign Picard in the early 24th Century!
In the late 23rd and 24th Centuries, the Nausicaans were known as a violent people, often seen as pirates or criminals. They operated in an area of space relatively close to Earth and Vulcan, as they had been encountered by humanity in the 22nd Century. In addition to their criminal activities, Nausicaans in the 24th Century were occasionally seen as mercenaries and bodyguards.
The Nausicaans could appear in their typical pirate role in Strange New Worlds, becoming an adversary for Pike and the Enterprise to overcome. Or we could see them step out of that role for a change, with the show exploring more of Nausicaan culture.
Number 23: The Nibirians
A Nibirian in the alternate reality.
The Nibirians were seen in Star Trek Into Darkness – and thus their only appearance is in the alternate reality. However, given how similar the two realities are, it’s a safe bet that the Nibirians exist in the prime timeline. In Into Darkness they were shown to be a stone age people, very early in their development.
Given that the Nibirians were under threat from a volcano in Into Darkness, maybe Pike and the crew will have to come up with a creative way to save them, just as Kirk did in the alternate reality. If a return to the Kelvin timeline is on the agenda – which I doubt, but you never know – this could be a way to connect current Star Trek to the alternate reality.
Number 24: The Orions
In the 32nd Century, Osyraa had become the leader of the Emerald Chain – a major faction.
The Orions have recently featured in Season 3 of Discovery, and of course with Tendi in Lower Decks! In addition, Captain Pike has somewhat of a history with them, having encountered Orion slaves during the events of The Cage. For both of those reasons they seem like a contender to make an appearance in Strange New Worlds!
The Orions were an independent power in the 23rd Century, with at least some Orions involved in criminality, slavery, and the Orion Syndicate – a major organised crime outfit. They seem like they could be villains, then, but an interesting twist could be to make an Orion a crew member on the Enterprise, or an ally of Pike and the crew.
Number 25: The Pahvans
A noncorporeal Pahvan.
Captain Pike wasn’t involved in the USS Discovery’s mission to the planet Pahvo during the Federation-Klingon war, but I feel there’s scope to revisit these noncorporeal, pacifist aliens. Pahvo had a unique “transmitter” which allowed Discovery to detect cloaked Klingon ships, and thus the planet unintentionally played a role in the war.
It’s possible that Pahvo was attacked by the Klingons in retaliation, but the planet was marked on a star chart seen in Picard Season 1, which suggests the Federation may have maintained some kind of diplomatic relations with the Pahvans into the 24th Century. Regardless, there are perhaps leftover story threads from Discovery that Strange New Worlds could potentially pick up with the Pahvans.
Number 26: The Q Continuum
Q in his famous judge outfit.
It seems as though the Federation’s first encounter with the Q was when Picard and the Enterprise-D met Q during the events of Encounter At Farpoint, but we also know that members of the Q Continuum had visited Earth in the past, including during the American Civil War in the 19th Century. It’s thus possible that Pike and the crew could encounter a Q without realising who or what they’re dealing with!
With Q coming back in Picard Season 2, having the Continuum appear in some form in Strange New Worlds would be a way for the two shows to work together. This one is definitely more of a long-shot, but it’s not impossible!
Number 27: The Romulan Star Empire
Narek and Rizzo, two 24th Century Romulan operatives.
Any story involving the Romulans in Strange New Worlds would have to keep their true nature – as descendants of the Vulcans – a secret. Because no Romulan characters could appear on screen alongside Pike and the crew that naturally constrains the kinds of stories that can be told. However, in the episode Minefield, Enterprise managed to pull off an interesting Romulan story without going too far, so it can be done!
The Romulans were a belligerent power in this era, having already fought a major war with Earth less than a century earlier. Though there is peace between the Romulans and Federation, there are no formal diplomatic relations and there seems to be a lot of tension. The Romulans have recently been explored in a major way in Picard Season 1, and to a lesser extent in Discovery Season 3. They’re a major Star Trek faction, up there with the Klingons and Borg, so I can’t help but feel Strange New Worlds might try to find a way to include them – somehow!
Number 28: The Saurians
Linus, a Saurian Starfleet officer.
Linus, a secondary character in Discovery, is a Saurian – a race first seen in the background in The Motion Picture. The Saurians may well be Federation members by this time, and if they’re serving in Starfleet there could be other Saurian officers aboard the Enterprise. Despite Linus having made a number of appearances, we don’t know very much about his people.
The Saurians are a faction we could learn more about in Strange New Worlds. Pike and the crew could even visit the Saurian homeworld, perhaps to convey news about Linus being declared killed in action. It would be interesting to see more Saurians and learn more about their place in the Federation.
Number 29: The Selay
A group of Selay delegates in the transporter room of the Enterprise-D in the 24th Century.
We don’t know very much about the Selay. They appeared once in The Next Generation Season 1, and had a couple of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it background appearances in a couple of other episodes, but that’s it. Their appearance in Tapestry means that they had encountered the Federation by the early 24th Century, so perhaps they could appear in Strange New Worlds.
Modern Star Trek has taken several races that we don’t know much about and expanded on them. The design of the Selay – snake-like and very reptilian – is interesting, and the faction is ripe for an in-depth look!
Number 30: The Skagarans
Draysik, a 22nd Century Skagaran in the Delphic Expanse.
In Enterprise we learned that the Skagarans had visited Earth in the 19th Century, where they had abducted a group of humans to use as slave labour. There’s potential in that kind of storyline to either see Pike and the crew come up against an enemy who uses slaves, or to explore a post-slavery society and look at some of the long-lasting implications of keeping slaves in the past. This would allow Strange New Worlds to do something Star Trek has always done: use science fiction to examine real-world issues.
It would also be neat to bring back a faction from Enterprise in a major way, as this is something that hasn’t yet been done in modern Star Trek.
Number 31: The Suliban
Silik, a 22nd Century Suliban commander.
Speaking of factions from Enterprise that could return, how about the Suliban? Though initially antagonistic toward Earth, this was mostly driven by the interference of time-travellers from the future. Without that undue influence, perhaps Suliban-Federation relations have improved. I wrote once that it was possible that the Suliban had gone into some kind of isolation – which would account for their absence in the 23rd and 24th Centuries – so perhaps we could see that happen in Strange New Worlds.
I’d love to see an expanded role for the Suliban in Star Trek. Perhaps they could even be Federation members by this era, with Suliban officers serving aboard the Enterprise. It would be great to revisit a faction we only encountered in Enterprise, at any rate.
Number 32: The Talosians
Talosians seen in Discovery Season 2.
Discovery Season 2 brought back the Talosians in a big way, and Captain Pike played a major role in that storyline. Considering Pike’s feelings for Vina – a human inhabitant of Talos IV – it’s at least possible that he may keep in contact with the Talosians, even though he’d have to do so in secret for fear of breaching Starfleet regulations.
In this era, Talos IV was off limits to Starfleet due to the Talosians’ attempts to kidnap Pike and their powerful telepathic abilities. Revisiting the planet isn’t entirely impossible, though, as I reckon Pike would head there if the Talosians asked for his help.
Number 33: The Tellarites
Two Tellarite delegates aboard the Enterprise in the 23rd Century.
Along with the Vulcans, Andorians, and humans, the Tellarites were the fourth founding member of the Federation. Despite that, however, they had a complicated relationship with the other races, particularly the Vulcans.
The Tellarites are the one Federation founding member that we know the least about. They’ve only made a few appearances in Star Trek, often in minor or background roles, and aside from a few episodes in Enterprise and their first appearance in The Original Series, we haven’t seen much of them at all. I’m not sure how well a Tellarite main character would work simply because their deliberately unkind aesthetic doesn’t lend itself well to fitting with a character audiences want to root for – but in a way it would be interesting for Star Trek to try to overcome that hurdle!
Number 34: The Tholians
A 23rd Century Tholian captain.
The Short Treks episode Ask Not confirmed that the Tholians and Federation had been in conflict during this era. If Cadet Sidhu appears in Strange New Worlds as a significant character, including the Tholians could be an interesting story for her as she was the sole survivor of a Tholian attack.
The Tholians are one of the more “alien” races that we know of in Star Trek, being insectoid in appearance and coming from a high temperature environment that leaves them unable to tolerate standard environments. They could certainly appear in an adversarial role in Strange New Worlds.
Number 35: The Trill
Michael Burnham and Adira meeting a group of Trill in Discovery Season 3.
The Trill are a conjoined species – one part is humanoid, the other a symbiont. The symbionts are longer-lived than their hosts and can easily live for centuries. Discovery Season 3 recently revisited the Trill homeworld, and it would be neat to see the Trill return in Strange New Worlds as well.
It would even be possible for Dax to make an appearance. The Dax symbiont had a number of hosts before Jadzia and Ezri in Deep Space Nine, and it was certainly alive in the mid-23rd Century. Regardless of whether that happens, we know that the Trill were Federation members by the 24th Century, and Strange New Worlds could depict their early interactions with the Federation.
Number 36: The Vulcans
Spock!
Obviously we know that Spock is going to be a major character in Strange New Worlds! Over the course of Star Trek’s history we’ve already learned a great deal about the Vulcans, their history, and their culture. There’s still scope to expand that, though, and with Spock as a potential way into new Vulcan stories, I wonder if we’ll get to see more.
Spock’s relationship with Sarek could be explored, and it would be a way for James Frain to reprise his role from Discovery. We could also see more Vulcans joining Starfleet and serving in a wider variety of roles than just “science officer!”
Number 37: The Xindi
Degra, a 22nd Century Xindi.
As with the Suliban above, the Xindi have only appeared in Enterprise so far. We know a little more about their future, however, including that they eventually joined the Federation. Though their absence from Star Trek shows set in the 23rd and 24th Centuries suggests that may not have happened for a while, it’s possible that it happened earlier than we think!
Otherwise we could see the Xindi as another race that have isolated themselves and cut off diplomatic ties. Perhaps one of Pike’s missions will be to re-establish relations with the Xindi after decades without contact. The Xindi are five different races sharing a homeworld, and there’s potential to use that setting to explore the way different cultures interact and work together.
So that’s it! Some factions from Star Trek’s past that could appear in Strange New Worlds.
Hopefully it won’t be long before Captain Pike returns!
This has been a long one so I won’t drag things out much longer! Suffice to say that there are many different races, cultures, and factions from past iterations of Star Trek that could appear in some form in the new series. Obviously the show can’t fit all of those on the list above into its first season, but I hope there’ll be some attempts to revisit at least one or two factions we got to know in other Star Trek shows and films.
Hopefully it won’t be too long before we get to hear more news about Strange New Worlds – or even see a trailer! Whenever that happens make sure to check back as I daresay I’ll break things down here on the website. The show is definitely one I’m looking forward to!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be broadcast on Paramount+ in the United States (and other regions where the platform is available) in 2022. Further international distribution has not yet been announced. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3.
Today we’re going to take a look at something that’s been bugging me for a couple of years, ever since the finale of Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 in April 2019. I didn’t start working on this website until November ’19, so I haven’t written up full reviews of Season 2, nor have I spent much time breaking down all of the various story points. This will be my first big foray into that! Rather than just a critique of what could be argued to be a plot hole or “goof,” though, I want to turn this into a theory, particularly one that could have an impact on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – the upcoming series set on the USS Enterprise with Captain Pike, Spock, and a new cast of characters.
Ever since I watched Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2, something has stuck in my mind. Immediately before Burnham and the USS Discovery left the 23rd Century behind and headed into the far future we’ve seen depicted in Season 3, they were engaged in a climactic battle alongside Pike and the USS Enterprise against the Control AI. In addition to a fleet of Section 31 starships that were unmanned, Control had also possessed (or assimilated) the body of Section 31 commander Captain Leland. Control used Leland’s body to board the USS Discovery at the battle’s climax to attempt to retrieve the Sphere data – the macguffin that was the cause of the fight in the first place.
The data the Sphere transmitted to Discovery was the reason for Control’s attack.
The relationship between Control and Captain Leland was not sufficiently explained on screen, in my opinion, and this has a bearing on what comes next and why I have an issue with Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2. But based on what we saw during the episode, it seems as though Control was somehow tied to Captain Leland’s body in a very significant way, such that when his body was crippled by Georgiou inside the USS Discovery’s Spore Cube, it had an impact on the battle raging outside.
This is the moment where I feel there’s an issue. The entire reason for sending Burnham and the USS Discovery on a one-way mission to the far future was to keep the Sphere data safe from Control, but when Georgiou defeated Captain Leland, Control appeared to also be defeated – or at least sufficiently incapacitated as to be unable to continue the battle. This all happened before the USS Discovery entered the time-wormhole.
Was it necessary for Burnham and Discovery to leave the 23rd Century? I would argue that it was not.
So, with that in mind, why did Pike, Saru, or even Burnham not stop? Surely at the very least they could have paused what they were doing to consider their next moves. Aboard the Enterprise, Pike was able to easily destroy the disabled Section 31 ships, removing any immediate danger, and with Captain Leland incapacitated and clearly not going anywhere, the Sphere data was also safe. Before sending the ship and crew to an unknown destination with no way back, did no one realise that the battle may have already been won? Was there no reason to send Burnham and the ship into the future?
This is what I’m terming “the big mistake” for the purposes of this theory.
Although Burnham had already used the Red Angel suit to open the time-wormhole, I would absolutely argue that, based on what we saw on screen, the battle against Control had taken a decisive turn before either she or the USS Discovery actually crossed the threshold, and that there was time for Saru, Pike, Spock, or someone to point that out. They were preoccupied with the jobs that they had to do, but when it became obvious that Control was at least incapacitated – if not outright defeated – I think that warrants pause from everyone concerned. They were in the process of making a life-changing decision for Burnham and the crew of Discovery, yet for some reason no one seemed to realise that it may have ultimately been unnecessary.
Even though Pike, Saru, and others acknowledged Control’s defeat, they didn’t stop what they were doing. Burnham and Discovery still travelled to the far future. Why?
So let’s break it down even more, for the sake of clarity, and follow events step-by-step. I don’t usually do time-stamps, but I think this is important so we’re all on exactly the same page. If we begin at exactly 51 minutes, 30 seconds into Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 – at least on the Netflix version (I assume it will be roughly the same on Paramount+ and Blu-ray too) – we see Burnham getting ready to open the time-wormhole. In the shot of her flying through space near the raging battle, we see the Section 31 ships beginning to slow their rate of fire with a consequent drop in the number of explosions. This is the first indication that something was changing.
At 51:54, Saru gives Detmer the order to follow Burnham’s lead. The USS Discovery moves through a field of debris (presumably caused by the battle) and then we get our first look at the time-wormhole a few seconds later at around 52:06. At this point, neither Burnham nor the ship are anywhere close to crossing the event horizon and entering the time-wormhole.
As Burnham flies past the battle, Control’s ships appear to be slowing down and losing momentum.
Just before 52:30 the action cuts to Captain Pike on the Enterprise’s bridge, watching Burnham and Discovery preparing to enter the wormhole. Trailing in Discovery’s wake are Section 31/Control drones, chasing after them. After Saru and Pike exchange goodbyes at 52:40, and Dr Culber tells Stamets that “we’re on our way,” at 52:57 we come to the scene at the heart of my argument – and of this theory. In Discovery’s engineering bay, the possessed Captain Leland is trapped in the Spore Cube by Georgiou.
Seemingly admitting defeat, Control-Leland tells Georgiou – in true clichéd villain style – that “this does not end here!” Georgiou then finishes the job of killing him, using the powerful magnets in the Spore Cube to force the nanites out of Leland’s body. This action cripples Control, and severs the link between it and its fleet.
The defeat of Captain Leland crippled Control – at least temporarily – and allowed Pike and the Enterprise to destroy the remaining ships in its fleet.
53:39 sees Control-Leland hit the deck, dead. The nano-bots spill out of his corpse, and though it’s not clear exactly what will happen to the human Leland, or whether he could be saved, this is a major blow for Control. Less than ten seconds later, at 53:48, the USS Discovery and Burnham can both be seen, still outside the time-wormhole, and Control’s fleet suddenly stops pursuing them.
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Una (Number One) notes this at 53:51, informing Captain Pike that “they’re all dead in the water.” Again, this is before either Burnham or Discovery have entered the time-wormhole. Even if no one on Discovery realised what was happening – which is possible given everything else going on – the crew of the Enterprise certainly had, and there was still time to contact Discovery.
With Burnham and Discovery still not having entered the time-wormhole, Control’s fleet is disabled.
At 54:00, Georgiou contacts Captain Saru, and this is the moment where he could have made a decision too. Georgiou informs him of Leland’s death, but uses a very interesting phrase: “Control is neutralised.” Discovery has not yet entered the wormhole, and on the bridge, Saru is already aware that the reason for doing so no longer exists. Pike is aware that their reason for heading into the future no longer exists. They have already won the battle. By Georgiou’s own admission, the threat Control had posed is unequivocally over.
At 54:16, Burnham and the USS Discovery are seen reflected in the glass of Siranna’s starfighter, still not inside the time-wormhole nor having crossed its event horizon. These are the crucial seconds at the core of the theory, because it’s in these few seconds that the decision to leave the 23rd Century behind could have been called off. With the Enterprise destroying what remained of Control’s fleet, and with Leland dead, there was no immediate way for Control to access the Sphere data – and yet no one on either ship seems to have realised that.
Burnham and Discovery are still outside the time-wormhole, as seen in the reflection of Siranna’s starfighter.
Even if we say that Control was not totally killed off, and that its servers remained active at Section 31 HQ (or elsewhere, if you prefer) and thus that Control was still out there and potentially able to regroup, the fact remains that the immediate threat had passed. The battle had been won, even if there was still more to do to win the overall war.
No one mentioned this in Discovery Season 3. After a brief reference to Georgiou destroying the remains of Leland in the episode Far From Home, and a short conversation about Control with Admiral Vance in the episode Die Trying, their reasoning for going to the future was never discussed nor elaborated on. Burnham, when pressed about it by Book in That Hope Is You, maintained that it was the “only way” to save the galaxy, so she clearly hadn’t realised what was going on behind her – but that makes sense as she was busy operating the Red Angel suit and keeping the time-wormhole stable.
Burnham was too busy piloting the Red Angel suit to realise the battle was over.
Saru and Pike have no such excuse, in my opinion. Both commanders clearly and demonstrably knew that Control and/or its fleet were incapacitated, and I believe that should have led to one or both of them bringing an immediate halt to events to take stock. If Control was disabled, there was no immediate need to head to the future. With Leland dead, the Sphere data was safe, at least temporarily. With the battle won, everyone could have taken a moment to breathe and assess the situation, perhaps planning to go to Section 31 HQ and permanently destroy whatever remained of Control. Instead, everyone simply sat back as Burnham and Discovery raced into an unknown future – a future, I would argue, they did not need to travel to.
There’s a way this could come back in either Discovery Season 4, Strange New Worlds Season 1, or both: if Saru and/or Pike realise that they made a big mistake.
Given what he went through to make the Red Angel suit possible, I would suggest the person this would affect the most would be Captain Pike. In the episode Through the Valley of Shadows, Pike obtained a time crystal from the Klingons, but did so at great personal sacrifice – solidifying for himself a future of permanent disability. How would he feel knowing that it was all for naught; that if he replays the events of the battle in his mind, he could see that Control was already beaten and that there was no need for the time crystal?
Having sacrificed his future for this time crystal, will Pike come to believe – as I do – that sending Burnham and Discovery into the future was unnecessary?
One theme Strange New Worlds is certainly going to pick up on is Pike’s knowledge of his impending disability. As a disabled person myself, this is something I’m really interested in seeing come to life on screen. I can relate to what Captain Pike is going through, because I’ve had the experience of sitting in a room with a doctor and being told things about my health and my future that are unavoidable. I get that sense of inevitability, of knowing things won’t get better but they will get worse. This is something genuinely interesting and that has the potential to be inspirational through Anson Mount’s wonderful portrayal of Pike. But I also wonder if we’ll see him wrestle with feelings of regret or remorse, feeling that his fate and future are his own fault. If he knows (or believes) that the battle was won in Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 without the need for time travel – and thus, without the need for the time crystal he sacrificed so much to obtain – will those feelings be worse for Pike?
Though we didn’t see much of this in Discovery Season 3, with Season 4 on the horizon there’s a chance for the circumstances of Discovery’s jump into the future to be revisited. Even if nobody aboard realised it at the time, it’s possible that someone will have subsequently had the revelation that their one-way trip to the future, sacrificing so much and leaving their loved ones behind, may not have been necessary. Perhaps this will become an issue for Captain Burnham or Saru, with a disgruntled crew member taking out their anger on them for forcing them into a post-Burn future that they didn’t have to inhabit.
Pike and Spock watched Burnham and Discovery disappear after Control was already defeated.
So that’s it. My theory, based on what we saw in Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 is this: the defeat or disabling of Control toward the end of the battle means that Burnham and Discovery didn’t actually need to go to the far future – at least, not immediately. At the very least, pausing to take stock would have been worthwhile.
It seems possible to me that this could be brought back as a story point – even if it’s just in a relatively minor way, such as with a line or two of dialogue acknowledging it – in either Discovery or Strange New Worlds, as it’s a story which impacts major characters from both shows.
Will Captain Pike realise his mistake in Strange New Worlds, and could this be a major story point for his character?
Having delved deeply into this battle from an in-universe point of view, now let’s step back and acknowledge that this is, in effect, a “plot hole” or production-side issue. The writers and producers of Discovery Season 2 wanted to send the ship and crew into the far future, partly due to negative fan feedback involving so-called canon problems during Season 1. But at the same time, they also wanted to make sure that the Control storyline was 100% wrapped up and concluded before Season 3 kicked off.
Unfortunately, in my opinion at least, the way they chose to accomplish those two goals has opened a plot hole. In the mad rush to wrap up Discovery Season 2 in what was already a feature-length episode, an inconsistency has been created within the plot of the show. If Burnham and Discovery had gone into the future, and in the final few minutes of the episode we saw Pike, Spock, and the crew of the Enterprise finish defeating Control, there would be no problem. But because it was Georgiou, aboard Discovery, who killed Captain Leland, and because this unexplained link between Leland’s body and Control seems to have crippled the entire fleet, we have a problem.
Discovery brought Captain Leland aboard the ship for a climactic fight with Georgiou – but his death at her hands before travelling into the future has opened a plot hole.
Overall, for most viewers who don’t spend as much time thinking about (and nitpicking) Star Trek as much as I do, it probably passed by unnoticed. But even in 2019 I was having conversations with fellow viewers – including some who I would call “casual” viewers as opposed to hardcore Trekkies – who noticed this very issue. The fact that no one – not Pike, Spock, Number One, Georgiou, or Saru – thought to call off the journey to the future, even temporarily to assess the new facts, is a plot hole.
However, it’s a plot hole that could be plugged by incorporating it into future stories. Captain Pike could be affected by it, as previously mentioned. As could Spock or Number One on the Enterprise, as they saw the battle end before Burnham and Discovery entered the time-wormhole. It could also become an issue for anyone aboard the USS Discovery – perhaps with their mood and mental health suffering, they replay the events of the battle in their mind and come to the conclusion that they were forced to travel to the future unnecessarily. That’s my theory, anyway!
Will this cause problems for Burnham in a future season of Discovery?
Whether any of that will come to pass, or whether both shows will proceed ignoring this issue is anyone’s guess right now. I would think that, if Discovery wanted to acknowledge this criticism, Season 3 would’ve been the time to do so, and the fact that it didn’t happen may mean that the writers and producers are keen to move on and put Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 behind them. But I’m not 100% convinced of that. I think there’s scope to incorporate what feels like a plot hole into the storylines of either upcoming show in a way that would make sense.
As I said at the beginning, this is something that’s been on my mind since I first saw the episode a couple of years ago! Even on first viewing, it seemed patently obvious to me that someone should have realised what was happening before Burnham and Discovery left, speaking up to put the brakes on. It really does feel that, based on the sequence of events and how they unfolded on screen, Burnham and Discovery could have remained in the 23rd Century.
Despite all of this over-analysing of a few minutes of the episode, I really enjoyed Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 – and Discovery Season 2 as a whole. It’s a fantastic season of television well worth a watch, and this theory, despite being something that’s bugged me for a while, is really just a glorified nitpick!
Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The series is also available on Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, and for other iterations of the franchise.
At this very early stage, with Strange New Worlds having only just entered production, we don’t know what storylines the series might include. It’s far too early to speculate, especially because we don’t even know who most of the main characters will be. But that won’t stop me!
I’ve been kicking around this theory since Strange New Worlds was announced last year, and while I’ve mentioned it on a couple of occasions I think it’s time to spin it out into its own official theory! I have already made some suggestions and preliminary predictions for things we might see during Season 1 of the upcoming series, but this is my first standalone pre-season theory.
So here goes: Pike and the crew will find a way to cross over to the Mirror Universe to save the Prime Universe version of Captain Lorca.
The Prime Universe version of Captain Lorca is missing.
To briefly recap, Captain Lorca was the original captain of the USS Discovery back in Season 1 of Star Trek: Discovery, but the character we met wasn’t the Prime version, he was from the Mirror Universe. We wouldn’t get to know that until the latter part of the season, but a transporter accident saw Lorca swap places with his Prime counterpart sometime prior to the events of Season 1.
While it was stated by Admiral Cornwell that Prime Lorca would not have survived in the Mirror Universe this was never confirmed on screen, and judging by the reaction of characters like Mirror Tilly and Mirror Georgiou to Lorca’s reappearance, they didn’t believe him to be dead or imprisoned. Thus Prime Lorca’s fate is unknown – which means he could be brought back.
Admiral Cornwell believed Lorca to be dead – but she had no proof of that.
Let’s go over the evidence in favour of Lorca’s survival first, then we’ll see if we have any evidence that Strange New Worlds might include a storyline of this nature.
Firstly, we never saw Lorca die on screen. Only one character – Admiral Cornwell – assumed he was dead, and then the subject was dropped as the crew had to focus on ending the Klingon War. This opens the door to Lorca’s survival, as in almost any film or series, a character should not be assumed to be dead unless we as the audience see that for ourselves! Star Trek has, on occasion, sprung surprises like this, bringing back characters who had “died” – such as Tasha Yar in The Next Generation Season 3 episode Yesterday’s Enterprise. The existence of different timelines and different versions of characters means we cannot be sure that practically anyone is truly dead and gone!
Secondly, in Discovery Season 1, when the crew crossed over to the Mirror Universe, nobody native to that universe expressed surprise about Lorca’s presence. If the Prime version of Lorca had arrived and been killed or captured, at the very least we’d expect Empress Georgiou to have commented on his reappearance. If she believed him to be dead or languishing in one of her torturous prisons, she wouldn’t have simply allowed Burnham to bring Lorca to her aboard the ISS Charon – surely she would have considered that to be a trap.
Empress Georgiou gave no indication that she believed Lorca dead or imprisoned.
We know from The Original Series episode Mirror, Mirror that transporter accidents – which Lorca is said to have experienced – don’t kill people. If Mirror Lorca arrived in the Prime Universe, it stands to reason that Prime Lorca crossed over to the Mirror Universe at the same moment. Characters in Season 1 made this same assumption, and I think we can be relatively sure that Prime Lorca did in fact end up there.
When he arrived, he would have immediately come under attack by Terran forces. However, there was also a significant contingent of Lorca loyalists, and if he could have survived the initial battle and gotten his bearings, he could certainly have gone into hiding to avoid Empress Georgiou’s assassins.
Could Captain Lorca have survived his initial encounter with the Mirror Universe?
This is semi-confirmed by the recent Discovery Season 3 episodes Terra Firma, Part 1 and Terra Firma, Part 2, in which Georgiou revisited a version of the Mirror Universe via the Guardian of Forever. In those episodes, Lorca’s absence was a pretty significant story point, and his planned coup attempt was brought up numerous times by Mirror Universe characters. These events supposedly took place during Discovery Season 1, shortly before Mirror Lorca’s return to the Mirror Universe. Prime Lorca had therefore already crossed over, and doesn’t seem to have been captured or killed.
If we’d learned in Terra Firma that Lorca was dead or imprisoned, that would be that. But his absence leads me to believe that he survived his initial encounter with Georgiou’s forces. After getting his bearings and realising he’d ended up in a different reality, Lorca’s first instinct would have been to find a way home. However, priority number one in such a situation is to survive to fight another day, and going into hiding to avoid further attacks makes a lot of sense.
We saw no indication in Terra Firma that Lorca was considered dead. In fact, his absence was a source of concern for Georgiou and others.
Just as Mirror Lorca was able to pass as his Prime counterpart, Prime Lorca may have been able to convince those around him that he was the Mirror version. We saw Kirk, Dr McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura manage to do so in Mirror, Mirror – and Spock remarked that it was “far easier for you, as civilized men, to behave like barbarians than it was for them as barbarians to behave like civilized men.” Survival in the Mirror Universe can be accomplished.
If Lorca were able to convince even a handful of loyalists to go into hiding, perhaps commandeering a shuttle or ship, they could have disappeared and gone off the grid shortly after his arrival. This would have the added benefit of giving Lorca time to regroup and figure out what happened and how to reverse it. At the very least, he would want to try to send a message back across the divide to the Prime Universe.
Lorca with some of his loyalists.
In the Mirror Universe, the existence of the Prime Universe was known to senior Terrans. The crossover of the USS Defiant (as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise) gave them a century’s head start on learning about their Prime cousins. Just as Michael Burnham was able to learn about the Defiant during Season 1, Lorca may have been able to come by this information too – especially because his Mirror counterpart seems to have been aware of the two universes.
So the pieces begin to fall into place. Lorca was resourceful, and may have been able to avoid detection long enough to survive. Following Mirror Lorca’s coup and Empress Georgiou’s disappearance, we don’t know what became of the Imperial throne or who the new Emperor is. It stands to reason, though, that with Mirror Lorca dead the heat would be off, and perhaps Prime Lorca would have been able to leave his hiding place and finally send his message across the divide.
The end of Georgiou’s reign may have allowed Prime Lorca an opportunity to break cover and contact Starfleet.
In short, it all hangs on those crucial first few moments after his arrival. If Lorca could survive in the Mirror Universe long enough to get his bearings, I firmly believe he could have passed himself off as his Mirror counterpart, gone into hiding to avoid Georgiou’s assassins, and laid low while he planned his next moves. When he learned of Georgiou’s death, breaking cover long enough to send a message would have been risky, but possible.
We don’t know exactly how communication between universes would work. But as mentioned, Lorca is a resourceful individual, and with the Mirror Universe’s knowledge of the Prime Universe, it stands to reason he could have figured out something. And if he could send a message asking for help, well that’s where Pike comes in.
Captain Pike.
We know for a fact that Captain Pike is aware of the existence of the Mirror Universe. As he departed the USS Discovery for the final time, Georgiou told him she was from there. His cheeky wink suggested he already knew of its existence – and of her origin – but even if he didn’t and was bluffing, after that moment we can say definitively that he knew of its existence. Given his rank, he could have learned more from Starfleet about the Mirror Universe – Discovery’s crossover was well-documented, after all.
Captain Pike would not leave any Starfleet officer behind, so if he picked up Lorca’s distress call – or was assigned to rescue him by Starfleet – he would figure out a way to do so. It’s in his nature to want to help, and as we saw across Discovery Season 2, Pike exemplifies the best of Starfleet. As two captains serving at the same time, it’s possible Pike and Lorca knew each other, or even that they were friends. This relationship could be explored, and would give Pike an added incentive to rescue Lorca.
Captain Pike would not want to abandon Lorca.
So the question now is how? How would Pike cross over to the Mirror Universe to retrieve Lorca? There are two reliable ways we know of to access the Mirror Universe (not including a warp core leak in a wormhole): the transporter and the mycelial network. With the USS Discovery gone (and the USS Glenn destroyed) using the mycelial network is clearly not possible. So that leaves the transporter.
By recreating the conditions of Lorca’s transporter accident, perhaps Pike could figure out a way to cross over and enter the Mirror Universe – and crucially, a way to get home again afterwards. However, this method means that Pike and a small team would be effectively on their own in the Mirror Universe, with no ship and no backup!
Is a crossover via the transporter on the cards?
Discovery reintroduced the Mirror Universe in a big way, and while it’s never been my favourite setting within Star Trek, it seems that the Mirror Universe episodes have gone down well with fans. It’s at least possible that Strange New Worlds would want to try its own Mirror Universe story, and I can’t think of any that would be better than rescuing Captain Lorca.
Spock’s presence may complicate matters, though. In Mirror, Mirror he seemed entirely unaware of the Mirror Universe when Kirk and the others crossed over, so perhaps he would have to be kept out of such a story. It wouldn’t be impossible to accomplish this; perhaps the mission is classified so only officers of a certain rank can know, or perhaps Spock was away on another assignment or injured and unable to participate. If a suitable in-universe reason could be found, it would be possible to keep Spock out of this story – preserving Star Trek’s internal timeline.
Spock would need to be kept out of any Mirror Universe stories in Strange New Worlds.
On the production side of things, Jason Isaacs – who played Lorca – has indicated he’d be up for a return to Star Trek, and as mentioned the Mirror Universe has been popular within the franchise in recent years. There are no practical reasons that I can see which would make a story like this impossible.
So that’s the extent of this theory – at least for now! Captain Lorca is alive, stranded in the Mirror Universe. He sends a message to Starfleet, and Pike is sent to rescue him. This story could be a lot of fun, and bringing back Lorca would be a really interesting move, one which could have repercussions for Strange New Worlds, the Section 31 series, and any other 23rd Century Star Trek projects. Lorca could go on to be a recurring character in any and all of these shows.
It would be great to welcome Lorca back to Star Trek.
Obviously we don’t know at this stage whether this will happen in Season 1 – or at all! However, it would be a great big connection between Discovery and Strange New Worlds, tying together two parts of the ongoing Star Trek franchise, which you know I’m always in favour of.
Lorca was an interesting character in Season 1 – the hardball Starfleet captain who didn’t always play nice. It seems as though the Prime version was similar, in many respects, to his Mirror counterpart, which is one of the main reasons Mirror Lorca was able to avoid detection for so long. This kind of character is uncommon in the franchise, and bringing Lorca back would be a lot of fun, even if it was just for a single episode.
If we don’t see Lorca return in Season 1, I’m still going to keep my fingers crossed. Perhaps he’ll make an appearance in Season 2 or in the Section 31 series instead!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be broadcast at some point in future on Paramount+ in areas where the service is available. Further international distribution has not yet been announced. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds, Discovery, and other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The video referenced in this article can be found below.
No sooner had I published my article making a few preliminary predictions (alright, guesses) for Strange New Worlds – my first piece on the upcoming series since July last year – than ViacomCBS dropped the biggest news so far about the latest Star Trek show! What an odd coincidence, eh?
The short video confirmed the rumour that the series has officially started production in Toronto, which is fantastic news. There had been speculation that filming had started, but there were also competing rumours that production hadn’t yet begun, so getting confirmation on that is great. It also firmly debunks the lie spread through some anti-Star Trek groups that the series (and other upcoming Star Trek productions) were cancelled or not going ahead!
In addition to the news that the series was officially in production, we also got to meet five new members of the Strange New Worlds cast. We’ll very briefly look at each in a moment, but first let’s assess the group as a whole.
Firstly, those of you who are good at maths will have worked out that the addition of five new cast members brings the total for Strange New Worlds’ main cast to eight. Discovery had seven during Season 3, and Picard also had seven during its first season, so eight characters is not completely out of the ballpark for a modern Star Trek production! In a series that will almost certainly run somewhere from 10-15 episodes, eight major characters is probably about the maximum number that Strange New Worlds could get away with, though.
Picard Season 1 dedicated several of its episodes and large portions of its runtime to its new characters, and while that was great and generally done very well, it meant that when we got to the season finale and rushed through a huge amount of story (leaving a number of things unresolved) some of that felt wasted. In short, what I’m trying to say is that today’s Star Trek shows have fewer episodes per season than they used to in decades past, and a shorter runtime naturally means you can fit in fewer stories – and arguably fewer major characters. Eight feels like a comfortable fit – but I would be wary of trying to cram in too many more!
Notable by her absence was Amrit Kaur, who played Cadet Sidhu in the 2019 Short Treks episode Ask Not. At the end of that short story, Cadet Sidhu was assigned to a role in engineering aboard the Enterprise, and while it was presented as a standalone story, by introducing a character in that manner, with Strange New Worlds clearly in mind at the time the episode was made, it felt like a deliberate move. Ever since the series was announced last year I felt relatively certain that Sidhu would be back, and while it’s possible she will be included in a future announcement, or reappear as a guest star, I admit I was a little surprised not to see her included here.
The cast members who we briefly met continue Star Trek’s longstanding tradition of diversity in its main characters. Babs Olusanmokun was born in Nigeria. Christina Chong is of mixed Chinese-English ancestry. Celia Rose Gooding is African-American. Melissa Navia is Colombian-American. And Jess Bush is Australian. Quite the mix!
The cast will have more women than men for the first time in the franchise’s history, which is certainly very interesting. On-screen representation continues to improve, and Star Trek has had a long and proud tradition of these big, diverse casts. Strange New Worlds continues that tradition, and the cast looks to be shaping up very well.
I’m afraid that I’m completely unfamiliar with all five of the new faces, though several of them have had roles in films and shows that I’ve heard of or seen parts of, so that’s good. The new cast members will have the opportunity to grow into their roles without bringing too much baggage with them, which is one benefit to bringing on board new faces.
We don’t yet know what roles any of the five will play. Surely we can expect to find at least one non-human in there, but which of them will take on that role and in what capacity is something we still don’t know. Every Star Trek series to date has introduced us to new alien races, as well as brought at least one new alien race into its main cast, and I see no reason why Strange New Worlds won’t do the same.
The final point of note is that, of the characters from The Cage, who were officers aboard the Enterprise under Pike’s command, none of them seem to fit with the new cast. Perhaps Yeoman Colt could be the character one of the new female leads is taking over, but none of the new cast fit with characters like José Tyler, Dr Boyce, or other officers present in that episode. I’ve said several times that I was sure Strange New Worlds was not simply going to recast everyone present in The Cage, and that the creative team would surely want to add in their own new characters, but it’s still worth noting that it doesn’t seem at this stage that any of those original characters are returning in a major way.
So that’s about all I have to say, really. By sheer coincidence this announcement came a few hours after I published my preliminary Season 1 predictions, which is kind of amusing! Hopefully we’ll learn soon what roles these folks are going to play. It looks like a fun group, and unless there’s some shocking announcement to come – like a returning cast member from a previous Star Trek series, or the inclusion of a Hollywood superstar – it feels like this announcement has rounded out the main cast. Eight major characters is more than enough for a series like this, though hopefully we’ll see a few secondary characters given screen time and development as well.
Strange New Worlds is off to a decent start, and I’m looking forward to the moment when I’ll be able to sit down and watch it! Stay tuned, because if we get any more information about the show, the characters, or anything else of note, I’ll be sure to take a look.
Hit it!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be broadcast on Paramount+ in areas where the service is available. Further international distribution has not yet been announced. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-2, Short Treks Season 2, Star Trek: Picard, and other iterations of the franchise.
It’s been a while since we looked at Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the upcoming Captain Pike series. But with production on Season 1 seemingly imminent – or perhaps having already begun, depending on what sources you use – I thought it would be fun to look ahead to what the first season of the show may hold.
At this stage, Strange New Worlds has only been commissioned for a single season. However, I would be absolutely stunned if we didn’t get an announcement preceding its Season 1 premiere that it had been renewed; this is the pattern ViacomCBS has had with both Discovery and Picard. I’m hoping, then, that Strange New Worlds will become an ongoing series, perhaps following Discovery’s path and running for four seasons, five, or even more. There’s certainly enough potential content for the show to get through, and while being a prequel is a constraint in some respects, that didn’t stop Discovery, Enterprise, and even the Kelvin films finding new and different stories to tell.
The USS Enterprise.
Just as I did for Discovery Season 4 and Picard Season 2 I’m going to make a few guesses – which I’m officially terming “preliminary predictions” – for Strange New Worlds Season 1. My usual caveat applies – I have no “inside sources,” nor am I claiming that anything listed below will definitely happen. These are guesses – educated guesses in some cases, perhaps, but guesses nevertheless.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the list!
Number 1: The uniforms will be redesigned.
Captain Pike’s gold uniform as seen in the Discovery Season 2 episode Brother.
With the exception of Star Trek: Voyager, every Star Trek series to date has introduced new variants of the Starfleet uniform for its crew. While we have seen Anson Mount and Ethan Peck sporting their Discovery uniforms in recent promotional spots for Paramount+, I’m not convinced that Strange New Worlds won’t at least tweak that design.
And perhaps that’s all it will be – a minor tweak or alteration of the uniforms worn by the Enterprise crew in Discovery. But we could see a more radical change, perhaps one designed to bridge the gap between Discovery-era uniforms and those seen in The Original Series. We could see, for example, the high collars scrapped in favour of the crew neck style seen in The Original Series.
Red uniform variant seen in the Short Treks episode Ask Not.
The uniforms worn by the Enterprise crew in Discovery were little more than recoloured versions of the Discovery uniforms, and if you look closely, you can see the detailing around the shoulder and down the sides. In my opinion, though these uniforms were preferable to Discovery’s all-blue look, they ended up looking like dyed Discovery uniforms rather than their own thing. This is something that could be addressed, even if only by making small changes to some of the detailing and stitching.
Regardless, I think that when we start to see promos for the new series, one thing we’ll notice is some kind of new uniform variant.
Number 2: Cadet Sidhu will be part of the Enterprise crew.
Cadet Sidhu.
The 2019 Short Treks episode Ask Not – whose writer, Kalinda Vazquez, is now writing a Star Trek film – brought back Captain Pike. But it also introduced us to a Starfleet cadet, and at the end of the action-packed, uplifting story, she was assigned to a role under Pike’s command aboard the Enterprise.
Almost any story could have been chosen to bring back Captain Pike for a mini-episode, but Ask Not spent most of its time setting up Cadet Sidhu’s character. She has a potentially interesting backstory, being the sole survivor of a Tholian attack, and as a young, talented cadet she could fill a fairly typical Star Trek role in the new series.
Captain Pike with Sidhu in the Enterprise’s engineering section.
We’ve seen the “young and eager” role filled by characters like Harry Kim, Sylvia Tilly, and even Wesley Crusher in past iterations of the franchise, and having someone like that presents a contrast with older, more experienced characters like Captain Pike and Number One. Cadet Sidhu also has a husband, who could potentially be a recurring character, and her background with the Tholians suggests she may not be quite as naïve and inexperienced as other cadets, potentially giving her more to say and do.
Of the main cast that we know of at this stage, all three roles are played by white American actors – Anson Mount as Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock, Rebecca Romijn as Number One. Every Star Trek show going back to The Original Series has proudly shown off a diverse cast, and bringing in someone of Indian heritage would be great. Amrit Kaur, who plays Sidhu, would be the first person of Indian heritage to be a main cast member in the history of the franchise, which would be groundbreaking in itself.
Number 3: There will be a non-Starfleet crewmate.
Cleveland Booker in Season 3 of Discovery.
One of the best things Discovery Season 3 did was introduce the character of Cleveland Booker. Book served as our guide to the 32nd Century in some ways, but also shook up the rigid hierarchy of the Starfleet crew by offering an outside perspective.
Several Star Trek shows have experimented with non-Starfleet characters in various roles, and aside from Book I’d point to Quark in Deep Space Nine and even, to some extent, Neelix in earlier seasons of Voyager as successful examples. I don’t expect Strange New Worlds to put together a Picard-style team where no one is a serving Starfleet officer, of course, but bringing in one major character who exists outside of the ship’s command structure would be potentially interesting.
Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager.
There are many ways this could be done, and many different roles such an individual could occupy. I’m thinking perhaps of a chef-type role, maybe someone who oversees the mess hall and is friendly with the crew. But there’s also potential to bring in an alien character who is perhaps aboard the ship as an observer or diplomat.
The possibilities are open-ended – as is almost everything with Strange New Worlds – but I certainly think that bringing at least one “outsider” into the crew can be a great storytelling device, one which could take the show to different thematic places.
Number 4: There will be a significant callback to Star Trek: Enterprise.
The NX-01 Enterprise.
Aside from a couple of Okudagrams and throwaway lines, modern Star Trek has essentially ignored Enterprise. The franchise’s first prequel currently feels disconnected from the rest of the franchise; cut off in the 22nd Century all by itself. There’s potential for Strange New Worlds to rectify this, and having a significant crossover with Enterprise would be something fun to see.
A few months ago I suggested that the Andorian Shran or main character T’Pol from Enterprise could still be alive and active in the era in which Strange New Worlds is set. Either character – or both – could thus cross over and appear in the new series. That would be a hugely significant moment, as it would firmly tie in Enterprise with the ongoing Star Trek franchise.
Sub-commander T’Pol.
Discovery could have done something similar to pay homage to Enterprise in either of its first two seasons, but with the show now set far in the future, any crossover potential has gone away. Strange New Worlds is currently the only 23rd Century series, and while the untitled Section 31 show or a future series may share the setting, that’s hardly a sure thing. So if the creative team at ViacomCBS want to bring up anything from Enterprise any time soon, this is by far the best place to do it.
If a main character crossover isn’t on the cards, there are still myriad other ways to acknowledge Enterprise in a major way. We could see Pike and the crew revisit a location first seen in Enterprise, or see the return of races like the Denobulans, Suliban, or Xindi, none of which have ever been mentioned outside of Enterprise.
Number 5: Ash Tyler will return.
Ash Tyler.
Of Discovery’s main cast from Seasons 1 and 2, only Ash Tyler didn’t travel into the future with Burnham and the rest of the crew. He remained in the 23rd Century, and at the end of the Season 2 finale we learned he would be appointed head of Section 31. It’s been assumed ever since (not only by me but by other fans and theory-crafters) that Tyler was intended to appear in the upcoming Section 31 series. However, as we recently learned, that show may be on hold for at least the next couple of years.
Ash Tyler’s story arc across Discovery’s first two seasons is arguably complete. He came to terms with what happened to him, his transition from Klingon to human and the two sides of his personality that created. He also went on a rollercoaster ride in terms of his relationship with Burnham. But there’s still a lot of potential in Tyler, and one thing in particular that leads me to believe that he could – in theory – have a role to play in Strange New Worlds.
Is this Ash’s brother? His cousin?
The character above is José Tyler, one of the original officers under Pike’s command in The Cage. Now I’m not expecting everyone we met in The Cage to be recast and appear in Strange New Worlds, but the possibility of a family connection between José and Ash seems like it could be fun to explore. Perhaps they’re brothers or cousins. If so, how would José react to the fact that Ash isn’t really Ash any more? That could be a huge source of conflict, and putting the two characters together to work through that might be a story worth telling.
Ash Tyler could also be part of a Section 31-related story, or even a story that sees the Enterprise picking up the last remaining pieces of the battle against Control. Ash shares a secret that only Pike and the Enterprise crew know – what really happened to the USS Discovery. As the head of Section 31, might he leverage that against Pike somehow to force him to take on a dangerous mission? There are, once again, almost an unlimited number of ways Ash Tyler could be used in the context of the new show. I doubt he’ll be a major starring character, but having him back for an episode or two seems a real possibility.
Number 6: The Enterprise will make first contact with a familiar race.
A Cardassian spy seen in The Next Generation.
One of the promises Strange New Worlds has made is that it will be a return to the kind of Star Trek that The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Voyager did so well, with stories focusing on exploration. Over the course of those series, the captains and their crews made numerous first contacts with alien races, and if Strange New Worlds is to make good on its premise, making at least one first contact seems inevitable.
If we look at Enterprise as the other major Star Trek prequel series, we saw first contact with established races like the Klingons, Romulans, and even the Ferengi – though Archer didn’t know who he was meeting in that last case. The point is, Enterprise went back and showed us how humanity first encountered many familiar Star Trek races – and this is something Strange New Worlds could do too.
Enterprise depicted Earth’s first contact with the Romulans, and several other familiar races.
I’ve written about this a number of times here on the website, but I adore Deep Space Nine, and particularly the Bajorans and Cardassians. We’ve never seen the Federation make first contact with either of them, and it could be very interesting to see how it went. The Cardassians would likely still be a militaristic state, but we know that the Bajorans prior to the Cardassian occupation were very different – operating a caste-based society that the Federation would surely disapprove of.
If not the Cardassians or Bajorans, there are many other Star Trek races which had already been contacted either by the time of The Original Series or The Next Generation that we could see Captain Pike and his crew meet for the very first time. Among them could be the Gorn, Tholians, or even a relatively obscure race like the Sheliak, who only appeared in a single episode. In my opinion, making first contact with an established race would tie Strange New Worlds in to the wider franchise, and that’s something that I firmly believe every Star Trek series needs to be doing.
Number 7: Spock will mention Michael Burnham at least once.
Burnham and Spock in the Discovery Season 2 episode Project Daedalus.
Season 2 of Discovery explored in some detail the relationship between Burnham and Spock. They were raised as siblings on Vulcan by Sarek and Amanda, and Burnham appears to have been quite influential in Spock’s life and in his development. At the end of Season 2, Spock stated his intent to travel to the future with Burnham, and while we know that was never going to happen because of his other appearances in the franchise, it indicates how close they were.
Burnham’s loss is akin to a bereavement. Although the final red burst confirmed that she safely made it to the 32nd Century, Spock will never see Burnham again (barring some other time travel story!) so she’s gone from his life. How will that affect him? While Spock may, on the surface, appear to simply brush off the events of Season 2, he went through a heck of a lot. The loss of Burnham may be the worst part, but being accused of murder, having his mind scrambled, travelling to Talos IV, and being hunted by Control will have all taken a toll.
Captain Pike and Spock watch Burnham and the USS Discovery disappear into the future.
Burnham had her “Spock episode” with Unification III midway through Discovery Season 3, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Strange New Worlds reciprocates somewhat and gives Spock his own “Burnham episode” – or at least a Burnham moment. Moving on completely as if everything he went through in Discovery Season 2 never happened wouldn’t sit right, so I’m sure there will be at least some reference or acknowledgement of Burnham from Spock.
It may not be a complete story, rather just a line or two of dialogue in which Spock mentions how much he misses Burnham. But I do expect to see some kind of reference or connection. Despite Spock being a long-established character within Star Trek, Strange New Worlds is a spin-off from Discovery, and this version of the character in particular is tied to Burnham very strongly. Making note of that would also be a reminder to the audience that Discovery is Strange New Worlds’ sister show – another of those little ties between ongoing parts of the franchise that I mentioned.
Number 8: Pike will have to deal with the knowledge of his impending accident and disability.
Captain Pike after his accident, as seen in The Original Series Season 1 episode The Menagerie.
Captain Pike not only saw his future at the Klingon monastery on Boreth, but he actively chose to accept his horrible fate in exchange for a time crystal. This happened toward the end of Season 2, and with the battle against Control to prepare for, he didn’t have much time to really stop and think about what that means. But Strange New Worlds will surely slow things down – at least some of the time – giving him pause for thought.
In the moment, Pike did what he needed to do and embraced his dark future. Will he regret that? Will he be worried at every turn, looking over his shoulder for the moment where his accident will occur? If so, who will help him snap out of it? It would be very easy for someone in his position to fall into depression – after all, what he’s going through is akin to being diagnosed with a terminal disease.
Pike sealed his fate in the Discovery Season 2 episode Through the Valley of Shadows.
We have seen Star Trek tackle this subject before, but only in the format of one-off episodes. Having a main character who is aware of his impending health collapse and disability could be something that’s absolutely worth exploring. In a way, I can relate to Captain Pike. Over the last decade or more I’ve seen my own health gradually decline, and while it isn’t quite the same thing (Pike’s accident takes him from full health to total disability in a heartbeat) I’ve been in the position of hearing a doctor tell me really awful news, knowing that there isn’t anything I can do to fix it.
Star Trek usually does things by analogy, so rather than Captain Pike being diagnosed with a real-world life-limiting condition, he’s seen a vision of his future disability in a time crystal. But the impact it could have on him from a psychological point of view is comparable, and this could, in my opinion, be a great way for Star Trek to explore the complexities surrounding incurable illness, long-term health conditions, disability, and even terminal illness. There are many, many ways such a story could go, and I’ll be fascinated to see what direction the show takes with this.
Number 9: There will be either a time-travel or parallel universe story.
Kirk’s captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey travelling through time in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Time travel has been a part of Star Trek going back to Season 1 of The Original Series, and we’ve seen a number of episodes take place in both the past and future. With Strange New Worlds sending Pike and the Enterprise off on a mission of exploration, they could easily encounter any of the temporal phenomena that we know exist out there in space.
I’ve never been wild about time travel in Star Trek, and often the episodes in which it features aren’t my favourites. Using time travel to visit contemporary Earth inevitably dates a story, too – just look at Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home or the Voyager two-part episode Future’s End as examples of that! But just because time travel isn’t my personal favourite story element doesn’t mean it can’t work well, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Strange New Worlds pursue a story of this nature.
Voyager visited ’90s California in Future’s End.
The main candidate when considering time travel has to be the aforementioned contemporary Earth, in this case, Earth circa 2021! But we’ve seen time travel stories set in the 1890s, the 1930s, and even a dark vision of the 2020s! It could also be fun to see the crew shot forward in time, and perhaps having to rely on the help of a time-travelling future Starfleet to get home.
Alternatively we could see a parallel universe story – though hopefully not the Mirror Universe! The Mirror Universe is potentially home to the prime version of Captain Lorca, and rescuing him could be an interesting story. But there are many other parallel universes – including the alternate reality where the Kelvin films are set. Could that set up a crossover with the alternate reality versions of Pike and Spock?
Number 10: The show will acknowledge current events.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest and most disruptive event in many years.
The big story of 2020 was, of course, the pandemic. But there are other significant ongoing events, such as the issue of race in the United States, that Strange New Worlds could try to tackle. Star Trek, despite what some people want to tell you, has always been a franchise with a keen interest in contemporary events. Going all the way back to The Original Series, Star Trek has used its sci-fi setting to look at real-world events, and I wonder to what extent Strange New Worlds will try to do that.
In a series that aims to be more episodic than other recent Star Trek projects, Strange New Worlds could certainly dedicate at least one episode to looking at a major current event. The pandemic is something we have yet to see appear in fiction in a big way. The issue of race, on the other hand, is something we’ve seen tackled many times in many different ways.
Star Trek has looked at the issue of race relations in the United States before, notably in the episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
A story touching on issues raised by the pandemic could look at, for example, a planetary society suffering from disease, but where a significant number of people refuse to take precautions – something we’ve seen all across the world to varying degrees. Or it could look at the long-term impact of isolation through a character or set of characters who haven’t had any outside contact for a long time.
Any series that plans to look at aspects of the ongoing pandemic has to tread carefully, in my opinion, to avoid appearing to sensationalise current events or to be seen to be exploiting the situation. But as one of the biggest events of the 21st Century so far, the coronavirus pandemic will be explored in art and entertainment many times in the years ahead, and there’s no reason why Star Trek shouldn’t tackle it – provided it does so tactfully.
Number 11: The Klingons will make an appearance.
A Klingon general from Lower Decks.
Federation-Klingon relations went on a rollercoaster in the 23rd Century, to say the least! From ignoring one another to all-out war to a peace conference, the two factions did it all. One thing we have yet to see is the way in which the Klingons changed following the war depicted in Discovery – and no, I don’t mean the prosthetic makeup!
When L’Rell took power at the end of Discovery Season 1, she sued for peace with the Federation, after which Federation-Klingon relations appear to have thawed, at least a little. Yet within a decade or so, the Klingons were once again incredibly antagonistic toward the Federation, with conflicts and battles fought during this era.
Chancellor L’Rell in the Discovery Season 2 episode Point of Light.
Perhaps we could see something happen between the Klingons and Federation to set them on this antagonistic path. Captain Pike has built up some degree of goodwill with the Klingons, but seeing this evaporate would be a potentially interesting story. We could also welcome back Mary Chieffo as L’Rell in a story focusing on the Klingon Empire.
Just like we need to see Section 31 disappear and move underground, we also need to see the Klingons and Federation move apart. Another all-out war is not required, but seeing the situation deteriorate and even the cutting off of diplomatic relations would “reset” the Klingons closer to the way they were in The Original Series.
So that’s it.Ten Eleven preliminary predictions for Season 1 of Strange New Worlds. As I said when the series was first announced, 2022 seems like a reasonable guesstimate for when it’ll premiere, and that was backed up by the news we got a few weeks ago about which shows are in production and how far along they are. So while it’s definitely early to be considering what we might see from the new show, it’s not too early! Who knows, it could be this time next year that Strange New Worlds makes its debut!
Anson Mount has recently featured in the ad campaign for Paramount+.
I hope this was a bit of fun. And just to re-emphasise what I said at the beginning: I don’t have any “insider information,” this is just guesswork from a fan. Nothing more! So don’t get upset if none of what I suggested above ultimately comes to pass!
I’m really looking forward to Strange New Worlds. It seems to be offering more of a “classic” take on Star Trek when compared to recent projects, and I’m 100% there for that! The franchise has expanded, and there’s plenty of room for serialised drama and even animated comedy, but taking Star Trek back to its roots is definitely something I’m keen to see. That doesn’t mean every project should try to do the same thing, but it does mean that Strange New Worlds is close to the top of the list of shows that I’m most excited about!
If we get any major news, casting information, or a trailer be sure to check back as I’m sure I’ll have something to say. Other than that, all we can do is wait!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is coming to Paramount+ at some point in the future. International distribution has not yet been announced. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds, Discovery, and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 