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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trekking with Dennis 