Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is "the trekkiest Star Trek show that’s ever trekked"

Paste Magazine

"The series, which follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise before Captain Kirk came aboard, feels like the first true successor to The Original Series since it ended its run in 1969," says Terry Terrones of the Paramount+ series. "Make no mistake, there’s been plenty of quality new Star Trek content over the past 53 years on the small screen. Over that span there have been 10 live action and animated TV programs set in its unique universe, and all of them have offered something special. Trekkies have been treated to great characters, incredible villains, countless memorable moments, and the hilarity of Worf being wrong in every possible scenario. He was not a merry man. For lifelong Star Trek fans like myself, the past five decades-plus has been a veritable potpourri of quality programming, and not much of it has a connection to The Original Series. We’re a blessed fan base. That said, no new series feels more rooted in the DNA of the Star Trek mythos than Paramount+’s wonderfully crafted, Strange New Worlds. To be sure, with Spock (Ethan Peck) and Captain Pike (Anson Mount) around, there are names viewers familiar with The Original Series (and Star Trek: Discovery) are sure to remember—but this latest vehicle also connects deeply to Trek lore."

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• It’s almost startling how effective the old format is after all this time: "The early episodes of Strange New Worlds have a little bit of everything the franchise has tried over the years: exploration, diplomacy, action, even comedy," says Alan Sepinwall. "The breadth of what the show is trying to do is impressive, and a reminder of how elastic Star Trek can be. And if one concept isn’t your favorite — the third episode, a viral-outbreak story spotlighting Number One, drags a bit — give it a week so the show can try something else. One episode is a tense mash-up of the space battle scenes from Wrath of Khan and the 'Disaster' episode of The Next Generation, while the next is a wacky shore-leave romp that includes both a body swap and the line, 'Spock, I do not enjoy hijinks.' (Unsurprisingly, the latter was my favorite installment so far.) There’s a degree to which Strange New Worlds is looking backwards a bit too much. Anson Mount was so good on Discovery — incredibly relaxed and confident and gentle, like everybody’s favorite cool space dad — that it’s hard to blame Trek producers Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet for wanting to bring him back. It is, however, a lot of classic characters (or, in some cases, their relatives) squeezed into a single show."
• Paramount+ may have cracked the Star Trek code with a new series that’s bright, optimistic and fundamentally episodic in nature: "I actually kinda liked both Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard," says Daniel Fienberg. "Both have ideas that interest me and performances I’m happy to support. But they’re both shows that, once I fell a little behind, I never felt any desire to catch up on. I can’t say if Trek: Strange New Worlds is a series I’m going to want to pay close attention to every week, but that feels almost like what the new series is designed for. Through the five episodes sent to critics — half of the 10-episode first season — there are installments that hit and others that are completely forgettable. But the series has successfully and quickly established a small ensemble that’s easy to care about and a hopeful ethos that harkens back to the original Star Trek series and the more procedural aspects of various popular spinoffs. It’s an amiable and entertaining throwback by intent and in execution."
• Strange New Worlds is a big-hearted, rollicking return to the foundational principles of the show that started it all: "It is joyous, impeccably cast, and (something I haven’t regularly said about Star Trek in some time) incredibly fun to watch," says Lacy Baugher. "From its off-handed callbacks and Easter Eggs to its thoughtful character dynamics and gorgeous visuals, everything about this show reflects the care that has been put into creating it. And if we are going to trust the U.S.S. Enterprise to anyone, who better than some obvious fellow nerds who clearly love it as much as we do?"
• What Strange New Worlds brings back is some of the Buck Rogers brio of the original series: "Like all pre-streaming Star Trek series, it’s episodic in nature, rather than serial, with problems that can be established and overcome in an hour — 'Complicated problems solved in no time' is a Star Trek trademark," says Robert Lloyd. "(It would be printed on their cards, if they carried cards.) The plots, reflective of contemporary social issues — 'shades of Old Earth,=' says Pike, set down on a planet riven by competing factions, in case you’re slow off the mark — feel close enough in spirit, even the letter, to the original series to call this almost an homage. There are alien temples and libraries, inspirational speeches, an ever-popular infection story. In time-honored tradition, the least expendable officers go on the most dangerous missions. And based on the three episodes available for review, there is seemingly little interest in soap-operatic shipboard relationships, unlike, say, the teary love fest that is Discovery. (A teary love fest of which I’m quite fond.)"
• Contemporary visual effects (and a Paramount+ budget) have given the Enterprise a facelift: "Its hull is now studded with hundreds of teensy, warmly glowing windows, its bridge is more sleek and interactive, its sickbay more Apple-store-chic, and its crew cabins far, far more lux than you remember," says Glen Weldon. "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds doesn't make any apologies for that, which is part of its charm. It doesn't particularly care about the version of the Enterprise or its crew you may or may not be holding in your head, and heart. It simply wants to tell Trek stories the way they used to be told — one space battle, one diplomatic summit, one alien virus, one spatial anomaly, one transporter accident at a time."
• Despite a few stumbles and overly-clichéd ideas here and there, Strange New Worlds already feels like a successful blend of vintage and modern Trek: "The cast is more diverse and the characterization is more quickly established than we saw in earlier eras of TV, with deeper continuity between episodes," says Gavia Baker-Whitelaw. "However the overall format is close to what we saw in the ‘90s, with A-plot/B-plot adventures that conclude in one sitting. In the same way that many vintage eps took place on cardboard sets, Strange New Worlds often relies on glossily blatant greenscreen. But what of it? The important thing is the writing, which already displays a welcome affinity for inspiring speeches, affectionate humor ('It appears that hijinks are the most logical course of action,' remarks Spock), and elaborate Starfleet problem-solving."
• Strange New Worlds succeeds by going back to basics: "As fan service goes, it’s reasonable enough, only occasionally veering into the overly cute," says Zack Handlen. "But fan service on its own does not a show make, and the question Strange New Worlds has to answer right from the start is: why? Trek has done prequel series before, but both Enterprise and Discovery at least tried to find new angles on the material, with varying degrees of success. Strange New Worlds is telling the story of a captain whose most important action was sitting in a chair before someone else used it. Where’s the novelty? What’s the point? Going by the first five episodes of its first season, Strange New Worlds' answer is more or less: who cares?"
• Strange New Worlds is neither strange, nor new, but it does get fun: "'New' is right there in the title, but this latest Trek marks the fullest embrace of the canon's history ever, really," says Darren Franich. "Pike parted ways with Discovery when that crew wormholed to the future, and now Strange New Worlds spins him off onto the first starship Star Trek ever flew. This feels like a retrenchment, if not an outright admission that the new stuff hasn't worked out all right. Fifty-six years after the original series premiered, here's a TV show about the Enterprise, starring Spock, Uhura, and even Nurse Chapel."
• Strange New Worlds finds a way to bring in new fans: "In including so many legacy characters from the jump, Strange New Worlds seems to be under no pressure toward dramatic reveals of known Trek iconography," says Witney Seibold. "The inclusion of familiar names seems to be enough for the show-runners, allowing them to eschew the usual 'legacy sequel' story beats that have become annoying common in the Age of Regurgitation. There are no loving closeups of Starfleet badges or communicators. There are exteriors of the Enterprise, but they do not descend into vehicle fetish. Although Strange New Worlds is a direct expansion of known Trek lore, the showrunners seem to have finally dropped the foolish twin pop philosophies of 'We're doing this for the fans" and "We're reinventing everything.' They found an old recipe, and it still tastes good."
• It’s an absolute joy to meet so many beloved characters from the Enterprise crew in a new form: "Ethan Peck had already been a standout on Discovery as Spock — and we meet his betrothed, the fickle T’Pring from classic Original Series episode 'Amok Time,' whose exasperation with Spock may be given greater justification this time around," says Christian Blauvelt. "But there’s also Babs Olusanmokun as M’Benga, a doctor on the Enterprise only seen on a few episodes of The Original Series, Jess Bush as Nurse Chapel, and Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura, the communications officer and linguistics prodigy who was one of the most iconic characters of the ’60s show as portrayed by Nichelle Nichols. Also, brought to life through a bit of progressive casting, there’s the cantankerous Aenar engineer Hemmer: related to the Andorians, they’re a blind species, and the actor portraying him, Bruce Horak, is visually impaired himself. Strange New Worlds takes a lot of time to imbue each of these characters with personality."
• Anson Mount and Ethan Peck on boldly going back to Star Trek's roots: “I like to think that Pike is not the star of the show,” says Mount. “The star of the show is the Enterprise. I wanted our show to serve as more of a metaphorical platform for not things to preach about, but things to think about. And I think it has that sense of adventure like the original series, where you wouldn’t even know where you were going to be at the beginning of the episode, much less the end. We wanted to reinvigorate that sense of excitement.” Meanwhile, Peck says Spock is in a “very fragile and delicate place in his development. He’s more vulnerable than he’s ever been in his life — human vulnerable. So I think there’s a lot of experimentation ahead of him. How much is too human? What is too Vulcan? How should this problem be approached? I think it’s a really exciting time in his life where you see him explore these extreme sides of himself.”
• Showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman discuss the debate over referencing the Jan. 6 Capitol Takeover
• What to producers hope Trek fans take from Strange New Worlds that they can’t get from Discovery, Picard, Prodigy or Lower Decks?: "Every one of the Trek shows tries to carve its own edge, you know, and when Discovery came out, I thought it was this really cool, bold idea to reinvent Trek for an era of streaming that was heavily serialized with new effects and new ideas—to not focus on the captain, at first, but a member of the crew," says Myers. "That was pretty bold, you know? Really cool. And they’re still trying big, interesting ideas. Picard has this completely different tone and sensibility. The goal (for Strange New Worlds) was really just to have a show that speaks to its specific voice. We wanted people to come to it and feel like, 'this is the flavor we’re getting here.' For us, it was those episodic adventures. And I dare say, we just wanted the show to deal with big issues and be fun and use episodic sci-fi to tell thoughtful stories about the world. In a one-off way, where we don’t necessarily have to do these big, complex, big arching villains (like Discovery and Picard)—it’s extremely, really difficult, super challenging and it’s hard, I admire their work a lot because it’s hard. For us, we were like, let’s tackle the other direction."