Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds through Season 2.
It’s funny. Strange New Worlds seems to suffer from the opposite of the problem that plagued the Star Trek of yesteryear – namely that there’s not enough of it.
In those halcyon days of 1990s Trek, shows like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager ran for an average of 26 episodes a year, which invariably led to some duds and misfires – you could practically see the writing staff burning themselves out around episode 20. Strange New Worlds’ sophomore year, by contrast, has already come and gone in a transwarp flash, taking big swings in its format change-ups and character relationships while also feeling like it’s leaving so much on the table plot-wise because it just can’t fit everything into 10 episodes.
Take the decision by co-showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman to focus on the bigger ensemble, thereby giving pretty much everyone on the bridge their own story or character arc throughout the season. It’s great for the Dr. M’Benga or Ortegas or La'an Noonien-Singh fans – and who isn’t one? – as those players all get some great stuff in this second year. But it’s not such good news for the Captain Pike fans – and who isn’t also one of those? – as the Enterprise’s commanding officer winds up taking something of a backseat to his crew. In fact, I’m not sure that Anson Mount’s character even has much of an arc this time around, beyond some noodling around his love life with Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano). (And yes, I know Mount had a baby during production of the season, but no, that doesn’t mean the show doesn’t feel imbalanced at times all the same.)
Still, Mount always carries what he’s given to do with his usual mix of charisma and wry “can you believe this space shit?” attitude, which is always a pleasure to watch. A journey to a long-forgotten Trek planet in "Among the Lotus Eaters" – the fourth episode of the season, and the first to really focus on Pike – brings a new spin to yet another away mission, where the captain and his team must contend with not even remembering who they are, let alone what they’re doing on said planet. That this story fills in some continuity info about the very first episode of Star Trek ever is just an added bonus. And as with almost every episode of this season, it’s rooted in a clever and intriguing concept.
Perhaps the weakest parts of the season come in the first couple of episodes and in the finale. The premiere, "The Broken Circle," sees Spock (Ethan Peck) and the crew defying orders and stealing the Enterprise for… no real good reason? La’an (Christina Chong) has her “I’m leaving the Enterprise” thread from the end of last year quickly resolved here with a bit of a shrug, but as always the interplay among this group is fun and often emotional (the first real inklings of the wartime service of Jesse Bush’s Chapel and Babs Olusanmokun’s M’Benga emerge here, for example). In episode 2, as with the La’an story, the cliffhanger from the end of season 1 – which saw Number One (Rebecca Romijn) arrested due to her secret, genetically-modified history – is wrapped up, though at least the entire episode is devoted to that story (if somewhat ponderously so in that age-old Trek tradition: the courtroom drama).
Meanwhile, the season 2 finale, "Hegemony," feels mostly like a rehash of last season’s tale of the crew fighting the vicious predator race known as the Gorn, only with less dramatic weight. We lost a beloved crewmember to the Gorn in an amazing moment of self-sacrifice last season, whereas here we’re looking at, what? Maybe Captain Batel is in trouble? It’s also a bit surprising that it took so long to get to the Gorn after they were teased at the end of the season premiere as the big looming threat, but again, too short a season…
Which isn’t to say that each of these hours doesn’t have some great things going on in them, like Spock’s spacewalk rescue of Chapel in the finale, or La’an’s realization of who her "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" time-travel mission is really about, or Kirk (Paul Wesley) and Uhura’s (Celia Rose Gooding) first meeting in "Lost in Translation." And as always, it all looks simply fabulous. Like, these could play on the big screen and you’d think you were watching a movie if you didn’t know better. (Though that then raises the question: Would a longer season look this good where the budget would have to be spread across more episodes?)
But where the season really made its mark was in the creative team’s willingness to take those aforementioned big swings. The crossover episode with the animated Trek comedy Lower Decks, "Those Old Scientists," is an instant classic, balancing the zaniness of bringing Lower Decks leads Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler (Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid) into live-action without breaking either show. That it was directed by Jonathan Frakes himself is no doubt part of the episode’s success, but it’s also a clear indication of just how malleable Strange New Worlds can be. (It’s also just damned funny television.)
“Those Old Scientists” kicks off a startling three-episode run that also contains a war episode (let’s call it Star Trek: MASH) that’s as dark as anything Deep Space Nine ever did and the all-singing, all-dancing “Subspace Rhapsody.” And yes, sure, Star Trek is about 22 years late to the musical episode party, but once Spock starts singing "The intermix chamber and containment field are stable… ♫" there’s no turning back.
Of course, ultimately the reason that Strange New Worlds works so well is because of the characters. Chapel and Spock’s evolving relationship – canon be bent if not outright broken – has been a major thread this season, while La’an and Kirk’s not-romance has also had plenty of ups and downs. M’Benga and Chapel’s bond, forged during the Klingon War, has also been a highlight, and across the board this cast remains full of standouts. Is this the best-cast Trek show since Deep Space Nine? It just might be.
Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:
- I really thought we’d see Jesse James Keitel's Angel and/or Sybok this season, but I guess we’ll have to wait for next year… hopefully!
- With the arrival of Scotty in the season finale, we now have met just about every Original Series crewmember with the exception of Dr. McCoy and Sulu. (Chekov too, I guess, but he didn’t join until season 2 of that show.)
- We’re not doing all that much actual Strange New Worldin’ these days, are we? When’s the last time the Enterprise discovered a new planet?
- Carol Kane’s Pelia took over as chief engineer this season, and while the actress brought an offbeat spin to her Starfleet officer, she hasn’t yet made the same impact that Bruce Horak’s late, lamented Hemmer did last year.
- Speaking of Horak, he did in fact return this season, first in a video recording of Hemmer, and then later as a singing Klingon in "Subspace Rhapsody"!
