Star Trek Strange New Worlds S2: The Underrated Power of the Short Story
By John Kirk
Rating: A
Press embargos prevent me from going into the individual joy that is inherent in each episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season Two, the redeeming saviour of post-Enterprise era Star Trek television. However, let this ring true: it’s like an old friend that has been missing for a long time and it does NOT disappoint. But why?
Celia Rose Gooding with Ethan Peck.
Let’s face it: the structure of the all-season encompassing story arc hasn’t worked too well for Star Trek lately. The only recent exception to that has been Season Three of Star Trek: Picard and that’s been because of showrunner Terry Matalas’ inclusion of the overwhelmingly acceptable hallmarks of classic Star Trek that made it appealing to those who were there in the beginning.
No one can argue about what worked well in the past. Thus, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a show that everyone can get behind because it appeals to both new and old fans of Star Trek but also because it adheres to the mechanism of the encapsulated single-story episode, and that was good enough for the various iterations of Trek that followed the original series (TOS).
What ain’t broke, don’t fix.
If you need an update, Strange New Worlds is about the crew before James T. Kirk took command of the USS Enterprise. OG Trek fans might remember the pilot episode in 1965 (copyrighted 1964) titled "The Cage," which later became retitled "The Menagerie" and saw Captain Pike played by Jeffrey Hunter. In this series, Anson Mount is in command.
His first officer, only titled “Number One” in the pilot, has now been given a full name: Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn). His fledgling science officer, the half-Vulcan, half-Human Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck) along with recently promoted Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) and Chief Medical Officer doctor Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) represent familiar links to the original Star Trek that started the whole franchise.
Down to the last detail, careful attention has been paid to the aspects of linking into the original series so that, as ample Trek pundits in the past have pointed out, there’s lots of rooms for stories. However, the trend in Star Trek beginning with Star Trek: Enterprise was to create stories that lasted an entire season.
Historically, this has flown against the grain in telling Star Trek stories. I won’t get into examples, but some of the best stories in the Star Trek franchise have been single ones, with notable exceptions like “Best of Both Worlds,” episodes 1 and 2 in Star Trek: The Next Generation (Seasons 3 and 4, respectively.).
It was the first cliffhanger in Star Trek and was a massive moment in television history. The two-part episode in Season 4 of Star Trek: Voyager, titled “The Year of Hell” — while not an extended cliff-hanger —was still a successful example of a multi-part episode that protracted the storytelling model beyond the single episode.
While Star Trek: Enterprise has its dedicated fans, it wasn’t as successful as it could have been. I’m a fan, and while I have a small replica of Captain Jonathan Archer on a shelf in my home office, it was a show that deserved a better fate than what it got. Cursed with slow legs in the beginning, the latter episodes were, in my opinion, some of the best examples of successful single episode arcs.
Fast Forward to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
I’m on record for stating how refreshing this series was in its first season because of its informed inclusion of historical characters that fans positively responded to, regardless of their age. Captain Pike is regarded as the first captain of the NCC-1701 USS Enterprise (OK… he wasn’t. Everyone knows it was Robert April), and there is a sense of historic authenticity within the lore of Star Trek that cannot be denied.
From that point, the rest of the crew is also likewise accepted. Not to stand on canon, but this matters and becomes a mutual point of relief and acceptance to both new and old fans of the franchise.
But then there are the new characters who really must work to find their place. For instance, La’an Noonien Singh, the Head of Security, played by Christina Chong or Lieutenant Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) the Helm Officer. These are characters who have no history and rely upon the actors to fit them into the same paradigm.
Admittedly, that’s a harder task. At least their peers have some informed history to work with. The writers have an immense responsibility to ensure that they fit into the continuum. However, they provide the novelty that prevents the show from falling into the trap of nostalgic dependence.
Speaking of novelty or the lack thereof, the great strength about TOS — or for that matter, the shows that came after that (The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager) — all relied on the same storytelling dynamic of the individualized episode.
Sure, there were the cliffhangers as I’ve mentioned, but for the most part, each series rested on the success or failure of a single episode. In the end, it all balanced out and each series had its own eagles and crows.
Like I said, if it ain’t broke…
That’s clearly why Discovery and the first two seasons of Picard failed to find ground with all fans. The seasonal storytelling arc was too long and filled with unusual little features that seemed out of sorts. In Discovery, why did the Starfleet vessels look more advanced than the time they were set in? Why were the Klingons different – again?
The uniforms were unfamiliar and even the technology failed to attract the attention of fans who were expecting something similar to Enterprise where the tech definitely looked primitive, and the storylines were constrained by the lack of advanced capability.
Strange New Worlds is both its own animal, and it’s not. Why it works is that it lacks the unfamiliarity of the primitive tech vibe that Star Trek: Enterprise tried to cultivate to add history and has the appeal of being something recognized.
It’s literally Star Trek: The Original Series re-imagined and made modern for a contemporary television audience. Simply, it is what Star Trek: Discovery should have been: a collection of individual stories that allowed the viewer to enjoy the totality of Trek by focusing on independent aspects of it. That’s what adds to lore and allows writers the flexibility of creating their own material within a generalized framework with established guidelines.
But don’t take my word for it. Read my interviews with members of the cast as we explore adding authenticity to the lore of Star Trek.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S2. Starring Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck, Celia Rose Gooding, Jess Bush, Babs Olusanmokun, Christine Chong, and Paul Welsey. New episode drops every Thursday on Paramount Plus and CTV’s Sci-Fi Channel.