Shaken by his recent experiences with the starship Discovery, Captain Pike has withdrawn to his home in Montana. But he is spurred back into Starfleet action when his first officer goes missing during a first contact mission. Gathering new and old crew aboard the Enterprise, he sets off for a rescue.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is unique in the current franchise in some key ways. It's a series basically willed into existence by the fans, whose enthusiastic reception during Discovery season two of Anson Mount as Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One, and Ethan Peck as Spock convinced the Powers That Be that there was room on their already crowded development slate for a series featuring them. Among the hour-long Trek shows, it's the one planned to be episodic in the classic Star Trek format (albeit with more explicit character arcs woven along the way).
All of that was on display in a solid premiere episode. And it was solid mainly because it gave us all exactly what we were asking for. Anson Mount dominated the screen as Pike, an authoritative but chill presence that seemed to synthesize fan-favorite elements of other beloved captains without seeming like it was filling up a plate from a buffet. He gave us the relaxed ease of Kirk, the introspective angst of Sisko, the moral staunchness of Picard, and much more -- all without overselling any of it. Mount was seemingly born to be a Star Trek captain
There were nice moments along the way for other characters as well. As demonstrated in season two of Discovery, Ethan Peck is admirably handling the challenge of evoking Leonard Nimoy without impersonating him, making Spock his while still not approaching it in the way Zachary Quinto faced the same challenge. We got moments of intriguing rapport between Dr M'Benga and Chapel, a great example of Uhura being cool under pressure, and simple lines that developed Ortegas and La'an more than some of the Discovery bridge crew has been developed in four seasons.
Not every element worked flawlessly. Some of the humor hit, but a fair amount of it clanged in the way that summer blockbuster "quips under pressure" often feel forced. The repeated glimpses of Pike's future, though important, might have been laying it on a bit thick. (I'd ask if he's even able to look in a mirror... but he's gotta fix that amazing hair somehow!)
Still, the most important moments hit the bullseye. Pike's final speech to the people of Kiley was exactly what longtime Star Trek fans want mainlined right into the core of their being: an affirmation of how great the future can be, mixed with the warning that you have to do the work to make it so. Star Trek has often mentioned the dark times of the late 20th and early 21st centuries (the timeline sliding forward as real time has passed), but this may have been the first time it was really shown to us so vividly. It was an effective montage and effective monologue. (I can't say I'm looking forward to the "second U.S. civil war," but neither can I say that feels like far-fetched fiction right now.)
I almost don't even want to address this last point, but since I've seen a fair amount of squawking about it online: the matter of the characters (Admiral Robert April and Transporter Chief Kyle) whose ethnicity has changed from previous canonical (and kinda-canonical) Star Trek. This has been done before with nary a peep -- in no reality is Benedict Cumberbatch a plausible version of Ricardo Montalban. There's far too much Star Trek now for it all to be plausibly contained without contradiction in one continuity, so trolls: don't tell on yourselves by calling out this element in particular.
I'm excited for the coming season of Strange New Worlds. Modern Star Trek has excelled at assembling a great cast of actors, and they seem to have done it again here. (Even if the newer additions don't all pan out, we already know how great the "big three" have been.) If the stories rise to meet the actors, we're all in for a treat. I give "Strange New Worlds" (the episode) a B+.
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