Well, if no one else can do it, then it’s up to the oldest of all Star Trek captains. At least that is my conclusion after the first season of Strange New Worlds, which has been available in its entirety for a few days in the German version of the streaming service Paramount +.
And don’t bring Archer to me now. You know exactly who I mean: Christopher Pike, who commanded the Enterprise in the first of all pilot episodes in 1965 before handing over the baton to Kirk. And you know what this Pike says at the end of the first episode of Strange New Worlds when asked what his crew’s mission is?
“We explore,” he says. With a matter of course, as if neither Abrams’ action films nor Cringefest Discovery nor Heroes’ Destruction Picard had ever existed. That’s when my heart opened up.
The nice thing is that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is so true to its roots. That those words aren’t just lip service, but tangible every second as the flagship of the Federation searches for uncharted life forms and civilizations. How do I fix this? Among other things, the fact that the stories of individual events are in the foreground.
Because instead of overturning with supposedly epic gigantomania, Strange New Worlds tells exciting, surprising and romantic anecdotes, sometimes raising ethical questions that certainly do not amaze the educated science fiction audience, but every now and then even after the good 50 minutes to get stuck. In any case, I found Children of the Comet pleasantly clever, especially as an introduction to this type of storytelling, while the inconspicuous Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach left an impression both emotionally and in relation to a larger topic.
And with what serenity that happens! Instead of beating the camera through the room like it’s been stung by a hornet, it’s allowed to watch in peace here. Humans and nonhumans talk to each other the old-fashioned way, rather than escalating or making pathetic speeches—which has the beneficial effect that when it does happen, it has an effect. There is a moment in the penultimate episode when Pike very harshly puts his normally cheerful helmswoman in her place. I gritted my teeth for a moment.
At the same time, Strange New Worlds is really no intellectual snore, but a brisk, colorful adventure that boasts magnificent shots of the Enterprise and impressive panoramas. Not to mention the grandiose stage design! Bright red doors in cream-colored walls, wide lights and the girders of the large quarters and meeting rooms curved through the wide screen: For me, Strange New Worlds is the most beautiful Star Trek that has ever existed.
When the commanding direction even plays to its strengths in space combat, because there, too, it dispenses with hectic cuts and instead keeps an eye on both the Enterprise and its opponent in longer shots… fantastic! As a result, the flagship looks pleasantly heavy and you get a good impression of how such a battle in the vastness of space actually works.
But do you know what is often the best? The charming wit with which the characters react to each other. Sometimes Pike’s questioning look is enough when said Erica Ortegas at the helm confirms his command as “flying into a huge gas cloud of death”. Or his surprised, almost laughing grin when he asks if the Enterprise was damaged after a completely harmless enemy was shot at.
It’s also nice how his number one begs him quietly and urgently to please stop imitating a pirate. All of this is also reminiscent of the times when Kirk, Bones and Spock made the universe (un)safe.
In general, I think Anson Mount is outstanding in the role of Christopfer Pike. In fact, he even manages something I didn’t think possible for a long time: He lines up right next to Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard. Combining Kirk’s mischievous thirst for adventure with Picard’s cool head, he leads with gentle authority and, most importantly, he listens to his officers so attentively that their ideas and proposed solutions take center stage more than on other bridges.
That is of course no coincidence. After all, Pike already took command in the second Discovery season, while his character had to be subordinate to Michael Burnham for dramaturgical reasons. And even though he’s the center of attention in Strange New Worlds, he continues to take his crew’s input seriously in the same way.
Which shouldn’t be too difficult for him, since the Enterprise is staffed with a first-class crew. After all, there are highly illustrious officers on duty, including a certain Nyota Uhura, her colleague Spock, as well as Pike’s first officer Una Chin-Riley and station nurse Christine Chapel, both funnily enough played by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry at the time.
I could devote several chapters to all of them, as I think all the roles are excellently cast, but that is beyond the scope of this review. Just how security officer La’an Noonien-Singh comes to terms with her past and, of all things, gives the Gorn, who has become famous through a highly amusing scene, a fright that hasn’t existed in Star Trek since the introduction of the Borg, is remarkable.
Incidentally, from now on I will name a few key developments. If you want to get through the text without spoilers, you can with this link jump straight over to the final, spoiler-neutral zone.
spoiler zone
One of the reasons the Gorn are portrayed works is that they wreak havoc in the fourth episode. The crew of the Enterprise can only escape from there with a ruse. She is far from a real victory.
Admittedly, when the Gorn are later portrayed in All Those Who Wonder as if Paramount had made a sequel to Alien 3, I was far less enthusiastic about it. At the latest, the recordings from her point of view seemed like strange foreign bodies. I won’t even get started on biting out of the host body.
In general, I have to say that despite many strong scenes, not everything was successful in Strange New Worlds either. For example, the fact that ship’s doctor M’Benga secures his daughter in the transporter’s storage so that he has enough time to develop an antidote for her rapidly progressing illness is, to put it mildly, highly morally questionable in my opinion – which would be fine if the series did that would address! But it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Instead, this plot thread is already being brought to an end this season and in such a strange resolution that it couldn’t reach me emotionally either.
That being said, the series could’ve been a little less aware that it’s playing on familiar characters and themes. An “It’s dead, Chris” is great. But the sentimental mutual “love confession” between Pike and Spock at the end of the last episode doesn’t have any place there, I feel, because Spock hasn’t explored his human side far enough at this point – the circus that Discovery is putting on around him has deliberately left out.
It’s great that Strange New Worlds doesn’t just use the well-known characters because they are there, but shows their development between the original pilot episode The Cage and the following series with the final crew around Captain Kirk. Why did Pike’s number one have to resign as first officer? And how did Uhura (excellently played by Celia Rose Gooding) make it to the communications officer’s desk?
The only thing I could have done without was that the (also excellently played) head of security La’an Noonien-Singh is related to an old villain. And the good James Tiberius shouldn’t have appeared in the first season either. It’s integrated worlds better than Luke’s silly standing around in Disney’s Mandalorian; A Quality of Merci is a good ending to the strife that weighs on Pike after looking ahead. However, it did not need its successor for this.
So be it. For the most part, I’m very happy with the scripts and how they’re going to be filmed. Even the resolution of the first episode, in which Pike averts an impending war in a purely diplomatic way, I found to be downright liberating after the heated conflicts of recent years. This positive confidence in a not only technologically, but above all spiritually advanced future was extremely beneficial. Ghosts of Illyria and later episodes also breathe this spirit of peaceful understanding.
Spoiler neutral zone
No, not everything is brilliant. And the fact that magic, sorry: technobabble serves as a substitute for a credible vision of the future is part of the Star Trek program. Most importantly, it’s incredibly fun to watch Pike and his crew calmly explore space. How the playful humor reflects the naïve sense of adventure with which Strange New Worlds familiarly discovers new civilizations and confronts tricky dilemmas.
Emotionally I had long since finished with transporters, Vulcans, anomalies and androids. But then came Strange New Worlds and is exactly what its younger predecessors were not allowed to be in the service of modernization: Star Trek. Whenever the Enterprise flies between these three planets at the end of the new opening credits and the consistently fine music “whistles” the familiar theme into the stillness of space, I have the feeling of finally being home again.
