A return to form that feels both familiar and brand-new.
SinceStar Trek : Discoverypremiered in the dip of 2017 , Paramount has treated us to a authentic wealth ofStar Trekstories on our small screens , fromDisco ’s epos that took us through the Klingon state of war and beyond , to the hilarious animated comedyStar Trek : Lower Decks , to catch up with a fan - favourite retired police chief inStar Trek : Picard . There ’s something for everyone in all of these , but despite all the dearest the lover seem to concur that there ’s something missing from the data formatting , particularly in the resilient - action shows . It ’s a fatigue we ’re all feeling now that so much streaming television plays as if a season is more like an 8- or 10- or 13 - minute movie meant to be gourmandize over a weekend : What happened to episode ? Part of the joyousness of aStar Trekshow , from the very first , was the expectancy of seeing something completely new every workweek as theUSS Enterprisebounced around the universe encounter alien races and soaking up the beam from remote Sunday . We ’re aboard an exploration vessel , after all . As the title of respect of Paramount+ ’s fantastic newStar Trek : Strange New Worldssuggests , we ’re in the end go back to basics .
First , a piffling bit of background knowledge . Strange New Worldsis set directly after the events ofDiscoverySeason 2 , which first introduced the novel iterations of Captain Christopher Pike ( Anson Mount ) , Vulcan scientific discipline officer Spock ( Ethan Peck ) , and routine One ( Rebecca Romijn ) , and cease up being so popular that they were granted their own spinoff show . It also takes place a few year beforeStar Trek : The Original Series , and chronicles Pike ’s captainship of theEnterprisebefore the show that take off it all turned the job over to one Captain James T. Kirk .
If you hump who Captain Pike is , you already roll in the hay why this is a particularly fun concept for a Star Trek show , but in case you do n’t , here ’s a fun fact : Pike is actually the first captain at the helm ofEnterprisein the very firstStar Trekepisode ever , the pilot title " The batting cage " that NBC primitively rejected , which was n’t send on goggle box until 1988 ( though spot and piece were used for the follow - up two - part episode " The Menagerie " later in the first season ) . Pike has shown up in variousStar Trekproperties since then , but has never gotten his own show until now . In a way , Strange New WorldsisStar Trekfinally making the show they had planned from the beginning .
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That ’s not the only way in which the show feels cozily retro : Strange New Worldsis , at last , a return to the occasional self - contained storytelling that made this franchise so much fun in the first property . The crew of theEnterprisedisguise themselves as pre - Warp extraterrestrial to explore a raw satellite , they commune with spiritual Zealot protect a deadly comet , they veil from a classicTrekvillain and rick the ship into a taken up house , there ’s a hilarious shore leave instalment and an episode where the bunch has to fight a viral eruption . The theory for this show are , quite simply , eternal .
Part of the reason why it work so well ( and believably the reason why it got a serial publication lodge in the first place ) is the cast and the way the show take after all their charming interpersonal relationship . Pike is loth to get back into the swing of things but game once he ’s in the captain ’s hot seat , trade intimate quip with his towering Amazon Number One , who makes the 1960s high ponytail look born in 2022 , somehow . Ethan Peck ’s rendering of Spock is shockingly good , down to reproducing a very close cousin of Leonard Nimoy ’s outspoken scope . A particular treat is Celia Rose Gooding as Ensign Nyota Uhura , playing the iconic fictional character with a youthful uncertainty , yet still able-bodied to whip out a tone - perfect fanfare with a contact of her communication earpiece . There ’s not a weak link among even the other members of the gang , which include Jess Bush ’s enthusiastic take on Nurse Christine Chapel , Babs Olusanmokun as the soft - spoken Dr. M’Benga , Christina Chong as stoical security department specializer La’an Noonien - Singh ( uh - oh ! ! ) , and de jure blind actor Bruce Horak toy gruff warp core railroad engineer Hemmer , a extremity of canonically sightless exotic species the Aenar .
Though there is no independent narrative arc , there are a few serious-minded throughlines the show follows with some of the crew , peculiarly concerning the terrific fortune of Captain Pike , which fan have get it on since the firstTrekseries and which was revealed to the character at the end of his tenure onDiscoverySeason 2 . Anson Mount ’s Pike has the character of authoritative yet favorable presence we expect from a Starfleet sea captain , but he ’s visibly and understandably shaken from having seen a visual modality of his own decease . The winding-clothes hangs over the first episodes ofStrange New Worlds , which deftly take on the whim of fate and the possibility of choosing our own destiny . It ’s as if the show is talk directly to the hearing and saying , " Weknow thatyouknow how this is supposed to go , but keep observe , and you might be surprised . " If we ’ve learned anything fromStar Trek , it ’s that the universe is full of surprisal .
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