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| Anson Mount as Captain Pike |
Back in May, I wrote about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the Paramount+ series that's a prequel to the original Star Trek. At the time of my original post, only two episodes of the show had aired. Based on what I'd seen, I expressed the opinion that the show could turn out to be one of the best Star Trek series since Deep Space Nine. The season finale of the show was made available for streaming last week, and I definitely stand by my assessment. Across ten episodes, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has become my favorite of the current crop of Trek shows, and I believe it will go on to be considered one of the best of the spinoff series. Over the course its first season, Strange New Worlds has treated us to a variety of marvelous stories, including a delightful body-swap tale centered on Mr. Spock, a classic spaceship battle, a dark and eerie horror-themed episode, and even a comedic entry where the cast got to act out of character in a fantasy-oriented tale featuring wizards and warriors.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds strongly evokes the essence of the original series, and continually offers compelling and thought-provoking stories. Like the best of Classic Trek, the style and tone of the episodes may vary, but they're always entertaining, and provide us with some neat twists on the formula. Since the series is more episodic in nature than some of the other recent Trek outings, it allows for broader (and often hugely entertaining) strokes in the storytelling, while still offering intriguing ongoing arcs for the characters. The season finale, "A Quality of Mercy" is a brilliant re-imagining of "Balance of Terror," one of the best episodes of the original series.
No major spoilers here, but "A Quality of Mercy" features the Strange New Worlds version of a character from Trek's classic years who's much beloved by fans, and offers a ton of Easter eggs and visual callbacks to "Balance of Terror." It's also a time-travel tale, which is another hallmark of some of Trek's strongest episodes throughout its history. "A Quality of Mercy" uses the framework of the original episode to tell a captivating alternate version of the story, which nicely builds on the ongoing arc for the central character of Captain Pike, played by Anson Mount. "A Quality of Mercy" is one of the best entries of the season, and it will definitely go on to be considered one of the best episodes of all of the modern Trek series. The episode also sets up some intriguing ideas to explore in Season 2 of the show, which is scheduled to arrive in 2023.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a valentine for Classic Trek fans. The show is clearly being created with a lot of love, care and respect by people who have a deep love and affection for classic Trek. The cast is nothing short of superb. In addition to Anson Mount's excellent work as Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock, Jess Bush as Nurse Chapel, Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M'Benga and Rebecca Romjin as Number One have all been outstanding, while Melissa Navia and Bruce Horak have become fan favorites as Ortegas and Hemmer, characters new to the franchise. The first season of this series has been one of the strongest of any Trek iteration since the original. If you're a Star Trek fan, and you're not watching this show, you're missing out on some of the best (and most enjoyable) Trek stories we've seen in a long time. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airs on Paramount+. Here's a (spoiler-filled) look at the finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tliWxURB2OM.
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