I Watch TV: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Captain Pike, Captain of the USS Enterprise takes his ship and crew on missions through space, trying to keep the peace, save lives, explore. This is in the wake of the Klingon War (See: Star Trek: Discovery); some of the crew missed it because of their five year exploratory mission, others are veterans trying to deal with the consequences. Pike himself saw visions of his future in the time-travel inflected finale of Star Trek: Discovery Season 2. He will end up injured and crippled (as in his first appearance in Star Trek Original Flavour the two part episode Man Trap, which featured footage from a Star Trek pilot with a different crew). In so doing he will save several cadets.

This causes him some introspection and doubt; still when Star Fleet call him back to duty he takes command again, leading his crew, inspiring and mentoring them, even making friends with them.

So how does this play out? Spock, canonically on Pike’s crew, has to deal with his own family issues, his relationship with his fiancée T’Pring made difficult by continually finding themselves in farcical situations (swapping bodies; Spock’s Vulcan side being erased at a meeting with her parents etc). Despite her love, respect and indulgence, it’s clear that the problem is not so much that their important careers keep them apart. It’s that Spock keeps getting involved in shenanigans.

Are there a lot of shenanigans? I count two high-concept more-or-less light-hearted nonsense in the first season, three in the second. This is a quarter of the total, so I guess that’s a major theme. On top of that there’s Gorn related ones (a character’s backstory includes being rescued from a colony overrun by Gorn); and the time-travel ones. These ten episode seasons get quickly eaten up with loosely-connected storylines. Especially when they’re weaving in more old Star Trek lore with Lieutenant Sam Kirk on the crew and meeting his brother, Jim Kirk, destined to captain the Enterprise, just now getting promoted to second in command (Number One) of the USS Farragut.

Am I asking for more episodes of this? More straight forward problem of the week episodes? The very thing I had reservations about in Star Trek: Discovery? Well perhaps. One thing this show does is wear it’s inspirations on it’s sleeves, with a very obvious Omelas story and the musical episode (shenanigans) referencing other musical episodes of shows, especially the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Once More With Feeling. Discovery was earnest and sometimes laboured, and while Strange New Worlds will put obvious moral and ethical points out there for the crew to interact with, it feels less self-conscious about it. And unlike Discovery it puts the ensemble of characters together from the start, each of them getting to have prominent roles and supporting roles, each having a bit of backstory and a bit of ongoing story.

Watch This: A conscious effort to recapture the best of old Star Treks, often succeeding with some charm
Don’t Watch This: People in spaceships solve moderately difficult problems every week