Following a successful debut Season, Strange New Worlds continued to live up to it’s promise of bringing episodic adventures while pushing narrative boundaries right from the start before bouncing from theme to theme in a vaguely connected collection of adventures. And it all began where we left off; with a disconnected crew following La’an’s resignation and Chin-Rileyss arrest.
Kicking off on a light note, the Enterprise is docked at Starbase One with Spock overseeing routine maintenance while Pike’s on leave looking for legal representation for his former first officer. But while the Captains away, the Vulcan will stray as he receives a distress call from La’an from the middle of a world that Federation presence can reignite war with the Klingons. Ignoring Admiral April, and inspired by new engineering officer Pelia, Spock hijacks the Enterprise and sets off to save his fellow officer.
It’s a bit of a jumble of an episode where stakes are high despite knowing the tension won’t amount to much by the end. But it sets a lot of groundwork for the season by introducing Pelia, bringing La’an back with a new sense of purpose and giving Spock his first taste of command. Albeit it not officially.
It also shows more scars from the Klingon war, a particularly with Chapel & M’Benga who step up as a duo this season and offer more compelling time on screen as troubled professionals. All in, while some developments many seem minor, as he season progresses the theme of exploring characters is laid down alongside the new worlds they’ll visit.
With the action adventure starting the show, the bulk of the season makes a huge effort to squeeze in more character-driven stories this time round. Not that the first season was devoid of character work, but with the series background emotional arc leading to Pike facing his future and coming to terms that one day soon tragedy will hit, we got to spend a little more time with the rest of the crew while Pike’s own arc became a bit of a B story until the finale.
Fighting against the modern drama structure used by Discovery and Picard, Strange New Worlds determination to move back to the traditional episodic format helps revive a broader range of stories to be told. Unbound to an overall narrative, it’s the people that largely connect the episodes allowing each individual story to focus on differing themes. And Season 2 makes one or two bold choices throughout.
Once the bold adventure was out he way, the show moved straight to a court drama, with Pike luring one of Chin-Riley’s old friends to help defend his first officer in court to prove, while she lied about her identity, she does belong in Starfleet. It’s a relatively calm talking heads episode that reminds the audience of the values of inclusion and helping people, as well as letting Rebecca Romjin lean in to a heavily emotional monologue about her upbringing as an exile of the Federation.
Episodic themes continued to lean into the drama, with the crew losing their memories on a mission to find a lost officer who’d, in true Stargate style, became ruler of a small world to time travel shenanigans where La’an finds herself in the past with a familiar face to correct the timeline and ensure her ancestor, Khan Noonien-Singh survives to wage World War 3.
With the action adventure starting the show, the bulk of the season makes a huge effort to squeeze in more character-driven stories this time round. Not that the first season was devoid of character work, but with the series background emotional arc leading to Pike facing his future and coming to terms that one day soon tragedy will hit, we got to spend a little more time with the rest of the crew while Pike’s own arc became a bit of a B story until the finale.
The second episode leans heavily into that in the traditional Star Trek style with Chin-Riley on trial for lying about h er species and her past to Starfleet, only to deliver a tremendous monologue about how much damage the Federation and their intentionally bad treatment of Ilirians had caused her and her people deep trauma that she seeks asylum from.
Emotional beats ran high throughout the season. Particularly in Under the Cloak of War which resolves around a Klingon defector and former famed general, Dak’Rah whom M’Benga despises only to discover through flashbacks and an eventual confrontation that Dak’Rah’s act of mercilessly murdering his own unit was all a lie to cover for his cowardice as M’Benga slayed his warriors alone. More surprising than the revelation of who really slaughtered the batallion…
Of course it wasn’t all doom and gloom as Strange New Worlds offered a three ring circus to break up the darker episodes, focusing on Spock becoming wholly human while meeting T’Pring’s mother; a comedic crossover with Lower Deckers Boimler and Mariner moving to live action after falling through a time portal right into the middle of Chin-Rileys away team and went even further into risky territory with a clearly Puffy-inspired musical episode thanks to realities clashing together into one big harmony. Though weird jokes aside, such as the Klingon boy band, it was an emotionally charged piece as the music forced the crew into blunt honesty.
Not every episode was a hit. Human Spock didn’t land perfectly well and Subspace Rhapsody did seem a little obvious and forced in places despite some good musical cues giving Celia Rose Gooding in particular a chance to showcase talents Star Trek often can’t allow.
Despite it’s episodic nature, and how it’s pushed as a traditional format, the season is held together by a big amount of character growth and development. More akin to Deep Space Nine from the ‘classic’ era of Star Trek, and less like the original iteration, missions and emotional beats linger from episode to episode. Moments such as Spock becoming fully human bring a nice awkward comedy, but also serves to advance the emotional bond between Spock and Chapel. Similarly a gimmicky time travel plot for La’an ends up as a recurring arc when she meets her own timelines James Kirk and yearns to rekindle the closeness she felt to the alternate.
Even right to the end, when a villainous tease was hinted at comes to pass, the story all comes down to an advancement of Pike’s B-plot of questioning his long term casual relationship and what Captain Batel really means to him. And with Pike taking more of a step back this season, the chance to dive into what motivates M’Benga, Chapel, Uhura and many others helped to make the season shine and help give us a crew naturally evolving as a cohesive, supportive unit unafraid to go into battle together; when that be physically, morally or emotionally.
Season two’s focus on the wider crew and individual stories largely worked out well, especially mixing up it’s themes to give better balance between the darkness and the light. Though in some parts the comedy seemed a little too heavy handed and there’s only so many times we can see “lets put Spock in an awkward position” before it gets old. Big risks like the musical episode worked out well for the larger fan-base, whereas the heavier moments such as M’Benga confronting Dak’Rah and Una’s emotional history to gain her asylum linger far more heavily.
When Strange New Worlds is good, it’s really good. And when it’s bad, it’s surprisingly not all that bad and still draws you in with an engaging cast and the emotional crew of the season running through it all. And with another cliffhanger, undoubtedly a far larger one than the first season, the progress made in telling the crews stories leave us wanting more from them and not just to see what happens next.
While not every story will work for every viewer, the productions eagerness to experiment and offer a variety act did work overall. Each episode gave us new insight, new stories of Starfleet values and morality and a reminder that even with conflict just around the corner, the mission can only succeed the same way the characters can grow; united together.
Strange New Worlds Season 3 is confirmed despite delays due to WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes ongoing. You can rewatch Season 2 which streams exclusively on Paramount+. The series is also available for home release on DVD and BluRay.
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