A perfect example of how we’re in the midst of more Star Trek than ever right now is quite literally just as one series ends, another begins. We already broke down our extensive thoughts about that season finale of Star Trek: Picard, but Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also boldly went out today with its season premiere. Want to talk spoilers? Well: open hailing frequencies!
There’s a lot of fun and meaty things going on in “Strange New Worlds,” the self-titled premiere of the series. We get to meet most of the new Enterprise crew as they all return from leave between the events of Discovery’s explosive second season finale and the start of the series — notably being introduced to the fascinating new Security Chief La’an Noonien-Singh, or Celia Rose Gooding’s delightfully energetic take on the young Cadet Nyota Uhura stepping aboard her most iconic tour of duty for the first time — as well as catch up with some of the familiar faces we saw back in Discovery. It’s Anson Mount’s Pike and Ethan Peck’s Spock, rather than Number One (with Rebecca Romijn’s character now at last given her full name, Una Chin-Riley), that get the bulk of the introspection here, as we get to see Pike begin to grapple with his own mortality after seeing his own future fate, and Spock begin reconciling his human and Vulcan sides when he’s pulled between the duties of Starfleet and his commitment to his new fiancé, T’Pring (played with relish by Gia Sandhu).
But even if “Strange New Worlds” is a lot of necessary set-up, there’s still time for a very fun little alien adventure, as the reason we don’t get much Number One this episode is that the Enterprise is called back into action early to help recover her from a first contact mission gone wrong. It’s great, classic Star Trek — officers going on away missions in cool alien disguises to slip into a pre-warp civilisation undetected, with some fun action. And then, there’s a fascinating twist when we learn this pre-warp race has had to deal with the literal fallout of Discovery’s season two finale, finding the wreckage of warp drives from the Enterprise and Discovery’s battle with Control and… turning them into massive bombs rather than inadvertently kickstarting their ascension to a space-faring civilisation. It’s a clever bridge between the drama of Discovery and the more breezy mission-of-the-week set-up Strange New Worlds is going for, and definitely sets the stage for what promises to be a fun season of adventures.
Come back next week when we’ll begin our regular recaps of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but in the meantime, let us know what you thought of the premiere in the comments below. And, check out these links to see more of our Strange New Worlds pre-release coverage, including a spoiler-free review of the first half of the season, and insights from the cast as well as series co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers!
You can catch Strange New Worlds on Paramount+ today, May 6!