TL;DR – An interesting episode on its surface narrative, but even more intriguing once you think about the ramifications.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ streaming service that viewed this episode. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Review –

If there has been one thing that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has excelled at, it is making the most out of its ensemble cast. Nearly every central cast member gets to play a role in the A or B story for the week. However, they also make sure that everyone gets their own focus episode. [well, almost everyone, shout out to Ortegas (Melissa Navia)]. This week it is La’an turn to shine as we get whisked away from the Enterprise to somewhere a bit closer to home.  

So to set the scene, La’an Noonien-Singh’s (Christina Chong) role as chief of security means that she has the unfortunate job of knowing everyone’s business, even when they don’t want it, which is amplified given her mixed emotions regarding Una (Rebecca Romijn) and her behaviour when Una came out as a modified Illyrian. But as she was walking the deck of the USS Enterprise, a white light exploded out from another room, and a gentleman in a suit and a gun wound walked out, talking about an explosion that she had to stop. He disappears in another bright light, but when La’an makes it to the bridge, James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) is now the captain and no one knows who she is. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

There is nothing Star Trek likes to do more than the Time Travel episode. Every series has taken a jaunt back into the past, from The Original Series’ The City on the Edge of Forever, to Voyager’s Future’s End. Even Deep Space Nine’s Trials and Tribble-ations, which went back to visit The Original Series’ The Trouble with Tribbles. Back in Season One, in the episode A Quality of Mercy, Strange New Worlds jumped forward in time to the time frame of The Original Series’ Balance of Terror, but this week, we are back in a more familiar time. Being somewhere in the 21^st-ish century.

Unlike much of the show, this was a more contained experience, with most of the run being focused on Christina Chong and Paul Wesley. They make an excellent combination of two people stuck out of time and timelines. Besides being fun watching their different ways of approaching each section, which is summed up in a car chase that just might beat the one from Star Trek Picard’s second season for time travel shenanigans and just general fun time. I found that they also had some fantastic chemistry as a tragic couple. I completely bought their fraught love, which would have ended in sadness even before Kirk got shot.

From a lore perspective, I think this episode does more to quietly shake up the canon than we have seen in the show before. I liked all the different touches of the bad timeline with Kirk being born on the USS Iowa instead of the actual Iowa and what a more contained humanity would do in the Solar System. We get our first live-action Denobulan since Enterprise, and also Pelia (Carol Kane) is the day’s saviour. But more than that, this episode answers some of the odd questions that have been sitting around Strange New Worlds. Like how come Kirk and Spock (Ethan Peck) did not know about Khan (Desmond Sivan) when they served with one of his descendants? Also, didn’t the Eugenics Wars happen in the 1990s?

Here we get the answer with all the Time Wars referenced in Enterprise and Star Trek Discovery messing with the timeline, but that the timeline has the habit of constantly snapping back to where it should be. I liked this explanation, with the Romulan Sera (Adelaide Kane) frustratingly pinning that she has been stuck here since 1992. It was also interesting that the Romulans were behind several world events like Chernobyl to try to slow humanity’s progress down. It perfectly fits with what they might do, and we know that Earth and Romulus would eventually go to war. Also, a nice touch that Sera destroys her body, as they still did not understand what Romulans looked like at this point in time.

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow? Yes, we do. This was a fun episode, just on the surface-level story of being stuck in the past and trying to fix the timeline. However, the more I thought about it, the more interesting it became, as did the ramifications that I think they have been seeding since at least Star Trek Picard Season Two. Finally, you know what? It was also nice to see Canada playing Canada for a change.     

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Star Trek: Strange New Worlds yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 
  
Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Directed by – Amanda Row
Written by – David Reed
Created by – Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman & Jenny Lumet
Based On – Star Trek Created by Gene Roddenberry
Production/Distribution Companies – CBS Television Studios, Roddenberry Entertainment, Secret Hideout & Paramount+
Starring – Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun, Rebecca Romijn & Paul Wesley with Adelaide Kane & Carol Kane and Noah Lamanna, Luke Marty, Desmond Sivan & Allison Wilson-Forbes