TL;DR – This episode brought a smile to my face from the moment it started till the second those end credits rolled.

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

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Review –

A cross-over episode used to be the mainstay of network television, with some franchises building their worlds upon it. But for every Brooklyn Nine-Nine/ The New Girl moment that is so perfectly placed that it lives on in memes. You have a sea of awkward messes that fail to elevate either side. Star Trek saw this and went, you know what, let’s take this issue of trying to get two different shows with different vibes to work and add the extra difficulty of both shows being a different medium. But does it work? Oh, yes, it does.   

So to set the scene, it is 2381, and the USS Cerritos has arrived at Krulmuth-B to take a regular scan of the portal on the surface. It has not been active since the time of Pike, but you always need to make sure. Ensigns Boimler (Jack Quaid), Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Tendi (Noël Wells), and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) beam down to the planet to make sure. It was all going well until the portal is accidentally activated when Boimler is posing for a photo and is sucked in before Mariner can grab him. Waking up after being jettisoned, Boimler looks up to see himself in the sickbay of an old Constitution Class ship to see the one and only Captain Pike (Anson Mount) staring down, and well, he ain’t in Kansas anymore. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

Now, Star Trek is no stranger to a cross-over episode. Indeed, most Star Trek series started with a mini-cross-over with the show that came before. Star Trek Lower Decks has had several of these episodes, with last season’s Hear All, Trust Nothing being a particularly good example. But the best comparison, I think, would be Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Trials and Tribble-ations, which will be a tough act to follow because it is one of my favourite ever episodes of Star Trek. But honestly, I think it got there.

The first strength of the episode is that they respect both sides of this cross-over, so you feel it is a genuine combination and not just a tack-on. You see that not just in how the episode starts and ends in animation, respecting where Lower Decks is coming from. But they took the time [and the budget cost] to re-render the entire opening title sequence of Strange New Worlds in the style of Lower Decks. I can not begin to tell you the joy that happened when I saw those lights on the USS Enterprise turn on and immediately knew that something was different. From a production perspective, I think they nailed the transition of the animated elements into live-action. Also, there was a love of every aspect of the set design that I loved.   

The next strength is how they captured the tremendous joy of Boimler and how he would react if sent back in time to meet some of his heroes. Not wanting to contaminate the future but being so energy-filled that things slip out. This is used for better, like when he and Mariner sort of start talking around Pike’s future only for him to reveal that he too knows his future. But then it was also used for worse when he accidentally devastated Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) in his sincere desire to help Spock (Ethan Peck). These unique circumstances only exist because of this particular combination of characters are here, and it works because of that.

At the heart of the episode is the exploration of being a legend. The episode title ‘Those Old Scientists’ is a play on ‘The Original Series’, and you feel the weight of the past in everything they do. But for many of the characters, they have not reached their legendary status, they don’t even know that they will. We get these moments that just sing out, like Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Mariner taking a drink break, or Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) knowing just how hot Una (Rebecca Romijn) is [they are married in real life]. This dichotomy between the known and the not yet happened works on many levels because you are considering the Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and The Original Series timeline all at the exact moment.

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Those Old Scientists? Yes, we do. This episode was a love letter to the many different facets of Star Trek. It is an episode that looks to the past just as much as it does the future. I laughed, felt deeply awkward through shared embarrassment, and more than anything, I had a smile on my face from the moment the episode started till the credits rolled.  

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 – Jonathan Frakes
Written by – Kathryn Lyn & Bill Wolkoff
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, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun & Rebecca Romijn with Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, Jerry O’Connell, Greg Bryk &Carol Kane