TL;DR – Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Adventure. Its episode-long mission: to make meta commentary; try and outdo Lower Decks with a Riker reference; and serve shade on William Shatner like never before!

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

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Review –

Today, I might have watched one of the profoundly odd episodes of Star Trek that has ever Star Treked across the universe. That is, on one hand, a deep love letter to the Original Series in all its camp glory. But it is also a strong critique of the era, while it skirted the edge of canon. It is an episode where you spend most of the runtime wondering: just what did I watch?

So, to set the scene, while the USS Enterprise is at station watching a pulsar starting to collapse, the admiralty thought that this would be the perfect time to test the new holodeck, because if ships are going to be away from base for more than five years, they will need more entertainment opportunities. Thinking of the best candidate to test the holodeck to the limits, there was only one candidate, La’An Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong). So, she decides to base it on the Amelia Moon novels that she loved as a child. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

There is a lot to unpack here, like just how close they go to breaking the established canon around the holodeck, which, given the wanton smashing of canon that Enterprise and Discovery did, it got me slightly annoyed. However, the resolution of the episode makes it all work, and I am happy about that. One of the many meta-narrative features on play here is the role of AI in the creation of stories, and it is here throughout the episode, but they never integrate it, which was a bit of a disappointment.

But, to get into the crux of the episode, what we get is a story which has a 22^nd century crewperson go back in time to a murder mystery set in the 1960s, when all the victims/suspects work on a science fiction show filmed in the 1960s but is set in the 22^nd century. It is a lot to process for this mere 21^st century fellow to digest. But while they might all be playing fictional characters in this 1960s setting, they are all broadly speaking caricatures or homages to real people in Star Trek’s history. For example, Rebecca Romijn is playing Una Chin-Riley, whose image is being used for Sunny Lupino, which itself is being a clear homage to Lucille Ball, who was paramount in the production of the Original Series.

As you are trying to pull apart the many layers of meta-narrative, you are accosted with some of the best depictions of 1960s science fiction. The sets, music, costumes, aliens, and sounds are sometimes pulled directly from the old Star Trek, or at least are clearly in conversation with the Original Series. They do sort of give lip service to what the real world was like in the 1960s, but not deep enough to be meaningful. Much of the run time is instead spent letting Celia Rose Gooding chew all the scenery, which was a delight. Discovering that Jess Bush is a fellow Aussie, which was also a delight. While also letting Paul Wesley potentially eviscerate William Shatner’s acting skills. I am not sure it was meant to be a friendly jape or something a bit more targeted.

Of the general story, it hits just about every single ‘holodeck story’ note that you get in a Star Trek episode. Of course, the safeties are going to fail, and they chose an investigation story, much like The New Generation’s multiple Sherlock Holmes and Dixon Hill. They used the images of real crewmembers, much like Deep Space Nine’s Our Man Bashir. Oh, and add not being able to get in to help the people stuck in the holodeck, so welcome Star Trek Voyager to the party. All of this added another level of meta commentary to the proceedings.

If nothing else, I did like that this episode let Christina Chong shine as the investigator. I am not a fan of needing Spock to always need to have a love interest, because there is more to emotional discovery other than love, and the boy is rebounding quickly, even for a Vulcan. But Spock, as a film snob, felt right. The other half of the episode was all about letting Martin Quinn’s Montgomery Scott have a moment in the limelight. One of the highlights of the episode was his conversation with Una Chin-Riley at the end, which, in combination with a similar discussion with Ortegas (Melissa Navia) in last week’s Shuttle to Kenfori, shows why she is one of the best first officers in Star Trek.   

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – A Space Adventure Hour? Look, it is full of fun moments that will make you smile, even if all the meta commentary might be a bit dense to wade through. However, while all the elements are fun, I am not sure the episode comes together as a whole. It is like a cake with many delicious flavours, but it falls apart when you try to slice and serve it. Have you seen Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – A Space Adventure Hour yet? Drop your impressions in the comments below.

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.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Directed by – Jonathan Frakes
Written by – Dana Horgan & Kathryn Lyn
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, Martin Quinn & Rebecca Romijn with Paul Wesley & Chris Myers and Rong Fu, Kira Guloien & Jonathan Frakes