TL;DR – An opening episode that both delighted and profoundly frustrated me.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service used to view this series.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Review Introduction

Today is a little bit of a bittersweet moment. For we have new Star Trek, which is always a delight; however, it is also the start of what we now know is a countdown to the end of an era, with no new Star Trek shows currently in production. Still, with three seasons left to enjoy, it is time to jump into this latest adventure, complete with a touch of time travel.

So, to set the scene, we open on horses cruising across an alien landscape after Pike (Anson Mount) undertakes a little undercover Prime Directive shenanigans. The USS Enterprise has spent six months on non-stop missions, giving the crew little time to dwell on the events of New Life and New Civilizations. But waiting for Pike when he comes back is Admiral April (Adrian Holmes) with a recommendation for a promotion; he has to make up his mind after the next mission. A completely normal mission that should not go wrong; it is just a subspace storm after all. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

The Lofty Joys

There was clearly a tonal balance that the show was trying to hit as we segued from the very dour season finale back in Season 3 to today’s more upbeat stand-alone episode that the show has been known for. Starting it out with a western horse ride across an alien planet was a good start to put us in that right frame of mind. But when the show wants to do a fun time travel episode, well, they know how to pull out all the stops. Though I am sure they thought the “Phone Box” reference would have landed better back when they were filming the episode.

However, the episode knows it is a dinosaur episode, and gleefully leans into that premise. You can feel its excitement like a child waiting to open their presents. For you see, we are 65 million years in the past, and that means we have to take down a T-Rex without changing the future. Watching them try to stun a T-Rex is a lot of fun, as was La’An (Christina Chong) punching a raptor, and watching it run off because I doubt it has ever been punched in the snoot before. There was clearly a lot of love for the Jurassic Park films here that showed through some very apparent framing, including that final frame of the episode.      

The Too Many Asked Questions

However, as the credits rolled, I was not thinking of how fun the dinosaurs were, even though the episode was desperately trying to make you feel that. Nor was I pondering where the Voth were during all of this. Or even how interesting Battle Commander Cassell was, because Saffron Burrows brought her to life with a fascinating complexity. No, I was left with a profound dislike with regard to how Pike, and by extension, the entire crew become complicit in wholesale genocide, well sorry, extinction of an entire sentient species. But more than that, the episode does its best to try to hand-wave that away in a profoundly uncomfortable way.

Every part of this episode was all about lampshading that the Martians might not have the most accurate view on who the Dol’drm are as a species, likely due to a lack of communication ability. So, I cannot really fathom Pike’s choice to allow a species to be exterminated. Then the episode goes out of its way to tie that choice up in the neatest of little bows that have ever been tied up. Yes, I know that the Sol system had to lose two M-class planets at some point, but the active cowardice felt jarring in a way I just can’t resonate with.   

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? I don’t know. It is probably going to depend heavily on how you land with the moral aspects of the episode, and how much you like dinosaurs. However, for me the ending left a sourer taste in my mouth than I was expecting, and I hope this is not a taste of what we will get for the rest of the season. Have you seen Star Trek: Strange New Worlds yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, 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 – Chris Fisher
Written by – Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers, & Alan B. McElroy
Created by – Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, & Jenny Lumet
Based On – Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry
Production/Distribution Companies – CBS Studios, Secret Hideout, Weed Road Pictures, HMRX, Roddenberry Entertainment, & Paramount +
Starring – Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun, Martin Quinn, & Rebecca Romijn
With – Saffron Burrows, Adrian Holmes, Dan Jeannotte, & Carol Kane
And – Alex Kapp, & Bianca Nugara