Get ready to beam down to a whole new Star Trek Universe series!
Finally, the long-awaited Captain Christopher Pike adventures have come to the screen.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the next addition to the ever-expanding Star Trek Universe has officially released today, May 5th.
Set to follow the new voyages of Anson Mount’s Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romjin’s Number One and Ethan Peck’s Mr Spock!
Not stopping at that, they have a whole new crew joining them as well! Strange New Worlds honestly feels like we have just stepped back into the world of Star Trek: The Original Series.
While this series is obviously brand spanking new for the long-standing Sci-Fi franchise, it is paying an excellent homage to what has come before it.
Both call on long-standing Star Trek lore that Trekkies can connect to, but also present new angles to both the characters we follow and the universe at hand.
While initially, this first episode of the brand new series does not seem to push the show out into the final frontier, it sorta feels like a warm friendly welcome to the show, almost as if one has never left the Star Trek Universe.
Perhaps that is who it is attempting to target? What I am saying is that at some points it feels like viewers are expected to know who and what is going on right now.
Either way, in today's video review, we’re also going to break down some key plot scenes in Episode One of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds! SPOILER WARNING, we’ll be discussing the new series in full detail, as such, you have been warned!
Welcome to Trek Central! I’m your host, Captain Jack, and let’s get into it!
Yes i am wearing a Star Trek shirt today...
Episode One of Strange New Worlds is titled Strange New Worlds, just like the series name, and is written by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet! Akiva Goldsman also directs this episode as well!
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Okay, engage!
Straight off the bat one of the things we should talk about is the character development of Captain Christopher Pike. I think what the character is going through is handled well in this episode.
Of course, Pike saw how he would die in Star Trek: Discovery’s Second Season, via the Time Crystal.
He knows how he’ll meet his demise and be stuck in that wheelchair for most of his life, but is that stopping him and holding him back? That is where we find ourselves.
I’m glad the series is already touching on this.
The scene that follows the end of Discovery Season Two, with Enterprise leaving for the next mission, has likely been retconned and this is explained via a few factors.
Notable as it seems since that mission, which is highly classified, Pike has gone off to be a little bit of a hermit and is unsure of his own ability now following the Time Crystal problems.
Immediately after this episode, my general thoughts are that I hope this is something that will follow Pike’s story through the first season.
It’s been made clear by the producers and creatives of Strange New Worlds that the series will follow an “Episode Of the Week” style event. That said, events like Pike’s will follow over the season arc. Not just be forgotten next week.
This is really good. But hopefully, we do get some things plotted out fairly well with this.
A good example would be the writing style of the creatives behind Prodigy, where even though those episodes are serialised, the character arcs and progression is something you can clearly see, with the creatives going on the record saying they know where their characters are heading with their midpoint and where they will eventually end up.
The away mission is fairly simple, they’ve lost contact with a Starfleet ship the USS Archer, which was going to make first contact with an alien civilisation who had discovered warp.
Fairly simple star trek stuff. However, I think the really cool thing about this away mission was that it wasn't the development of the warp engine, but the development of a matter-antimatter bomb.
Obviously, the two operate similarly, but one is for propulsion into the stars, and the other is to destroy.
But the fact this warp-capable weaponry was only able to be developed by these aliens because they were able to reverse engineer it from scans they did of the Battle near Xahea, the battle that occurred at the end of the Second Season of Discovery.
Obviously, some people were not a big fan of that massive battle with hundreds of ships going at it, but I think it's brilliant at least to have some consequences like this happen because of such a high concentration of warp-capable ships warping in and going at it close to pre-warp species planets.
The one thing which struck me as odd with this mission is that it seems there is only a crew of 3 aboard the USS Archer?
That seems extremely small, so unless this ship is a really small scout ship, I do not know how to explain it.
I guess this was for the story, so they didn’t have to beam hundreds of people from the alien planet, but if it's such a small detail, it could have been just a small shuttle or even a new design of the ship.
The USS Archer looks to be a Saladin, Hermes or Nelson class, all of these ships from beta canon have a similar silhouette and design, which has a single underslung nacelle below its saucer section.
I’d probably say Nelson Class, as it doesn’t seem to have an underslung main sensor.
To go undercover on the planet Pike, La’an and Spock underwent temporary cosmetic gene therapy, to look like these aliens.
This is a really cool concept, but I would like it to be shown more in the show, and then later find out that maybe it's not such a good idea to do this, with some unintended side effects, and therefore it is not commonly used later in the show, explaining why later shows do not use such technology.
I think how Pike decides to solve this problem is really really cool. He decides that general order 1 doesn’t really apply here, due to their involvement in these people gaining warp technology.
Even knowing that if Starfleet doesn't agree, they cannot officially say how these aliens got the technology, due to the discovery and control incidents.
So Pike goes down and shows these people what will happen if they continue to fight, it will cause the destruction of their world and kill numerous people.
Is this scene extremely on the nose, talking about the second American civil war, and then world war 3, yes it.
But it really is what Star Trek is all about. The 21st century is meant to be painful, as it shows us that if we continue on our current path that will happen, and it is something worth avoiding.
It also seems to coincide with Picard, in moving the eugenics war to the 21st century. Though it's still a period in which I guess we can have wiggle room, I am not too big a fan of moving the eugenics war, but it is what it is.
Already from this first episode we not only get some great character interactions, but you really get a feel for a lot of these characters, know what they are about, and know their dynamics between each other.
Even going to characters like Transporter Chief Kyle, you can see he is very competent at his job but doubts himself every now and again. You can see how this younger nurse chapel is very sure of what she is doing.
But we can see from the get-go, that Pike has a previous relationship with M’Benga, M’Benga knows Chapel, and La’an knows Number One, so we very much get a fascinating look into this crew, and I look forward to seeing much more.
Speaking of the crew, two of the latest additions to the Enterprise arrive at the tail end of this first episode.
This being Chief Engineer Hemmer, who we sorta already know from promotional material and another character who some might remember.
We’re of course talking about George Samuel Kirk, or just Sam Kirk as he is being nicknamed.
When they first mentioned Kirk in the episode, I was so afraid we were going to be bogged down with Kirk's references. Thankfully we were not and I’m keen to see how James Kirk’s brother actually handles himself in this series and what it will do for the lore of Star Trek.
Though even though the crew really shone in this episode, we have to talk about Admiral Robert April. April is finally in a live-action trek show, as the first captain of the USS Enterprise, Pike’s former captain.
Since the news of Adrian Holmes playing April broke online, there has been a lot of discussion about him playing April, and we think he is great for the job
He brings some real gravitas to the role, which obviously a captain of the Enterprise, especially the first (And don’t worry we are not forgetting about archers, this was a different kind of enterprise) needs such presence.
It would seem that April was only recently promoted to the role of Admiral, which makes sense considering how many admirals were lost during the Federation Klingon War in Discovery; Anderson, Cornwell, and the 3 admirals that oversaw Section 31 and who knows who else.
It seems he has a comfy new location to place his flag, which is this new Federation Starbase.
But it seems like this Starbase is Starbase 1, which was previously on the outer reaches of the sol system, and seen destroyed by the Klingons during the war.
So it seems like it was possibly recovered and brought further into the sol system, around Jupiter, and had these domes affixed to it. I have to say I really love this starbases design and making it a modified discovery model is not only good for budget but great for world-building as well!
Obviously, some reuse of models such as Discovery shuttles in Picard is a pain for worldbuilding, but when SNW is so close to Discovery’s first 2 seasons, it works really well.
Also fascinating that its biodomes were originally from the earth during the third world war, in order to be preserved and have continued to grow in space. Also excellent how they tied it together to show that things can grow in space, including ourselves.
La’an has been an interesting character since she was first announced, especially with the last name “Noonien-Singh” but her backstory is much darker than I would expect.
. I felt how it was written in the episode was kinda clunky, but it fulfilled its purpose of not only giving us a look into this character's backstory but also inspiring pike to find a solution to some of these factions on the planet from murdering themselves.
So we get some Gorn info here, and I know a lot of people might jump at this, saying it doesn't make sense that we are getting Gorn stuff, considering first contact with the gorn happens during Kirk’s time on the enterprise.
Well, it's mostly reports and unverified reports from a lone survivor.
I think it's pretty cool that the Gorn are these enemies that attack colonies on the edge of Federation space, and are unknown for a while.
This could also further explain how Lorca had a Gorn skeleton in the first season of Discovery, perhaps getting it off the black market, maybe the Orions or Klingons, who have had actually first contact with the gorn before.
There are some new additions to the gorn which are gruesome, in that they capture people from colonies and ships and deposit them on nursery planets, to use not only as food for their young but also as breeding sacks to raise their young.
This is pretty disturbing, and it does look like we are in a later episode gonna delve into this traumatic past of La’an, but hopefully, we don't see anything that graphic.
This was a fairly safe episode coming out of the gates, and even though it didn’t overly wow me, it shows a lot of promise, and I very much look forward to future adventures aboard the USS Enterprise. We get a lot of beautiful ship shots.
One immediate vibe I get from this series, which is good, is that we’re still in the early days of the Federation.
By this, i mean we’re not yet in the TNG era where laws and regulations are super strict. The Captains like Pike and James Kirk are able to bend the rules to fit them and have more fun gallivanting out here in the final frontier, which is fantastic personally.
When we look at what the series will be as a whole, I don’t think it is trying to break new ground.
Rather, reestablish the classic Star Trek essence back in mainstream media. Now even though we’re going for that classic stance, It’s still championing Star Trek’s spirit of diversity and inclusion that the franchise has come to be known for all these years.
Each new Star Trek series is meant as a part of a larger buffet. That is the way I and many others describe it.
Not every series is going to be for everyone. I think the way they are targeting Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, is to play it safe and target the fans who are not fans of the new Star Trek additions. These are the likes of Picard and DIscovery.
How the series will hold up in the long run, does remain to be seen.
So, what did you think of the first episode for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode One? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, because if you’re talking about Star Trek, then we want to hear about it!
If you want to keep up to date on all the latest Star Trek news, lore and more, then make sure to hit that subscribe button to never miss a video from the team here at Trek Central!
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For now, I’ve been Captain Jack, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!