by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
It’s hard to believe that the last time I was writing about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it was 2023. Two whole years have come and gone since we last watched the crew of the Enterprise in one of the best sophomore seasons Star Trek has ever seen. Season Two of SNW was not just good, or an improvement over Season One — it was truly one of the greats. It has one of my favorite episodes of all time in “Those Old Scientists,” and the majority of the season touches on classic Trek premises, coupled with bold risks for the franchise. Season Two left the new season with an incredibly high bar to clear, and I was more excited for Season Three than Beverly was to see her grandmother’s old candle!
However, there was a growing concern after the show was delayed due to the writer’s strike that there would be a fall in momentum. Which was only compounded by my inability to get over what the last strike did to another favorite of mine, Heroes… I was also not thrilled regarding the announcement that the show would be ending after Season Five (which will only consist of six episodes rather than the customary 10). All this to say, emotions were very un-Vulcan-like going into Season Three, despite the anticipation of the thrilling conclusion to one of the better Star Trek cliffhangers.
Season Three kicks off with “Hegemony, Part II,” which handles the assuagement of my fears quite well. We are immediately thrust back into a crazy battle against the Gorn, with Captain Pike (Anson Mount) not knowing what to do, while all hell is breaking loose around him. Pike also has to deal with his colleague and love interest Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) being in sickbay with Gorn eggs about to explode out of her, half of his bridge crew kidnapped by the Gorn and being taken out of the system on their ship, and Starfleet command telling him to retreat. In many ways, this season opens up with a visual representation of what living in the United States has been like for the first seven months of 2025, and ultimately, “Hegemony, Part II” adequately concludes this chapter of the story with flying colors, while simultaneously setting up the remainder of the new season.
Then as if to both stick to formula and remind the audience that SNW is the “fun” Star Trek show, we get a zany wedding episode where everyone thinks (thanks to an alien entity) that Spock (Ethan Peck) and Nurse Christine Chappel (Jess Bush) are getting married. The magic trick that SNW pulls off by being able to balance the serious nature and the lighthearted fun that is Trek tradition is commendable. I know a lot of people nowadays like to pretend that Star Trek was always a very serious show, but growing up, some of my favorite episodes were the one where Q makes them all Robin Hood characters (“Qpid”), or when Captain Sisko teaches the crew of DS9 to play baseball on the holodeck because a Vulcan captain says his team is better. Also see: any episode containing a Lwaxana Troi. Strange New Worlds, while able to be very serious at times, really gets how to make Star Trek silly in a way that doesn’t ever go too over the top.
Well… that is, until this season. I would be remiss if I didn’t address the four-and-half elephants in the room. Episode Eight of Season Three is titled “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans,” and sees Captain Pike, Nurse Chappel, Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) transformed biologically from Humans into Vulcans for a mission. The “half-Vulcan” is in reference to Spock being already half human. The episode does a decent job touching on how Spock is typically an outsider amongst humans, because he presents too much as Vulcan. However, when he is around Vulcans, they see him as lesser because he isn’t Vulcan enough. It is a concept that has been broached in Trek in the past, but never as deeply as it could be, especially for such a relatable scenario. Rather than taking a serious approach to this subject matter, the episode is by far the show’s wackiest to date. And as of this writing, it is one of the most talked about episodes of the entire Star Trek franchise. This is The Last Jedi of Star Trek internet discourse. I have seen everything from “worst episode of the entire franchise” to “one of the funniest.” I, myself, have been teetering on the line of using the phrase, “jumping the shark.” My final verdict is, “so bad it’s good,” because ultimately, I appreciate that it doesn’t hold back. It is very apparent that every time the writers could push the envelope, they did. They never took half measures to try and soften the comedy. Not to use a second Star Wars term to describe Trek, but this episode is what I imagine Solo: A Star Wars Story would have been like if Lord and Miller were given complete creative control. It would have upset a lot of people, but it also would have been bold and unique. I have never laughed to the point of tears the way I did during the post credit scene of this episode (and Lower Decks is my favorite Trek). But also, I have never had to stifle my annoyance at an episode of Trek the way this one had me doing. I implore everyone to give it a try, but buyer most certainly beware.
As for the rest of the season, I can’t help but feel that the strike really did take the wind out of their sails. The writers seemed to have lost all the momentum of Season Two and found themselves drifting into tropey cliché territory. At least three episodes deal with the idea of a love triangle between Spock and someone else. Also, many of this season’s Star Trek problems of the week is cast off as a “don’t worry about it, nerd” moment that ultimately left me annoyed and bored simultaneously. One could argue that the biggest draw for a show like Star Trek is its ability to point a mirror at today’s society and ask the tough moral questions, while also presenting a fun mystery from time to time. When half of your 10 episodes are spent more concerned with romantic entanglements, it feels like every other show on television.
Season Three is not without its big swings, though. There is an episode filmed like a screen life movie (think Searching, starring Kelvin timeline alumni John Cho). The episode, titled, “What is Starfleet,” is presented as a documentary and features a pretty compelling story for Uhura and Ortegas (Melissa Navia), as well as a fun Star Trek problem of the week. But the use of security camera footage and the documentary style filmmaking completely tanked my engagement, because the character who makes the documentary in the episode is a bad documentarian. He does everything that documentary filmmaking 101 tells you not to do, and ultimately, this episode could have been saved had the showrunners hired an actual documentarian to direct the episode. There is just a lack of attention to detail that Strange New Worlds typically doesn’t have, which really bummed me out.
On the flip side, we get a proto-holodec” episode that pays homage to the original series, Gene Roddenberry, Lucille Ball, and all the behind-the-scenes stuff that kept Star Trek alive amidst the studio wanting to cancel it back in 1965. We get a fantastic episode that puts Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) front and center, teaming him up with Spock, Uhura, and Scotty (Martin Quinn). I am not going to lie: I have not enjoyed Wesley’s performance as Kirk, nor his inclusion in this series up until now. They have been shoehorning him into the show every chance they get, and it has really rubbed me the wrong way almost every time. This is Pike’s show. Kirk will have his time in the future. But in this episode, he’s used in exactly the right way. He is overconfident and headstrong, but learns a lesson in humility, as well as being put in a no-win scenario that doesn’t turn out in his favor. Some may say that it’s a lesson that goes against his future self’s conviction that he doesn’t believe in a no-win scenario, but for me, it is one more puzzle piece that helps form him into the confident captain that he will someday become. And Wesley’s chemistry with Peck is very much where you would want it to be, knowing how important Kirk and Spock’s friendship is to the success of the franchise.
For better or worse Strange New Worlds took some big swings this season, and while I don’t think that it came anywhere close to the quality of Seasons One or Two, it’s still far from some of Star Trek’s worse offerings. **COUGHPICARDSEASONTWOCOUGH** I am sad that we are only 16 episodes away from the conclusion of this iteration of Star Trek, but I am still very excited for next season. Especially since they announced there will be a “Puppet Episode” made with the collaboration of the Jim Henson Workshop! LETS BOLDLY GO! This show continues to be the most easily accessible in the whole franchise, and honestly, I think what might be a negative for me could be a positive to someone new to the franchise. So put on your best red shirt and strap in for one wild ride, even if Vulcans can sometimes be jerks.
Rating: Liked It
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is currently streaming on Paramount+
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