Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Last updated: Jul 8th, 2022

S01E01

Watched:

lmao, the single nacelle ships look as ridiculous as ever

“Are you naked?” “No, I am not.” “He was about to be.”

Pretty sure this is the first time someone’s said “Space, the final frontier” since TNG.

La’an Noonien-Singh seems a lot like Drummer on The Expanse.

I like Nurse Chapel

“both civil wars” oof

they really get a lot of mileage out of the TOS theme

That was fantastic. By far the most Star Trek-y of the new shows. No over-arching plot—but not a lack of character development. No universe-ending danger. Just Star Trek. I’m so happy

S01E02

Watched:

“I am familiar with Yahtzee”

“Aliens worship a comet” and “the comet communicates with music” was very sci-fi in a way that Disco usually isn’t and it was great

The flight through the comet’s tail was awesome

That comet does not seem big enough to be able to dump planetary climate-altering amounts of water into the atmosphere

I like Pike’s continued character development regarding his inevitable death

I don’t have much to say, I just really enjoyed that episode. It’s nice having actual episodic, science fiction Star Trek again

S01E03

Watched:

the illyrians, dang. I wouldn’t have recognized that name if I hadn’t watched that ENT episode just a few weeks ago

also, they used an officer’s log to frame the episode rather than just summarizing what we already know (like Discovery does)

I like that the new design for engineering retains the trapezoidal shape of the TOS design

ayy, an alien virus. that’s some classic Trek

if i had the last name of a genetically engineered, genocidal dictator, i would simply give my child a different last name

everyone reflecting and talking to each other at the end was done a lot better here than it would have been on Discovery.

this was a great episode

S01E04

Watched:

it makes me unreasonably happy that they have meetings around a conference table and come up with plans.

Although I object to the idea that the Enterprise could survive inside of a brown dwarf star, I did greatly enjoy the first Star Trek submarine battle in eons

i don’t think the pressure differential over 100m or whatever is enough that the. bottom decks of the enterprise would get crushed but the top is okay

Hemmer’s point about pacifism was great

Also the ship definitely couldn’t survive inside the accretion disk of a black hole either

Speaking of, is this the first time we’ve actually seen a black hole in Star Trek?

wow, the ship got really beat up

Another knockout episode. A solid, self-contained plot but not without character development

S01E05

Watched:

they’re doing the Vulcan ritual combat thing from TOS! with the gongs! and the weird spears! and THE MUSIC :D

ayy, Pike’s wearing the same style of green shirt as Kirk

“As you can clearly tell from the difference in our mannerisms”

i have a small (🤏) crush on nurse chapel

separate A and B plots, just like the old days

what the aliens were doing was obvious from like the second meeting. Pike’s solution of just being honest with them was very Trek-y

this is very much foreshadowing Chapel’s infatuation with Spock

another great episode. it was slow and character focused, and a nice change of pace from the past few weeks

S01E06

Watched:

did nobody think giving the cadet the phaser controls during a battle was a bad idea

this was a very good, very star trek-y episode. i don’t really have much to say about it

S01E07

Watched:

captain angel’s acting was more than a little bit hammed up, but it wasn’t too bad

poor nurse chapel and her unrequited crush

sybok, lmao

these posts keep on being short because i have nothing to complain about. i once again thoroughly enjoyed this episode

S01E08

Watched:

I thought this was the weakest episode of the season so far, but I still liked it.

Anson Mount was clearly having a lot of fun hamming it up

also, that the author of the book in the universe is Benny Russell is a very cool reference:

Dr. Mbenga holding the book “The Kingdom of Elysian” by Benny Russell

S01E09

Watched:

lol, in-universe justification for how the other ship is just a kitbashed Enterprise

“Do not make me turn this car around!”

Wow, they actually made the Gorn scary after the ridiculousness that was the TOS Gorn. Though I’m not clear on how these Gorn have the ability to build starships

daddy kirk’s a bit of a baby, huh. james t wouldn’t have had a freak out like that

that was a good episode. not much more to say about it

S01E10

Watched:

Pike looks good in the maroon uniform with the puffy collar

They’re doing Balance of Terror!

ooh, that Scotty-bait

and that connection at the end (Spock/Pike’s friendship) to The Menagerie is nice

is The Cage cannon? if so, Una will definitely be back

this Kirk was pretty good, though we didn’t see enough of him to make a judgement

and all the musical cues? damn

holy shit, that was an incredible episode and a great finale

Season 1 Conclusion

Watched:

This was easily the best first season of any Star Trek show. (Lower Decks is up there, but I think SNW edges it out because it’s going for (and achieves) a much more classic Trek vibe.)

Anson Mount is excellent, and all the other actors are pretty good too.

Even the weakest episode of the season was still enjoyable.

It’s hard to overstate how happy I am that monster of the week/self-contained episodes are back. I like long, continuous plot arcs too, but not at the expense of everything else.

And in spite of that, there was still continuity and character development from episode to episode.

I have no notes. That was fantastic. I’m probably going to rewatch the whole season in a few weeks.