Post by goldensandslash on May 26, 2022 7:29:30 GMT
With Star Trek: Strange New Worlds now airing four episodes, I think it's time to share my thoughts. I mean, I could just say "it's good" and leave it at that, but I want to go more in-depth here. I will say that this is a spoiler-free review. There are no spoilers for Strange New Worlds here. However, there ARE spoilers for other Star Trek shows (mostly Discovery, though some Original Series and Animated Series stuff as well).
Anyways, let's take a look at everything.
SETTING
The series takes place on the USS Enterprise, the same one from The Original Series. This is simultaneously a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, this is good, because it lets them use characters that the audience is already familiar with. On the other hand... it is a bit awkward from a special effects perspective.
The Original Series was, well, pretty dated, in terms of effects. Strange New Worlds takes place about a decade beforehand, and yet, it looks far more technically impressive, since the show is being made 55 years later. This is also a problem with Enterprise and Discovery, of course, but here... it feels worse, because it's the same ship.
Is this a major problem? Not really, no. With one exception: Klingons. The way that Klingons look has varied drastically over Star Trek's history. We have not yet seen them in Strange New Worlds (it remains to be seen whether or not we eventually will). However, I'm pretty sure that the Strange New Worlds production team is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation with Klingons. No matter how they look, it will look wrong. So perhaps it's for the best if we simply never see them.
But, in the end, it doesn't really matter. You're watching Star Trek. Anyone who watches Star Trek doesn't watch it for the effects, they watch it for the characters and the plot. So... let's talk about those.
CHARACTERS
There are nine main characters in Strange New Worlds. Strange New Worlds in particular does something a bit more... innovative. With only a couple exceptions, none of the characters in Strange New Worlds are new. They're all characters that we've seen before. This isn't a new idea for Star Trek. Worf appeared in Deep Space Nine after having appeared in The Next Generation; Picard and Seven of Nine appeared in Picard after having appeared in The Next Generation and Voyager (respectively); and the entire cast of The Original Series appeared in The Animated Series (except for Chekov).
However, in all of those cases, they also brought back the original actors to reprise their roles. Strange New Worlds opts to recast these roles. So let's see how they did.
Captain Christopher Pike = This is our main character, the captain of the ship. He was originally played by Jeffrey Hunter in the original pilot "The Cage" and then by Sean Kenney in "The Menagerie". Here, he is played by Anson Mount, who also played the role in Star Trek: Discovery. This version of Pike is, unsurprisingly, based on the version we saw in Discovery. In particular, in the episode "Through the Valley of Shadows", Pike is given a vision of his future due to the time crystals on the Klingon moon of Boreth. And he is horrified by what he sees - that life-support wheelchair. In Strange New Worlds, we clearly see a man who is haunted by this vision. His entire character seems to revolve around the fact that he knows he's less than a decade away from effectively-death. He struggles to cope with this, and he can't even talk about it with anyone, since the events of Discovery are classified. It creates an interesting character. You get the feeling that this was a once-great man now weighed down by something he feels he can do nothing about.
Commander Una Chin-Riley (Number One) = The first officer, Number One, was originally played by Majel Barrett, but is now played by Rebecca Romijn, who also played the role in Discovery. And, I'll be honest, I'm not a fan. The character of Number One is supposed to be a person who is trying to focus on her job, and stay cool and emotionless. As an actress, Rebecca Romijn captures that perfectly in her acting... my problem is with her look. Rebecca Romijn is GORGEOUS. And that's not really a surprise, since she used to be a model. But it does seem odd for Number One as a character. Why would a person who is so focused on her work take the time out of her day to "pretty herself up"? And no, it's not anything overly-insane. Like, she doesn't wear heavy makeup or lipstick or anything like that. But, well, she still manages to look beautiful anyways, and I feel that this goes against the character. That said, we do get quite a bit of revelations about the character in Episode 3 (since that episode primarily focuses on her), which I won't spoil, but I will say that it does add a lot of depth to the character. It actually works.
Commander Hemmer = This is our engineer, and our first original character. He's played by Bruce Horak. His species is Aenar, which was previously seen in Star Trek Enterprise. If you don't remember, the Aenar are like albino Andorians. They are blind, but have heightened other senses and telepathic abilities. They did get a blind actor to play the role, so props for that. The Next Generation didn't do that with their blind engineer. As for the character, he just seems angry all the time and wants to be left alone. He's a genius engineer, to the point of being able to pull off incredible feats that we haven't seen other engineers pull off, but he's definitely not a team player. I suspect that there's something that happened in his past that made him this way, but we have yet to hear his backstory, so we'll just have to wait and see.
Dr. M'Benga = This is our chief medical officer. He originally appeared in two episodes of The Original Series, played by Booker Bradshaw. Here, he's played by Babs Olusanmokun. He doesn't really have much of a character at this point. But his existence kinda poses a question. In The Original Series, he was just a normal doctor, not a chief medical officer. What did he do to get demoted? And, well, based on what little we do know about him... there's a very probable answer. But I won't spoil it.
Christine Chapel = This is our nurse. She was originally played by Majel Barrett in The Original Series/The Animated Series, but is now played by Jess Bush. She's great. It's clear that Jess Bush watched Majel Barrett's appearances and tried to replicate the character as best she could, because I couldn't really tell the difference. I mean, apart from the hair style. She's obviously wearing something more modern than what women wore in the 1960s.
Lieutenant Erica Ortegas = Here's our second new character. She's our helmsman. She's played by Melissa Navia. Of all the characters, she's the one that has gotten the least focus so far. Pretty much all we know about her is that she's friendly to everyone, but overly-cocky about how good of a pilot she is. She's cool, and I can't wait to see her fleshed out more.
Cadet Nyota Uhura = This is our communications officer, and probably my biggest problem with the series. She was a main character in The Original Series and The Animated Series, played by Nichelle Nichols. Here, she's played by Celia Rose Gooding. It's ten years earlier, so she's still just a Starfleet Cadet. And I will say that I don't really like the actress that they got to play her. She doesn't look much like Uhura, for starters. I mean, she's a person of color... and that's about it. The skin tone is way darker than Nichelle Nichols's and the head shape is very different. I get that this is kinda... impossible to change, so I could live with this... if not for the other major issue: the hair. Celia Rose Gooding has INCREDIBLY short hair, to the point of almost being bald. It doesn't really work for Uhura, who always had beautiful long hair. If this were an original character, I would have liked it a lot more. Cause as it stands now, there's nothing that really looks like Uhura to me. As for acting, she doesn't act like Uhura either. I get that it's ten years earlier, and people can change over time. But I have a hard time seeing how the Strange New Worlds character becomes the The Original Series character. We do get a lot of backstory for the character in Episode 2 (an Uhura-focused episode). This kinda messes with a beloved character, but not overly so, since it's not like we knew much of Uhura's childhood from The Original Series and The Animated Series.
Lieutenant Spock = This is our science officer, another main character from The Original Series and The Animated Series. He's played by Ethan Peck here, who also played him in Star Trek: Discovery, after having taken over the role from Leonard Nimoy, who originated the character. Ethan Peck absolutely NAILS this role. We already saw it in Discovery, so it's no real surprise, but he is the perfect Spock. He feels like Leonard Nimoy's reincarnation. I think he's the best actor in this show.
Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh = And here's our final new character, the chief of security. She's played by Christina Chong. She has such a tragic backstory. For starters, her name. She's a descendant of Khan Singh, the most evil man to have ever lived in the Star Trek universe. This caused her to be a victim of bullying when she was growing up. For that reason, she identifies solely by first name now. She's "Lieutenant La'an". Which makes sense. Could you imagine someone named "Hitler" today? They'd want to change their name (of course, Hitler had no children). Anyways, she was on a ship that was attacked by the Gorn, and everyone on board was either eaten alive, or had their bodies slit open so that the Gorn could have sex inside of the bodies. Pretty messed up. The Gorn do have a ritual that the last survivor gets placed on a raft and sent out away... for... some reason. Because of this, La'an was the sole survivor. She was eventually found by a Starfleet vessel and was inspired to enlist in Starfleet. That's... honestly the most fucked up origin story I've seen in a long time. As for what she's like now, she's a chief of security, so she's good at fighting, and looking out for threats. She's proven herself very capable, but has trouble making personal connections, due to all the emotional baggage that she carries around as a result of everything that she's gone through.
In addition to the main characters, of course, there's also several minor characters that only appear in one episode. A lot of them are new, but we also get several cameos of re-cast characters from The Original Series. I'm not gonna spoil any of them, but there is one that I should talk about. Without giving any names, there's a character who only appeared in a single episode of The Animated Series, who reappears here, with a new actor. The original character was white, but they made him black here. I've heard some people say that this is "blackwashing" (the opposite of whitewashing), but... honestly... I don't think I mind. He's still a good character regardless. Find better things to complain about.
SEASONAL PLOT
So, Strange New Worlds is the first modern-era Star Trek show to be episodic. However, there is still an overarching seasonal plot - it's just not based on any major or minor threat. It's actually an internal conflict. It deals with Captain Pike, now knowing his future, trying to find a way to live with himself, knowing that it's all going to come crashing down. His mental problems are the main focus of this plot.
It's not a major plot by any means. We only get a couple of minutes of it each episode. But it is clear that they are building up to eventually have Pike overcome this hurdle and becoming a great Starfleet captain once again.
It's handled pretty well, and that speaks volumes to how good Anson Mount is as an actor. However, it is a little strange to pick up on a plot point that began in Discovery. If you never saw Discovery, you'd be lost. They do explain some of it, but for the most part, remember, the things that happened in Discovery are classified. Still, Pike, Number One, and Spock were all involved and do discuss it amongst each other. It mostly comes in the form of Pike needing emotional support to deal with his vision, though there's also other things, such as Spock mourning the loss of his sister.
EPISODIC PLOTS
So, this is where it gets tricky to stay spoiler-free. The compromise that I've decided to implement is that I will explain the scenario that the Enterprise encounters, but I won't explain how they solve the problem that crops up. I still think that this is spoiler-free, but I understand if you want to skip this section.
Episode 1 is honestly my favorite episode of all of Star Trek. It starts with a pre-warp planet suddenly getting a warp signature. Upon investigation, we see a horrifying truth. This planet is very close to where the battle against Control took place in Star Trek Discovery. Their telescopes were able to see hundreds of warp engines from Klingon ships, Kelpien ships, Human ships, and so on. From there, they were able to reverse-engineer the technology and build a matter-antimatter reactor. However, the planet is divided into two nations that are at war with each other. And so... rather than taking this reactor and using it to power an ENGINE, they put it to use on a BOMB. They don't have warp drive, they have warp weaponry. And they're using it to annihilate each other. Number One goes down there to make first contact, assuming that the warp signature is that of a warp engine, but it's not. She's captured and imprisoned. Pike and the others now have to figure out a way to save her without contaminating this culture further, now that they are aware that this is a pre-warp civilization. General Order 1 (aka the Prime Directive) applies. I won't dare spoil how this episode ends, but let's just say that the way Pike solves this conundrum is my favorite scene in Star Trek.
Episode 2 deals with the Enterprise coming across a comet. They beam down to check it out and then suddenly the comet puts up a forcefield around itself, blocking off transporters and communications. How did this happen? How do they undo it? Uhura must use her knowledge of alien linguistics to communicate with the comet, and she struggles to do so, simply because this is not a lifeform. It's a comet. Things get... weird. It's a decent look at Uhura's character, and the ending is honestly pretty cool.
Episode 3 really annoys me. Not because of what it is, but because of what it could have been. The Enterprise comes across a planet that used to belong to the Illyrians, which is a new species. They take a unique approach to planetary exploration. Rather than transforming planets to make them inhabitable for life, like what Humans did to Mars, the Illyrians opt to modify their genetics to change themselves so that they can inhabit any planet they come across. Each new planet brings new modifications to their genetics, so that they can live anywhere. Then the Illyrians made contact with the Federation. They thought that the Federation's goals were noble and wanted to join, but were rejected due to the Federation's ban on genetic modification (see also: Khan Singh, Julian Bashir). The Illyrians really wanted to join the Federation, though, so they began the process of modifying their genetics in order to UNDO all the modifications that had been previously made. But something went wrong, and they were wiped out as a result. My god... that's... ingenious. I wish that this episode took place a century earlier so that we could see the Illyrians and explore them, since that sounds like such an interesting culture. Instead, the episode deals with the fact that the crew picked up a virus while on the surface and it is spreading across the ship. It's a fine episode, and I love what they do with Number One's character here, but... man. I just wish that the Illyrians were still alive and we could get an episode about them. That sounds so much more interesting! But I do get that the whole "illness spreading through a ship" is a staple of first-season Star Trek. The Original Series did it in Episode 4, The Next Generation in Episode 3, Deep Space Nine in Episode 5, and Lower Decks in Episode 1. So putting it in Strange New Worlds Episode 3 is more-or-less a given, I guess.
Episode 4 deals with the Enterprise encountering an unknown alien vessel that fires upon them and severely damages them. The ship is forced to hide inside of a space-cloud thing... which damages the ship further. The enemy ship is also still trying to find them and destroy them. It's one of those "emergency situation with very little resources" episodes. The episode also deals with La'an's character a lot, since she is forced to deal with the trauma she has from the last group of hunters that she dealt with: the Gorn.
MORALS
The most important thing in Star Trek is the morals. I know it's a sign of a kid's show when they end an episode with "And remember, kids, the moral of today's episode was...", but... well... Star Trek does this too, it's just not as in-your-face about it.
Star Trek is fundamentally about ethical dilemmas and living with other types of people. The best Star Trek episodes have situations where they teach you the best way to handle a situation like that. The worst Star Trek episodes are those that utterly fail at this. As an example, my least favorite Star Trek film is Star Trek: Insurrection. In this movie, Picard argues that moving 600 people to save 800 billion lives is ethically wrong. And, well... I just fundamentally disagree with that. By comparison, my favorite Star Trek film is The Wrath of Khan, which, of course, posits the exact opposite message - and one that I agree with - the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
For Strange New Worlds, I will say that they have, so far at least, kept their head on correctly and given us proper morals that are relevant to our modern world. I am satisfied with how they performed here. Of course, I cannot talk about anything here without giving spoilers... so we have to move on.
FOCUSES
You want to know the worst part about Star Trek: Discovery? Michael Burnham. She's not a bad character by any means. But the issue is that she's the only character. The same applies to Star Trek: Picard with regards to Jean-Luc Picard. What do I mean by that?
Well, the show focuses solely on the main character, in both cases. The rest of the main cast is kinda left to the wayside. You're not gonna have an episode focusing on Tilly, or Culber, or Raffi, or Elnor. At best, they just get a B-plot in one episode while the main focus is on the main character. There will never be an episode that is solely about one character, the same way there could be a Data-focused episode in The Next Generation or a Dax-focused episode in Deep Space Nine.
This makes sense, because both of these shows are storyline-driven. If you were to write an episode of Discovery that focuses on who Jett Reno is as a character, then that's time that could be spent on advancing the plot. Without having done that, the plot suffers. Discovery and Picard are shows that prioritize plot over characters.
Strange New Worlds is the opposite in this regard. Because the plots are episodic and not overarching throughout the whole season, it means that they are less of a priority. You absolutely CAN have an episode that focuses on Ortegas, since there is no storyline to worry about, and you can just write an episode whose plot puts her in the focus.
This is the greatest strength that episodic television has over serialization, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes full advantage of it, avoiding the pitfalls that other recent Star Trek shows have fallen into.
TONALITY
Time for me to share an opinion that I bet you didn't expect me to say: I think that the interior of the USS Discovery is ugly as fuck.
Why?
Because it's too damn dark. I get it, they're in space, so you can't exactly have sunlight coming through a window. But still. Every room... you wonder how those people can work productively, since it's hard to see everything.
This was explained by Captain Lorca having eyes that are sensitive to light, but he was killed before the end of the first season, so there's no reason for the ship to still be this way.
In Strange New Worlds, the USS Enterprise avoids this problem. It's well-lit. And that's not just a stylistic choice. It also captures the tone of the series.
Strange New Worlds has a more upbeat and lighthearted tone than Discovery. Are there conflicts? Sure. But they don't ever get as gritty as the ones in Discovery. For example, I doubt that we'll ever see a Section 31 plotline in Strange New Worlds, because it wouldn't tonally fit. Strange New Worlds continues the optimism that existed in The Original Series and The Next Generation. So there'd be no need to show the darker sides of humanity in that way.
I will say that Episode 4 is darker than Episode 1-3, since that one leans more heavily into horror, but it still isn't NEARLY as dark as Discovery. And the ship is damaged there, so the interior lighting of the ship is darker too (both due to damage, and from the fact of being constantly at red alert).
STYLISTIC CHOICES
I mentioned that the Enterprise was well-lit. In addition, though, we get colorful uniforms again that are bright and vibrant, reminiscent of The Original Series. They're not the plain gray ones we saw in the Next Generation films, or the boring blue ones from Enterprise or Discovery. Things on Strange New Worlds really feel bright and uplifting.
The set design reflects this as well. When I see a place like the bridge, the sickbay, the warp core/engineering, etc., it does feel like I would want to spend some time there.
All their little stylistic choices contribute to the show's tone. This show knows what it wants to be, and expertly does whatever is necessary to contribute to that image.
Overall, I think that Star Trek Strange New Worlds is one of the best Star Trek shows ever made, if not the very best. I definitely recommend checking it out.
Anyways, let's take a look at everything.
SETTING
The series takes place on the USS Enterprise, the same one from The Original Series. This is simultaneously a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, this is good, because it lets them use characters that the audience is already familiar with. On the other hand... it is a bit awkward from a special effects perspective.
The Original Series was, well, pretty dated, in terms of effects. Strange New Worlds takes place about a decade beforehand, and yet, it looks far more technically impressive, since the show is being made 55 years later. This is also a problem with Enterprise and Discovery, of course, but here... it feels worse, because it's the same ship.
Is this a major problem? Not really, no. With one exception: Klingons. The way that Klingons look has varied drastically over Star Trek's history. We have not yet seen them in Strange New Worlds (it remains to be seen whether or not we eventually will). However, I'm pretty sure that the Strange New Worlds production team is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation with Klingons. No matter how they look, it will look wrong. So perhaps it's for the best if we simply never see them.
But, in the end, it doesn't really matter. You're watching Star Trek. Anyone who watches Star Trek doesn't watch it for the effects, they watch it for the characters and the plot. So... let's talk about those.
CHARACTERS
There are nine main characters in Strange New Worlds. Strange New Worlds in particular does something a bit more... innovative. With only a couple exceptions, none of the characters in Strange New Worlds are new. They're all characters that we've seen before. This isn't a new idea for Star Trek. Worf appeared in Deep Space Nine after having appeared in The Next Generation; Picard and Seven of Nine appeared in Picard after having appeared in The Next Generation and Voyager (respectively); and the entire cast of The Original Series appeared in The Animated Series (except for Chekov).
However, in all of those cases, they also brought back the original actors to reprise their roles. Strange New Worlds opts to recast these roles. So let's see how they did.
Captain Christopher Pike = This is our main character, the captain of the ship. He was originally played by Jeffrey Hunter in the original pilot "The Cage" and then by Sean Kenney in "The Menagerie". Here, he is played by Anson Mount, who also played the role in Star Trek: Discovery. This version of Pike is, unsurprisingly, based on the version we saw in Discovery. In particular, in the episode "Through the Valley of Shadows", Pike is given a vision of his future due to the time crystals on the Klingon moon of Boreth. And he is horrified by what he sees - that life-support wheelchair. In Strange New Worlds, we clearly see a man who is haunted by this vision. His entire character seems to revolve around the fact that he knows he's less than a decade away from effectively-death. He struggles to cope with this, and he can't even talk about it with anyone, since the events of Discovery are classified. It creates an interesting character. You get the feeling that this was a once-great man now weighed down by something he feels he can do nothing about.
Commander Una Chin-Riley (Number One) = The first officer, Number One, was originally played by Majel Barrett, but is now played by Rebecca Romijn, who also played the role in Discovery. And, I'll be honest, I'm not a fan. The character of Number One is supposed to be a person who is trying to focus on her job, and stay cool and emotionless. As an actress, Rebecca Romijn captures that perfectly in her acting... my problem is with her look. Rebecca Romijn is GORGEOUS. And that's not really a surprise, since she used to be a model. But it does seem odd for Number One as a character. Why would a person who is so focused on her work take the time out of her day to "pretty herself up"? And no, it's not anything overly-insane. Like, she doesn't wear heavy makeup or lipstick or anything like that. But, well, she still manages to look beautiful anyways, and I feel that this goes against the character. That said, we do get quite a bit of revelations about the character in Episode 3 (since that episode primarily focuses on her), which I won't spoil, but I will say that it does add a lot of depth to the character. It actually works.
Commander Hemmer = This is our engineer, and our first original character. He's played by Bruce Horak. His species is Aenar, which was previously seen in Star Trek Enterprise. If you don't remember, the Aenar are like albino Andorians. They are blind, but have heightened other senses and telepathic abilities. They did get a blind actor to play the role, so props for that. The Next Generation didn't do that with their blind engineer. As for the character, he just seems angry all the time and wants to be left alone. He's a genius engineer, to the point of being able to pull off incredible feats that we haven't seen other engineers pull off, but he's definitely not a team player. I suspect that there's something that happened in his past that made him this way, but we have yet to hear his backstory, so we'll just have to wait and see.
Dr. M'Benga = This is our chief medical officer. He originally appeared in two episodes of The Original Series, played by Booker Bradshaw. Here, he's played by Babs Olusanmokun. He doesn't really have much of a character at this point. But his existence kinda poses a question. In The Original Series, he was just a normal doctor, not a chief medical officer. What did he do to get demoted? And, well, based on what little we do know about him... there's a very probable answer. But I won't spoil it.
Christine Chapel = This is our nurse. She was originally played by Majel Barrett in The Original Series/The Animated Series, but is now played by Jess Bush. She's great. It's clear that Jess Bush watched Majel Barrett's appearances and tried to replicate the character as best she could, because I couldn't really tell the difference. I mean, apart from the hair style. She's obviously wearing something more modern than what women wore in the 1960s.
Lieutenant Erica Ortegas = Here's our second new character. She's our helmsman. She's played by Melissa Navia. Of all the characters, she's the one that has gotten the least focus so far. Pretty much all we know about her is that she's friendly to everyone, but overly-cocky about how good of a pilot she is. She's cool, and I can't wait to see her fleshed out more.
Cadet Nyota Uhura = This is our communications officer, and probably my biggest problem with the series. She was a main character in The Original Series and The Animated Series, played by Nichelle Nichols. Here, she's played by Celia Rose Gooding. It's ten years earlier, so she's still just a Starfleet Cadet. And I will say that I don't really like the actress that they got to play her. She doesn't look much like Uhura, for starters. I mean, she's a person of color... and that's about it. The skin tone is way darker than Nichelle Nichols's and the head shape is very different. I get that this is kinda... impossible to change, so I could live with this... if not for the other major issue: the hair. Celia Rose Gooding has INCREDIBLY short hair, to the point of almost being bald. It doesn't really work for Uhura, who always had beautiful long hair. If this were an original character, I would have liked it a lot more. Cause as it stands now, there's nothing that really looks like Uhura to me. As for acting, she doesn't act like Uhura either. I get that it's ten years earlier, and people can change over time. But I have a hard time seeing how the Strange New Worlds character becomes the The Original Series character. We do get a lot of backstory for the character in Episode 2 (an Uhura-focused episode). This kinda messes with a beloved character, but not overly so, since it's not like we knew much of Uhura's childhood from The Original Series and The Animated Series.
Lieutenant Spock = This is our science officer, another main character from The Original Series and The Animated Series. He's played by Ethan Peck here, who also played him in Star Trek: Discovery, after having taken over the role from Leonard Nimoy, who originated the character. Ethan Peck absolutely NAILS this role. We already saw it in Discovery, so it's no real surprise, but he is the perfect Spock. He feels like Leonard Nimoy's reincarnation. I think he's the best actor in this show.
Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh = And here's our final new character, the chief of security. She's played by Christina Chong. She has such a tragic backstory. For starters, her name. She's a descendant of Khan Singh, the most evil man to have ever lived in the Star Trek universe. This caused her to be a victim of bullying when she was growing up. For that reason, she identifies solely by first name now. She's "Lieutenant La'an". Which makes sense. Could you imagine someone named "Hitler" today? They'd want to change their name (of course, Hitler had no children). Anyways, she was on a ship that was attacked by the Gorn, and everyone on board was either eaten alive, or had their bodies slit open so that the Gorn could have sex inside of the bodies. Pretty messed up. The Gorn do have a ritual that the last survivor gets placed on a raft and sent out away... for... some reason. Because of this, La'an was the sole survivor. She was eventually found by a Starfleet vessel and was inspired to enlist in Starfleet. That's... honestly the most fucked up origin story I've seen in a long time. As for what she's like now, she's a chief of security, so she's good at fighting, and looking out for threats. She's proven herself very capable, but has trouble making personal connections, due to all the emotional baggage that she carries around as a result of everything that she's gone through.
In addition to the main characters, of course, there's also several minor characters that only appear in one episode. A lot of them are new, but we also get several cameos of re-cast characters from The Original Series. I'm not gonna spoil any of them, but there is one that I should talk about. Without giving any names, there's a character who only appeared in a single episode of The Animated Series, who reappears here, with a new actor. The original character was white, but they made him black here. I've heard some people say that this is "blackwashing" (the opposite of whitewashing), but... honestly... I don't think I mind. He's still a good character regardless. Find better things to complain about.
SEASONAL PLOT
So, Strange New Worlds is the first modern-era Star Trek show to be episodic. However, there is still an overarching seasonal plot - it's just not based on any major or minor threat. It's actually an internal conflict. It deals with Captain Pike, now knowing his future, trying to find a way to live with himself, knowing that it's all going to come crashing down. His mental problems are the main focus of this plot.
It's not a major plot by any means. We only get a couple of minutes of it each episode. But it is clear that they are building up to eventually have Pike overcome this hurdle and becoming a great Starfleet captain once again.
It's handled pretty well, and that speaks volumes to how good Anson Mount is as an actor. However, it is a little strange to pick up on a plot point that began in Discovery. If you never saw Discovery, you'd be lost. They do explain some of it, but for the most part, remember, the things that happened in Discovery are classified. Still, Pike, Number One, and Spock were all involved and do discuss it amongst each other. It mostly comes in the form of Pike needing emotional support to deal with his vision, though there's also other things, such as Spock mourning the loss of his sister.
EPISODIC PLOTS
So, this is where it gets tricky to stay spoiler-free. The compromise that I've decided to implement is that I will explain the scenario that the Enterprise encounters, but I won't explain how they solve the problem that crops up. I still think that this is spoiler-free, but I understand if you want to skip this section.
Episode 1 is honestly my favorite episode of all of Star Trek. It starts with a pre-warp planet suddenly getting a warp signature. Upon investigation, we see a horrifying truth. This planet is very close to where the battle against Control took place in Star Trek Discovery. Their telescopes were able to see hundreds of warp engines from Klingon ships, Kelpien ships, Human ships, and so on. From there, they were able to reverse-engineer the technology and build a matter-antimatter reactor. However, the planet is divided into two nations that are at war with each other. And so... rather than taking this reactor and using it to power an ENGINE, they put it to use on a BOMB. They don't have warp drive, they have warp weaponry. And they're using it to annihilate each other. Number One goes down there to make first contact, assuming that the warp signature is that of a warp engine, but it's not. She's captured and imprisoned. Pike and the others now have to figure out a way to save her without contaminating this culture further, now that they are aware that this is a pre-warp civilization. General Order 1 (aka the Prime Directive) applies. I won't dare spoil how this episode ends, but let's just say that the way Pike solves this conundrum is my favorite scene in Star Trek.
Episode 2 deals with the Enterprise coming across a comet. They beam down to check it out and then suddenly the comet puts up a forcefield around itself, blocking off transporters and communications. How did this happen? How do they undo it? Uhura must use her knowledge of alien linguistics to communicate with the comet, and she struggles to do so, simply because this is not a lifeform. It's a comet. Things get... weird. It's a decent look at Uhura's character, and the ending is honestly pretty cool.
Episode 3 really annoys me. Not because of what it is, but because of what it could have been. The Enterprise comes across a planet that used to belong to the Illyrians, which is a new species. They take a unique approach to planetary exploration. Rather than transforming planets to make them inhabitable for life, like what Humans did to Mars, the Illyrians opt to modify their genetics to change themselves so that they can inhabit any planet they come across. Each new planet brings new modifications to their genetics, so that they can live anywhere. Then the Illyrians made contact with the Federation. They thought that the Federation's goals were noble and wanted to join, but were rejected due to the Federation's ban on genetic modification (see also: Khan Singh, Julian Bashir). The Illyrians really wanted to join the Federation, though, so they began the process of modifying their genetics in order to UNDO all the modifications that had been previously made. But something went wrong, and they were wiped out as a result. My god... that's... ingenious. I wish that this episode took place a century earlier so that we could see the Illyrians and explore them, since that sounds like such an interesting culture. Instead, the episode deals with the fact that the crew picked up a virus while on the surface and it is spreading across the ship. It's a fine episode, and I love what they do with Number One's character here, but... man. I just wish that the Illyrians were still alive and we could get an episode about them. That sounds so much more interesting! But I do get that the whole "illness spreading through a ship" is a staple of first-season Star Trek. The Original Series did it in Episode 4, The Next Generation in Episode 3, Deep Space Nine in Episode 5, and Lower Decks in Episode 1. So putting it in Strange New Worlds Episode 3 is more-or-less a given, I guess.
Episode 4 deals with the Enterprise encountering an unknown alien vessel that fires upon them and severely damages them. The ship is forced to hide inside of a space-cloud thing... which damages the ship further. The enemy ship is also still trying to find them and destroy them. It's one of those "emergency situation with very little resources" episodes. The episode also deals with La'an's character a lot, since she is forced to deal with the trauma she has from the last group of hunters that she dealt with: the Gorn.
MORALS
The most important thing in Star Trek is the morals. I know it's a sign of a kid's show when they end an episode with "And remember, kids, the moral of today's episode was...", but... well... Star Trek does this too, it's just not as in-your-face about it.
Star Trek is fundamentally about ethical dilemmas and living with other types of people. The best Star Trek episodes have situations where they teach you the best way to handle a situation like that. The worst Star Trek episodes are those that utterly fail at this. As an example, my least favorite Star Trek film is Star Trek: Insurrection. In this movie, Picard argues that moving 600 people to save 800 billion lives is ethically wrong. And, well... I just fundamentally disagree with that. By comparison, my favorite Star Trek film is The Wrath of Khan, which, of course, posits the exact opposite message - and one that I agree with - the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
For Strange New Worlds, I will say that they have, so far at least, kept their head on correctly and given us proper morals that are relevant to our modern world. I am satisfied with how they performed here. Of course, I cannot talk about anything here without giving spoilers... so we have to move on.
FOCUSES
You want to know the worst part about Star Trek: Discovery? Michael Burnham. She's not a bad character by any means. But the issue is that she's the only character. The same applies to Star Trek: Picard with regards to Jean-Luc Picard. What do I mean by that?
Well, the show focuses solely on the main character, in both cases. The rest of the main cast is kinda left to the wayside. You're not gonna have an episode focusing on Tilly, or Culber, or Raffi, or Elnor. At best, they just get a B-plot in one episode while the main focus is on the main character. There will never be an episode that is solely about one character, the same way there could be a Data-focused episode in The Next Generation or a Dax-focused episode in Deep Space Nine.
This makes sense, because both of these shows are storyline-driven. If you were to write an episode of Discovery that focuses on who Jett Reno is as a character, then that's time that could be spent on advancing the plot. Without having done that, the plot suffers. Discovery and Picard are shows that prioritize plot over characters.
Strange New Worlds is the opposite in this regard. Because the plots are episodic and not overarching throughout the whole season, it means that they are less of a priority. You absolutely CAN have an episode that focuses on Ortegas, since there is no storyline to worry about, and you can just write an episode whose plot puts her in the focus.
This is the greatest strength that episodic television has over serialization, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes full advantage of it, avoiding the pitfalls that other recent Star Trek shows have fallen into.
TONALITY
Time for me to share an opinion that I bet you didn't expect me to say: I think that the interior of the USS Discovery is ugly as fuck.
Why?
Because it's too damn dark. I get it, they're in space, so you can't exactly have sunlight coming through a window. But still. Every room... you wonder how those people can work productively, since it's hard to see everything.
This was explained by Captain Lorca having eyes that are sensitive to light, but he was killed before the end of the first season, so there's no reason for the ship to still be this way.
In Strange New Worlds, the USS Enterprise avoids this problem. It's well-lit. And that's not just a stylistic choice. It also captures the tone of the series.
Strange New Worlds has a more upbeat and lighthearted tone than Discovery. Are there conflicts? Sure. But they don't ever get as gritty as the ones in Discovery. For example, I doubt that we'll ever see a Section 31 plotline in Strange New Worlds, because it wouldn't tonally fit. Strange New Worlds continues the optimism that existed in The Original Series and The Next Generation. So there'd be no need to show the darker sides of humanity in that way.
I will say that Episode 4 is darker than Episode 1-3, since that one leans more heavily into horror, but it still isn't NEARLY as dark as Discovery. And the ship is damaged there, so the interior lighting of the ship is darker too (both due to damage, and from the fact of being constantly at red alert).
STYLISTIC CHOICES
I mentioned that the Enterprise was well-lit. In addition, though, we get colorful uniforms again that are bright and vibrant, reminiscent of The Original Series. They're not the plain gray ones we saw in the Next Generation films, or the boring blue ones from Enterprise or Discovery. Things on Strange New Worlds really feel bright and uplifting.
The set design reflects this as well. When I see a place like the bridge, the sickbay, the warp core/engineering, etc., it does feel like I would want to spend some time there.
All their little stylistic choices contribute to the show's tone. This show knows what it wants to be, and expertly does whatever is necessary to contribute to that image.
Overall, I think that Star Trek Strange New Worlds is one of the best Star Trek shows ever made, if not the very best. I definitely recommend checking it out.