Star trek: strange new worlds (season 2)

In a certain sense, it’s not terribly difficult to understand why Star Trek fans have been so quick to embrace what Strange New Worlds is selling. Given Picard’s fumbling and floundering (admittedly redeemed by its far superior third and final season) and the increasingly lamentable dirge of Discovery, the basic SNW pitch - vibrant color palette, aspirational-in-tone, with an emphasis on weekly, stand-alone adventures - is mighty tasty. It feels like a correctly modulated retro throwback to the halcyon days of Roddenberry. But one can’t help but feel as if the show is being graded on a significant curve - it performs the Trek basics well, but frankly not a whole lot else. Its core competency has been largely misconstrued as greatness. Two seasons in and I’m not sure you could claim a single episode has been a genuine banger (the closest was season one finale “A Quality of Mercy,” and that’s only because it was doing a karaoke version of “Balance of Terror,” not unlike the way Into Darkness utilized Wrath of Khan as a creative crutch).   

The funny thing is that the cast, by and large, is excellent. Anson Mount, as the Enterprise’s patriarchal Captain Christopher Pike, offers a near-perfect balance of humor and gravitas (not to mention a spectacular head of hair). Celia Rose Gooding plays a deliberately desexualized version of Uhura, but brings a brainy pluck to the role all her own. Ethan Peck and the recurring Paul Wesley deliver perfectly palatable modern TV versions of Spock and Kirk, respectively (Peck in particular has grown into the role after an understandably trepidatious start). Rebecca Romijn rarely feels fully utilized as Una Chin-Riley, aka “Number One,” Pike’s second-in-command, but is a reliably sturdy performer whenever called upon. Melissa Navia has an outsized daredevil charisma as Erica Ortegas, the Enterprise’s gifted helmsman, while Carol Kane brings her usual inimitable daffiness and singularly off-kilter acting choices to the role of chief engineer Pelia (an inspired second season addition). Best of all is Christina Chong as the ship’s taciturn chief of security La’an Noonien Singh (yes, as in *that* Noonien Singh), whose prickly demeanor (her eyes narrowing warily until her gaze could cut glass, her lips compressed so tightly they’re almost colorless) is a considerable asset.

With this much acting talent on display, it’s a puzzle why the show itself feels so commonplace. If anything, the second season offers up an even slighter batch of episodes then the first. A measure of gimmickry is inevitable - some of which pays dividends (the Lower Decks crossover is actually a major hoot, mainly because Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome are so great as the live-action versions of their animated counterparts), and some of which doesn’t (the musical episode, I’m sorry to say, was one of the more torturous hours in recent memory). Una faces dismissal from Starfleet when her genetic modifications as an Illyrian come to light (classic Trek always trafficked in political allegory, though rarely this ham-handed), La’an gets pulled into an alternate timeline where she and Kirk strike romantic sparks in modern-day Toronto, while hi-jinks ensue when a higher-dimensional race rewires Spock’s genetic coding so that he’s fully human… right as he’s set to undergo a Vulcan engagement ritual with fiancée T’Pring and her disapproving parents. All of this is fine (mostly), but it doesn’t engage the imagination the way the best Trek episodes do. There’s no particular sense of wonder to this final frontier. It’s a well-executed but bloodless facsimile.​

As a direct prequel to the Original Series, Strange New Worlds is uniquely positioned to engage in rampant fan service re: established Trek mythology (remember when Spock’s half-brother Sybok was teased in the first season?)… but the show is frankly better when it keeps that powder relatively dry. Pike gaining foreknowledge of the disfiguring accident originally established in “The Menagerie” raises one’s Vulcan eyebrow (“Intriguing”)… but the eyebrow remains raised in less complimentary fashion when Pike uses a Klingon time crystal to try and alter his fate, only to inadvertently destroy the galaxy. Meanwhile, the show seems to have embraced the lizard-like Gorn as their primary antagonists (the orphaned La’an’s colony ship infamously encountered them when she was a child) - a one-off race from the Original Series that mostly endure thanks to to Kirk’s unintentionally hilarious fisticuffs with a lumbering brute in a rubber suit. This less-humanoid, more-reptilian iteration of the Gorn could (generously) be compared to the Xenomorphs from Alien (and not only because they seemingly copped the basics of their reproductive cycle) - intelligent and highly evolved pack predators. Fearsome indeed, but how are these creatures piloting advanced starships, let alone building them in the first place? When we finally get a good look at one, it’s basically a velociraptor with a space helmet. There’s little of thematic note to the depiction beyond basic savagery. The Borg, they are not. Strange New Worlds, to its credit, maintains a mostly relaxed and accommodating vibe… it’s free of the drab self-seriousness and narrative pretzels that have afflicted much of the streaming era of Star Trek. But it still feels too often like a show that’s venturing forth tepidly, rather than boldly.