Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) - Season 1 (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

I tried to look at The Elysian Kingdom with fresh eyes, since it was the only one from the first season I didn’t care for. But I still didn’t. It’s just too cute and the characters are so far off from what they are that it’s jarring. I know these kinds of things are fun for actors to play, but it took me out of the show too much, especially Pike’s cowardly character. There’s also the problem of playing the episode for fun and having a sad ending. I hope they do not revisit this sort of thing.

By contrast, All Who Wander is a terrific episode, full of thrills and scares, more so than just about any other Star Trek episode I can think of. Yes, it’s an Aliens tribute/rip-off/whatever but it works. I’m never a fan of writing characters off the show, but Hemmer’s exit works. It’s powerful.

 

[Nelson Au]

I completed viewing the first season last night with A Quality of Mercy.

About The Elysian Kingdom, I did watch that a few weeks ago and I have similar reservations as Sam. But on this viewing, which was only my second as I watched it once when it first dropped, I liked it a little better. I agree it’s odd to see Anson Mount not heroic as Pike and playing that cowardly character. But it’s how the characters are in the book and how Rukiya saw the characters and how the nebula entity used the crew to bring the book to life. What made the episode was the sad ending. It does seem like an odd mixture to set up such an unusual circumstance for M’Benga to go through, then learn that an entity in the nebula was creating the events for Rukiya. It was very said to see M’Benga have to make the choice but in the end, it was for the good of his daughter. But he has to loose her. I’d have hoped for a conventional resolution where she could return to normal life. But this kind of makes sense for a science fiction solution.

And as for All Those Who Wander, this was also my second viewing. I wished they didn’t go down this path as the Gorn‘s natural life cycle, they gestate inside a host from another species. I do appreciate that the writers tried to fill in the blanks as the Gorn were never fully fleshed out in TOS or even on Enterprise. And I can appreciate the idea that they are born to fight for dominance. The idea of their reproduction is lifted from Alien I can look past. What I found as incongruous was they appear to be wild animals who survive by hunting prey. But they are also shown as an intelligent Species capable of building and piloting starships. I can’t see as portrayed, a type of Gorn who survive birth and becomes an engineer who designs ships and then there’s Gorn who are bred to be builders of ships. But then maybe we only saw one type of Gorn. At any rate, it was a very good episode. It was filled with good performances and chills and spills.

About Hemmer, I appreciate the idea that the Aenar are born to find their purpose and then when they’ve fulfilled that purpose, they are content. In the case of his relationship with Uhura, I liked how he was able to help shape her life path. The writers had this set up by design so that his character was to die in order for Uhura to grow. And the actor has said in interviews he knew that going in, he was only going to survive the first season.

So for A Quality of Mercy, I saved this episode to watch a second time when the blu rays were released. This was a hard episode for me because they took the risk to try to recreate Balance of Terror, but in an alternate future version and show the repercussions of what Pike’s style of command would result in. Balance of Terror is one of my favorite episodes of TOS, so I know it well.

On this viewing, I found it interesting how they constructed the altered events by Pike still in command in 2266 instead of Kirk. I like that Kirk does serve on the Farragut as established on TOS, except in this timeline, he doesn’t get command of the Enterprise. But they either avoided or determined that Pike doesn’t rise to Fleet Captain to relinquish command of the Enterprise to Kirk. This new version of Kirk really emphasized the legend that Kirk is a risk taker and bends the rules. This made me think that Pike is more like Picard in that he prefers to negotiate verses how Kirk is the cowboy and how his actions to stop the Romulan ship from escaping kept the Romulan’s at bay.

Like before, I had to re-view Balance of Terror last night after seeing A Quality of Mercy. I don’t think Kirk is as brazen as Pike seems to believe he would be, or how the writers seem to interpret Kirk’s actions. I always felt that Balance of Terror shows a new nuance to Shatner’s portrayal of Kirk. He’s very measured and willing to listen to the crew and make decisions based on their comments and his own thinking of what the right thing to do is. He even second guesses his decision to McCoy in a private moment. This is great stuff.

So onto the Strange New Worlds episode. Here are random impressions from watching it. Commander Hansen’s mission patch actually is a nice interpretation of the original. In re-watching Balance of Terror, I could make it out on the tunic, the shape is the same, the details are not too clear, but the re-creation looks like they took a good guess at it. I didn’t have a problem that Hansen was originally played by Garry Walberg, a white guy and changed to a different ethnicity, that makes sense as Roddenberry envisioned a multicultural world.




I also noticed that they altered Uhura’s tunic to have a collar like the original. But Ortega’s and Mitchell’s uniforms are not altered. And are red, not gold? Also it seemed like Ortegas is a different character. She’s behaving so disrespectfully and is basically doing a female Styles. And I get that.

It appears kind of odd that while the Enterprise is racing to Outpost 4 to help Hansen, it appears to be hanging in space in visual sight of Outpost 4 while still out of phaser range as the Romulan’s are firing upon the station. Perhaps it was meant to be a stylized shot.



They left it vague if it was Tomlinson and Martine who were getting married. And who dies was reversed, that was interesting, they really wanted to shake it up.



I don’t understand the connection with Lt Mitchell at the helm, in both the Prime and alternate timeline. Perhaps her name is coincidentally Mitchell, but no relation to Gary Mitchell. Just an homage?

I’m not sure I like the actor Wesley as Kirk. He doesn’t have Shatner’s gravitas. He’s ok.

As to the Romulan commander and Decius, I liked the original relationships the Commander has with Decius as it’s clear he’s in command and Decius has to obey. The new version, Decius is clearly working against the Commander and it’s shown he contacts the Praetor. In the original, Decius does send a message to inform the Praetor of their success at Outpost 4. But the Commander disciplines him for sending the message. I guess the writers felt they wanted to focus on that relationship and not the one with the elder Centrurion. I saw him as the version of McCoy who advises the Commander like McCoy advises Kirk. Perhaps it was enough to show that the commander is weary of more war and destruction.

By the way, when Spock is able to get a fix on the Romulan bridge from Decius’s transmission, and he’s able to get a picture of their bridge, we get to see the crew reactions. The new version I thought overdid the reaction shots to over emphasize the reaction of Spock’s raised eyebrows. I thought Nimoy did it much better. I thought Peck was trying too hard and the director made too much of it with the zoom shot.


Also the recreation of the Romulan theme music was rather strong and jarring compared to the subtle use of it in the original. The original was so well done. Who knew someday we’d get to see this comparison, but it was fun to see a new interpretation. I’m not trying to knock it. It was fun to see, and I think they had a very respectful take on it to tell the story of Pike’s efforts to change history and what happens because of it.

I watched the 4K extras and the included Balance of Terror. I was curious if it is 4K. I started watching the Blu ray 1080 version and then switched to the 4K. It’s very difficult to tell, but the image quality looks about the same. The main difference I think I could see is the image is slightly brighter. I can only guess that’s due to the HDR if it was applied. Or perhaps that’s how my display was interpreting the image data. The details on the faces of Shatner and Nimoy doesn’t look any more detailed. I was disappointed that this included episode only has the remastered version with the new CGI effects and only 5.1 audio. I don’t think this is a 4K remaster. Perhaps upscaled. My display did say it is 3840 X 2160 16:9.

A final thought. If you are a young viewer seeing Star Trek Strange New Worlds as your first exposure to Star Trek, I can’t help but feel a few things. If the viewer becomes a fan through SNW, and if the fan will become a fan enough to want to investigate the earlier shows, from TNG to TOS, what will they think if they see Balance of Terror? Will it surprise them the way it’s resolved? Will the viewer think the show looks so crude compared to the modern show and not want to watch it? I’m thinking of my 12-14 year old self when I first saw Buster Crabbe’s Flash Gordon on TV. At the time I was still discovering Star Trek but had already been a fan of Star Trek. I watched the serials and while I was amused by them, I didn’t dismiss them, but I wasn’t a fan either. I thought it was cool to look back at them when I got older. Perhaps the younger viewer will be guided by an old time fan who can give context.

Strange New Worlds effects shots and set designs are great. I really appreciate the production design, a lot. It is new, but it also is built upon the original series. So it does honor the original. The shots of the Enterprise as it enters the comet’s tail is impressive and I liked the way the director or visual effects people decided to project lighting effects onto the crew as it’s passing the comet’s tail. It’s a very nice effect. I had a very short and surprising visual reaction to seeing Kirk on the bridge in Balance of Terror, I thought, wow, the bridge looks small! But it’s the bridge I grew up with. No bloody A, B, C or D! I can adapt in my mind that this is the original show and it’s was doing what it did with what it had at the time. Today’s productions can do so much more!



I forgot to make one more comment, I didn’t like the film era uniform re-creation that Future Pike is wearing. I just did not like the white strap over the right shoulder. Looks oddly long compared to the original. I would have re-worked that design a bit. Or gave him a different future uniform. But I get why they did that.

At any rate, if a new viewer becomes a Star Trek fan, that’s a good thing. And hopefully they can appreciate the earlier and original show.

 

[KPmusmag]

Thank you, Nelson, for your thoughtful comments, I enjoyed reading them - and I appreciate the screen caps, too.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I watched the 4K extras and the included Balance of Terror. I was curious if it is 4K. I started watching the Blu ray 1080 version and then switched to the 4K. It’s very difficult to tell, but the image quality looks about the same. The main difference I think I could see is the image is slightly brighter. I can only guess that’s due to the HDR if it was applied. Or perhaps that’s how my display was interpreting the image data. The details on the faces of Shatner and Nimoy doesn’t look any more detailed. I was disappointed that this included episode only has the remastered version with the new CGI effects and only 5.1 audio. I don’t think this is a 4K remaster. Perhaps upscaled. My display did say it is 3840 X 2160 16:9.

It’s HD.

Your display is going to report 3840x2160 (4K) because your disc player is going to upscale everything that’s not natively 4K into 4K. And if your disc player wasn’t set to do that, your receiver would, and if your receiver wasn’t set to, then your TV would. Somewhere in the chain, an HD signal does need to get upscaled to 4K, or it would only take up 1920x1080 pixels on your 3840x2160 display and there’d be a lot of blank space.

 

[Nelson Au]

Kevin, thanks! I appreciated your post! I hope it didn’t spoil anything if you or others have not seen it yet. This was such an extraordinary episode that it really compelled me to watch it a few more times and make the effort here.

 

[Nelson Au]

Josh, thanks! Thanks for the explanation that the player is up-scaling and the display is reporting the signal type. I figured it was something like that.

i have not checked what the display will report when I play a video from the Apple TV playing MKV files from the Plex server. I’m sure it’s doing the same thing, likely the AppleTV is up scaling as it knows it’s sending a signal to a 4K device.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Commander Hansen’s mission patch actually is a nice interpretation of the original. In re-watching Balance of Terror, I could make it out on the tunic, the shape is the same, the details are not too clear, but the re-creation looks like they took a good guess at it. I didn’t have a problem that Hansen was originally played by Garry Walberg, a white guy and changed to a different ethnicity, that makes sense as Roddenberry envisioned a multicultural world.

I just don't know why they needed to name him Hansen. It made sense to me that a timeline in which his son lived would play out differently than a timeline in which his son died. I could see him still on the job in the alternate timeline but not in the Prime timeline.

I agree that they did a good job with the mission patch, taking the same shape as the original but filling in the details in ways that feel very aligned with Starfleet. The original series idea that each ship/starbase had its own emblem never made sense to me, and this helps standardize it a bit.

I also noticed that they altered Uhura’s tunic to have a collar like the original. But Ortega’s and Mitchell’s uniforms are not altered. And are red, not gold?

They actually are altered, because the rank stripes are gold rather than a darker shade of red. But strangely, they still have two rank stripes, even though lieutenants would only have one rank stripe by this point in the timeline. Future Uhura is referred to as Lieutenant, and she only has one rank stripe, as she did in the original series.

Also it seemed like Ortegas is a different character. She’s behaving so disrespectfully and is basically doing a female Styles. And I get that.

It's pretty clear that they just transplanted the Styles perspective to her. But it didn't work quite as well; Styles's racism was specific to Romulans and rooted in his background of losing family in the Earth-Romulan War. Ortegas had never previously been portrayed as racist, and doesn't have the personal animus toward Romulans that Styles had.

They left it vague if it was Tomlinson and Martine who were getting married. And who dies was reversed, that was interesting, they really wanted to shake it up.

They're listed in the credits as being Tomlinson and Martine, so it seems that they're supposed to be the same characters. Again, I found myself wondering: Why not just use two new people instead? Given how many members of the senior staff are different, it makes sense that the lower decks would be different too.

I don’t understand the connection with Lt Mitchell at the helm, in both the Prime and alternate timeline. Perhaps her name is coincidentally Mitchell, but no relation to Gary Mitchell. Just an homage?

That would be my guess. Just an homage.

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey Adam!

I’ll have to look at Ortega’s and Mitchell’s uniform and rank stripes, I’d didn’t even notice. I totally agree with you that transplanting Styles’s prejudices into Ortega was out of the blue. She sure had a chip on her shoulders.

About Tomlinson and Angela Martine, I checked the credits again. I recall seeing they are listed as Bride and Groom. And that is what I saw on the end credits! Not to dispute your computer. .

There’s one more heavy thing about this episode that I forgot to mention that is kind of neat. It’s pretty devastating that Spock is so severely injured and that it’s Spock who is horribly injured rather then Pike in the alternate time. Future Pike makes it a point that all the alternate timelines, he dies. And Future Pike knows that Spock has important things to do.

And one more screen cap because I thought this was cool. In Pike‘s Ready Room, they added a TOS style monitor to his desk In the 2266 Enterprise.


As I’m a fan of mid century modern furniture and accessories, it’s cool that the set designers of this series went all in on this theme. A lot of the furniture on the Enterprise is mid century classics. A lot of them I did not know of. I only know the major popular ones. The chrome lamp on the right side of his desk is called the AJ lamp from 1960. 1960! I’ve seen that lamp before but I never knew it’s origin. You can still buy them, but they are not cheap. This is cool because of the Burke chairs used on TOS are based on the tulip chair by Earo Saarinen and those chairs are a mid century classic now. Of course I know this is only important information to me. But it’s fun to see this.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

About Tomlinson and Angela Martine, I checked the credits again. I recall seeing they are listed as Bride and Groom. And that is what I saw on the end credits! Not to dispute your computer. .

That's what I get for not confirming before posting! I must have misremembered from a conversation I had at some point debating whether they are Tomlinson and Martine. That makes me happy, that the show kept it nonspecific.

 

[Nelson Au]

We’re only human.

 

[Sam Favate]

I finished rewatching season 1 last night, and I enjoyed the finale a lot. Other than the brief scene with a cliffhanger at the end, the episode is mostly self-contained, but it's a pretty heavy episode and deserving of being the first season's capper. Anson Mount is terrific in the role and is never better than he is here. I generally dislike re-doing classic episodes but this one threads the needle and gives us new insight into events we know well, not to mention into the characters we love. I'm actually kind of amazed they pulled it off. (Quick question: I thought earlier in the season they referenced Pike's accident as being 10 years in the future, but last night it was 7 years. Was that because of the time jump? Or did I miss something?)

I can only assume the producers see something in Paul Wesley that I don't quite see. I like him, and he's bold like Kirk, but he almost looks like he's smirking sometimes, which is something Kirk never did. Nevertheless, I am excited to see him continue in the role in season 2. (Isn't he a series regular now?)

I'd give season 1 a 9 out of 10. It's one of the best seasons of modern Star Trek (I'd rank only Picard season 3 better) and it can sit proudly among the best years Trek has ever done. I look forward to the new season this week.

 

[Philip Verdieck]

I still have the last episode of season 1 to re-watch before the second season starts next week on the 15th. I’m looking forward to the new season.

I scanned over the articles on Trekmovie in the build-up to the new season. But I didn’t want to read them amd get too much info about it. I’m looking forward to seeing how the consequences for Una plays out and how Pike will continue to develop knowing his fate.

I did see the screen caps for the Lower Decks cross over. I’m not sure how that will work out considering Lower Decks takes place in the TNG era. Maybe it’s a holodeck story. It is nice they used the actors who do the voices for the live action.

That was one of my thoughts. How are they not going to cause temporal issues with there detailed knowledge Trek history?

 

[Philip Verdieck]

Sorry, if this has already been said, but I didn't want to go over/reread everything again.

Is the 4K Steelbook the best version to get (over the non-Steelbook 4K)?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Both 4K versions (steel book and non-steel book) contain the exact the same discs, so it’s just a matter of your aesthetic preference.

 

[The Drifter]

Coming late to the party & having had a chance to read all of these posts. I recently saw S01 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Blu-ray. This was my first time seeing the show. Amazing! I liked how it was a definite "prequel" to ST: TOS. And, because of this - SNW reminded me more of TOS than any other ST show. Even though this is obviously set in the far future, this really captured the aesthetic/vibe/tone of the original late 1960's ST: TOS. Very retro, in a good way. The colors/uniforms/music/etc. were all spot-on; this type of recreation is extremely difficult to pull off properly (especially when it's based on a 50+ year old series) - but was perfect here. Well-done!

One of the most impressive episodes was the final S01 episode - A Quality of Mercy. This involved an "alternate time-line" in which Captain Pike saw what his future would be like if he made a specific decision. The "alternate time line" involved a tense battle between the Federation & the Romulans - near the Romulan neutral zone. This was an obvious homage to the similar TOS episode Balance of Terror. This older episode was also included on the Blu-ray set, so after I finished watching the series I was able to watch that. The two episodes were remarkably similar (though not exactly the same), including pulling some of the dialogue from BoT for AQoM, etc. Again, well-done!

Will need to re-watch the iconic TOS 2-part episode The Menagerie soon - which IIRC are the only TOS episode(s) that feature Captain Pike. Though I haven't seen TOS since the late 1980's (with the exception of my recent re-watch of BoT), The Menagerie was my favorite episode of the entire original series.

 

[jayembee]

Will need to re-watch the iconic TOS 2-part episode The Menagerie soon - which IIRC are the only TOS episode(s) that feature Captain Pike. Though I haven't seen TOS since the late 1980's (with the exception of my recent re-watch of BoT), The Menagerie was my favorite episode of the entire original series.

You might want to consider watching Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, which introduced this Pike, Spock, and Number One, after re-watching "The Menagerie" (or the original pilot, "The Cage"). One of the Discovery episodes does a nice re-visit of that episode.

 

[The Drifter]

You might want to consider watching Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, which introduced this Pike, Spock, and Number One, after re-watching "The Menagerie" (or the original pilot, "The Cage"). One of the Discovery episodes does a nice re-visit of that episode.

Yes, I watched ST: Discovery S01-S03 a while back, and do remember the "new" Pike (Anson Mount) in the show. However, it's been a while since I saw S02 so will need to re-watch that episode.

 

[Francois Caron]

After reading all 50 pages of this post, the one comment that ringed true to me was:

It's hard to please Star Trek fans, isn't it...

I finally finished watching the first season this week. I had stopped at episode 6 last year. I watched episode 9 on Halloween night which was extremely appropriate!

While the show's reasonably good, I doubt I'll watch it a second time. I've already forgotten half the episodes I watched last year and only remember three of the last four episodes I watched this year. The show's nice and flashy with movie-grade effects, but they distract heavily from the stories.

This was never a problem with TOS because the sets were so cheap and God-awful to look at! But the show more than made up for it with incredibly well written stories.

With SNW, it often feels like they try too hard to deliver a huge performance with tons of effects, and it all falls flat. Some episodes I like, one I hated, most of them left me indifferent. And what's with the hair?

On to season 2! Some time later. No rush.