The third season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (2022-Present) recently concluded on Paramount+, leaving many Trek fans divided over the quality of storytelling and characters compared to its first two seasons.
Unlike past television shows, like “Star Trek: Picard” (2020-2023) and “Star Trek: Discovery” (2017-2024), this current series returns to a classic episodic format parallel to how Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” (1966-1969) and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994) operated per season.
Each episode tells a different story with the same Starfleet crew aboard a starship similar to the USS Enterprise, for example. That brings the challenge of consistently writing engaging and well-structured scripts for every episode.
The “Star Trek” franchise isn’t the only one to suffer from this. Eric Kripke’s “Supernatural” (2005-2020) and Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” (1959-1964) are other cases where, for every great batch of episodes, there’s likely to be some that are underwhelming to say the least.
Leading to the main issue with the third season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,“ the show has begun to deviate from what makes the essence of “Star Trek” so interesting.
Roddenberry created the original 1960s series to explore a united future and use science fiction to address complex social issues, like race relations and war. A common complaint among fans is that newer shows are severely lacking what made the older shows special.
There is a lot more humor integrated into the characters in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) is a clear instance of this. At first, this choice was permissible, especially with Captain Pike’s portrayal in other iterations.
The issue is that many of the crew members are witty and have their own funny dialogue too often. This isn’t just a problem with season three, but with seasons one and two as well.
The final result is a show that focused more on comedy than serious, thought-provoking moral questions, with science fiction as the backdrop. According to an article by Screen Rant, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is set to have a fourth and fifth season. Hopefully, the writer’s room can fix this issue during the pre-production of those seasons.
Still, many other aspects of season three are done extraordinarily well. The characters and the actors who portray them are at the top of this list. Mount, famous for appearing as Cullen Bohannon in AMC’s “Hell on Wheels” (2011-2016), portrays Captain Pike with such charm and reverence.
Once the show is finished, he’ll likely go down as one of the best-performed characters in the “Star Trek” franchise. He’s on the same level of enjoyment compared to the captains of old, like William Shatner’s James T. Kirk, Sir Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard, Avery Brooks’ Benjamin Sisko and Kate Mulgrew’s Kathryn Janeway.
Acting alongside Mount is Ethan Peck as Mr. Spock, who portrays the best version of the character since Leonard Nimoy. Peck plays the role in a way that never feels like a direct impression of how Nimoy conducted himself. Spock is younger than how he’s presented in the original series, so it makes sense that he’d be slightly different before teaming with Captain Kirk.
Other notable performances include Rebecca Romijn’s Una Chin-Riley (Number One), Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. Joseph M’Benga and Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura.
It’s worth noting that the show is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Each season, it’s clear that the budget has increased with better visual effects and CGI. Paramount+ putting this many resources into this show is a good sign for what is to come for future “Star Trek” projects.
“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is unbalanced in the way its storytelling unfolds over the course of ten episodes. In fiction, writing is everything that makes something worthwhile. For this series to live long and prosper, that’ll need to change.
Rating: 3/5
