Awesome / Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

General

• The title sequence. Sure, Picard and Discovery are amazing in their own rights, but Strange New Worlds is one for being a massive Call-Back to the older Treks as the Enterprise is shown exploring space in all its glory. Especially when Pike starts reciting the famous line that started it all and that fans have waited years to hear again:
  Captain Pike: Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5 year mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
  • The theme song is no slouch either, taking elements of the Original Series theme and updating them with an orchestra.

Season 1

Episode 1: Strange New Worlds

• Pike and Spock are being held captive, and Pike tries to convince the leader to abandon their plans to develop and deploy a Warp Bomb. The leader makes an appeal to pragmatism by stating that whoever has the biggest stick wins, and thus she can't afford to listen to him. So Pike calls the Enterprise to descend and hover over the city, to demonstrate who actually has the biggest stick. The next thing we hear from the planet is that the two leaders are actually meeting in person for the first time, even if it is to have a shouting match.
  Pike: Emergency communication from Captain Pike: Enterprise to lower orbit, full visibility, show them what you've got.
  Spock: Captain...
  Pike: Wait for it...
  [Air raid sirens go off]
• Christopher Pike, whose been suffering from a Heroic BSoD from his foreknowledge of his fate, uses that very vision to convince a pre-Warp civilization to end a centuries old-civil war. By giving them a vision (of sorts) of their future. Providing images of the destruction Earth suffered from World War III, he encourages them to shift their development of Warp technology from weapons development to space travel so that they may even one day join the United Federation of Planets.
  • A montage shows scientists, researchers, and even philosophers as they study images of the Enterprise and draw schematics they infer as an new age of space exploration for their species begins.
  • While it wasn't not quite the right direction to take the development of the technology, the relatively primitive species managing to develop Warp Technology simply from observing the battle between the combined Starfleet-Klingon-Kelpien fleet against Control. Spock compares it to them essentially inventing the Atomic bomb before they discovered particle physics.
  • It should be noted that Pike's speech leaves out the fact that humanity's near-extinction was caused by nuclear bombs not anti-matter - and a fully loaded warp core rigged as a bomb and going off (which is essentially what the kileyans have) makes an a-bomb look like a firecracker in comparison. Meaning its very likely the entire pre-Warp society would have been completely wiped out: meaning Pike saved an entire species using Earth's mistakes as examples of how bad things could get.
• While her backstory is horrific, La'an Noonien-Singh surviving a Gorn planetary nursery to the point that, being the Sole Survivor of her family, she was placed on a raft and sent out into space as part of a cultural ritual. Its outright stated she wasn't expected to survive but did until a Starfleet vessel rescued her, leading her to joining and eventually becoming the Enterprise's new head of Security.
• Doubles as funny but the Bait-and-Switch about "Lt. Kirk" joining the Enterprise being none other than James T.'s brother Samuel Kirk, a character so unexpected that literally only someone familiar with TOS would even know who he is. If at that.

Episode 2: Children of the Comet

• Hemmer's Establishing Character Moment proves that just because he's blind, it doesn't mean he needs help as he's shown to be easily cutting vegetables, and he curtly tells off Uhura that blindness doesn't equal helplessness. He then effortlessly catches a carrot that Spock throws from behind Hemmer's back, and it's explained to Uhura that Hemmer telepathically sensed Spock's intention and was able to react accordingly.
• Uhura, realizing that Hemmer and Spock are teasing her, tells them off in Andorian and Vulcan respectively before going to get a drink, the officers noting that she has earned their respect.
• Ortegas proves beyond all doubt that she's an incredible helm officer by not only handling the battlecruiser-scale Enterprise like a starfighter (complete with a barrel roll at one point) but manages to maneuver the Constitution-class starship through the tail of a comet and circle around in front of it while under enemy fire and being struck continuously by comet debris.

Episode 3: Ghosts of Illyria

• Number One revealing her secret: she's an Illyrian. This leads to many moments of awesome for Una Chin-Riley:
  • Illyrians use genetic modification, outlawed in the Federation, so she's breaking countless laws and regulations by existing as an officer in Starfleet, yet her bio-engineered body is key to saving the crew and the ship.
  • Enterprise is investigating a dead Illyrian colony, and Una has to listen to her friends and co-workers casually deride her own people, and anyone like her, in terms ensure to enrage anyone hearing casual racial slurs tossed about, yet Una never once loses her cool or tips her hand. Only Pike seems to notice that something about this mission seems to be putting her vaguely "on edge," and even he can't pin down precisely what or why.
  • Even before she proves useful, Chapel and M'Benga don't hesitate to accept this news of her, knowing that she's a valuable officer and a good friend.
  • After the crisis has passed, Pike vows to go to bat for Una should Starfleet learn of her background and come for her, stating "you're the best First Officer in the fleet."
  • And Una revealing all this by picking up the unconscious Hemmer and hoisting him over her shoulder like a bag of laundry is a great demonstration of her physical strength, as is her effortlessly beating down a crazed La'an.
  • La'an, for her part, has very good reasons to dislike Augments, yet the close of the episode has her and Una starting to reconcile and even deepen their already tight bond.
  • And, though we know it's probably doomed to fail, that the show seems poised to, through Una, strike the first blow against the only remaining prejudice in the Federation.
    • Very likely doomed to fail since in A Quality Of Mercy, while Pike sees the future, we find out that Una was arrested and imprisoned, despite Pike defending her.
    • As seen in the future with Julian Bashir and Dal R'El, Starfleet will eventually adjust their ban to allow individual waivers/exceptions depending on the nature of the modifications the person has had. It is likely that Una was the first step towards that.
• The Illyrians on the colony they're investigating wanted to join the Federation, so attempted to undo their genetic augmentations. It didn't end well for them, but shows how profoundly they believed in the ideals of the United Federation of Planets. Even as "ghosts," these Illyrians shield Spock and Pike from the deadly ion storm, then make sure they find the record to tell who they were, what they wanted, and why they did what they did.
• Despite the fact that Hemmer isn't in his right mind and is putting Enterprise in severe danger, the fact that he nearly beams a chunk of semi-molten rock from over a thousand kilometers under a planet's surface is a very impressive bit of engineering.

Episode 4: Memento Mori

• The entire episode is basically one for the entire crew. With the Enterprise damaged and at a disadvantage the entire crew gets chances to show their mettle and that the Enterprise is home to Starfleet's best.
  • La'an confronts her repressed memories and her knowledge of the Gorn save the crew.
  • M'Benga has to deal with plenty of wounded and no supplies after the infirmary takes a hit. Saving Una's life by donating his blood all the while still giving care to his patients.
    • The previous episode had established that mixing human and Illyrian blood was a serious offense in the Federation, but M'Benga ignores that since his only concern is the safety of his patients.
  • Chapel performs surgery using 20th century means.
  • Ortegas does some daring piloting including managing to maneuver the Enterprise to drop a torpedo directly on an enemy ship by gravity.
  • Pike is forced to make some tough choices that lead to people dying so the rest of the crew can live. Ultimately his decisions do save his ship and most of his crew.
  • Hemmer is forced to deal with his own rather gruff asocial self to guide Uhura into repairing a piece of technology that threatens to explode and take out the ship.
  • Spock of course provides endless advice and is instrumental in La'an confronting her traumatic memories - exposing his own grief over losing his sister in the process.
  • Even a nameless crewmember gets to shine, when Chief Kyle tries to rescue him before the bulkheads in their decompressing section close, the crewmember shoves Kyle through the rapidly closing door sacrificing himself.
• The Enterprise herself illustrates why the Constitution-class served as the template for so many of its successor craft, as the ship takes a pounding from Gorn attack ships, resists the crushing atmospheric pressure of a brown dwarf, and manages to escape a black hole.

Episode 5: Spock Amok

• Spock, in T'Pring's body, punching out the Vulcan fugitive Barjan Tor when he insults humanity. T'Pring herself is even sympathetic when things return to normal.
  Spock: In the spirit of total honesty, I should probably tell you I punched Barjan.
  T'Pring: Having met him, that is logical.
• La'an and Una doing a spacewalk without an EVA suit, using a forcefield on the outer hull instead.

Episode 7: The Serene Squall

• In an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, Pike and the crew somehow take over the pirate vessel and are shown charging at the Enterprise after using codes to shut down the defenses.
  Pike: I'm only going to say this once. Get the hell out of my chair.
• When Spock pretends he and Christine are having an affair to derail the hostage exchange that will ruin T'Pring's career, Christine immediately picks up what he's putting down and plays along, selling the story much more effectively than Spock could on his own. Even better, T'Pring worked out what was happening as well.

Episode 8: The Elysian Kingdom

• Ortegas (in her Adya persona) getting into a saber duel with a squad of Crimson Guards.
  Mook Lieutenant: You're unarmed.
  The first guard comes at Adya, who knocks him to the ground and grabs his sword.
  Adya: I have armed myself.
• Hemmer, in his wizard guise, combines technobabble with the limited magical lingo he knows to menacingly threaten to send his enemies to a dreadful realm called "the event horizon", and then makes them vanish into thin air thanks to a transporter control he found.

Episode 9: All Those Who Wander

• La'an has more reason to be scared of the Gorn than any other member of the crew. And yet she still fearlessly screams Bring It at the Gorn hatchling when trying to lure it into their trap, even throwing her phaser down the corridor to get its attention, leaving herself unarmed.
  • For that matter, when Spock needs to draw the Gorn out, it doesn't go for the bait, so he consciously takes the lid off a bit to let his repressed anger loose. The resulting Unstoppable Rage makes it clear just how good Spock is at controlling himself most of the time, though his difficulty regaining control of his emotions again is pure Tearjerker, especially during Hemmer's memorial.
• Hemmer's Heroic Sacrifice, which he does calmly and without hesitation, proudly noting that he'd fulfilled his life's purpose. "I fixed what was broken."

Episode 10: A Quality of Mercy

• He's finally here, folks...Captain James Tiberius Kirk. In the flesh.
  • Even better, he pulls an impressive Batman Gambit worthy of the original. After the Farragut is destroyed, he requests a shuttle to try and get help. He doesn't make it in time, but he returns with a fleet of cargo ships he has on auto-pilot. The Federation hasn't seen a Romulan ship in a century, so Kirk reasons that they don't know what a Federation ship looks like either. If he couldn't return with The Cavalry, he could at least provide a hell of a distraction!
• Scotty's off-screen cameo, making miracles happen as per usual. He'll make Hemmer proud!
• The writers not only homaged "Balance of Terror", they recreated it for the modern audience, sometimes line by line, even incorporating the 60s music sting when the Romulans are revealed!

Season 2

Episode 1: The Broken Circle

• La'an manages to find Oriana's parents in only a few months despite having at least an entire quadrant of space to search and tops it off by finding a conspiracy of rogue Klingons and ex-Federation soldiers seeking to reignite the war all to make a profit.
  • We get to see La'an again for the first time since she left when she has a bloodwine drinking contest with a Klingon...and wins. Even taking into account her biology thanks to her genetic make-up, La'an doesn't even seem drunk or even tipsy; then comes the end of the episode where Spock has a massive hangover despite his Vulcan physiology letting him handle it better than some other species.
• When the Enterprise crew receive La'an's distress signal while in Spacedock, they don't hesitate to disobey orders and steal the ship to go help. That's true loyalty.
• M'Benga and Chapel are taken hostage by the Broken Circle. Knowing they have to warn the Enterprise, they juice themselves up with a stimulant, take on a large compliment of Klingons...and win in straight hand-to-hand combat.

Episode 2: Ad Astra Per Aspera

• Pike refuses to leave the legal offices until Neera sees him, even though he's deadly low on oxygen. He runs out—and it works. Despite Neera's annoyance at the insistent intrusion, Pike is able to convince her to take the case.
• In spite of pushing April too far and his testimony being thrown out, Neera lays into Starfleet in the same way that fans have done to the franchise for years— for the Prime Directive being their most "sacred rule", they seem to constantly discard it at their discretion. Moreover, even though she won't succeed in ending the anti-augment ban, she demonstrates that, no matter how justified Starfleet holds it to be due to Khan and Adam Soong, it's still fundamentally flawed and discriminatory. M'Benga was right: humans just traded one prejudice for another, and April's reaction proves it.
• When Spock is put on the stand, Batel tries to box him in by claiming it is only logical that Una be punished for breaking the law. Spock instead turns it back on her, pointing out that it would be wholly illogical for Starfleet to deprive itself of an officer as talented as Una over an antiquated rule.
• Una is ultimately cleared of all charges and restored to duty because Neera successfully argues on Starfleet regulations that she "technically" applied for asylum by joining the organization, and qualified on all three points, even turning the prosecution's attempts to bury Pike for conspiracy as him using his discretion to protect her.
  • Those points are: fleeing persecution (Augments like Illyrians are persecuted in the Federation because their existence is illegal), fearing for their lives (Una admits she nearly died from an infection in a broken leg, many others couldn't get medical treatment for fear of revealing their Augmentations), making a request (Una turned herself in so she could be exonerated and serve openly as an Illyrian Augment), having that request granted by a Captain's discretion (Pike chose to keep Una on his crew and vowed to defend her should her secret come out), and be ratified by a Starfleet tribunal (like the one assembled to court-martial her). Neera pretty effortlessly maneuvers the prosecution into an inescapable box, and reminds the tribunal that there are more laws in play than just the ones Una broke, and that laws are guiding principles, not inflexible straightjackets.
  • What makes it even better is that Pasalk forcing Una to reveal that Pike knew and concealed that she was Illyrian is presented as an Oh, Crap! moment: now Pike is on the chopping block next to Una! But Neera effortlessly repackages that as "a Captain's discretion," effectively lawyer-judoing the jerk's own argument into further proof that Una has every right to be in Starfleet.

Episode 3: Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow

• Kirk makes them some Earth money by beating half of Toronto at chess— and then dismisses it as "idiot's chess" compared to the 3D chess sets used in the future, showing just how high-level he is.
• Sera becomes only the second villain after Kruge to call Kirk's bluff.
• La'an beats Sera in hand-to-hand combat. Vulcans, and thus Romulans, are about three times as strong as humans, and episode does a good job of showing Sera effortlessly manhandling La'an through the facility. But with guile and tenacity, La'an holds her off long enough to grab the gun and shoot the Romulan agent.

Episode 4: Among The Lotus Eaters

• Pike manages to storm the palace and defeat Zac with no memories of who he is, his only goal being to save a woman he can't remember ever knowing. That is who Pike is, memories or no.
• "I'm Erica Ortegas. I fly the ship." And boy does she ever. Even with near total amnesia, she practically dances the Enterprise through the Asteroid Thicket and into safety. For the exclamation point, there's a huge asteroid she can't evade, telling Spock they have to "thread the needle." Just one problem — there is no eye to thread. So Ortegas makes one, firing phasers with wide divergence and rolling Enterprise to carve a tunnel through the asteroid for the ship to fly through.
• The Enterprise successfully pulls an asteroid from the surface of the planet with the help of two shuttlecraft, before having Ortegas chuck it into space.

Episode 5: Charades

• Despite being overwhelmed by his human emotions the entire time, Spock manages to finally get through dinner with T'Pring's mother... until she 'compliments' him by saying no human could get through these rituals, not-so-subtly insulting both his heritage and his mother (who is sitting right there in front of her). Fed up, Spock rips off his prosthetic ears and rubs it in her face that a human did just successfully go through the ritual.
  • Spock laying out that a human made it through the ritual also leads to him truly becoming aware of Amanda's own awesomeness - she is a human on Vulcan, doomed to failure by Vulcan standards before she even makes an attempt. Her chosen memory is of the day that Spock was accepted by other Vulcans, even as she continued to be dismissed by the Vulcan mothers, and makes explicit the difficulties that Amanda has faced to have her family on Vulcan, difficulties that she has stoically endured without having ever let on to her family.

Episode 6: Lost in Translation

• James Kirk and Spock meet for the first time, and then sit down with Uhura. You can feel the legend gathering.

Episode 7: Those Old Scientists

• The brilliant way Boilmer and Mariner manage to jump from animation into live-action as Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid nail every aspect of the characters to make the crossover work.
• When the experiment to synthesize more Horonium fails, Spock's reaction is to calmly stand up and walk behind a nearby bulkhead for cover just before the lab is showered in shrapnel.

Episode 9: Subspace Rhapsody

• Even before the main plot kicks off, the Enterprise's computer is too taxed with experiments to route communications automatically, which means Uhura is manually directing the entire ship's communications and doing so successfully, keeping pace with seemingly dozens of requests per minute while her hands are dancing over the console impressively like a pianist at a keyboard.
  • Not only that, the use of montage for Uhura's duties is typically done to show how exhausting the work is, which this certainly does, but instead of being overwhelmed, Uhura just stops for a moment, takes a breath to get herself back under control, and dives right back into it like the pro she is without hesitation. Uhura HAS GOT THIS.
• Star Trek finally tackles its first musical episode, and the cast kills it at their musical numbers. From ensemble pieces, to power ballads, and even Klingon K-Pop, everyone sings their heart out and makes it all the more memorable. As an added bonus, there's even an acapella cover to the title!
  • All the numbers are great, covering a huge gammut of stylings. Spock's is one of the more notable, after Christine told him about leaving the ship and their relationship. It's almost a Dark Reprise of Christine's number, with a pounding bassline, musically indicating what's often been stated: the alien power of Vulcan emotions, wrapped tightly in their mental discipline. While Spock's singing about the sorrow he feels and he and Christine being over, the music illustrates the rage beneath it. . . a familiar emotional milieu to anyone who's been dumped.
  • La'an and Uhura's solo numbers (quite literally, in Uhura's case) are moving pieces of character development, La'an wanting break out of her shell and start connecting more with people, Uhura learning she has everything she needs to become a legendary Starfleet officer and starting to stand on her own.

Episode 10: Hegemony

• Ortegas has the idea to get the heroes in past the Gorn orbiting the planet by flying in a shuttle disguised as a piece of wreckage from the Cayuga. To further avoid sensors, she pilots without engines into the atmosphere and only pulls up at the very last second. The rest of the shuttle crew are visibly strained and worried about this, including Pike, a former test pilot; Ortegas is grinning all the way down.
  Pike: You were born for this, Erica.
• While on the surface trying to save the crew of the Cayuga from the Gorn, Pike and the crew stumble on a "Gorn trap" rigged by a random crew member that produces false human life signs and triggers a proximity force-field once approached. Who could have possibly rigged up such a device in such a short time? Laddies and lassies, may we present Mr. Montgomery Scott.
  • What's more, Scotty wasn't even part of the Cayuga's complement. He was on the Stardiver, a nearby solar research vessel that the Gorn also attacked. He managed to jury rig a shuttle for more power, and even built a Gorn transponder out of cobbled-together parts to fool their sensors. Oh yeah, this is Scotty alright.
• One for the production staff - most of the shots of the Gorn younglings and hatchlings are practical effects (puppets for both) backed up with some CGI for fast motion shots. The adult Gorn, however, is once again a man in a suit. A 100lb suit that requires a stuntman of around 7'5" to wear. The zero-G battle between Spock, Chapel and the adult Gorn? Thats all practical effects and wire work, with the only CGI being the phaser blasts, and the Gorn's helmet being shattered open and leaking air. That's how committed the staff are to doing the Gorn justice.

Expanded Universe

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country

• Among the many alien abductees on the planet are a group of Vulcans who get their hands on an eighteenth-century British warship that belonged to more abductees. When they find Pike and a group of allies cornered by antagonistic powers, they sail up for a bold Gunship Rescue.
• Pike lectures the planet's wardens about restricting the development of any technology for recreational purposes, then demonstrates what he's talking about with a mechanical device that scatters the wardens.
  Pike: [Andorians] race ice-cutters [on Andoria]— but the Aenar were never allowed to. My friend Hemmer always wanted to build the biggest ice-cutter ever. He finally did.
• While her motives aren't exactly pure, Warden Lila Talley impresses everyone by riding over an enormous mountain range in eight hours to make it to the climax.

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