Reviews Series / Star Trek Strange New Worlds

Because editing the review erases the title and it never ever returns for some reason, I'll include it here:

"Strange New Worlds" is a mixture of classic and new Star Trek — and it's the Best of Both Worlds

Yes, I wrote the title purely for that reference.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is doing something that not a lot of shows — especially streaming shows — are doing these days: it is completely episodic, with each episode about a different Problem of the Week. This is pure, classic Star Trek — this is how TOS and TNG operated and even a lot of DS9 pre-Dominion War.

However, what is *not* episodic is the character development we get about each character. Back in TOS, since the writers didn't know when their episodes would air (or whether or not people could re-view them), the character development is scattershot and inconsistent. TNG improved this somewhat, but it still took a few seasons before really diving into what made each character tic and often at the expense of other characters.

SNW works on the characters and their development right out of the gate and it all *works*. We get to see Pike and his style of leadership and his fears about what the future holds for him (made literal in his vision of his inevitable fate). We get to see Spock and his divided loyalties between his Vulcan and Starfleet (made more apparent here than it ever was in TOS). We get to see Number One and La'an Noonien Singh and Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga and Ortega and Uhura and *we get to know all of them well*. (Well, okay, Ortega still hasn't had an episode dedicated to her, but we know it's coming.)

This kind of writing means that character comes first, plot second. So I don't really mind the thin plots — ooh, look, the Gorn, oooh, look, some, uh, electrical ghosts? — because it's not really about the Problem of the Week, it's about how the characters *solve* the Problem of the Week and how they deal with their own issues during it. It's also about showing us a future that isn't perfect, but is still one we can strive towards. Big Joel commented that Star Trek was about "radical hope" and that, I think, is what SNW represents: it's eschewing the long form Discovery-like plots (even if I like Discovery, it does get a bit tedious after a while) in order to focus more on what made Star Trek so great: the characters and how they interact, how they evolve, how they fit in this future. And unlike in the past shows, SNW can make these character arcs as long as they want and not have a budget of two tin cans and also give us great moments of empathy and hilarity and action and horror and hope.

A+, 10 out of 10, two thumbs up.