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.
• 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.
• 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.
  • 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.

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!

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