‘Strange New Worlds’ Feels Old as Well, and Trekkies Are Rejoicing

What hath Gene Roddenberry wrought? “Strange New Worlds,” the latest series in the ever-expanding “Star Trek” universe, begins promisingly with what longtime fans of the franchise recognize as a “first contact” scene that, surprisingly, is presented from the point of view of the aliens rather than Starfleet. That’s followed by a few seconds of an instantly recognizable scene from the classic 1951 sci-fi epic “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” This then cuts to a shot of a naked woman, shown only from the back, waking up. Something new-ish, something old, and something sexy — that’s a classic Trek trifecta if ever there was one. Like many other aging space cadets, I’ve been watching one TV show almost uninterruptedly for 50 years — not in reruns, like the classic episodes of “The Honeymooners,” but a show that has continued to soar off into the unknown like one of those multi-generational NASA projects. In its various permutations, “Star Trek,” which creator Roddenberry got off the ground in 1966, has gradually evolved into the biggest franchise in popular culture, spanning 12 different, mostly long-running spinoff series, 13 feature films, innumerable paperbacks and comic books, plus enough conventions and cosplay to last from here to the Gamma Quadrant. Over the decades, there has been such a consistent stream of new Trek to watch, I’ve almost never viewed any of it more than once, except for some of the original series and the movies.Admittedly, there was a dry spell, on TV at least, between 2005 — when the final traditional Trek broadcast series, “Enterprise,” completed its mission, somewhat prematurely — and 2017, when the first streaming show, “Discovery,” launched. In these years, we had two of the “reboot” movies, with Chris Pine as a younger Captain Kirk, while the Trek space otherwise was mostly filled in by lovingly crafted fan-driven projects like the excellent “Star Trek Continues” and “Star Trek: New Voyages.” In the last five years, Trek has been reborn all over again, so to speak. Currently, there are three active series on Paramount+: “Discovery,” “Picard,” and “Strange New Worlds.” That’s a record, even though these have shorter seasons than older broadcast shows.“Discovery” is the most hotly debated among veteran Treksters; on one hand, it contrived to ignore 50 years of Trek backstory and become a completely new show — albeit one with Vulcans and Klingons. In what seemed like a move to avoid canon conflict, it was set in an era before the original series. Thus, even to viewers who could accept phasers and transporters, the first two seasons seemed completely unbelievable: The entire enterprise looked and felt like it belonged to a much later era. Seasons three and four, which have modulated to a much further future, are a vast improvement.“Picard” is an extension of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” starring everyone’s favorite 81-year-old action hero, Patrick Stewart, and with plenty of characters from “TNG” making pop-up cameos. Now in its second season, it feels as much like a cosmic mystery/detective story as it does science fiction, but of all the current Trek shows it’s the one that has made the best use of the serialized storytelling format of the streaming era, i.e., each show is a chapter in a longer novel rather than an “episode” unto itself.The latest, “Strange New Worlds,” which had its premiere May 5, is, conversely, the most fun for longtime Trekkers. This is mainly because it’s built on the bones of the original pilot, “The Cage,” which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christoper Pike. Although rejected by the network, this embryonic episode filmed in 1965 has had a disproportionate influence on pop culture — everybody knows the Talosians, those big-headed, thinky aliens. When Jeff Bezos was caricatured on “South Park,” he was depicted as a Talosian who communicated via telekinesis rather than speech.The original “Star Trek” premise was a might too futuristic for its day, especially in that the ship’s two most powerful figures after the captain were a woman in pants and a pointy-eared alien. Yet this is the crew that Trek cultists most want to see, including Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck), Lieutenant Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush).Fans have been quick to point out that “Strange New Worlds” feels more like traditional “Star Trek” than any other 21st century incarnation of the franchise, from the design of the USS Enterprise to the bright, day-glo costumes so endemic of early color TV. We still get a tingle as we hear the captain’s recitation of the iconic opening encomium, which begins, “Space … the final frontier.” It somehow seems fitting that the latest “Star Trek” is a direct echo of the earliest.

‘Strange New Worlds’ Feels Old as Well, and Trekkies Are Rejoicing

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