It’s doable to have an excessive amount of of a very good factor.
Within the case of “Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds” Season 3, reviewing the frothy, effortlessly watchable first 5 episodes brings this reviewer to that inescapable conclusion. That is the show that brought the fun back to “Star Trek,” that introduced again the astronomical alchemy of Gene Roddenberry’s “Original Series” and Rick Berman’s ’90s “Trek” series in a method most viewers thought they’d by no means see once more. You possibly can maintain up a mirror to our society and have a lighthearted, pop-art-colored romp; you could possibly encourage deep emotion alongside real thrills.
Of that equation, although, the deep emotion is lacking from Season 3 of “Unusual New Worlds,” as is the mirror — even regardless of a personality actually saying in a single episode that sci-fi could make us look extra carefully at our personal world.
All that’s left is the enjoyable. Hey, who’re we to complain when it’s a present this enjoyable? However “Star Trek” all the time has had the capability to be extra, and so has this present: This very sequence has given us extremely advanced episodes discussing our personal social second (going as far as to say that twenty third century historians labeled the U.S. in the 2020s as in a “Second Civil War”), a riveting courtroom drama about private freedom, and, in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” one of the vital soulful of all “Trek” episodes, one that really turns Kirk right into a romantic hero for the ages.
As an alternative, within the first half of Season 3, “Unusual New Worlds” opts to maintain it surface-level.
The season picks up immediately after the final frames of the Season 2 cliffhanger, with quite a lot of the Enterprise crew captured by the Gorn and the ship itself being swarmed by Gorn assault craft. The plot unfolds in an undeniably intelligent method — Season 3 continues to be sensible, however isn’t fairly thought-provoking — with a decision to this story that feels very “Trek” and a number of LED-wall CGI mush that feels sludgy and like every other TV manufacturing as of late. A lot of storylines are arrange from these occasions associated to ongoing bodily and psychological trauma on account of the Gorn, for which your interest-level might fluctuate.
The forged is uniformly stellar, as all the time. Anson Mount brings a texture and integrity to his Capt. Pike that places him among the many greatest “Star Trek” sequence leads ever. Earlier “Trek” sequence did a lot to ascertain that their leaders have lives past the captain’s chair, have ideas past their captain’s log — Picard’s love of classical music and Dixon Hill detective tales, Sisko’s function as a father and his curiosity in his heritage and in archaeology, Archer’s burning want to look at “Rosemary’s Child” after actually saving Earth, Janeway’s melancholy and inward flip throughout the “Evening” episode of “Voyager” — and of all of the “Trek” sequence for the reason that franchise relaunched as a streaming property in 2017, Mount’s Pike is the one one that basically matches of their ranks. He brings a lot extra to the function than simply the supply of dialogue, discovering gestures and expressive nuances that convey far past what may ever be on the web page alone. His romantic relationship with Capt. Batel (Melanie Scrofano) is a very nice technique to additional discover dimensions of each characters.
Babs Olusanmokun continues to carry dimension and depth, even coiled menace, as Dr. M’Benga, whose exceptional Season 2 episode that resulted in him fairly clearly flat-out murdering a Klingon conflict felony is revisited rapidly in Season 3. Jess Bush’s Nurse Chapel isn’t lower than riveting, in some way humorous and earnest in probably the most excellent “Trek” method. Christina Chong’s La’an is without doubt one of the nice humor-by-way-of-repression characters the franchise has ever given us.
And underneath Ethan Peck’s extraordinary steering of the character, Spock has develop into all however a Jane Austen hero, somebody whose inflexible management of their feelings and adherence to the strictest code of conduct corrals a barely-contained sensuality. He’s the “Pride and Prejudice” hand-flex as a full-fledged character. (One can’t even think about Leonard Nimoy doing a greater job delivering the road “I don’t require a Bacchanale.”) A lot of this present is now about his romantic pursuits, or these pursuing him, and it really works.
Spending time with these characters looks like spending time with pals. What’s missing are actually significant storylines to place them into, culminating in a really dispiriting episode that options zombies. “Star Trek” doesn’t, now or ever, want zombies. An “escape room” archaeological dig episode isn’t vastly higher both.
The one absolute triumph of an episode is the one which goes all-out in simply being a lark: “Trek” ought to in all probability have its “lark” episodes after which extra severe episodes, giving us a wide range of tones whereas preserving them distinct. This explicit “lark” episode, directed masterfully as always by Jonathan Frakes, entails the Enterprise testing out a holodeck (not a spoiler, its distinctive grid sample was seen within the official teaser) through an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit that La’an has to unravel.
But it surely’s not only a Christie-style thriller, it’s one set in Sixties Hollywood and a few homicide on the set of an area journey present that’s principally only a redressed “Unique Sequence,” with “As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood” fashion abounding. It’s an absolute blast, and it reminds that by way of these first 5 episodes we don’t get practically sufficient of Rebecca Romijn as first officer Quantity One or Celia Rose Gooding’s Uhura. This present has all the time been good at spreading the wealth, so it’s probably they’ll get their moments earlier than Season 3 wraps. And wait until you see who Mount is enjoying in that holodeck episode.
That installment is nice, however even nonetheless, hanging over all 5 of those episodes is a whiff of “what is that this present about now?” The relative lack of substance throughout the board can’t assist feeling like a cop out for a present that’s been able to much more. God forbid the avoidance of something topical is one other expression of Paramount seeking to keep away from any potential confrontations forward of its proposed merger with Skydance. It is probably not that, however it’s beginning to seem like the decision to wrap the series after a six-episode fifth season shoots later this yr is an effective one.
After the 5 episodes we’ve screened of Season 3, there are probably solely 21 episodes left. Let’s hope, with an actual plan, showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers can actually make them depend.
Grade: B-
“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” Season 3 premiered on the 2025 Tribeca Competition. It will stream on Paramount+ starting July 17, releasing a brand new episode every week.
