When someone says Star Trek because I am an older fart my mind immediately flies to The Original Series with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and its ropey effects. When Next Generation arrived, I watched and enjoyed the series through about season five and after that I just sort of dropped off. Deep Space 9 I watched the first two seasons, Voyage I managed 3 episodes before switching it off in disgust and Enterprise lost me at the pilot, and with Discovery I managed 8 episodes before ‘space sonar’ drove me away. I had really liked Discovery but the hard drift away from the series history made it difficult to integrate with my existing fandom and eventually the rupture was too much ignore. Still, I had hope for Strange New Worlds despite having dropped out of Discovery before these actors had stepped into the series playing these iconic cannon characters.

Strange New Worlds has justified that hope.

Anson Mount brings his own spin, quite different while still honoring Jeffrey Hunter’s, to the character of Christopher Pike. The same can be said for Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock. There are echoes and resonances of the original portrayals enough to

Credit: Paramount Pictures

respect the prior actors but fresh enough for current styles and trends. The actor most divergent from the original portrayal is Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel but it is an unfair comparison as Majel Barret-Roddenberry was given very little to do with the character beyond pining for Spock. The cast is large, and I am not going to cover them all, not even the pair of legacy characters with Uhura and M’Benga other than to say the entire cast is a delight and I do not think a single wrong has been miscast.

The ten episodes run of season one has finished airing. (A strange phrase as the series is only available via networked streaming.) The approach the show’s creators have used is not the sprawling tightly interconnected chapters of a ten-hour movie that has become so common with television of late, but rather a more episodic nature with each episode a self-contained story with continuing plot threads woven throughout the season. This comes close to the original series format allowing the show’s writers to have episodes that explore different styles that would likely clash in a more tightly plotted season, such as having comedic episodes, space battle episodes, and stories turning about a single moral question. Not all of these episodes land on target, I found the humor of Spock Amokforced but the beauty of a truly episodic series is that the next episode can turn things around.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed Strange New Worlds, both the legacy characters and the new ones have a sharp chemistry that make watching a pleasurable and engaging experience. I look forward to season 2.