Tonight is the return of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for its third of five seasons. It is a shame that when this series completes its run, the episode total will be only 50 fewer than the ‘failed’ original series with its three seasons. It is a shame because this is the first Star Trek series in a very long time that, to me, has the voice and feel of the original series.

Credit: Paramount Pictures

Yes, this series, produced nearly six decades after the original, has a very different tone and sensibility from its progenitor. It ‘violates’ established lore and canon numerous times, such as repeated contact with the Gorn prior to Kirk’s encounter following the destruction of Cestus III, or the sexual activity of Vulcan’s outside of pon farr, the time of madness; but as I have written about in other posts these divergences have led to more complex characters and more interesting plots, so I am not irritated by them.

Sunday evening my sweetie-wife and I rewatched the season two finale, which, of course, following the modern trend established by Dallas decades ago, ended with something I truly despise: a cliffhanger. That said, I and thrilled and excited to be returning to Pike’s Enterprise. To re-engage with what has surprised me, my favorite character, Christine Chapel, and the rest of the stellar crew as they sail the stars seeking out strange new worlds.

The other day I was engaged in a discussion, not an argument mind you, on Twitter concerning Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and its violation of Star Trek’s established canon.

I myself am not bothered by violation of ‘canon’ if the result are more interesting character, deep stories, and compelling plotlines.

Paramount Studios/CBS Home Video

It is interesting to remember that Star Trek was not designed to have a rigid history with a lore and a canon well-defined. The original series is a product of 1960’s television and, in that day and age, television worked quite differently than it does today at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. A program was deemed successful if it ran for at least 5 seasons of 20 plus episodes. That produced enough episodes that the series could be ‘stripped,’ run on weekday afternoons in random order. Season five episodes might precede season one episodes so there were no continuing storylines, one episode rarely affected the events in another.

Star Trek, and here I am referring to the original run, the original cast feature films, presented a contradictory and inconsistent ‘canon’ for its future history. Here are some examples.

In The Conscience of the King when McCoy asks Spock to share a drink with him, Spock comments his father’s race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol to which McCoy replied, “Now I know why you were conquered.”  Who conquered Vulcan? No one, this bit of history was discarded.

Pon Farr the mysterious and secretive collection of rituals and biological drives surrounding Vulcan reproduction. Which is it: the thing that ‘no outworlder may know, save for those few who have been involved’ or something Saavik can just casually explain to David Marcus? Additionally with this aspect of Vulcan biology is it something that Spock hoped he would be spared as he said in Amok Time or is it a predictable cycle of every seven years as mentioned in The Cloud Minders and again in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock?

In Space Seed it is established that in the late 20th century a cadre of scientists employing eugenics bred a number of humans with superior abilities creating dictators that sparked the Eugenics War. Eugenics is directed and controlled breeding in human to produce desired traits. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Chekov explains to his captain that Khan was the product of later 20th century ‘genetic engineering.’ Eugenics, which is breeding for traits, and genetic engineering, which is gene alteration for traits is not the same thing, however advances in science and the public’s understanding of science made the genetic engineering a much more likely scenario, so ‘canon’ changed to fit public perception.

Here’s a biggie. Is it Federation policy to leave planets and cultures to adhere to their own destinies without coercion or as in A Taste of Armageddon or do they have standing general orders for the genocide that any ship’s captain can employ?

My point with these examples is not to ridicule or mock the original series, which I adore, but to demonstrate that a rigid lore or canon has never been an essential element of Star Trek. Strange New Worlds does break accepted ‘canon’, but it does that to give us wonderfully complex and interesting characters and stories so in my book it’s a plus not a minus.

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Apple TV +

In May I posted that I had begun watching the Apple+ series Severance. It’s about a group of workers for the vast and powerful Lumon corporation who toil under a condition called ‘severance’ where their work-selves, called ‘innies’, exist with no knowledge or memory of their lives outside of work, called ‘outies’, and their ‘outies’ have no memory or knowledge of anything that their ‘innies’ experience.

At the time I wrote that post, I had watched two episodes, and now I have watched the entirety of seasons one and two. I had commented that the series, while stimulating my intellectual curiosity, hadn’t really grabbed me emotionally. While my emotional investment has grown, it has never reached the levels that it has with other genre programs. I remember dreading the ending of Andor because some of my favorite characters are never mentioned in the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and therefore would likely end up dead by the end of Andor. Severance is fascinating and the characters have grown on me, but I think this division of their nature, central and essential to the show, is also creating a barrier to full engagement.

That said, I do not regret watching and have thoroughly enjoyed the ride that is Severance. The show’s creative team is also doing a bang-up job handling what is in essence a mystery show. The first season ended with a massive revelation for the viewers and the characters that created a cliffhanger, which I despise. I watched season two dreading what sort of cliffhanger they would craft for this ending.

And they did not.

Oh, they certainly did not wrap up all the various storylines and threads. There are a ton of things to propel the show into a third season, but there was also resolution to the reveal from the first season, some clear explanation of some of the strange and mysterious work that the corporation commissioned from the severed, along with expansion of the world and the characters. Instead of another stupid cliffhanger, they properly teased the next phase of the story without making it feel as if they were never going to resolve the issues already raised.

Well done.

I have finally finished watching the Star Wars inspired television series Andor, which follows both the character of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) introduced to audiences with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the growth of the Rebel Alliance as they struggle against the Galactic Empire.

Disney Studios

Andor is quite simply my favorite Star Wars inspired media that I have encountered, unique in that it avoids tales of mysticism and chosen bloodlines for a more complex view of people in crisis. While it repeats the phrase ‘Rebellions are built on hope’, it also depicts that rebellions, vast criminal conspiracies, are often riven with conflict, competing power centers, and a willingness to do terrible things for their ultimate objective.

I refer to it as ‘Star Wars inspired’ and not directly as Star Wars because I do think the difference is immense. Star Wars is the collection of stories centered on the Skywalker clan and their associates. Those tales focus on noble bloodlines, characters born ‘better’ than the masses, and have much more in common with fairy tales than the lives of ordinary people living through difficult times facing terrible decisions. In Star Wars the fascism of the Empire is an abstract thing, shown here and there with its casual cruelty to principal characters of the story but otherwise something that we need not actually see. In Andor, the fascism is the day-to-day experience of the people, and we live it not only in the arbitrary ‘justice’ system that dispatches people to labor prisons for minor offenses but also in the bureaucratic nightmare of its security services as talented dedicated officers are hamstrung and eventually crushed for their initiative.

I applaud Andor for its multifaceted depiction of the Alliance, from politicians deluding themselves that politics and policy can still save them, through idealists writing their manifestos while running from the law to fanatics blinded to the suffering and the evil that they do by their need to win.

Andor which began with Cassian leaving a brothel where he had hoped to find his sister and killing a pair of police officers that tried to shake him down is not ‘realistic’, but it echoes our world and its corruption.

Despite the second season having already completed its airing, (airing strikes me as grossly incorrect in the age of streaming) I only began watching the series Severance this past weekend.

Apple TV +

The series is a science-fiction program centered on the ‘severed’ workers at the mysterious Lumon corporation. ‘Severed’ is a mechanical/surgical procedure that causes memory formation and retrieval in those altered to be spatially controlled. In the case of these workers while on the ‘severed’ floor they have no memory of their lives outside of the work area and when off that designated floor they have no ability to recall anything that occurred during their working hours. Each worker lives two lives, one where work is their entire existence and one ‘normal’ outside of their shift on the ‘severed’ floor.

The show’s protagonist is Mark (Adam Scott) a man who in his regular life is dealing with crushing grief and at work who has recently been promoted to a supervisory position which now includes a new hire, Helly (Britt Lower). Things become complicated when a ‘severed’ worker, Petey, approaches Mike in his outer life with information that Lumon is hiding the truth of their work and that being ‘severed’ is actually reversable.

Severance is executive produced by Ben Stiller and his company Red Hour Productions, (Stiller is a noted Star Trek fan as his production company indicates.) and Stiller directed the first two episodes.

I have heard since the series’ release of season one that this was an interesting and challenging show with surprising twists and reveals but it has been only in the last few days, I made time to start watching. Right now, I can’t say if I am completely sold on the series.

I have watched two episodes, and the world building is interesting, the concepts are fascinating, the acting is quite good, but the show hasn’t managed to set a hook that forces me to come back for the next episode. Comparing my reaction to Severance with another show I recently started watching, The Pitt, produces a striking contrast.

The Pitt is a medical drama with no genre conventions, normally the sort of series that would provoke little interest from me and it was only doctors praising the accuracy that caused me to watch the first episode, and I was utterly hooked. From the very first show I had favorite characters and those who I disliked, and I had to watch more. I burned through the entire series in about two weeks, skipping only one night when I was still so mad because my favorite character had been physically attacked.

Severance has produced no reaction like that. It is interesting, the world building with the people who live outside of the company have valid and interesting reaction to such technology, and there are mysteries to be uncovered, puzzles to be solved, but so far nothing that is emotionally compelling. The series is prompting curiosity but not much more. That is not to say I will stop watching; I will give it a few more episodes but unless something changes it could fall into a well of disinterest where I simply watch other things and fail to return not from dislike but simply not caring.

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I recently watched a YouTube Reactor react to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The amusing elements in this reaction was that the young woman had zero context for the film, being utterly unaware of the characters and their history. One of her reactions when Spock comes aboard after the wormhole event is ‘Oh, they know Spock?’ with a tone of surprise.

In her wrap up, she of course mused about watching the series and that got me thinking about the most pertinent episodes for understanding the core characters of Star Trek. Not the best episodes mind you, just the ones that give you deep insight to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and the relationship to each other.

Season One:

The Naked Time

The Menagerie Pt I & II

The Galileo Seven

Arena

Space Seed

This Side of Paradise

The City on the Edge of Forever

Season Two:

Amok Time

Journey to Babel

The Ultimate Computer

Season Three:

The Enterprise Incident

The Tholian Web

The Paradise Syndrome

The list ended up heavy on season one episodes, but I think if someone new to the series who wasn’t going to watch all of it would get a pretty good understanding of the characters and what they mean to each other for the films that followed.