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This is the season finale and it’s a mess. The writers try to tie a bunch of threads together from a season that didn’t have a lot of threads. The first 10 minutes are confusing and chaotic and then they introduce a new planet-killing villain: Evil. I’m not kidding. Evil.
See where Strange New Worlds ranks on NerdNet’s best 100 shows to watch now.
Anyhow, they defeat Evil at great personal cost and a certain secondary character dies (maybe?). No one cries and there’s no ceremony acknowledging the loss, but that’s not really the point of the episode, which is to set up the fourth and final season. The show does this really well through an alternative history and a bunch of vignettes.
The Alternative History is Poignant
Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) lives out his life as if the pre-destined accident we all know will happen never happens. He marries Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano). They get a puppy. The puppy grows up. They have a daughter. The daughter gets married. They grow old together. Vignettes from a life well lived. A life that could have been.
There’s a Bunch of Random Stuff Tossed In
For example, La’An knows the Vulcan nerve pinch now, presumably because of her relationship with Spock. Scotty is an adorable dork. The “main” plot seems to involve some technobabble about stolen pattern buffers, a planet-wide cult that you have to dress up to hide among them or you could just not do that and wear your Starfleet uniform, and whatnot.
There’s plenty of fan service for Old Trekkies anticipating the final season. Captain Kirk is an integral element in defeating Evil in a pretty fun little space battle. He and Spock play a game of 3D chess in the denouement. Jim insists that Spock call him “Jim” as a friend and hopes that maybe they’ll serve on the same ship one day. Some of the other very nice soft vignettes are emotional for a season finale episode, but don’t advance the plot.
They do acquire a bunch of data about a large number of unknown planets, “Enough for a five-year mission,” as La’An says in this episode. There are some huge foreshadowing hints for Pike’s true end, which won’t happen until ST:TOS s1e12 The Menagerie Part II (1966).
Wild Speculation
Wild speculation, knowing ST:SNW s4e10 (2026) will link up directly with ST:TOS s1e11 (1966) in the same way that Rogue One links up directly with the first Star Wars movie, but here’s how I see this working out. We’ll see more Gorn for no reason and there will be a muppets episode (yay!). The show should do some sort of reference to The Cage (1966 – unbroadcast pilot), where the Enterprise goes to Talos IV in stardate 2254, but the writers have boxed themselves into a corner since ST:SNW is set in 2259, so it would need to be a flashback. OR (I prefer this), just ignore stardates: They are all nonsense and Star Trek has never been big on continuity anyhow. Don’t think about it too much. A redo of the Talos IV episode would be great and could be set up to deal with Pike’s pain.
Late in the fourth season, we will see Pike lose his fire for command (due to events that happen in the season 3 finale) and he’ll accept a training position back at Starfleet. Kirk will be given command of the Enterprise. There’s only a seven-year jump to 2267 when The Menagerie happens, so we don’t technically need to see the accident that grievously injures Pike that year, but it might be a nice subplot in the last episode and has been a story arc through the entire show. We’ll need to say goodbye to Erica, La’An, Pelia, Mitchell, Una Chin-Riley (Number One – Rebecca Romijn), and so on, who will accept other roles off of the Enterprise. Erica will be replaced by Sulu, but M’Benga could stay on with McCoy being assigned as Chief Medical Officer. A nice closing shot would be the new “cast” of the Enterprise standing together on the bridge, accepting their five-year mission, with Kirk saying, “Set a course for M-113. Warp factor one, Mr. Sulu.”
NerdScore
7.0/10
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (s3e10) New Life and New Civilizations Review
A season-finale cocktail of alt-history vignettes, setup for season four, and a few poignant Pike/Batel beats—ambitious in scope, uneven in execution, but engaging enough to land at a solid 7.0.
Season 3, Episode 10 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, capping the season with character-driven what-ifs and table-setting for the series’ endgame.
IMDb
7.3/10
Metacritic
NA/100
Rotten Tomatoes
NA
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Christina Chong, Anson Mount, Ethan Peck (Actors)
- Chris Fisher (Director) - Davy Perez (Writer) - Alex Kurtzman (Producer)