Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Season 1 was an A Season 2 a B Season 3 a C

The show has lost its way unfortunately. Too many unnecessary characters, too much love interest for Spock (one each season?), Pike gets let's focus each season, the first officer is practically non existent, too many "silly" episodes, and amazingly the show is called "Strange New Worlds" but each season they visit fewer and fewer worlds and encounter fewer and fewer new species.

Strange New Worlds began like a love letter to classic Trek, episodic structure, a charismatic Pike, and just enough retro charm to make us believe the franchise had found its soul again. For a few glorious episodes, it felt like Starfleet was back on course.

But then came the drift. The tonal chaos. The genre-hopping. The canon crimes. And suddenly, we weren't watching Star Trek anymore, we were watching Kurtzman Trek, where emotional depth is replaced by trauma flashbacks, and legacy characters are rewritten like fanfic with a studio budget.

Episodes like Four-and-a-Half Vulcans and Wedding Bell Blues don't just miss the mark, they vaporise it. Spock becomes a rom-com lead, La'an dreams of ballet, and Chapel's arc feels like it was lifted from a CW drama. The Enterprise crew spends more time navigating their feelings than the galaxy, and the Prime Directive is treated like a vague suggestion.

This isn't exploration. It's exposition. It's Star Trek: Feelings Edition, where every character has a tragic backstory and every plot twist is designed to trend on social media for 24 hours before being forgotten

The production values are stellar. The cast is game. But the writing? It's a transporter accident of tone, pacing, and philosophy. Trek used to challenge us. Now it coddles us. It used to ask "What does it mean to be human?" Now it asks "Did Spock text back?"

Strange New Worlds started with promise, but somewhere along the way, it warped into Kurtzman Trek, a franchise boldly going... away from everything that made Star Trek matter.

This is not a terrible Star Trek (like "Discovery"). It's okay. I find it difficult to get invested in the characters with only 46 episodes spread over five years.

The stories are okay. There have been a couple of real duds, though (the "singing" episode in year two and the "holodeck" episode in year 3). "Lower Decks" was a far superior show than "Discovery" and also better than this show. I thought "Picard" was excellent and I would like to see that be sequeled by the young(er) crew led by 7 of 9. But more than 50-odd shows... I miss the old Star Treks (especially DS9).

Strange New Worlds is a fabulous Trekverse series in contrast to some recent offerings. Vintage stylistic choices from uniforms, through technology to sounds, together with opening credits and episodic stories make this a joy to watch for lovers of original Trek.

The stories are focussed, setting the tone, challenges and developing relationships between the crew members very well. The inclusion of younger versions of familiar characters, is a welcome and relatable anchoring to the series.

SNW comes with the familiar plot holes and humour blended nicely together with subtle references to earth's history and Kirk-like problem solving.

Mix all the above together with an excellent cast, this is a winner - I, for one, am very much looking forward to seeing more.

I have to admit that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was so much better than I expected. This is the prequel to the original Star Trek and even has some familiar characters like Spock and Uhura. It's led by Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and has basically the same plot as the original in where they explore the galaxy. This is actually one of the most well received Star Trek shows ever by both the critics and fans, it currently has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a new fresh feel while also honoring the original. This is a show that both new fans and longtime fans can both enjoy. This hooked me from the very first episode and didn't let go. I binged the entire first season over a weekend and I'm already looking forward for next season.