Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[pengbuzz]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Even then, if you think about it, Armus's evil is still subjective.  The species that created him had to decide what traits of theirs were negative and inclining them to destructive behavior and physically removed those aspects of themselves somehow.  It's narratively convenient that their definition of "evil" matched Humanity's.

 

It'd be nice if they didn't have him get over it too quickly.

Then again, I guess that kind of depends how much of a time skip there is between season 3 and season 4.  If it follows on right away then he should definitely still be broken up about it.  If there's a couple months in the middle, it'd be weird if he were still totally devastated.

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'course, it was always a foregone conclusion the Batel thing wouldn't work out.

It'd be weird for him to run off to Talos IV to be with Vina after his accident if he had a girlfriend or wife waiting for him back on Earth.

 

 

Spoiler

Well, at least she doesn't have to watch him turn into Kentucky Fried Captain...

 

[Tking22]

I caught up on the newest season last night, there were some entertaining episodes, and some solid ones overall, but it was another really uneven season IMO. Is Paramount contracted for another or is this potentially it for SNW?

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

I caught up on the newest season last night, there were some entertaining episodes, and some solid ones overall, but it was another really uneven season IMO. Is Paramount contracted for another or is this potentially it for SNW?

For two more, in fact. 

Paramount announced that the series had been renewed for a 4th and 5th season back in June. The fifth season is slated to be the show's last, similar to what was already done with Lower Decks and Discovery. It has also been indicated that the final season will be shorter, comprising only six episodes instead of ten.

They announced a day or two ago that season 5 is going to be shorter than the others, with just six episodes. Apparently Paramount originally wanted to end on a movie, but showrunners pushed to continue the episodic format. 

There is a little bit of speculation that the short season five is another case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, diverting funding to the Starfleet Academy series.

 

EDIT: According to the showrunners, the reason season 3 ends the way it does is it was originally written as a potential series finale in case Strange New Worlds was not renewed for another season.

Edited September 15 by Seto Kaiba

[Thom]

On 9/15/2025 at 12:48 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

...

EDIT: According to the showrunners, the reason season 3 ends the way it does is it was originally written as a potential series finale in case Strange New Worlds was not renewed for another season.

I appreciate the show runners trying to work around a possible cliff-hanger ending. More shows need to be written as though every season is the last.

And I am an outlier, as I liked this one. To me, the wedding episode was by far the worst by far of the furthest farther than farther and even farthier than that! This one though, felt like a return to more serious story telling and, in fact, it could have used more time. This would have been better with more lead-in during previous episodes or as a two-parter. I liked most of the interactions all around, though have Patel turning into the Savior of the universe needed a lot more explanation and history behind it. Having it happen over the course of the season or even the previous season as well, would have been a lot better.

As it is though, I am fine with it. Some time-wimey interdimensional explanations about how cause and effect can swap and actually lead to the effect first was fine. Again, it just needed more time to build it up. 

Really hoping next season deals with more serious stories as that is when the this show is really good. 

 

...and at least one more musical episode...

 

[pengbuzz]

On the bright side:

Spoiler

At least Kirk won't be able to hit on Batel during TOS. 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, Thom said:

I appreciate the show runners trying to work around a possible cliff-hanger ending. More shows need to be written as though every season is the last.

Yeah, especially in this era of streaming where a series might have as few as six episodes and may end up wasting a nontrivial percentage of its runtime setting up story hooks for a second season that probably isn't coming.  (e.g. The Acolyte)

 

11 hours ago, Thom said:

This one though, felt like a return to more serious story telling and, in fact, it could have used more time. This would have been better with more lead-in during previous episodes or as a two-parter. I liked most of the interactions all around, though have Patel turning into the Savior of the universe needed a lot more explanation and history behind it. Having it happen over the course of the season or even the previous season as well, would have been a lot better.

I agree, it would have worked better if there had been more build-up to it.

As it is, it comes out of nowhere and the explanation is hot nonsense.  The writers determination to have a "pure evil" villain is just silly, and there are so many plot holes and highly unscientific arguments in Batel's massive leaps of logic that it sounds more like she's just a crazy person.  It essentially turned into a whole plot reference to the first Doom movie... with the whole "genetically engineered into an angel to defeat demons" schtick.

 

11 hours ago, Thom said:

As it is though, I am fine with it. Some time-wimey interdimensional explanations about how cause and effect can swap and actually lead to the effect first was fine. Again, it just needed more time to build it up. 

That part was never the problem.  We've had that kind of weird temporal shenanigans before... like TNG "All Good Things" with the anti-time anomaly.

 

 

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

On the bright side:

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At least Kirk won't be able to hit on Batel during TOS. 

Kirk's womanizing is massively oversold by fans.  I've been rewatching the remastered TOS with friends who've never seen Trek before, and while Kirk has several old girlfriends he's almost never actually hitting on anyone.  I was actually pretty happy SNW acknowledged and then dismissed the meme, with Kirk's concern for Uhura being mistaken for hitting on her and him acknowledging he's in a complicated/messy relationship with his future baby momma Carol Marcus.

(Kirk in the '09 movie is based more on meme Kirk than the actual one in TOS.)

[pengbuzz]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, especially in this era of streaming where a series might have as few as six episodes and may end up wasting a nontrivial percentage of its runtime setting up story hooks for a second season that probably isn't coming.  (e.g. The Acolyte)

 

I agree, it would have worked better if there had been more build-up to it.

As it is, it comes out of nowhere and the explanation is hot nonsense.  The writers determination to have a "pure evil" villain is just silly, and there are so many plot holes and highly unscientific arguments in Batel's massive leaps of logic that it sounds more like she's just a crazy person.  It essentially turned into a whole plot reference to the first Doom movie... with the whole "genetically engineered into an angel to defeat demons" schtick.

 

That part was never the problem.  We've had that kind of weird temporal shenanigans before... like TNG "All Good Things" with the anti-time anomaly.

 

 

Kirk's womanizing is massively oversold by fans.  I've been rewatching the remastered TOS with friends who've never seen Trek before, and while Kirk has several old girlfriends he's almost never actually hitting on anyone.  I was actually pretty happy SNW acknowledged and then dismissed the meme, with Kirk's concern for Uhura being mistaken for hitting on her and him acknowledging he's in a complicated/messy relationship with his future baby momma Carol Marcus.

(Kirk in the '09 movie is based more on meme Kirk than the actual one in TOS.)

Ahem. (2:59)

When even McCoy has to ask, maybe it's more than just a "meme"...

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

When even McCoy has to ask, maybe it's more than just a "meme"...

McCoy just likes to snark.  It's his main character trait.

One of the very first things we're told about Kirk waaaaaaay back in TOS "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is that the man was a certified workaholic with no time for romance in his life.  Gary Mitchell described him as "a stack of books with legs".  He was such a workaholic that he famously had to be tricked into ordering himself to take shore leave.

 

 

We do meet a few of his ex-girlfriends in TOS, but it's clear in almost every case that the relationship was short and ended rather badly.  Most were in his academy days, when he wasn't quite as career-focused.  For instance, the infamously awful villain of the show's final episode Janice Lester, hostile prosecutor Areel Shaw, and hostile baby momma Carol Marcus.  In pretty much every case, Kirk's relationships were short and fell apart because he's Married to the Job.

Most of Kirk's "romances" onscreen are him either under duress, being manipulated, or attempting to manipulate the femme fatale of the week.  Like when he was given a false memory of being in a relationship with an enlisted crewman in "Dagger of the Mind", hooked up with Minamanee under the influence of amnesia in "The Paradise Syndrome", the one-sided crush Miri had on him in "Miri", Kodos's daughter trying to get close to him so she can assassinate him in "The Conscience of the King", the Scalosians attempting to use him and other Enterprise crew as breeding stock in "Wink of an Eye", etc.

The man had a grand total of one functioning relationship, and that's one that happened offscreen after Star Trek VI... a woman named Antonia that he met after retiring. 

Unless you count the shippers (which Kirk makes a meta joke about by calling the mind meld their "first date" in the "New Life and New Civilizations") who see Kirk and Spock as a couple instead of heterosexual life partners.  Then it's two.

Strange New Worlds's Kirk is on-brand with the TOS depiction... a man generally too busy to be interested in romance, and definitely not the kind of guy who goes around hitting on women the way Abramsverse Kirk did.  (The whole introduction of Kirk back in "Charades" was a massive refutation of Chris Pine's dimwitted fratboy arsehole take on Kirk.)

[lechuck]

[Seto Kaiba]

Let's hope Season 4 is a return to form, because the scores for Season 3 are in and the news is not good.  A 25 point plummet relative to Season 2, putting Season 3 on par with Star Trek: Picard's oft-mocked first season and only slightly better than Discovery's much-maligned first season.

Paramount and the producers are blaming the broadly negative reception of Season 3 on the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in '23, though they seem to at least be willing to admit the season went too hard on comedy and too hard on La'an and Spock's dance-focused relationship.  Apparently Frakes et. al. were a bit surprised that "A Space Adventure Hour" and "Four and a Half Vulcans" were not as funny as they sounded in the writers heads.

[Thom]

Yes, please, let's get back to some serious story telling. I don't mind a comedic episode or two, especially when they are funny, but don't try and fill out a season with them.

[pengbuzz]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Let's hope Season 4 is a return to form, because the scores for Season 3 are in and the news is not good.  A 25 point plummet relative to Season 2, putting Season 3 on par with Star Trek: Picard's oft-mocked first season and only slightly better than Discovery's much-maligned first season.

Paramount and the producers are blaming the broadly negative reception of Season 3 on the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in '23, though they seem to at least be willing to admit the season went too hard on comedy and too hard on La'an and Spock's dance-focused relationship.  Apparently Frakes et. al. were a bit surprised that "A Space Adventure Hour" and "Four and a Half Vulcans" were not as funny as they sounded in the writers heads.

If they were that concerned about the writer's strike (I doubt it), they should have held off on the season until the strike was resolved.