By Iain Robertson
When Strange New Worlds debuted last year, it was hailed by reviewers (including myself back in issue 479) as the best live-action Trek in years. And it was, at the time. After several underwhelming seasons of Discovery and Picard, the adventures of Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and co. were a breath of fresh air. Unlike its contemporaries, the all-new adventures of the Enterprise (still the greatest starship ever) actually felt like Star Trek: a fun, if derivative, cousin to The Original Series.
Since then, of course, we’ve had the third season of Picard, which, besides redeeming that show, has – to date – given us the best season of Trek in decades. The complex, adult drama, complete with its cracking, Dominion war-inspired story, has made Strange New Worlds look, well, a little lightweight. Maybe it was the dearth of good live-action shows (the two current animated ones, Lower Decks and Prodigy, remain excellent), the return to an episodic, adventure-of-the-week format, or the pure nostalgia factor, but a year on, Strange New Worlds comes across as a fun, if insubstantial, entry in the Trek canon.
That said, there’s a lot to enjoy here. The cast – headed by Mount’s charismatic, jovial Christopher Pike (a world away from Jeffrey Hunter’s introspective 1960s take on the character) – are uniformly excellent. Standouts including Celia Rose Gooding as a young Uhura, Babs Olusanmokun as Dr M’Benga (a two-appearance Original Series character elevated here to series regular) and Bruce Horak as Chief Engineer Hemmer. The ten episodes are all entertaining, taking in everything from bizarre comedy (The Elysian Kingdom), horror (All Those Who Wander) and a possibly ill-advised remix of one of the Original Series’ most revered episodes (A Quality Of Mercy, which is included here alongside its inspiration, 1966’s Balance Of Terror). Elsewhere, there are good old-fashioned Trek moral dilemmas (Children of the Comet/Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach), body-swap comedy (Spock Amok) and even space pirates (The Serene Squall). With such a broad selection, it’s impossible not to find something to enjoy here. Consequently, not everything will be for everyone, with the two comedy episodes, in particular, leaving me cold.
The Blu-ray set is, as usual with modern Trek releases, comprehensive. There’s a near hour-long making-of documentary, various video blogs recorded on Anson Mount’s phone, a gag reel, a Mount/Akiva Goldsman commentary, and several deleted scenes (for the most part insubstantial, although there’s an extra ten minutes of footage for All Those Who Wander).
One minor drawback, though. Beautiful as the Blu-ray is, Strange New Worlds was shot in 4K HDR, and in May, will become the first Trek series to receive a 4K Blu-ray release. If you can’t wait for then (or if you’ve not yet gone 4K), this is a great set for show fans.
