In Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (S1 – EP1) Strange New Worlds

Synopsis: In Strange New Worlds Captain Christopher Pike comes out of self-imposed exile to rescue an officer who has gone missing during a secret mission.

The Story

When his first officer goes missing while on a First Contact Mission. Captain Pike, who is on leave is called upon to reassemble his crew and take the Enterprise out to find out what happened. With a temporary first officer in tow. The Enterprise arrives on the Planet Kiley 279 to find an Alien Race that has built a Bomb using warp technology. To make matters worse. The planet’s people have been engaged in a civil war, which is on the verge of escalating.

Seeing how dire the situation is. Captain Pike decides to launch an away mission to rescue his first officer and her people, but also see if he can salvage a First Contact mission that should never have really happened in the first place.

The Acting

Anson Mount once again kills it as Captain Christopher Pike who is still haunted by the visions that he saw of his future during the mission that sent the U.S.S. Discovery into the far future. We also get a strong performance from Ethan Peck as Spock as we get to see a bit of his backstory that was only ever touched on in the classic Trek story ‘Amok Time’. And we will likely see a bit more backstory with regards to that episode in the coming weeks. However, it is the friendship between Spock and Pike that gets some work done here.

The surprise package comes in the form of Christina Chong who plays Pike’s temporary first Officer La’an Noonien-Singh who is most definitely a survivor and a character that has a traumatic past. We learn that her character was part of a colony ship that got intercepted by The Gorn and she was the only person to survive the ordeal that the Gorn put her people through. Of course, many fans like myself are probably wondering if she is of relation to Khan Noonien Singh. That question of course is kept open for discussion. But the point is Chong’s performance as this character is one of the standouts of the series thus far. As La’an seems to be that character that is on a journey of rediscovering her own humanity. 

Overall

Strange New Worlds gets off to a fairly strong start with this episode, which not only includes a couple of younger versions of original Star Trek characters but also gives us a story, which explores the early origins of The Prime Directive as well as some foreshadowing for the classic episode Amok Time in which Spock’s bond with T’Pring is annulled.

Jess Bush is delightfully fun with her more exuberant take on Nurse Chapel, who of course is Dr. McCoy’s future right hand. While we also get a nice performance from Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Uhura.

Overall this is a promising start and a bit of a love letter to classic Star Trek. I can’t wait to boldly see what the writers dish out for us in next week’s installment. I loved the opening credits and really appreciate that they have brought back the opening monologue. This really felt like a Star Trek show.