Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is finally here, and the episodic space adventure series picks up right where the story left off. However, for Strange New Worlds fans who aren't familiar with the rest of Star Trek or are just discovering the series, it's worth explaining the significance of the show's high-concept Season 1 finale. The characters go through harrowing experiences and time travel is involved, but it all connects to the larger mythology of the franchise.
To promote the show's second season, Paramount+ released the entirety of Season 1 on YouTube for free. This way, fans who haven't sprung for the subscription can see what all the fuss is about. It also allows people who aren't into Star Trek at all to check out the stunningly cinematic series. Strange New Worlds is a spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery, which is itself a (long-distance) spinoff to The Original Series. Both newer shows are set earlier in the fictional timeline than the show that first introduced viewers to Kirk, Spock and McCoy, among others. The timeline is fuzzy, but the series premiere of Strange New Worlds takes place a decade before The Original Series revealed Captain Pike's tragic fate. Due to an accident, he is exposed to sci-fi radiation that condemns him to spend his life in a large black contraption. Despite all the advanced technology, he's only able to communicate in "Yes" or "No" responses via a blinking yellow light. In fact, it's his attempt to avoid this fate that creates the problems in the Season 1 Finale.
Strange New Worlds' Season 1 Finale Reimagines TOS's 'The Balance of Terror'
A standout example of what Star Trek could be originated via the Season 1 episode "The Balance of Terror," which debuted in late 1966. The story centers around the Enterprise Captain's challenge to deliver a proportional response to an alien species that attacked the Federation. On Discovery, Captain Pike visited a Klingon monastery with access to "time crystals" that showed him his future. When he tries to avoid that future, an older Pike (dressed in the Starfleet uniforms used in the Star Trek films) returns to "fix" the timeline. Doctor McCoy once described the job of a Starfleet Captain as turning certain "death into a fighting chance to live." That's all Pike did, it just broke the timeline.
The recreation of "The Balance of Terror" uses dialogue from the original episode, sometimes word-for-word. Unlike Kirk, who disabled the ship before offering terms for peace, Pike tried to open diplomatic negotiations immediately after the attack. While he does find a sympathetic Romulan commander, his subordinates start a devastating war with the Federation that kills billions. Pike was the wrong man for the moment, and the Strange New Worlds finale ends with him needing another way to, perhaps, cheat his ultimate fate.
The original creators based the Romulans on the idea of a space-faring Roman Empire, hence why they are so warlike. They also look like Vulcans because the two alien cultures are genetically related. In both episodes this similarity causes some Enterprise crew members to look at Spock, the only Vulcan on the ship, with prejudice and suspicion. While Captain Pike might be one of Starfleet's best captains, he wasn't the one the Enterprise needed when the Romulans came to pick a fight.
Why Una Was Arrested, La'an Left and Spock is a Ball of Emotions and Rage
The penultimate episode of Strange New Worlds featured the death of Hemmer, a new character that quickly became beloved. The half-human, half-Vulcan, allowed his emotions to the surface while fighting the aliens who killed him. Yet, after they were rescued, he's unable to bottle the emotions back up. Vulcans have more intense and violent emotions than humans, which is why the advanced race suppresses them through meditation and a commitment to "pure logic." This is a struggle that will continue in Season 2 and possibly the rest of the series until he becomes the mostly emotionless character fans know from The Original Series.
Una Chin-Riley, the First Officer of the Enterprise, was arrested at the end of the episode for lying about her Illyrian heritage. They are people who use genetic modification to adapt to their environment. However, since Khan Noonien Singh was a genetically augmented tyrant, the Federation makes her very existence a crime. Season 2 will address this in its second episode when Una's court-martial gets underway. Lastly, also in the penultimate episode, La'an Noonien Singh, a descendant of Khan's, takes a leave of absence from Starfleet to help a young girl who survived an alien attack find her family.
Season 2 of Strange New Worlds improves on Season 1 in almost every way. However, even though the episodes are individual, standalone adventures, knowing how the entire saga fits together deepens one's appreciation for the show. It's difficult enough to craft ten beautiful, smart and entertaining episodes about adventures in space. It's even more difficult to do that while fitting new stories and characters into a saga that has over 50 years of history.
Strange New Worlds debuts new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.