This is a spoiler-free preview of the first five episodes of season three.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Star Trek: Strange New Worlds<\/em> ended its second season with arguably the single strongest run of any streaming-era Trek. The show was made with such confidence in all departments that if there were flaws, you weren\u2019t interested in looking for them. Since then, it\u2019s gone from being the best<\/em> modern Trek, to being the only<\/em> modern Trek. Unfortunately, at the moment it needs to be the standard bearer for the show, it\u2019s become noticeably weaker and less consistent.<\/p>\n As usual, I\u2019ve seen the first five episodes, but can\u2019t reveal specifics about what I\u2019ve seen. I can say plenty of the things that made Strange New Worlds<\/em> the best modern-day live-action Trek remain in place. It\u2019s a show that\u2019s happy for you to spend time with its characters as they hang out, and almost all of them are deeply charming. This is, after all, a show that uses as motif the image of the crew in Pike\u2019s quarters as the captain cooks for his crew.<\/p>\n Its format, with standalone adventures blended with serialized character drama, means it can offer something new every week. Think back to the first season, when \u201cMemento Mori,\u201d a tense action thriller with the Gorn, was immediately followed by \u201cSpock Amock,\u201d a goofy, starbase-set body-swap romantic comedy of manners centered around Spock. Strange New Worlds<\/em> is the first Trek in a long while to realize audiences don\u2019t just want a ceaseless slog of stern-faced, angry grimdark. And if they want that, they can go watch Picard<\/em><\/a> and Section 31<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n But, as much as those things are SNW\u2019s<\/em> greatest strength, it\u2019s a delicate balance to ensure the series doesn\u2019t lurch too far either way. And, it pains me to say this, the show spends the first five episodes of its third season going too far in both directions (although, mercifully, not at the same time). No specifics, but one episode I\u2019m sure was on the same writers room whiteboard wishlist as last season\u2019s musical episode. What was clearly intended as a chance for everyone to get out of their usual roles and have fun falls flat. Because the episode can never get past the sense it\u2019s too delighted in its own silliness to properly function.<\/p>\n At the other end of the scale, we get sprints toward the eye-gouging grimdark that blighted those other series. Sure, the series has gone to dark places before, but previously with more of a sense of deftness, rather than just going for the viscerally-upsetting gore. A cynic might suggest that, as Paramount\u2019s other Trek projects ended, franchise-overseer Alex Kurtzman \u2014 who has pushed the franchise into \u201cgrittier\u201d territory whenever he can \u2014 had more time to spend in the SNW<\/em> writers\u2019 room.<\/p>\n Much as I\u2019ve enjoyed the series\u2019 soapier elements, the continuing plotlines take up an ever bigger part of each episode\u2019s runtime so far. Consequently, the story of the week gets less service, making them feel weaker and less coherent. One episode pivots two thirds of the way in to act as a low-key sequel to an episode from season two. But since we\u2019ve only got ten minutes left, it feels thrown in as an afterthought, or to resolve a thread the creative team felt they were obliged to deal with (they didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n In fact, this and the recently-finished run of Doctor Who<\/em><\/a> suffered from the same problem that blights so many streaming-era shows, which is the limited episode order. Rather than producing TV on the scale broadcast networks were able to \u2014 yearly runs of 22-, 24- or 26 episodes, a lot of (expensive) genre shows get less than half that. The result is that each episode has to be More Important Than The Last One in a way that\u2019s exhausting for a viewer.<\/p>\n But Strange New Worlds <\/em>can\u2019t solve all the economic issues with the streaming model on its own. My hope is that, much like in its first season, the weaker episodes are all in its front half to soften us up for the moments of quality that followed toward its conclusion.<\/p>\n ASIDE: Shortly before publication, Paramount announced Strange New Worlds<\/em> would end in its fifth season, which would be cut from ten episodes to six.<\/a> It’s not surprising \u2014 given the equally-brilliant Lower Decks was also axed after passing the same milestone \u2014 but it is disappointing. My only hope is that the series doesn’t spend that final run awkwardly killing off the series’ young ensemble one by one in order to replace them with the entire original series’ roster as to make it “line up.” Please, let them be their own things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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