star trek new worlds gorn

Star Trek writer explains a big Gorn canon twist in Strange New Worlds

Your favorite lizard people are back. Or are they? SNW w riter Davy Perez explains all things Gorn.

The Gorn are back! In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 4, “Memento Mori,” Starfleet begins believing the myth of the Gorn is real, and the species of lizard aliens who fought Captain Kirk in The Original Series suddenly just got a lot more fleshed-out in Star Trek canon. Yet, Strange New Worlds also created several new mysteries and continuity twists about the Gorn.

Inverse caught up with Episode 4 co-writer Davy Perez to get all the scaly details about the Gorn and why he and (Episode 4’s other co-writer) Beau DeMayo made a very specific decision on whether to show the lizard aliens onscreen. Spoilers ahead.

The mystery of the Gorn

Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) try to outwit the Gorn spaceships.

Other than the famous appearance of a Gorn captain in The Original Series episode “Arena,” the only other times we see Gorns in Trek canon are in:

• The Animated Series episode “The Time Trap” (1973)
• Lower Decks episode “Veritas” (2020)
• Enterprise episode “In a Mirror, Darkly Part II” (2005)
• Discovery season 1 as a skeleton kept by Captain Lorca (2017)

Because the Enterprise Gorn is from the Mirror Universe , and the other non- TOS appearances are either animated or skeletal, actual flesh-and-blood Gorn sightings in the Prime Universe of Trek canon are extremely rare.

“We discussed this quite a bit, how to honor the idea that people either haven't seen [the Gorn] and in some cases might not even believe they exist,” writer Davy Perez tells Inverse. “ There is a lot we still don’t know about the Gorn. What was fun for me was using parts from ‘Arena’ we do know to inform some of their behavior.”

Perez points out that in “Arena,” Kirk is told by the Metrons that the creature he fights is a Gorn, which gave the writers “room to play” while making sure the moment for Kirk still made sense.

“Our goal is never to undo people’s experience with The Original Series, ” Perez explains. “But if we can manage it, perhaps to give us an interesting perspective to consider that lines up with the original stories.”

Why Strange New Worlds didn’t show the Gorn

La’an (Christina Chong) and Ortegas (Melissa Navia) in a tense moment on the bridge of the Enterprise .

Because Kirk had never seen a Gorn before “Arena,” some fans might be worried that Strange New Worlds flies very close to violating canon in “Memento Mori.” How can the Enterprise encounter the Gorn in roughly 2259 if Kirk doesn’t see the Gorn for the first time until 2267?

The answer is simple: At no point in this episode do we ever see a Gorn. And Perez reveals this decision was crucial.

“I think there were some early ideas floating around where we might have caught a glimpse of one,” Perez says. “But there was always the idea that we should hear about them and begin to dread the Gorn without ever actually seeing them. Once we decided not to see them at all, the episode sprang to life.”

Because “Memento Mori” doesn’t feature Pike wrestling with a guy in a lizard suit, it doesn’t reference “Arena” all that much. Instead, the structure of “Memento Mori” refers to a different Original Series episode, “Balance of Terror,” in which the Enterprise plays cat-and-mouse with a Romulan ship.

“It was 100 percent an inspiration,” Perez says. “I did a deep dive on submarine movies when I was researching this episode. I wanted to emulate that same feeling as ‘Balance of Terror.’ We put the focus on our crew working together and dealing with their respective problems all over the ship.”

Strange New Worlds ’ “Easter egg basket”

Although Pike, Spock, and most of Starfleet have never seen a Gorn, Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) very much has. As revealed in this episode, La’an’s family was murdered by the Gorn when she was a small child on a Federation colony ship, the S.S. Puget Sound . As La’an says in the episode, “plenty of people have seen the Gorn,” they just don’t live to tell the tale.

In this way, La’an has hidden canon knowledge about the Gorn that even Spock and Kirk won’t have until after the events of “Arena” in The Original Series . Notably, this is also the second bit of classic Trek canon that La’an has access to because of her unique background. In “Ghosts of Illyria,” we learn she’s the descendent of the villainous Khan Noonien Singh from TOS and The Wrath of Khan . So, in the ‘60s show, the crew doesn’t know much about the Gorn and has spotty knowledge of Khan, but in Strange New Worlds , La’an has secret knowledge of both.

“I haven’t thought her that way, but I can see how she is sort of the ‘Easter Egg basket’ for our show,” Perez says with a laugh. “She’s an outsider and new character, and she also gets to be an audience surrogate. A lot of La’an’s back story is going to be new information to existing fans as well. That’s what is fun about playing in this era [of Star Trek canon]. There are a lot of stories and ideas that have been touched on in the past but still have lots of potential to explore.”

Captain Kirk (William Shatner) refuses to murder the Gorn Captain in “Arena.”

Perez also notes that La’an’s feelings about the Gorn are intended to reference Kirk’s actions in “Arena,” albeit in a roundabout way. In “Memento Mori,” La’an says, “The Federation teaches that if we can find a way to empathize with an enemy, they can one day become our friends. They’re wrong . Some things in this universe are just plain evil.”

And yet, in “Arena,” Kirk famously refuses to murder a Gorn, proving to the Metrons that human beings are capable of incredible empathy. It’s a classic Trek moment that gets an interesting twist in Strange New Worlds .

“It’s a nice bookend thematically with ‘Arena,’” Perez explains. “La’an says this because of her history with the Gorn. We’re a long way from that lesson right now.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airs new episodes on Paramount+ on Thursdays.

This article was originally published on May 26, 2022

• Science Fiction

Legacy Effects wizard J. Alan Scott on creating the Gorn for 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' (exclusive)

The Academy Award-winning creature designer discusses the show's Gorn-centric season finale.

Paramount+'s "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" just wrapped up its impressive second season showcasing the intrusion of a particularly combative enemy species.

The finale episode, titled " Hegemony ," ended in an unsatisfying cliffhanger that upset some faithful fans after a brilliant season filled with entertaining episodes like "Ad Astra per Aspera," "Among the Lotus Eaters" and the historic singing and dancing chapter, " Subspace Rhapsody ."

Despite some narrative hiccups in that climax, there's no argument regarding the return of the Gorn and the reveal of the snarling, 7-foot-tall (2.1 meters) alien decked out in an ultra-cool Gigeresque spacesuit.

Related:   ' Star Trek' streaming guide: Where to watch the 'Star Trek' movies and TV shows online

The Academy Award-winning visual effects studio Legacy Effects was responsible for hatching the principal onscreen villain for "Strange New Worlds" using a clever synthesis of old-school puppetry, modern 3D fabrication, digital modeling, cutting-edge animatronics and suited-actor practical effects.

From screeching Gorn hatchlings to crawling younglings to a full-sized bipedal Gorn clad in a gothic environmental ensemble complete with an illuminated helmet, showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers chose wisely when deciding to use the angry reptilian monsters as the show's primary antagonists.

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We spoke with Legacy Effects co-founder J. Alan Scott — whose mindblowing resume includes everything from "Jurassic Park," "Galaxy Quest" and "Real Steel" to "Pacific Rim," "Avengers: Infinity War" and "The Expanse" — about the genesis of the Gorn and how his team created the terrifying cinematic magic.

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Space.com: As a Hollywood creator working in creature effects for over three decades, what inspired you about the form and function of the Gorn?

J. Alan Scott:   What's nice for us is that the reveal of what we've been developing for two seasons now is that we still haven't revealed the full creature yet, so we now have another opportunity to do that. We originally designed it for Season 1 and then they wanted to inch into it and wanted to tease and build up the expectation, which for me is a great horror trope. The anticipation and the anxiety of it is much better than the reveal. But you still have to show it.

With my roots with "Jurassic Park," when they said they wanted a horror episode — and I'm a huge horror fan and love the idea of scaring people — to take what was in broad daylight at Vasquez Rocks with the original " Star Trek " episode's Gorn, there's no scare factor there. It was great, but what would they have done if the series could have supported a horror episode?

When we were designing, they had a couple rules. They wanted to tie it back to the original as much as you can. But the idea to make it a hard-R horror movie with carnage and blood and gore was for me — couldn't have been a better ask. The trick was adding technology and figuring out where they land. Which was different from the original show that was basically just a loincloth and a bandolier. It didn't really inform what they were capable of. 

Space.com: Take us through the developmental challenges in creating a hostile alien species beyond its humble origins in "Star Trek: The Original Series."

Scott: Since they'd already explored in Season 1 that they've got space travel and warp drive technology , the trick is, How do you make a monster that's sentient and intelligent? Can you talk with it? Does it speak? And that mix of horror and technology was a long exploration that culminated in the EV suit. I'm still looking forward to see if they wear armor. Do they have weapons? Do they wear sidearms? All that's going to come later. Do they use communicators? Are they using iPads? What are they using with their hands, and how do you do that when you got this thing that's supposed to be a ravaging beast? How do they interact with each other?  

They can't be screaming raptors all the time. But raptors are a great parallel. They have a culture, and there's a society there. Now add technology to that. Now how do we design the EV suit around that whole thing? You can only screw it up. That's the problem with something as iconic as the Gorn: You're being asked to recreate something, modernize it and do it in a respectful way, but also make it exciting.

You have to be very cognizant of whether it's going to be silly. The writers and the production team guide us through all of that. I'd love to say that these were all of my ideas. They're not. It's a visualization of a team of ideas. It's a balance and a little bit of exploration that unfortunately happens in a very quick timeline. It seems like it was two seasons' worth, but you really only get two months to build it in the end, and then there's no time to go backwards and change it.

Related: The best alien invasion movies of all time

Space.com: What was discussed for lighting schemes in the zero-G fight scene?

Scott: Yes, we have to work with the lighting team and the DP [director of photography] and the director on how much we're going to reveal. We actually had to alter the design of the helmet because the lighting wasn't quite right. The fixtures team came to us, and they got new LEDs and put them in there, and we had to change that a couple of times to get the right balance. It's not something that we can anticipate here, even though we'd sent up a mockup [to Toronto]. Uplighting was great because it makes a real spooky face, but then it wasn’t really enough of the eyes so we changed the helmet so we could hide LEDs inside to illuminate the eyes more. In that dark set, it pops, and you can see the teeth and eyes and the movement in there. You see the animal inside.

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Space.com: For "Strange New Worlds" Season 3, what can fans expect with the Gorn? Will we see them flying their strange starships and firing weapons?

Scott: We haven't shot it yet, but there have been discussions, and I'm looking forward to the same thing. We've seen their entire life cycle now, discussed and designed, so I love the fact that we're just inching into it. I'm looking forward to seeing it full-body. We've seen the EV suit, but we don't know what they look like inside yet. For Season 3 Episode 1, we're anxious and waiting almost as much as everyone who watched [the finale] last night!

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 2 is streaming now on Paramount+.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Jeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters.

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Inside the ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season Finale: Evil Gorn! Shocking Ending! And Introducing [SPOILER]!

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SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot developments for the Season 2 finale of “ Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ,” currently streaming on Paramount+.

The second season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” took a large number of big swings: Spock (Ethan Peck) becoming human for a time; an alternate universe James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) romancing La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) in 21st century Toronto; the crossover episode with the animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks”; and the musical episode featuring a Klingon boy band group. 

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Written by executive producer Henry Alonso Myers, “Hegemony” plays like an action-packed thriller — which is partly why Myers and his fellow showrunner Akiva Goldsman decided to end the episode on a surprise cliffhanger. And yet, somehow, they also managed to include the introduction of one of the most beloved “Star Trek” characters: engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott. 

Myers and Goldsman talked with Variety about how they decided to bring Scotty onto “Strange New Worlds,” why the Gorn have become the Big Bad of the series and where they see the show heading for Season 3.

Henry, you and I talked last year about how the Gorn had become the central antagonistic aliens for Season 1. Did you always plan to revisit them for the Season 2 finale?

Henry Alonso Myers: We always knew we were going revisit them — the finale is just where it ended up. We were trying to do something really big and seeing the adult Gorn was a thing we knew would take time. It takes a lot of design; one of the reasons it came later in the season was we knew that we’d have a lot of work to do. It just sort of worked out as a finale.

The Gorn are a powerful threat on this show, but they’ve never been much of a factor in any iterations of “Trek” that come later in the timeline. Some of that, of course, is because as they were conceived on “TOS,” the Gorn were a little silly looking — it was just a man in a rubber suit.

Myers: It was hard to do it well. It was hard to do respectfully.

Do you intend to resolve that tension in “Strange New Worlds,” to explain why as the timeline evolves, the Gorn as a threat seem to have diminished?

Myers: Well, this is one I would like to punt to Akiva, but only because a lot of what the Gorn became for the show was a vision that he had — this was something that had not really been explored that we had an opportunity to make in a way that had never been done. 

Akiva Goldsman: The Gorn, for me, were not intentionally comedic — they were just executed about as well as they could be executed at that point in the run of the show at that time. Like, it was just a bad suit — and let’s not even talk about the Metrons. But I looked at the intention, which is: scary, scary, scary, Other, Other, Other. One thing that we always do in “Star Trek” is we empathize — that’s in large part the purpose of our show. We’re kind of an empathy generator. It’s a carnival mirror on modern society. 

But in our desire to express compassion first, which I think is the right desire, sometimes we forget that real monsters exist. I thought it was important for there to be real monsters in our galaxy. That doesn’t mean that 10 years, two seasons from now, we won’t be having a nice chat with the Gorn. But right now in Seasons 1 and 2 and 3, they’re the monsters. By the way, many of the other “Star Trek” antagonists began as alien, as Other — forgive the use of “alien” — but we learned to connect with them. Not so the Gorn. The Gorn are not understandable to us in this way, not relatable to us in this way. Part of our galaxy is be good, be kind, be empathetic, and also understand that evil exists, because seeing with compassion does mean you should be blind to horror. The Gorn are monsters.

How did you decide to introduce Scotty in the finale?

By introducing Scotty, you’re inevitably raising the possibility that the show will also be introducing other characters from the “TOS” era, like Bones or Sulu. Should fans expect that to happen as the show progresses?

Goldsman: The longer we stay on the air — do we still say that? — the longer we stream, the longer we do whatever it is we do to let people watch us, the more likely it becomes. Given our druthers — because Henry and I are both greedy and gluttons for punishment — we’d go right into the TOS era and see what happens. So, if we’re around long enough, sure.

Myers: The one thing I will say is — I try to respect everyone’s approach to this. But we’re not telling the story of who they are [in the future], we’re telling the story of who they are now. They don’t know who they’re going to be. That is the unique opportunity of our show that allows us to tell these stories in ways that they haven’t been told before. That’s the fun of it for us. If we meet other people, they will surprise you. That’s all I’ll say.

This season took some major risks. What other boundaries are you considering pushing for Season 3?

Goldsman: We’re going to keep going. We genre hop. So where we haven’t been, we will try to go. Henry’s watchwords for Season 2 were, “Let’s do Season 1, just bigger and better.” That’s become the truth of Season 3. We’re always doing the thing that we do best, which is secretly just a lot of relationship stories in space. We’ll keep unfolding those hopefully in ways that are different, in the same way that the tones of our episodes will be different. But yeah, ambition will taper off only when we can’t figure out a thing to do we haven’t done before.

Myers: The joy of doing the show — Akiva and I spent a lot of time on this — is trying to come up with something really great and cool and different for our actors. The more challenging stuff you bring them, the harder they will work. We want to bring them great material so that they will continue to do incredible things.

Season 3 for “Strange New Worlds” was announced in March , well after production on Season 2 had ended. How confident were you that you’re going to be able to resolve this cliffhanger?

Myers: The best way to approach this is with a deep sense of confidence. We were very upfront with all of our folks internally about what we were doing. They were very supportive of it. We wanted it to be a surprise. I remember how the [“Star Trek: The Next Generation” cliffhanger episode] “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1″ made me feel. That was what we wanted to revisit for the audience, to really surprise them. 

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

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How Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Brought The Gorn To Life

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" features the third television appearance of the reptilian Gorn. It also marks the development of the third method used to bring the scary lizards to life.

The original Gorn, the villain of the classic "Star Trek" episode "Arena," was portrayed by stuntmen Bobby Clark and Gary Combs. The pair wore a rubber get-up designed by Wah Chang. When the Gorn reappeared almost 40 years later in the "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode "In a Mirror Darkly," the crew used CGI and motion capture instead. In "Strange New Worlds," the crew combined practical and digital effects, using puppetry and CGI in tandem.

Puppeteering the Gorn

The Gorn appear onscreen in episode 9, "All Those Who Wander." These Gorn are mere hatchlings, running on all fours instead of being bipedal like the previous Gorn. Given the difference in appearance, it makes sense that the crew had to find a new way to bring them to life. In a behind-the-scenes feature "The Gorn Reborn," the cast and crew discuss the process of creating the effects and what it was like filming with them.

The Gorn puppets were the work of the team at Legacy Effects, led by Alan Scott, and "Strange New Worlds" in-house prosthetics team, led by Chris Bridges. Rebecca Romijn (Commander Una-Chin Riley) said:

"Practical effects are always more interesting. They're more interesting to play with on set and they're more interesting to watch, I think."

This doesn't mean going practical was without challenges. Producer Alex Kurtzmann said:

"Puppetry is very tricky because the best versions of it have to include incredibly specific lighting, otherwise you're very aware you're looking at a puppet."

Bridges himself added:

"Traditionally, there hasn't been a lot of animatronics or puppeted characters. I think that's because when you're shooting on main unit, it's so fast-paced. And puppeteering something in real time can get quite intricate ... I think we demonstrated that [puppetry] is viable and that we would probably see a lot more of it."

The feature shows how a particularly frightening scene, where the alpha hatchling gnaws on a window to get to Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), was really just a hand puppet. I, for one, never would've guessed, so the crew clearly did something right.

CGI touch-ups

Despite the impressive practical effects, they alone didn't carry the episode. Visual effects supervisor Alexander Wood discussed how the team used CGI to hide signs of the Gorn's puppeteering and increase their expressiveness.

In particular, the scene where the Gorn hatchlings erupt out of an unnamed alien (its costume also the work of Chris Bridges' team). The minuscule Gorn newborns were puppets too, held on rods; the rods obviously had to be removed with digital touch-ups. Wood also spoke of how the VFX team added micro-movements to the Gorn that made them look more alive, like head twitches, "the very little subtle things that go from puppet to a very realistic-looking alien."

CGI and practical effects are often discussed in competition with each other, but "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" proved how the two can be used together. At the end of the day, both types of effects are tools. Practical is better for some jobs, and VFX better for others; it's the filmmaker's job to know which situation calls for which.

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How STRANGE NEW WORLDS Transforms the Gorn, an Old STAR TREK Enemy

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

In its first season, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds reinvented one of the franchise’s oldest alien adversaries, the Gorn. They gave this classic antagonistic species an upgrade by injecting some blood from two of cinema’s most deadly extraterrestrials. We’re talking about Gorn inspired by the xenomorph from the Alien franchise and the Predator. In the season two finale of Strange New Worlds , “Hegemony,” the Gorn returned. And these aliens destroyed a Federation starship, along with most of a human colony. So how did Strange New Worlds update this alien race once thought of as a silly product of its 1960s time? First, we’ll tell you all about Star Trek ‘s Gorn and why they haven’t appeared much for five decades.

Who Are the Gorn, Star Trek ‘s Race of Reptilian Aliens, and Where Have They Been?

First appearing in the original Star Trek series episode “Arena,” the Gorn Hegemony was a warlike reptilian race who decimated a Federation outpost on the planet Cestus III. When Captain Kirk chased the enemy Gorn ship deep into space, an advanced species called the Metrons forced Kirk and the Gorn captain to fight for survival on a remote world. This fight scene, with a man in a very fake-looking alien lizard suit, became the subject of parody. It was even parodied in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey . Perhaps because of that, Star Trek has seemingly almost totally avoided the Gorn, beyond cameos and name drops across different series. The Gorn popped up briefly in CGI form on Star Trek: Enterprise in 2004 and in the 2013 Star Trek video game, for which the Gorn and William Shatner reunited for a silly promotion.

Strange New Worlds Reinvents the Gorn

But Strange New Worlds changed everything about these aliens, making the Gorn intergalactic boogymen. In the episode “Memento Mori,” we learned that La’an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong) had some serious PTSD based on her childhood trauma of surviving a Gorn massacre. During her childhood, the Gorn attacked and captured the SS Puget Sound, a colony ship, and left its crew on a Gorn breeding planet. The survivors, including La’an, were hunted for sport or eaten alive by their newborn hatchlings. Only a young La’an Noonien-Singh survived and told her tale to Starfleet. This was the first documented encounter with the Gorn on Star Trek , although it was not considered an official first contact. As La’an says, “Many people have seen the Gorn, but few live to tell about it.”

In “Memento Mori,” the Gorn only appeared in their Star Trek space vessels. We don’t actually see them in the reptilian flesh. Their vicious ways were only spoken of by Lt. Noonien Singh. In fact, they are described and treated as the shark in Jaws . When La’an described her childhood encounter with the Gorn and their lifeless eyes, it’s almost like hearing Quint talk about the shark that killed his crewmates on the U.S.S. Indianapolis . But in Strange New Worlds season one, episode nine, “All Those Who Wander,” we truly saw the Gorn for the first time in this Star Trek series. And they owe their newest incarnation to two classic sci-fi adversaries, the Xenomorph and the Predator.

The Gorn Become Terrifying Foes in Star Trek ‘s World

When the Enterprise responded to a distress beacon from a crashed Starfleet vessel, the U.S.S. Peregrine , they found the ship in shambles on an ice world and the crew of 99 officers dead. The logs showed that they had picked up three stranded refugees, all infected with Gorn eggs. They found a human girl (shades of Newt in Aliens ) and an unknown alien in the wreckage. Despite initial scans showing nothing unusual, the Gorn eggs were hatching inside one of the aliens.

Just like in Ridley Scott’s Alien , the hatchling busted out of the victim’s body and scampered off. Two others then emerged from the body of another victim. The four hatchlings quickly became two as they killed the others and fought for dominance. The POV shots of the Gorn hatchlings looked extremely similar to the heat signature vision of the alien hunters from the Predator franchise. Their reptilian appearance was also like the Predator, although that predates the movie, as the Gorn first appeared in 1967. Like the Xenomorph from Alien, the Gorn matured at an exponential rate, but the Enterprise crew managed to kill it before it grew to full size.

But the Enterprise crew took a heavy casualty when they fought the Gorn. The Gorn hatchling spit a type of venom onto Chief Engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horack), similar to the Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park. But this was more than venom. La’an revealed that this is how the Gorn lay their eggs. Hemmer took his own life before allowing the Gorn to take hold of him. In the two separate episodes of season one, they did not show a full-grown Gorn.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season Two Reveals a Full-Grown Gorn

In season two’s “Hegemony,” the Gorn attack the human colony world Parnassus Beta, and decimate most of the population. Only a few survive. They also destroy the U.S.S. Cayuga . The episode shows that the Cayuga’s Captain, Marie Batel, has been infected with Gorn eggs. We finally see an adult Gorn in this episode, in a space suit no less. Unlike their Star Trek: The Original Series counterpart, this Gorn has a tail. Although Spock kills this particular Gorn, at the end of the episode, the Gorn Hegemony has the upper hand over Pike’s Enterprise , leaving us with a massive cliffhanger ending.

Of course, this sets up certain continuity issues. Technically “Arena,” the episode where Captain Kirk fights the Gorn in The Original Series , takes place about eight years after Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . Spock and Uhura don’t seem to know anything about the Gorn in The Original Series , which doesn’t make much sense. You’d think with their experiences in these Strange New Worlds episodes, they would have a few thoughts about this particular enemy. But it’ll be interesting to see how Strange New Worlds deals with this all of this, as we are no doubt going to see the Gorn continue to be a significant threat to Pike and his crew as the show continues to unfold.

Originally published on July 1, 2022.

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Star Trek Discovery Early Plot Hole Was Secret Foreshadowing

Posted: June 14, 2024 | Last updated: June 14, 2024

When Star Trek: Discovery first premiered, the fact that it was a prequel to The Original Series had fans constantly alert for any plot holes that would contradict the original adventures of Captain Kirk. Because of this, fans wasted no time pouncing on the fact that Captain Lorca had a Gorn skeleton in his menagerie. Because these episodes took place about a decade before Kirk first encountered these aliens, this seemed like a Star Trek: Discovery plot hole, but Lorca’s Gorn was a deliberate hint that the captain was from the Mirror Universe.

For this Star Trek: Discovery story to make sense, we need to review the curious case of Starfleet’s first encounter with the Gorn. When Captain Kirk famously fought the Gorn in “Arena,” this was supposed to be the first time Starfleet had ever encountered these rascally reptiles.

Much later on, Strange New Worlds would effectively retcon this because the Gorn became the primary antagonists of Captain Pike’s Enterprise.

When Star Trek: Discovery first premiered, this Strange New Worlds retcon hadn’t happened, so fans were operating under the assumption that Kirk’s encounter was Starfleet’s first brush with the Gorn.

Because of this, the Gorn skeleton in Captain Lorca’s menagerie, something we see in the show’s third episode, seemed like a major plot hole. How could this guy have the skeleton of one of these aliens on display before anyone else in Starfleet even knew what they were?

The Gorn Was Always Meant To Be Puzzled Over

However, the After Trek for this Star Trek: Discovery episode revealed that the Gorn skeleton was actually meant to be foreshadowing for the reveal that Lora was from the Mirror Universe. According to Discovery executive producer Aaron Harberts, fans were meant to see a Gorn who shouldn’t be there and begin wondering what it could mean about Lorca, effectively hinting at his future arc.

The whole menagerie managed to cast the new captain in a creepy light, especially because it was filled with exotic weapons and other things (including a dissected tribble) that you wouldn’t expect a Starfleet captain to have.  

Star Trek: Enterprise

At this point, you might be wondering how Star Trek: Discovery producers expected the presence of a Gorn skeleton to serve as a hint at Lorca being from the Mirror Universe. Is there any reason to believe that characters in this other universe ran into the Gorn before Kirk in the Prime Universe did? As fans of Enterprise know, the answer to that question is a resounding “yes.”

In A Mirror Darkly

The Enterprise season 4 two-parter “In A Mirror, Darkly” served as a prequel for the classic “Mirror, Mirror” episode of The Original Series. In the Enterprise episode, a Gorn is running around and trying to sabotage the Defiant, a Constitution-class vessel that fell through a rift in space and time into the Mirror Universe.

That episode ends with Sato poisoning Mirror Archer and declaring herself Empress, meaning that she returned to her Empire with knowledge about the Gorn that Prime Universe Kirk wouldn’t gain for about a hundred years.

Discovery Had It Worked Out All Along

As you can tell, Star Trek: Discovery including a Gorn skeleton to foreshadow Lorca’s Mirror Universe heritage was a pretty deep dive for fans, requiring extensive knowledge of other shows throughout the franchise.

We really like this story because it proves that, for its occasional narrative misfires, Discovery has always been a labor of love from a crew that deeply loves this franchise. Unfortunately, Strange New Worlds retconning the Gorn effectively dropped a Kirk-style styrofoam bolder on this attempt at a cool Easter.

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What We Know About Captain Pike’s Next Voyage in ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 3

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It's a huge sigh of relief when a spinoff of a classic like the original Star Trek (which ran from 1966 to 1969) is well done, polished, and gripping. Especially when that show stands out in a franchise with twelve - yes, you read that right - twelve corresponding series. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , which serves as a prequel to the original (and iconic) Star Trek series, follows Captain Christopher Pike ( Anson Mount ) as he leads his crew through the galaxy aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. The show, which premiered in 2022, was met with high critical acclaim from the beginning and continues to find fans with each new season - an impressive feat in a time when so many shows get lost in the streaming shuffle. Now renewed for a third season right after its Season 2 finale, here's everything we know so far about the next chapter in the epic space adventure.

With Season 2's finale leaving fans wanting more, it's only natural to be itching for Season 3 to come as soon as possible. While episodes are expected to return in 2024, the production window was from December 2023 to June 2024 for Season 3 , so we may have to wait a bit before we get the answers we're craving .

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike (played by Anson Mount) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds throughout the galaxy in the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series.

While Strange New Worlds premiered its first two episodes on CBS in 2022, all episodes are now streaming on Paramount+. It can be assumed that the third season of the show will also premiere on the CBS-affiliated streaming service. Subscriptions to Paramount+ are available in two tiers: Paramount+ Essential (with commercials, $5.99/month) and Paramount+ with SHOWTIME (commercial-free, $11.99/month).

WATCH ON PARAMOUNT+

With production recently ending, there is still no official footage from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3. That said, we hope to get our first look at the new season sometime later this year. Stay tuned to Collider as we await more info.

Leading the charge is fan-favorite Captain Pike , played by Anson Mount. Mount is no stranger to the Star Trek world, as he also appeared in Star Trek: Discovery in 2019. His other credits include films like Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the Britney Spears -led 2002 drama Crossroads . Ethan Peck 's Spock is another character who appeared in Discovery alongside Mount. Peck also worked on shows like Madam Secretary and 10 Things I Hate About You . The astute La'an is played by Christina Chong , whose credits include Johnny English Reborn and Tom and Jerry .

Erica Ortegas is played by Melissa Navia , whose guest roles include Bull , Homeland , and Billions . Rebecca Romjin plays Una-Chin Riley, Pike's Number One. While Romjin is known for films like X-Men and Austin Powers , perhaps her most unforgettable role was as Cheryl, the gorgeous girl with the disgusting apartment in Season 4 of Friends . Rounding out Pike's crew are Babs Olusanmokun ( Dune ) as Dr. M'Benga, Celia Rose Gooding ( Foul Play ) as Nyota Uhura, and Jess Bush ( Playing For Keeps ) as Nurse Christine Chapel. Arguably, one of the best parts of the Season 2 finale was the appearance of Lieutenant Montgomery Scott ( Martin Quinn ), of the infamous - and incorrect - quote from the OG series: "Beam me up, Scotty!"

Strange New Worlds is produced by CBS Studios , Secret Hideout, and Roddenberry Entertainment, and distributed by Paramount+. The show was created by Akiva Goldsman , Alex Kurtzman , and Jenny Lumet , with Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers serving as co-showrunners . Kurtzman, Goldsman, Lumet, and Myers are executive producers on the series, alongside Aaron Baiers, Heather Kadin , Frank Siracusa , John Weber , Rod Roddenberry , and Trevor Roth .

The series was originally set to film early in 2023 but due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the series was delayed by several months. Thankfully, they recently wrapped up filming in Canada earlier this year. Anson Mount took to Instagram to celebrate the conclusion of filming.

Mount also wrote a heartfelt message to fans after concluding production, saying:

“So that’s it guys, that is a wrap on season 3, at least from me, there’s still a little bit of work to be done. I feel like I could sleep for a week, but I still have many travels and many things ahead of me to do, and I’m trying to keep spoilers out of the shots here. Thank you for your patience, especially during the strikes, it wasn’t anyone’s intention for us to be delayed to that extent. Thank you for sticking with us, thank you to our lifelong Star Trek fans, I am one of you and it’s because of people like you that I get to live out my dreams like this and I’ll never stop thanking you for having me in your house.”

With many unanswered questions in the Season 2 finale, there are lots of possibilities for where Season 3 could take Captain Pike and his crew. After the fun and games of the previous musical episode , things switched back to danger mode very quickly, and viewers were ultimately left with a cliffhanger. With the re-appearance of the Gorn (the reptilian-humanoid extraterrestrials first seen in Star Trek in the 1960s), Pike was faced with a decision: heed the commands of the Enterprise not to engage with the Gorn, or do whatever he can to save his people. Pike, being the always-optimistic hero that he is, decides he must try and save his crew. And, when he sees young Gorn working together, his hunch that the species may be able to communicate leads him to want to try and save his crew without violence. While it's unclear how big a role the Gorn will play in Season 3, perhaps Pike's interest in their ability to communicate will be an important factor in not having this happen again.

To add (gross) insult to injury, it is revealed that Gorn eggs have been planted in Pike's love interest, Captain Batel, and she may have to sacrifice herself in order to save everyone else. This is also not resolved in the finale, adding another layer to what Season 3 might bring. Will she survive? And if so, what happens to the Gorn eggs? Additionally, diehard Star Trek fans were no doubt thrilled to see Montgomery Scott appear in the Season 2 finale. While the character first appeared in the 1960s, as portrayed by James Doohan , this is his first time on Strange New Worlds. The re-introduction of this iconic character leaves a lot of potential for Season 3.

There are still many more stories to be told and strange new worlds to explore. In a surprise to no one, Paramount+ has already renewed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for a fourth season. Mount took to Instagram , saying:

"We’ll see you again in the spring when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds goes back into production for Season 4!"

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• June 12, 2024 | Alex Kurtzman Talks Avoiding Star Trek Fan Service And Explaining Floating Nacelles In ‘Starfleet Academy’
• June 12, 2024 | Anson Mount Says ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 3 Takes “Bigger Swings” Than Musical Episode

Anson Mount Says ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 3 Takes “Bigger Swings” Than Musical Episode

| June 12, 2024 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 96 comments so far

Production on the third season wrapped up less than a month ago, and now the star of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is hyping what we can expect to see on the next adventure of the USS Enterprise.

Emboldened to take bigger swings

Strange New Worlds prides itself on taking “big swings,” incorporating different styles and genres into its episodic format. Season 2 turned that up a notch, doing a crossover episode with the animated series Lower Decks (“Those Old Scientists) and a musical episode (“Subspace Rhapsody”). It looks like the trend will continue into season 3: Anson Mount (Captain Christopher Pike) is doing press for the show’s Emmy campaign (nominations are announced in a few weeks), and he talked to Gold Derby primarily about season 2, but was also asked about the next season. He wouldn’t get into how they are going to pick up on the season 2 Gorn cliffhanger, but he did hype the new season:

I think it’s not just an exciting season, but I think it’s just—storytelling wise, development wise, technically—it’s going to be our best season so far. A lot of that has to do with even bigger swings taken. The musical episode will not be the craziest thing that we have done by the end of this.

Ethan Peck as Spock and Anson Mount as Pike in “Those Old Scientists” (Paramount+)

The actor went on to talk about why he believes the show is getting better as they progress into their third season:

It’s just feeling more ownership over what it is that we’re doing and realizing that it continues to resonate. We were all pretty sure that we had something with season 1, but you could have knocked us over with a feather when we saw actual response. The response was incredible. It was an honor to get to get to go to the Critics Choice Awards this year. We did not expect that at all. And yeah, people are actually watching and enjoying what we’re doing. So we’re feeling even more emboldened.

Ethan Peck as Spock and Anson Mount as Capt. Pike in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 finale (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Recently, Paramount+ confirmed that season 3 will debut in 2025 and that they’ve ordered a fourth season of the series. Filming for season 4 is expected to begin in the spring of 2025 .

Watch full interview with Anson…

Here is the entire Gold Derby interview.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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Podcast: All Access Faces The Strange On ‘Star Trek: Discovery’

Good. I’m completely agnostic on the format for any Trek show. It could center on one character or dozens of characters. It could be heavily serialized or be completely an anthology, with zero returning characters from week to week. It could be a sitcom, a political thriller, a mystery series, a musical, a legal drama, a show about a suburban family, a variety show, a talkshow, a sketch comedy show, public access, a vlog, or be made up entirely Federation Council C-SPAN. The more different each Trek show is from previous Trek shows, the better. As far as I’m concerned, Trek is a philosophy, not a genre or format.

Ha, well said. Very much agreed.

Strongly disagree.

Well, whether I agree with you or not, it does seem to be morphing into that. Good or bad, your mileage may vary.

The only reason they talk about the format, is because the producers bring it up. I don’t think anyone really cares about the format, as long as the material is good. It’s just not.

On SNW, the material has been phenomenal, some of the best space-based adventure science fiction I’ve seen in many many years.

Spot on, friendo.

I do worry they are teetering on the edge towards ‘Parody Trek’. The odd “fun” episode is fine – but don’t get too gimmicky.

Too late, I’m afraid and sad to say. Not that they can’t course correct.. but the word ’emboldened’ is scary in the context of this particular story.

Yeah, I’m rather concerned by his statement. SNW veers way too much into MCU/everything-ends-with-a-quip kind of tone. I hate that Spock has become a bit of a joke character. I need my Trek predominantly serious with just a judicious sprinkling of humour. Sadly, this isn’t quite for me.

In concerned when this came out they said they was going back to the original roots of Star Trek from the 60’s. S1 was great and loved the 10th episode showing how without Kirk what happened in that episode. But S2 was not as good as S1 the 10th episode was the best one of the season. I’m hoping they go back to stick with great story telling and keep it true to the original values from the 60’s. I like the show but the stories are getting a bit off script. To hear him say they are taken more swings is troublesome to me.

Depends on what the swings are.

Star Trek has ALWAYS had fun & action as part of its mix.

Oh God, please not the “bigger swings” talking point again. If I hear those two words coming out of the cast’s mouths again, like at every interview and press event last season, I’m going to scream. Come on PR team…you know you can do better…

“creative risks” “deeper stories” “pushing the outside of the envelope” (for all you Right Stuff fans out there…) “aiming higher” “exploring new ground”

Come on Trekmovie gang, let’s help them out. Your homework assignment is to come up with at least two descriptors that are better than “bigger swings.”

Well, it’s better than finding other ways to say, “Just more of the same then.”

After season 1 of SNW, I’d have settled for “just more of the same”… all these “bigger swings” are leaving me dissatisfied with the promise of those first 10 episodes.

I get that. With so few episodes there’s clearly a pull between wanting them to be conceptually memorable vs just hunkering down and getting the fundamentals right on something simpler. It’s wild to me we’ve never had an Ortegas episode, too.

But I am an outlier in this sometimes. Like, I loved Sherlock series 3 – it was less about adapting old Conan Doyle stories and more about swinging for the fences while deepening the characters and relationships.

I’d rather hear “bigger swings” than when people post that they are “cautiously optimistic”

don’t forget “thinking outside the box.”

It’s the new version of ‘doubling down’

Thanks god there’s still Strange New Worlds for some real live action Star Trek! After the bad taste left from Discovery I can’t wait for season 3 of SNW.

Puppets? ;)

Puppets…on ice!

Brilliant!!!

Puppets are Not Thaat crazy

“Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” had an episode called “The Deadly Dolls” starring Vincent Price.

Speaking of Big swings, I give you, Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea. Dolls, Leprechauns,Robots, you name it.

Hey Angel did it and it was, A HOOT!

Plus, you KNOW they want to place, Pike’s Peak on a puppet.

How about some actual exploration of the final frontier where it is dangerous, isolated and full of the unknown? I know it would be different to do some “Wagon Train to the Stars” with some Yellowstone type dilemmas where there is no time travel reset and you have to live with mistakes, etc, and the actions of a single starship decide the fate of millions might not be as catchy as say playing cartoons and a singing episode but might be worth a shot. There could be this show where the Federation explores, colonizes, etc.. or you could do what you did before and just jump ahead where there are thousands of starships and borders everywhere, whatever. Sigh, at least the ship and the cast are there. They can only dull that bridge so much making it monochrome.

someone promote this dude to Cpt., toot suite.

Yes! Exactly.

Yes, please!!!

Agreed, brother!

Agreed! It’s such an obvious route to take.

My thoughts exactly!!!

Have a feeling it would be vetoed as, ‘has already been done before’ or ‘don’t know how to make that work and nobody I work with and know is skilled enough to try.’

Other than that, you go straight to the head of the class, as usual.

If that’s what the series turns out to be overall, I’m fine with that. We’ve had literally hundreds of traditional Trek episodes; nothing wrong with doing something a bit different for a while provided it’s of high quality.

Still wish they hadn’t brought the Gorn in, though.

As with anything, it’s about balance and respect for what’s come before. This creative braintrust has neither. An episode here or there is a fun diversion. Problem is, last season was more ‘diversion’ than substance. This show needs some real substance.

Why? There’s plenty of Trek that’s more substance than diversion; as long as they’re doing it well, I don’t see any problem with inverting that equation for a while.

Anyways, it’s not like they’re never doing proper Trek on this series.

The “Big Swing” Episodes did not feel organic or needed. They were musical and/or comedic. I’d argue that with only 10 or so episodes, you need less diversion, and more substantive episodes. As stand alone episodes, some of it, I liked in certain capacities, but I’d really prefer to see the Enterprise, and this crew, have a good take on exploring new worlds with high sci fi concepts. Not some contrived BS science that makes crew members break into coordinated song (just break the 4th wall and make it exist outside of canon, for god’s sake… or make it a dream sequence). The Sci Fi stuff they do tackle is mostly tropes from Trek or other sci-fi series. This is what happens when you don’t hire Sci-Fi people. This show’s biggest problem, is it can’t decide what it’s supposed to be… all under the banner of ‘big swings’. Say what you want about Discovery, it remained true to its core concept of being about family and the connection of the crew. How much exploration of new worlds have they actually done? It’s sad.

Sorry Bryant… I got on my soapbox a bit. lol.

It’s fair! I have been known to climb up on a soapbox myself. You make some good points, but I stand by my assessment that if this series turns out to be something a bit different from what we’ve gotten for literally decades, that’s okay with me.

I’d love if SNW did an episode based on that Trek short story from “New Voyages” (in the seventies, I think?) where the crew of the ship cross into our reality and meet the actors. That might be a lot of fun.

We agree in that I do want different, but I just want them to take it seriously. Both in respecting what’s come before, and in tone. I don’t mind the occasional aside. I just feel like this creative team needs someone to pull them back.. they’re going too far.

Supernatural did something like that.It was a good episode, too.

I keep hearing that’s a show I need to see someday.

Making it a dream sequence mean’s that it never happened, which gives it no weight at all.

I am curious to see if this version of the Gorn continues to physiologically evolve. I do not think we have seen it’s final form, yet.

Probably true. I think the most full-grown one we’ve seen is pretty cool; it just doesn’t fit — not even vaguely — with “Arena.” I just pretend the show is a reboot (pre-boot?) so I don’t have to worry about it all that much. And yet, I kind of still do.

Bless their hearts. They just can’t help themselves. They don’t need big swings, they just need to focus on writing good Trek. If I never hear the term ‘big swing’ out of someone’s mouth, describing their approach to writing this show, I’d be happy.

Yeah, that phrase has greatly outlived its usefulness, not just regarding this series but in general. It’s basically just an overplayed verbal meme at this point.

I’m curious how the per episode word count of nu-trek compares to that of the older shows. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a lot less. Seems like it anyway.

But I agree, no big swings are really needed when there is solid writing that makes sense from start to finish.

SNW is still my favorite of the new shows. I just wish they would return to doing the episodes they did in season one.

The cast and overall upbeat tone of this show are great. It’s a show I want to love, but they keep finding ways to distract from the story.. so much of what they’re doing is head scratching (making the big bad the Gorn instead of just some new alien species) that takes me right out of it.

Hopefully, that means tackling some complicated stories with adult overtones. Season one was 12th grade compared to season two’s 7th grade.

Absolutely agree.

One of the good things about episodic TV is being able to easily skip episodes that, well, just aren’t for you. I love DS9 and enjoy Voyager for what it is, but to this day there are still episodes I haven’t seen in full. Quark in drag? Pass. Neelix tells a story to kids or something? Uh, I should really re-alphabetize my canned food. Been meaning to do that.

I should add that I [mostly] enjoy Voyager for what it is.

I think SNW is somewhere around 50-50 for me.

Agreed on Voyager.

Finally, someone else who takes a dump on that Quark sex-change episode. Now I don’t have to work so hard to denigrate it!

It was my least favorite DS9 episode.

Mark my words we’re getting a puppets on ice episode! 😂

If Jonathan Frakes is directing it, I’m completely in!!!

If the puppets on ice are as good as “Those Old Scientists” and “Subspace Rhapsody,” bring them on! :-)

Hey there great to see you! 😊

And I agree.TOS is my favorite SNW episode period. Didn’t love SR as much but I did like and know it’s become a fan favorite as well

So yeah bring it on!

Both of those episodes are nominated for Hugos, so we’re not the only ones who liked them. :-)

And yes, it’s always nice to see you around!

“Bigger swings” is EXACTLY why it’s good to have the so-called filler episodes in longer seasons.

That’s an excellent argument for longer seasons, ‘Drew! With 22-26 episodes, the X-Files could give equal portions of serious mythology segments and one-off “monster-of-the-week” fare. I’ve always argued that the fat could be trimmed from your standard 26-episode season, but then again, they were never in a rush to tell the story inside of 40-some minutes (50-some for TOS).

YES! So true.

Where would the money for that come from?

Potential ‘out there’ big swings for s3:

Star Trek Legacy crossover with Jeri Ryan, Patrick Stewart, Dorn, etc ..(directed by Frakes of course).

Enterprise crossover with Admiral Archer.

Kelvinverse crossover with Quinto Spock, (special guest director JJ Abrams)

I would be so up for any of these. I can’t wait for season 3.

Some of those probably more likely for s4/2026 anniversary, although a TOS crossover be more likely for then, (i.e. Shatner/TOS movie era crew in some AI type way,)

Before it was shown, I was really, REALLY against the crossover episode with Lower Decks, but as it turned out, I LOVED it.

Before it was shown, I was a bit dubious about the idea of a musical episode, but as it turned out, I ADORED it.

I don’t know what this season’s “big swing” will be, but I’m gong to hang loose and hope that it will be fabulous.

I just wish they wouldn’t use Spock for comic relief and would stop making the Vulcans so damned human. I love SNW except for what they’re doing with Spock and the other Vulcans. LOGICAL Vulcans, damn it, not humans with pointed ears! I write them in fan fiction all the time, and if I can do it, professional writers should surely be able to.

*Fingers crossed,* but hopefully this upcoming season is when we start to see Spock begin to embrace his Vulcan half … I mean, even if they write comedy for him I’d rather see him be the stoic straight man that others can play off of. I’ve enjoyed Ethan Peck’s turn as Spock so far, but eventually we have to get him to the science officer Leonard Nimoy introduced us to.

Oh, I have no problem whatsoever with Ethan Peck; my problem is solely with what they write for him to do.

Spock can do humor, but Leonard Nimoy’s Spock had a witty line, or the other characters laughed at him for being so stoic, which is very different from the way the SNW writers make Peck’s Spock act silly, like shoving half a dozen strips of bacon in his mouth at once and things like that.

Plus, the whole thing with T’Pring was just too human in SNW. Part of why Vulcans are so interesting is because they’re ALIENS; please make them BEHAVE like aliens!

I most adore SNW, but turning Vulcans into pointy-eared humans is a big mistake, IMHO.

Always nice to see you, iMike!

Nice to see you too Corylea! I never thought you had a problem with Mr. Peck, I also take issue with some of the things they write for him. I was just saying that, now that we’re going into the third season, the writers need to start moving Spock in the right direction.

It doesn’t have to be all at once … just some meaningful moments along the way where Spock realizes that his Vulcan logic serves him better. Maybe some high pressure situations where Spock uses logic to solve a conflict or prevent a disaster.

Spock’s using logic to solve a conflict or prevent a disaster would be FABULOUS!

Oh no. The musical episode was lame AF so this fills me with dread.

The show seems to confuse the word “strange” as “stupid”

I could be thinking of something else, but wasn’t there some previous mention (like last year) that the third season would have an episode that was shot in old Hollywood style? I could go for that.

Yes it’s true. And it’s going to be directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Thank you for confirming. Frakes is a treasure of a director, I would be over the moon if he got two episodes for S3.

More dancing episodes

Obviously it is a hoedown episode! Yee-haw! Do-si-do!!!!

maybe Akiva Goldsman saying they could do a Muppet episode was not a joke…

Farscape / Star Control type aliens would be awesome vs. the usual humans with make up. Wouldn’t mind that.

Don’t want “bigger swings’, Anson, just want cohesive writing, less of an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach this season and some more compelling character and story arcs. The Spock/Chapel thing needs to be swept under the carpet now and less CW romantic-angst subplots. This is a great cast and they deserve more than La’an has a crush on Kirk type stories. each season only has ten episodes, I’m hoping for less gimmicks, less “hijinks” and more substance.

Bigger swings. Please, not like Doctor Who.

Easily the best of the new Trek shows. Looking forward to season 3.

Really looking forward to it.

Oh, good. I’m looking forward to:

–The “silent movie” episode –The all-nude episode –The pig Latin episode

… and the episode where everyone turns into a different version of Michael Burnham, just to see heads explode.

Nurse Chapel as the main character in the all nude episode

Honestly, do it. Give me a fully silent episode — an adventure set in a void with no sound maybe — and force the writers and director to explore strictly visual storytelling.

It would be tough to pull off a bigger swing and a miss than the musical episode.

Consider there were virtually no “big swings” in Season 2 besides the musical episode, I won’t hold out hope that Season 3 is actually going to take a risk.

All I ask in that the third season is a step in quality over the sophomore effort, which wasn’t deeply mediocre imo. Only Those Old Scientists stood out to me

Screen Rant

Star trek: strange new worlds season 3 will be “our best season so far”, says anson mount.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 - Everything We Know

Ncis: origins won't survive without 1 actor's on-screen appearance, bridgerton season 3 marks the sad end of an era after 1 huge change, star trek: strange new worlds season 3 wraps filming & anson mount hangs up his boots [updated].

• Anson Mount hails season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as the best yet, with even bigger storytelling risks and surprises.
• Season 3 wrapped production in May 2024, with a renewal for season 4 already in the pipeline, sparking high audience anticipation.
• Mount teases exciting developments in season 3, including bold creative choices that will surpass previous seasons.

Anson Mount, who plays Captain Christopher Pike, enthusiastically calls Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 "our best season so far". Strange New Worlds season 3 wrapped six months of production right before Memorial Weekend 2024. While there is no release date yet from Paramount+, Strange New Worlds received an early season 4 renewal , with production expected to start up again in Spring 2025. Meanwhile, audience anticipation is sky-high, especially after the cliffhanger ending of Strange New Worlds season 2 in August 2023.

In an interview with Gold Derby , Anson Mount discussed the success of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . Season 2 of Strange New Worlds regularly charted in the Nielsen Streaming Top 10, and the series hit highs with its biggest risks, a comedic crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek 's first-ever musical episode. Without divulging spoilers, Mount teased the "even bigger swings" in Strange New Worlds season 3, promising that the musical "will not be the craziest thing that we did" by the time it's over. Read Anson's quote below:

“I think it’s not just an exciting season, I think storytelling wise, development-wise, technically; it’s going to be our best season so far and a lot of that has to do with even bigger swings being taken. The musical episode will not be the craziest thing that we did or we have done by the end of this. We’re feeling more ownership over what it is that we’re doing and realizing that it continues to resonate.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 ended with an epic cliffhanger and here's everything known about when it will be resolved in season 3.

What Could Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3's Big Swings Be?

How to they top the musical episode.

It's hard to imagine how Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 can top season 2's crossover and musical, but Anson Mount believes they do. Strange New Worlds season 3 is shrouded in secrecy, but a few dollops of information have emerged. For instance, J onathan Frakes is directing an episode of Strange New Worlds season 3 that's been touted as a "Hollywood murder mystery" , which could certainly be as out-of-the-box as Strange New Worlds ' musical.

Martin Quinn is also returning as Lt. Montgomery Scott AKA Scotty in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3.

Strange New Worlds is also debuting a new Science Lab set on the USS Enterprise , and many of the top directors from season 2 like Frakes, Chris Fisher, Valerie Weiss, Dan Liu, and Jordan Canning, are back behind the camera for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3. It's safe to assume storylines like Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) leaving the Enterprise for her archaeological medicine internship with Dr. Roger Korby , and Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh's (Christina Chong) will-they-or-won't-they love story with Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) will continue. It's best to believe Anson Mount that when it comes to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, audiences haven't seen anything yet.

Source: Gold Derby

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is streaming on Paramount+

• Anson Mount

Den of Geek

The Star Trek Aliens That Made TOS a Weirder (and Better) Sci-Fi Show

For a low-budget TV show from the 1960s, Star Trek came up with some wild forms of life.

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Even though it was a relatively low-budget TV show (by today’s standards, it was practically made for the cost of a home movie) and visual effects in the 1960s were limited (again, by today’s standards), Star Trek: The Original Series managed over the course of its three seasons to come up with some of the more decidedly weird alien races of the entire franchise.

While nowhere near as prolific in its production of monsters as its early ‘60s predecessor, The Outer Limits , which was mandated by its network to cough up a different boogeyman every week, Star Trek did turn out an interesting array of strange, creepy, or even psychedelic (this was the ‘60s, after all) deep space denizens – although in classic Trek fashion, many of them were not the threats that their hideous surfaces hinted at, and were often more advanced than us humans in our bags of bone, flesh, and blood.

What makes this even more surprising is that the rest of this now-vast franchise didn’t push the notion of aliens that didn’t look like us with more fervor as budgets and VFX opened up. While The Original Series had plenty of humanoid aliens wearing antennae, blue makeup, or furry facial appliances, shows like The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine often presented a generic array of humanoids often represented by nothing more than bumps, ridges, or armored plates on top of their heads or down the center of their noses.

Maybe the drugs in the ‘60s really did expand the minds of the writers, producers, and designers of The Original Series . Maybe it was the fact that the show hired legendary sci-fi writers like Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Bloch, and Harlan Ellison to pen multiple episodes. But as primitive as they may look now, TOS did give us some of the Trek universe’s most bizarre life forms, 10 of which we’ve featured below. And no, the Gorn is not on this list – we love him but he’s still just a guy in a lizard suit.

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The Salt Vampire

Although we’re mostly avoiding humanoid aliens in this survey, our first two entries are decidedly humanoid in shape – if not relatable to humans by any other measure. The very first Original Series episode ever televised, “The Man Trap,” was centered around an ancient creature that feeds on salt – by fatally draining it out of its victims — and is the last of its kind. The salt vampire (the race is never named) is humanoid in shape, but features hooded, reptilian eyes, a snout-like spherical mouth with sharp teeth inside and long fingers covered in suckers that attach to its target’s face.

The creature is a shapeshifter, able to present itself as whatever its victim wants to see, which provided TOS with one of its earliest progressive moments : Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) encounters the creature in an Enterprise corridor, where it appears to her as a tall African man. The two speak Swahili, Uhura’s native tongue, in a moment that was pretty special (and rare) for early ‘60s national network TV. The story is also ultimately empathetic to the creature and its plight, setting the pace for future Treks to come.

In the classic episode “The Corbomite Maneuver” (the 10 th episode aired, but the first filmed in regular production), the Enterprise encounters a titanic vessel in uncharted space that claims to be from the “First Federation.” Its commander, Balok, appears onscreen with a rather sinister-looking, almost demonic visage and proceeds to put the Enterprise through a series of threats and challenges; when Kirk finally outwits Balok, they end up meeting face to face. While Balok admits this was all just a test to gauge how civilized humans are, what’s most bizarre is that Balok’s initial appearance was a puppet: his real form, to us, resembles a little boy.

That little boy was played by Clint Howard (Ron Howard’s younger brother) and while Balok is certainly humanoid, the effect of this powerful alien being housed in the body of a child and voiced by an adult actor (Walker Edmiston) makes this one of the most surreal and unexpected early moments in TOS history. Although we never really heard much more about the First Federation on any of the Trek shows, fleeting references popped up now and again – including the fact that Balok’s favorite drink, tranya, was served at Quark’s bar on Deep Space Nine . In addition, this mysterious confederation, like other TOS civilizations first introduced on TV, were part of several Trek novels, short stories, and video games.

One of the most popular Star Trek episodes of all time was “The Devil in the Dark,” in which the Enterprise is summoned to a mining colony to discover what is killing the miners down in the tunnels. It turns out that the rock-like “monster” laying waste to the miners is actually a peaceful silicon-based form of life called a Horta, who’s merely protecting her eggs – which the miners are inadvertently destroying by the thousands – like any mother would.

According to Star Trek legend, creature designer and stuntman Janos Prohaska crawled into TOS producer/writer Gene L. Coon’s office one day wearing the Horta costume, which more or less resembled a giant lasagna. Coon wasn’t sure what to make of it, but when he saw Prohaska “give birth” to an egg, he immediately hit on the idea for “The Devil in the Dark,” one of the original show’s most acclaimed tales. Fun fact: the costume got an earlier test run in The Outer Limits , where Prohaska played an oversized germ in the anthology series’ final episode, “The Probe.”

Denevan Neural Parasites

The final episode of the first season of TOS , “Operation – Annihilate!”, finds a colony on the planet Deneva – including Kirk’s brother Sam and his wife – decimated by an invasion of flying, parasitic creatures that attach themselves to human beings and drive them insane with pain. The creatures are shapeless blobs of jelly that Spock describes as resembling “brain cells.” He’s actually right on point: the individual lifeforms are all part of one hive mind – the creature itself – that implant themselves in the human nervous system so that the entity can use humans to spread itself through the galaxy.

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The things and their physiology are so beyond the frame of human reference that Spock suggests they have come from outside our galaxy, and while the puppets used are rubbery-looking (and the strings making them “fly” can be glimpsed on hi-def versions of the episode), their cumulative effect and background is still unsettling (kind of like the gigantic space amoeba in the second season episode “The Immunity Syndrome,” although that was an exact opposite of the flying parasites, being one tremendous, mindless cell).

The Providers

In the second season’s “The Gamesters of Triskelion,” Kirk, Uhura , and Chekov are captured and transported to the title planet, where they are forced to compete in dangerous gladiatorial games with representatives of other alien races. It’s all for the amusement of the Providers, who enjoy wagering on the contests, and who turn out to be three glowing brains encased in a dome who – despite evolving past the need for anything but the most rudimentary physical form – have grown lazy and complacent.

The Providers – aside from their rather goofy appearance – are typical of TOS aliens in that they learn some kind of lesson thanks to Kirk and the Enterprise crew, eventually agreeing to stop using other beings as pawns for their games. It’s a stock TOS plot, but what makes it entertaining is that the Providers, despite their immense technological and mental power, speak down to others and bicker among each other like sneering, wealthy fat cats with too much time on their hands – which, in a sense, is what they are.

The Medusans

Fred Freiberger’s term as the producer of The Original Series ’ lackluster third season will forever be debated by Trek diehards, but one thing that Freiberger was interested in doing was making the show’s aliens more…alien. His first attempt at that was season 3 episode 5, “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”, which introduced us to the Medusans – a non-corporeal race of supremely intelligent, highly advanced beings whose natural state is so hideous that a mere glimpse of them can drive human beings insane.

By this point in the series’ run, we’d already met beings like the Metrons (“Arena”) and the Organians (“Errand of Mercy”) that advanced beyond physical bodies, assuming human form when necessary to deal with lower species like us. But while the Medusans, represented in this rather soap opera-esque episode by Ambassador Kollos, can form mind-links with physical beings, they are otherwise carted around in a special box that can’t be opened with humans around, lest the phrase “resting bitch face” take on lethal new meaning. The episode itself is inconsistent with its own rules (in one scene, with the box closed, Spock wears a special visor while Kirk stands there with nothing on his head but his toupee), but turning the idea of what defines “beauty” upside down is in many ways a classic Trek theme (A Medusan also showed on Star Trek: Prodigy , this time wearing a robotic suit).

The Melkotians

One of the more infamous episodes from Star Trek’s third season is “Spectre of the Gun,” in which Kirk, Spock, Scotty, McCoy and Chekov are forced to refight the 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona between the Earps and the Clantons, with the Enterprise men on the losing Clanton side. Although the story is a perfect embodiment of much of the silliness of the third season, there is an atmospheric moment near the beginning when our heroes beam down to the planet of the Melkotians – xenophobic aliens who wish no contact with the Federation – and meet one of its representatives.

Although somewhat obscured by swirling mists, the Melkotian (or Melkot, as it’s sometimes called) was one of the show’s eerier beings, with a floating, oversized, bulbous head, large, glowing eyes, and either tentacles or limbs dangling below. For Star Trek , it was downright Lovecraftian, although in typical TOS fashion, these initially hostile aliens are inviting the humans to a sit-down by the end of the episode (strangely, in the episode’s novelization, the Melkot is humanoid). The Melkotians were also one-and-done; despite opening relations with the Federation, we never hear from them again.

The Tholians

In the popular third season episode “The Tholian Web,” the Enterprise comes upon a sister starship, the Defiant, that is trapped in an interdimensional rift in space with all its crew dead. When Kirk disappears into the rift after being stuck on board the Defiant, Spock tries to rescue him – but his efforts are hampered by the appearance of a hostile race called the Tholians.

The Tholians are crystalline in appearance, with an angular, glowing head featuring just two triangular eyes. The Tholian commander, Loskene (voiced by Barbara Babcock), seems to appear against a very hot background, indicating that they need high temperatures to survive. Although they don’t seem to be known to the Federation, Spock comments on “the renowned Tholian punctuality,” hinting that the Vulcans may have run into them before. But as it turns out, the Federation (in a bit of retconning) has encountered them earlier as well: the Tholians were one of the few non-humanoid races to return to a later Trek series, showing up in the Enterprise episodes “Future Tense” (where only their ships are seen) and “In A Mirror, Darkly” (where a Tholian’s full, insectoid body is shown).

The Zetarians

A number of Star Trek aliens were of the “sparkling energy cloud” variety: in the episode “Obsession,” there was one that drank blood, another one was desperately horny for warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane in “Metamorphosis,” and a third literally planted fake news into the heads of the Enterprise crew and a bunch of Klingons to get them to fight in “Day of the Dove.” But what made the Zetarians – the last, disembodied survivors of a race looking for a physical body that they can inhabit – so bizarre is not their twinkly lights but what they did to their victims.

Although they are so powerful that they end up shorting out most people’s brains, the Zetarians cause their targets’ faces to shift through all kinds of strange psychedelic colors while their voices sound like a vinyl record being spun very slowly on a turntable. It’s a pretty creepy effect in an otherwise unremarkable episode (it sure scared the hell out of this author as a wee lad), making the Zetarians a minor but still memorable addition to the Trek gallery of weirdness.

The Excalbians

The final non-humanoid alien race to appear on ST: TOS , the Excalbians showed up in the late third season episode “The Savage Curtain,” in which Kirk and Spock must fight alongside recreations of Abraham Lincoln and a Vulcan philosopher named Surak against a team made up of four of history’s most sinister figures. Orchestrating all this is the Excalbians, a race of rock-like beings who use such “plays” to educate themselves about other civilizations and concepts such as good and evil.

The Excalbians are represented by Yarnek, who initially disguises himself (itself?) as a boulder before revealing his true self – a massive being made of searingly hot “living rock” (the Excalbians’ planet is mostly lava) with flashing, bulbous eyes and claw-like appendages. No doting mother like the other TOS rock monster, the Horta, Yarnek – and by extension, his people – is extremely powerful (they’re able to manipulate matter) and totally cool with forcing other beings to act out their little shows.

Star Trek: The Original Series can be streamed on Paramount+.

Don Kaye | @donkaye

Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in New York City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…

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Published Jul 21, 2023

RECAP | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 206 - 'Lost in Translation'

It helps to have friends.

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

StarTrek.com

Previously on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , the U.S.S. Enterprise suffered a tragic loss when their landing party is stranded on the barren planet of Valeo Beta V. Hemmer, the ship's chief engineer, sacrificed himself after being infected with Gorn eggs, in order to give his friends and colleagues an opportunity to escape. Following Hemmer's sacrifice, Spock was unable to control his emotions, allowing his anger and pain to spill out. Acknowledging his human half, Spock begins to explore the feelings he was trying to suppress.

Meanwhile, La'An Noonien-Singh, the ship's head of security, lands in another timeline with events that were never supposed to play out. Worse yet, an agent from the Department of Temporal Investigations strongly requests she not share any details of what she experienced with anyone else.

Uhura reminds us that "the people you love the most can cause you the most pain, but it's the people you love that can mend your heart when you feel broken."

In " Lost in Translation ," Uhura seems to be the only one who can hear a strange sound. When the noise triggers terrifying hallucinations, she enlists an unlikely assistant to help her track down the source.

• Christopher Pike
• Nyota Uhura
• Una Chin-Riley (Number One)
• Erica Ortegas
• Dr. Joseph M'Benga
• James T. Kirk
• Christine Chapel
• La’An Noonien-Singh

• U.S.S. Enterprise
• Bannon's Nebula
• Bavali Station

At Bannon's Nebula on the edge of explored space, the U.S.S. Enterprise enters a stellar nursery rich in deuterium — starship fuel — where the Federation is building an outpost to collect and refine the invaluable resource. Captain Christopher Pike stares out at the sprawling facility and its surrounding beauty from the Bridge, waxing poetic until he notices Ensign Nyota Uhura’s fatigue is distracting her from his speech. He jovially advises her not to burn the candle at both ends.

Commander Una Chin-Riley enters and congratulates Pike on his temporary promotion to Fleet Captain, as he now commands the Enterprise , U.S.S. Farragut , and the Bavali Station until the refinery is brought online. Lt. Erica Ortegas turns from the helm and remarks that it is the shiniest gas station she’s ever seen. Ever the explorer, Pike emphasizes that the facility will unlock half the quadrant and be the jumping off point for the next great age of exploration. Lt. Spock notes the nursery’s proximity to Gorn Space, and the captain sadly acknowledges the Gorn’s growing presence factored into Starfleet’s plans. At Spock’s suggestion, Pike orders Ortegas to find a dense pocket of deuterium. The helm officer prepares to “rip some donuts” and begins refueling the Enterprise by activating the Bussard collectors on the ship’s nacelles.

"Lost in Translation"

A sharp metallic distortion reverberates in Uhura’s ear, but no signal has been recorded. Pike attributes it to a glitch, but the dedicated officer resolves to run a full diagnostic. She heads to a compartment within a nacelle, where she replays a video of Chief Engineer Hemmer demonstrating how to recalibrate the communications array. Commander Pelia, Hemmer’s successor, stumbles upon Uhura and listens as she recollects that, since the antenna assembly goes through the nacelles and she often requested recalibrations, Hemmer provided her with instructions on how to perform the procedure herself. Pelia nods, stating that the Aenar had been one of her best students — well, actually he was “just okay,” but he made something of himself nonetheless. The awkwardness intensifies when Pelia asks why Uhura has never spoken to her before, but the engineer leaves once Uhura welcomes her to the Enterprise . Uhura resumes Hemmer’s file, smiling wistfully as she watches him play a practical joke on her.*

Wearing his Fleet Captain delta badge, Pike patrols the corridors with Number One and comments on the refinery being two months behind schedule. Starfleet attributed the trouble to “organization difficulties,” so Pike believes the facility requires Una’s signature brand of managerial fervor to get it back on track. Elsewhere in the hallways, Uhura boards a turbolift and hears the strange, metallic ringing again. Out of nowhere, she spots a grotesque, zombie-like version of Hemmer and staggers back in fear.

In Sickbay, Doctor M’Benga runs a neurological analysis on Uhura and determines she was hallucinating. While working in the nacelle, she had been exposed to a small amount of refined deuterium. Coupled with her rewatch of Hemmer’s file, the mild case of deuterium poisoning seems to explain why she hallucinated. M’Benga gives her medicine to deal with the symptoms, but quickly notices that her serotonin and cortisone levels indicate she has not been sleeping. The doctor prescribes that Uhura get much-needed rest before going back on duty.

On the Federation outpost, Una oversees repairs in the dimly lit facility. Pelia approaches, diagnosing the situation as even worse than it appears. According to the maintenance logs, the refinery has been breaking down faster than anyone can fix it. Pelia suspects an underlying issue, but Number One resists her input.

Attempting to follow M’Benga’s orders, Uhura struggles to fall asleep in her quarters aboard the Enterprise . As she sits up in bed, she immediately finds herself standing outdoors in an open field with thick smoke billowing in the distance. The auditory distortion returns until she awakes back in her room.

Lt. James T. Kirk beams over from the Farragut and is greeted by his brother, Lt. George Samuel Kirk. Sam welcomes “Jimmy,” and the two proceed to the bar in the Enterprise ’s forward lounge. Sharing a drink, James asks about Sam’s work in xenoanthropology, but Sam senses the question is merely a polite prelude for James’ own news. Newly promoted, James will become the Farragut ’s first officer in a few months.

Clearly displeased, Sam notes that the previous person to hold the record for being the youngest first officer in Starfleet history was their father, George Kirk, aboard the U.S.S. Kelvin .** Irritated by Sam’s demeanor, James points out that their father gave Sam his first name — though Sam chooses not to use it — so he had to do something to keep up. Frustrated by James’ ambition, Sam believes his father isn’t proud of him. Sam downs his drink and walks off.

Back on the station, Una rejoices as life support is stabilized and power is restored — at least temporarily. The lights brighten only to cut out once again, and Pelia’s team has found something in the fuel distribution system. The engineer had disobeyed Number One’s orders, opting to dig around the functioning systems and discovering evidence of sabotage.

Nurse Christine Chapel contemplates a chess move in the Enterprise ’s lounge. Across from her, Spock raises a concern — he wishes to inform Starfleet about their fraternization. Chapel pauses in thought then describes human relationships as being like Schrödinger's cat. They exist or they don’t depending on who is observing them. Spock interrupts, intending to state that is not how quantum superposition actually works. Chapel admits it is a messy metaphor, theorizing that if they told anyone about their relationship, their “quantum cat” might disappear. Uhura approaches and confides in the duo. She first heard the disturbing sound on the Bridge, before her deuterium exposure, yet Spock and Chapel doubt anything is amiss.

Feeling defeated, Uhura departs their table and takes a seat at the bar, where James T. Kirk voices his opinion that her Vulcan buddy should protect his queen. Kirk introduces himself, but Uhura has heard of James’ reputation from Sam and believes he is hitting on her. James assures her he merely thinks she looks like she needs a friend. Uhura respectfully declines the friendship and withdraws from the conversation. Strolling through the corridors, the metallic ringing reemerges, and Uhura turns to find a darkened hallway littered with bloody corpses. She sees a disturbing doppelgänger of herself gripping a knife and reacts with a defensive punch. The hallucination ends, and she looks down to the floor to find that she has actually punched James T. Kirk.***

His nose bloodied, Kirk gets to his feet. Uhura is apologetic, but James refuses her offer to bring him to Sickbay. Having witnessed her experiencing the hallucination, he knows she has bigger things to worry about than being written up for striking a superior officer. The two travel to Uhura’s quarters, where she employs a dermal regenerator to repair his nose. Despite their rough start, Kirk believes Uhura’s assessment of her condition. He wishes to help, and the first step is checking with the Farragut ’s doctor to see if any similar cases have been reported there.

With the refinery’s lighting grid and internal sensors offline, Una and Pelia maneuver through the facility’s shadowy depths. They locate their saboteur — a terrified Starfleet officer who frantically questions whether his new visitors are real. Una places a hand on his shoulder, asking the lieutenant, who relays his name to be Saul Ramon, why he sabotaged the station. Ramon is still seeking to discern hallucinations from reality, so Number One flips open her communicator and notifies the Enterprise of the medical emergency.

Curled up on the floor of her quarters, Uhura is startled by the sounds of explosions and the ship’s Red Alert klaxons. She hurries to the Bridge as Pike bellows that they are under attack. The viewscreen cracks and buckles, the change in atmosphere sucking the crew into space. Uhura comes to her senses, now sitting at her station, the bridge intact and free of any alarms. Pike observes that she is supposed to be on medical leave, but the ensign is speechless. The conversation between the two resumes in the Ready Room, where they are soon joined by James Kirk. The Farragut ’s first officer expresses his appreciation for finally meeting Pike.**** Apparently, his vessel’s doctor received a call the previous day about Lt. Saul Ramon seeing things that weren’t there.

The three visit Ramon in Sickbay, and M’Benga highlights the damage to the speech and language centers of the lieutenant’s brain. Ramon experiences an intense auditory episode, prompting him to grab one of the doctor’s medical instruments. He slashes M’Benga’s chest, causing a minor wound, and speeds out of the room. Kirk reassures Uhura that this is a real event and follows Pike out the door in pursuit of Ramon. Phasers drawn, Pike and a security officer proceed down a corridor as the lights lose power. Rounding a corner, they find an unconscious crew member with a severe gash outside of Astrometrics. Pike calls for M’Benga, while Lt. La’An Noonien-Singh marches to the scene and indicates Ramon cut the power conduits. The captain and La’An continue toward Engineering.

Meanwhile, Uhura and James Kirk search another darkened hallway. The ensign endures a brief hallucination, momentarily unable to find Kirk. He reappears, but Uhura is shaken and chooses to return to Sickbay. Kirk proceeds on his own, eventually running into Pike and La’An. The security chief calls him by his first name, a fact which does not go unnoticed by Pike. Ramon must have found a place to hide, so the two parties double back. La’An watches Kirk retreat for a moment before joining her captain.

Alone in the halls, Uhura spots blood on the access tunnel to the port nacelle and reports the update. James isn’t far, but the ensign opts not to wait. Entering the nacelle compartment, Uhura notices Ramon jostling with circuitry and details that she has been dealing with similar hallucinations. She lowers her phaser and tries grounding him in reality by mentioning her name and rank, her home in Kenya, her cat Kamili, and the memory of her dad playing the piano. Ramon initially stares at her unresponsively, then suddenly moves to a console and initiates the fuel pod ejection sequence. The two fight hand-to-hand as explosions ripple through the nacelle. James appears behind Uhura, holding on to her and calling for an emergency transport. Kirk and Uhura are beamed out, but an expanding eruption tears through the hull and pulls Ramon to his death in the cold of space.

Standing in Sickbay, Captain Pike is contemplative as Chapel covers up the crew member who was injured outside of Astrometrics — she did not survive. The captain sits next to Uhura on a biobed, promising that they will come up with a solution for her hallucinations. After displaying his confidence in Uhura, Pike leaves to confer with Chin-Riley about the repairs to the refinery and decrypt Ramon’s files.

James Kirk leans against the wall in the hallway near Sickbay, perusing a PADD until La’An says hello. Remembering La’An from her recent transmission about Sam’s personnel file, Kirk divulges that he’s been waiting there to help Uhura. He then recounts how his family chased his father around from one Starfleet posting to another, yet he still barely saw his dad during his childhood. James’ mother explained that George Kirk was helping people that really needed it. La’An understands that, as a kid, James interpreted this as his father caring more for strangers than he did his son. This gave young James the impression that helping total strangers must be important. As someone aided by Starfleet, La’An agrees. With a smirk, Kirk reminds her that he hasn’t forgotten that she owes him a drink.

Chin-Riley and Pelia assess the routing system aboard the outpost, and the chief engineer interrogates Number One as to why she has a problem with her. Describing Una’s dismissal of the notion as malarkey, Pelia presses the issue. The first officer slams down her PADD and opines that Pelia is sloppy, doesn’t respect protocols, is too loose with discipline, doesn’t follow orders unless she agrees with them, and has crumbs on her uniform! In Una’s eyes, Pelia is a space hippie. The engineer accuses Number One of hiding behind order and discipline because it kills her when someone has the nerve to question her decisions. Una retaliates, stating she outranks Pelia despite the engineer having joined Starfleet before she had been born. Pelia shakes her head and reports she will have the station online soon.

In the ensign’s quarters, Uhura and James Kirk review a log in which Ramon recalls having the same kind of visual and auditory hallucinations as the communications officer. Based on the dates of the logs, Uhura estimates she has a day and a half until she loses her mind. Kirk encourages her to take a break, reminding her that the mess is serving real cookies which have not been prepared in the matter synthesizer. Unamused, the ensign shares that this isn’t the first time she has imagined someone who wasn’t there.

After her parents and brother died in a shuttle accident, Uhura thought she could see the crash site whenever she closed her eyes, despite not being present at the time. Hemmer’s death reopened the old wound for Uhura, who can’t comprehend how other people are able to face death. Rather than tell her a comforting fairytale, Kirk maintains that their Starfleet jobs put them up against death often. They may not like it, but they must face it. Kirk urges Uhura not to let death win, encouraging her to fight back and not let it prevent her from holding onto the memories of Hemmer and her family. Tears stream down Uhura’s cheeks, and James breaks the tension by offering to go get her a cookie from the mess.

Emboldened, Uhura retrieves her PADD and watches Hemmer’s pre-recorded lesson, a smile emerging through the pain. On-screen, Hemmer warns her not to burn out the receiver, and the comment catches her attention in the present. Uhura crosses paths with James on his voyage back from the mess — cookie in hand — and presents a startling theory. Ramon and Uhura experienced increased activity in their brains’ language center, so what if someone had been trying to communicate with them? If their signal was too strong, it might have burned out his brain entirely.

Uhura goes with James to visit Sam in his lab. Sam recalls a fringe theory which proposes that extra-dimensional lifeforms could poke into our space and attach themselves to atoms from our dimension. James puts the information into his own terms, wryly asking Uhura if invisible aliens are using her brain as a universal translator. Uhura believes her mind interprets the simple messages through her thoughts and memories. The visions are essentially a vocabulary, and the ensign reflects on their potential meanings. The walls closing in on her symbolized feeling trapped, and she attacked herself with a knife because the Enterprise ’s crew is responsible. Factoring in her visions about the Bridge’s destruction, the dead bodies in the hall, and a zombie-like Hemmer, Uhura realizes that the unknown beings are trying to escape and that the Enterprise is somehow killing the ones they love. The Kirk brothers add that, if the lifeforms live in the nebula and — in a way — are the deuterium, refining the substance is basically torturing them. Uhura immediately contacts Pike to prevent the outpost from going online, but the captain responds that it became functional five minutes ago.

Chin-Riley and Pelia tackle the problem from the station itself, but none of its automated systems will respond. Uhura and James sprint into the turbolift, and the ensign finds herself in the middle of an open field once again. This time around, she spots a crashed shuttle and stands inside of it, summoning the courage to walk forward... and she reappears on the Bridge alongside James. Uhura briefs Pike, expressing that they’re killing the creatures living in the nebula’s deuterium by pulling them into their fuel pods. Ramon died trying to save the beings. The refinery can’t be shut down, so Uhura declares they need to destroy it.

Uhura and James assure Pike that they are certain they are correct. The captain orders an emergency evacuation of the station, and the Enterprise and Farragut vent the deuterium from their fuel pods. Shuttles and escape craft flee the facility until no lifesigns remain. At Uhura’s command, La’An launches a volley of photon torpedoes that rip apart the refinery. The ensign hallucinates a healthy, smiling, and nodding image of Hemmer. Uhura confirms that the beings are safe, and the vision slowly fades. She laments the facility’s destruction, but Pike promises to take any blowback from Starfleet. He admits he could also say someone’s brash influence — he gives James T. Kirk a good-humored glance — had rubbed off on Uhura. Pike outlines the next steps — recover the escape pods, get out of the nebula, contact Admiral Nagawa, and then take a nap.

En route back to the Enterprise , Una confronts Pelia with the truth — the engineer had been her professor when she took the Starship Maintenance 307 course at Starfleet Academy and gave her a “C” in the course. Pelia already knows and insists Number One deserved that “C” grade due to her sloppy final paper. She sees through Una’s facade, arguing that the underlying reason for the first officer’s unease with her is Hemmer. Pelia replaced him, so the sadness returns every time Una glimpses her. Given her lifetimes of experience, Pelia empathizes and smiles, offering not to contradict Una if she wishes to continue believing the “C” is the root cause.

A live band entertains the audience in the Enterprise ’s lounge, and Uhura shows pictures of her family to James Kirk. Pondering why the beings communicated with her, James announces they found the perfect person — a good listener. Sam approaches, mending fences by sharing that he is proud of his brother’s promotion. Expecting a similar apology from James, Sam lingers until he realizes James is not taking the bait. Annoyed, Sam tells his brother to have fun on his stupid little ship while he remains assigned to the Federation’s flagship.

James eyes Sam as he walks off, declaring his brother to be — a voice completes the sentence for him — “frustrating.” The Enterprise ’s science officer stands next to their table, and Uhura introduces James T. Kirk to Spock. Uhura grins as the two shake hands. James invites the Vulcan to join them, so Spock takes a seat. The three begin to engage in quiet conversation as the band’s music fills the lounge.

* " All Who Wander " - While on Valeo Beta V, the Enterprise 's landing party resolves to recover the U.S.S. Peregrine and its crew after receiving their distress call. The Peregrine had rescued survivors from a Gorn breeding planet, but unfortunately, some of them had already been infected with Gorn eggs. As the landing party fights for survival against their ravenous enemy, Hemmer too becomes infected. Remarking on a life well lived, the chief engineer lures another Gorn youngling into a trap, in order to protect his friends. The loss of Hemmer deeply affects the crew.

** Star Trek (2009) - Aboard the U.S.S. Kelvin , George Samuel Kirk, Sr. served as the first officer under the command of Captain Robau. After an incident with the Romulan Nero and the Narada , the timeline split, deviating from the Prime Universe timeline. Following Nero's attack and the death of Robau, George Kirk became captain of the Kelvin , just as his wife was giving birth to James T. Kirk elsewhere on the ship. In his 12 minutes of command, George sacrificed himself and saved 800 lives aboard the Kelvin .

*** " Night Terrors " - In this Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, the Enterprise-D 's crew discovers the U.S.S. Brattain , adrift in space, with its entire crew, except for the ship's Betazoid officer, dead. Stuck in the Tyken's Rift, as the Brattain was, the Enterprise 's crew is unable to dream, and experience waking hallucinations. Like the Brattain 's Betazoid officer, Counselor Deanna Troi is dreaming; unfortunately, all she sees are nightmares. However, Troi discovers these nightmares are attempts at communication from another ship trapped on the other side of the rift.

**** " The Menagerie, Part I " - Established in this Star Trek : The Original Series episode, James T. Kirk and Christopher Pike met when the latter was "promoted to Fleet Captain."

• Written by Onitra Johnson & David Reed
• Directed by Dan Liu

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Jay Stobie (he/him) is a freelance writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to StarTrek.com, Star Trek Explorer, and Star Trek Magazine, as well as to Star Wars Insider and StarWars.com. Learn more about Jay by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In addition, the series airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.