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• May 29, 2024 | ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Filming Set For 2025; Anson Mount Thanks Fans For Patience
• May 29, 2024 | Watch: Saru Has A Daring Plan To Save The Federation In Clip From ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 Finale
• May 29, 2024 | Interview: Doug Jones On ‘Space Command,’ And Saru’s Legacy After ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Series Finale
• May 28, 2024 | 12 Predictions For The ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 Finale

Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Gets Animated In “Those Old Scientists”

| July 22, 2023 | By: Anthony Pascale 404 comments so far

 “Those Old Scientists”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This episode was released early on Paramount+ as a surprise for fans, see our report from San Diego Comic-Con for more details. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 7 – Debuted Saturday, July 22, 2023 Written by Kathryn Lyn & Bill Wolkoff Directed by Jonathan Frakes

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, then you will just get back to laughing at this near-perfect crossover episode and love letter to Star Trek.

Hey guys, did you ever watch that show Stargate ?

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“The ancient thing is doing a thing.”

We begin in the second dimension of the 24 th century and the USS Cerritos (stay with me) arrives at Krometh B, home of a cool ancient portal, originally discovered by Captain Christopher Pike and the USS Enterprise (although Tendi says it was actually discovered by Orion scientists). Even though the portal hasn’t done anything in over a century, the Beta Shift ensigns (except a grumbling Mariner, naturally) are excited to do some scanning, especially after the landing party discovers traces of super-rare Heronium (used on the 22 nd century NX-01 Enterprise), only enhancing Boimler’s hero-worship of Starfleet history. Mariner (who is actually leading the mission) suggests he try to “live in the moment,” but he’s too busy posing for a holo image and doing his best Spock impersonation… at least until Rutherford’s holo camera triggers the not-so-dormant portal, which portals him into the third dimension and the inscrutable gazes of Spock, Una, and La’an. “You guys look… very realistic.” Holy crossover, Bradman. The USS Enterprise (the OG one, captained by Pike) happened upon this time traveler on Krometh B on their way to deliver some crucial grain to a Federation colony. After Boimler realizes he hasn’t woken up in a holodeck recreation, he is giddy to find himself in the old Enterprise’s sick bay talking to Pike himself and very relieved to hear the captain already knows he is a time traveler. He’s surprised to find Pike has a sense of humor and appears terrified of Number One.

La’an is put in charge of escorting Boimler, so she seizes the moment to remind him of temporal protocols, adding her personal advice to avoid making attachments.  Of course, Brad is having a hard time sticking to the rules, which includes accidentally name-dropping Worf. He can’t even resist jumping on Pike’s “historical saddle” (exclaiming “Riker” and using his iconic maneuver ) and has another freak-out when he meets Uhura, who is trying to translate the portal’s ancient language so the Enterprise crew can send him home. He can barely contain his fanboying when sent to assist M’Benga and Spock on the planet, who are doing their own portal scanning. Boimler attributes his journey through time to Rutherford’s holo camera triggering the portal, calling it “dumb luck.” Spock finds this hilarious… which definitely freaks Brad out. The landing party is called back to the ship to deal with the arrival of a suspected Orion ship. After squeeing over the Enterprise bridge, Boimler remembers what Tendi said and convinces Pike they are not facing pirates but a “peaceful” Orion science vessel, which is quickly backed up by the claim of the Orion captain. However, the Orions beam up the portal and warp away. Pike is pissed and for once, Boimler has nothing to say.

You are saying that in your century this Quark fellow sells these as souvenirs?

“Our problems seem to have doubled.”

Brad retreats to the lounge only to get teased by Erica and Christine but he doesn’t mind as he is still “jealous” of these heroes living in what he calls the golden age of exploration. He also accidentally reveals the upcoming Friday is Captain Pike’s birthday, a future Federation holiday. “Crap!” Spock shows up, and the huge smile on the Vulcan’s face when he sees Christine sends Boimler into a panic. Boims tracks down Nurse Chapel, worried he “broke” Spock by making him laugh on the planet. This Spock doesn’t match all the books he read about the legend, but Christine assures him he hasn’t triggered a butterfly effect, Spock is just “going through a thing.” Boimler’s visible relief that Spock will soon return to his serious self hits Christine hard, who understands the experiment with emotion isn’t going to last, and Boimler is heartbroken to see she was actually the one influencing him and he’s now made her miserable. Brad is starting to agree with Pike: He should probably get off this ship before he does any more damage. On the bridge, Brad suggests that everyone just turn around and not look (really) so he can quickly retool the ship to track the Orions, imploring Pike to find a diplomatic solution because an ancestor of his friend Tendi is on that ship. Pike agrees and works a deal with the Orion captain, trading the grain in the cargo hold for the portal, which is soon returned to Krometh B and powered up by Spock with the last of the Heronium. Pike is polite but implores Boimler “for the sake of the future” to not return; however, Brad’s exit is interrupted by Mariner, who arrives to “save” him just as the portal powers down. Realizing she time-traveled, the excited ensign immediately requests a meeting with Uhura. (“You guys are great, but is she here?”) Read the room, Beckett.

The captain is not happy to find himself stuck with two time travelers, Mariner isn’t helping as she fangirls over Uhura and “hot Spock.” A new plan is formed with Spock set to attempt to synthesize more Heronium (Mariner volunteers Brad to help) and Uhura still working on that translation (Mariner volunteers herself to help). A resigned Pike agrees because “how much more damage can you do at this point?” Brad tries to give Mariner a reality check that maybe it’s not so great to meet your heroes before he scurries away at the sight of Number One. Mariner reveals to Una that Brad keeps a poster of her in his bunk. “A pin-up?” Not helping, Mariner. After putting even more pressure on Uhura with talk of a “super translator space adventurer” destiny, Beckett leans into her own strengths, taking Nyota to the bar. There they meet Ortegas, who vaguely recognizes the portal’s carvings, which helps Uhura identify them as ancient Nausicaan. Mariner was right, drinking helps. For once, Brad is trying to play it temporally safe when Spock starts making suppositions about his own future based on Brad’s conversation with Christine. Thankfully, the Vulcan vows that he won’t let a time traveler change his path, so he will keep on experimenting with emotion and sports a mischievous smile as he asks Brad “Are you feeling lucky?” Their experiment making Heronium goes spectacularly badly, blowing up the lab. Boimler scream!

Tell me more about this fan dancing

“Turns out I don’t belong here.”

A dejected Boimler retreats to the comfort of the warp core, meeting Pelia who has some ancient wisdom to impart. Brad grows up a bit, declaring he is “a man,” and he’s now determined to fix what he screwed up, starting with the people starving on that Federation colony because their grain was traded away. Beckett finds Brad clandestinely tinkering with a shuttle, trying to use it to contact the Orions to trade the portal back for the grain as he is “done worrying about the future.” Mariner signs on as accomplice, boasting she never gets caught… right before they get caught by La’an. Pike has had enough and is set on delivering them to Starbase One. He also wants Brad to stop trying to get the crew to throw him a surprise party. Brad tries to hint that Pike may not have many more birthdays but Pike lets them know he’s aware. Turns out Pike has some (dead) daddy issues he plans to resolve on his own on Friday. For the first time, these Starfleet officers separated by time connect as people. They even share some hero-worship for Archer and his Enterprise, because they don’t make them like that anymore… or do they? Boimler has an idea!

After apologizing for all his future fanboying, Boimler briefs the Enterprise on how the NX-01 Enterprise was actually made out of a Heronium alloy (making it “just the right shade of gray,” BTW). And there’s a piece of the old Enterprise built into this successor. Ta-da! Mariner (who reluctantly paid attention during a tour of the Starfleet Museum) even knows where it is, so after some excavating in engineering and a little Spock magic, they have themselves enough McGuffin juice to send the lower deckers home. In the transporter room, Mariner clarifies with Una that Boimler has a Starfleet recruitment poster that inspired Brad, with “Ad Astra Per Aspera” on it. Nice. Spock puts aside his human dabbling to send them off with “Live long and prosper, Mr. Boimler,” leaving Brad stammering. On the planet, the Orion captain blocks the way to the portal. Brad reveals he is a time traveler who knows a descendent of a Tendi on the Orion ship. Things are resolved when Pike agrees to give credit for the portal’s discovery to “Orion scientists.” This time the goodbyes are much more cordial as Brad and Beckett return to their future (and the second dimension), they are greeted by Tendi and Rutherford. Back on the Cerritos, we see Una’s poster, a favorite of Ransom’s. Oh, and it turns out Mariner asked for this assignment to ensure her pal Boimler could have fun scanning one of his favorite portals, aww. Things wrap up back on the USS Enterprise, but not as we know it. They are quite animated… like literally animated. Pike agreed to this little surprise birthday party and they attribute feeling “strange” and “two dimensional” to a genuine bottle of Orion booze. Perfect ending.

So in a way, this is all your fault Commander Chin-Riley.

More than just crossover comedy

Since it was first announced at Comic-Con 2022, this crossover episode has been highly anticipated, and yet it still lived up to the hype. First and foremost, it was hilarious — arguably it’s the funniest episode of the series so far. Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid certainly helped raise the bar for the humor, but the Strange New Worlds cast themselves followed right behind, with Anson Mount once again showing he has great comic timing. What makes this a great episode is that it also delivers the season’s consistent theme of emotion and connection, with Jack Quaid showing he is much more than a funny guy with purple hair. The episode works as a standalone adventure, complete with a planet of the week, but also cleverly ties in a number of storylines from the Strange New Worlds season 2 so far and dips into season 1 as well. With all the gags and meta references included, this is one of the most rewatchable episodes of the series.

Having the animated Lower Decks era as a wraparound was clever, making this truly a crossover instead of just having guest stars from another series show up. This was certainly one of the big swings of the season, and finding a way to mesh the tone and style of both shows together was tricky, co-writer Kathryn Lyn came to SNW from Lower Decks  so she was versed in both languages. You could also sense the influence of Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan, who helped make this marriage work. Director Jonathan Frakes was able to take what was crafted and find that middle ground between the shows, creating some fun cartoony moments but still knowing when to slow things down for the drama. The production team made the crossing over from animation feel real, from the Cerritos uniforms (that even included the delta detail on boot bottoms) to Boimler’s hair.

We heard a rumor that Section 31 has Sam’s brother’s body in some secret lab.

The real trick of this episode was accepting that the gimmick of having Boimler and Mariner cause chaos on the USS Enterprise only takes you so far. The plot about finding a sci-fi solution to get the characters back to their time, while navigating through the threat of the Orions, was engaging. And Boimler’s emotional journey through it all made it compelling as he learned some key lessons about growing up and taking responsibility. This ties in well with the third season of Lower Decks itself, which has similar themes. The way he and Mariner reacted to different members of the Enterprise crew also wove well into SNW’s season 2 stories, especially Spock’s exploration of humanity with Chapel. Once again, Jess Bush delivers a heartbreaking performance, as everyone else gets to have fun around her, when Chapel comes to realize her influence on Spock is fated to be short-lived. The 24th-century characters also gave the rest of the crew nice glimpses into their legacies, including the nice fake-out with Una worried over something tragic only to learn she has become an inspiration, which tied back nicely to her big courtroom episode from earlier in the season. Even with all that going on, the Lower Decks storyline itself also had little mini-arcs, including Mariner showing how much she cares for pal Boimler (getting him the mission) and Tendi getting some respect fighting against Orion stereotypes.

As a crossover with Lower Decks , “The Old Scientists” brought along some of the meta aspects of that series, which allowed them to use all of these character moments as a way to reflect on the show itself. That meta effect went both ways, like when the Enterprise crew noted the overly specific references coming from the Cerritos ensigns. The multitude of references to Star Trek: Enterprise was also welcome, as that show and those characters never get enough love, and was cleverly used to show some common ground between these two eras with their shared hero-worship. This was a way to reach out to the fans as well, showing us how these characters’ observations are all a bit like ours. And there’s one thing we all agree on: Pike has great hair.

The Orions weren’t impressed with the hair.

Final thoughts

What else can be said? This was one of the most entertaining hours of Star Trek ever. Fans will entertain each other quoting lines from it for years. The second half of the season is going from strength to strength and we now know there is an even bigger swing coming. (A musical?) There are three episodes left, but for now this review is complete. Computer, end program.

Yes, this is canon too

• The episode title “Those Old Scientists” is a reference to Lower Decks “ No Small Parts .”
• The episode was originally scheduled for release on July 27, instead it debuted during the Star Trek Universe panel San Diego Comic-Con on July 22 nd followed by a surprise early release on Paramount+.
• The opening credits were redone with Lower Decks -style animation that included the space creature from the LDS credits now latched onto one of the nacelles of the USS Enterprise.
• Episode begins with Boimler’s Ensign’s log stardate on 58460.1. This sets the episode exactly between episodes 5 and 6 of Lower Decks season 3.
• Later Boimler dictates a log as “Stardate, the past.”
• The actual Stardate in the past is 2291.6, which Boimler notes is five digits and a “totally normal date to be living in.”
• Setlik II was first mentioned in the series premiere “Strange New Worlds.”
• The design used for the Orion scout ship was based on the TOS-remastered version of “Journey to Babel.
• Boimler took an elective in material synthesis at Starfleet Academy… for fun.
• When Uhura is researching the ancient language from the portal, she scans through other languages, including Cardassian and Bajoran.

Check back for a follow-up article as we dive deeper into the Easter eggs for the episode.

According to my tricorder, his hair isn’t naturally that color.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast  covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

Season 2 episodes drop weekly on Thursdays on  Paramount+ in the U.S, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Season 2 is also available on SkyShowtime elsewhere in Europe. The second season will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in South Korea, with premiere dates to be announced.

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

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Why is this up now?

It released today

Because the reviews always go live on the same day as the episodes.

Huh? It was out yesterday?

The uniform looks so bad. Why does the black part over the shoulders reach so far down??

The unis are fine. Relax.

I know I loved the uniform. I thought it looked fantastic on the Enterprise.

Cause it does on Lower Decks. I think these are the same uniforms the cast wore last year to comic con.

I felt the same way seeing the cropped photos but felt better after seeing the full-length version in the episode. Jack Quaid’s tall stature and the extended V shape on the uniform balanced everything out nicely from my POV.

I loved it. Absolutely loved it.

Ok so It was good. Not as bad as i thought it was going to be but not as great as it could of been. To be honest i felt that animated comedy antics of Lower Decks characters doesn’t transfer well into live action. Not much else to say about this episode and with 3 episodes left in this season i still feel S1 was better.

“Could of”?

Right?! 🤦‍♂️ Do people not understand the simple meaning of “have” anymore?

And then there’s “To be honest,” implying that most of this commenter’s other posts exist in a more dishonest realm…

Though, I do agree that LD’s comedy generally doesn’t translate all too well to live action; the cringe is extraordinarily strong with Mariner. What an insufferably self-absorbed character.

Still liked this episode a lot better than the last three snoozers. The visuals (and some of the more self-awarene dialog) worked surprisingly well! It falls right behind “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” and “Ad Astra per Aspera” for me, which I both liked a lot. 🥇🥈🥉

This season needs two more good ones, to be an even 50/50 in my opinion. And if the next three episodes all shine, it’ll firmly push season two into “huzzah”-territory. 🤞

I actually agree with you I think season 1 was still better but this is my favorite episode of the entire show easily. This one, the one where Spock turns into teenage human and Measure of a Woman were great IMO. The others have been more OK to bad for me.

But if you’re not a big fan of either SNW or LDS I can see why they would have issues with this one. 🙂

Well, what can I say? People who like Lower Decks will like this one. People who like sitcommy Star Trek will adore this one. People who dislike it probably won’t.   My own reaction: it’s so bad, it’s good. Yes, it’s predictably cringeworthy as serious Star Trek; more on that below. But it actually works miraculously well as a parody of the more quirky, obsessive corners of Star Trek fandom, even if it wasn’t *quite* as mordant as GALAXY QUEST, or the USS Callister of Black Mirror fame. This is undoubtedly why they released it at Comic-Con. It feels most like a cotton-candy, hour-long update of William Shatner’s infamous “get a life” SNL skit – this in a way that LOWER DECKS itself does not.   “Those Old Scientists” is what you get when incompetent, socially inept misfits like Boimler and Mariner meet normies. The best line came when Pike muses that dealing with Boimler is like dealing with a toddler. (The dynamic differs from that of LOWER DECKS itself, because on that show, there *are* no normies.) It’s almost a high school sex comedy:   – Boimler and his pinup poster is to Una as what a pimply 16-year-old boy (by which I mean Donald Trump) are to Stormy Daniels.   – Uhura is Hermione Granger, the Studious One Who Wants to Go to Yale But Just Needs to Get Laid, and Mariner is Stiffler. (I nominate Tawny Awesome to play Sitffler’s mom in the remake 20 years from now.)   – Spock ambling around with a dopey grin plastered across his face is what happens when a nerd like George McFly falls for the head cheerleader and gets drunk. It’s almost an unwitting homage to DAZED AND CONFUSED: all that’s missing is Peck depanning “alright, alright, alright.”   Now, before all you LOWER DECKS fans start chomping at the bit to celebrate that you’ve converted a certified LOWER DECKS hater: as Data once said, there’s a difference between laughing *with* someone and laughing *at* them. If you think that this was up there with “City on the Edge of Forever” as quality Star Trek, you’re the butt of the joke (we even saw a poor man’s Guardian of Forever, sans Carl, to drive the point home). This episode was rubbernecking at its finest.   As is par with the course for LOWER DECKS, and increasingly with SNW itself, believability collapses if you think about any of this for, like, five seconds. (The point – as Uhura learned when quaffing those Orion libations at the Enterprise bar – is that you’re not meant to think about it too hard, rather like MOONRAKER for Bond fans.) As usual, the easter eggs are the real star (someone forgot that it was Picard who owned a saddle, not Riker – but details, shmetails). Unlike in much of PICARD, they’re wholly unearned here. To wit:   – The level of detail these people know about Pike and his crew is absurd. Now, back when I was in college, I went to one of the big Star Trek conventions they used to do over Thanksgiving weekend in New York City. Rick Berman (IIRC) was among the panelists, and someone in the audience asked him why TNG didn’t deify the TOS characters more. His response: it would be unrealistic. No one would really care that much about Kirk’s crew 100 years later. He asked the audience to name John Paul Jones’ first officer. To his credit, one guy, who said he was active-duty navy and a history buff, knew the answer. Everyone else was silent. Geordi’s reaction to Scotty in “Relics” (“who dat?”) was much more realistic.   Some hero worship of Spock I can buy: he does become an important figure in Federation history through his work as a diplomat. Pike has enough of a legacy that potentially I can buy that, too, since we know Starfleet named a medal in his honor. But seriously, they know they names of the *nursing* staff? Even Picard didn’t really buy it when Berlinghoff Rasmussen, supposedly a professional historian, claimed to know the 1701-D crew like the back of his hand.   On the positive side, I enjoyed the callouts to Archer’s crew; those were Pike’s near-immediate predecessors, so it felt more organic.   – They’re using 120 year old historical figures as recruiting incentives? Maybe the US Army should resurrect “Tippacanoe and (José) Tyler, too!” as a recruiting slogan. (Still, Ransom’s ogling of Una is worth it just to imagine the Kyle’s mother-like groans coming from the uber-woke DISCOVERY writers’ room.)   – The Neelixifcation of Spock continues. ‘Nuff said. The Neelixifcation of Pike is well underway, too. Pike seems to excel at standing around chopping shallots with an even dopier grin plastered on his face. …  Read more »

Chatgpt gone wrong

Lol – awesome!

Tried it. For now, I’m still a better writer than the M5. I’ll credit that to being introduced to Dave Barry’s work in high school.

Dave Barry is not funny.

He’s very very funny.

Good summary. That’s sort of where I am at — this is a horrible idea that they did an exceptionally good job producing. Sort of like If you applied a Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares approach to Star Trek for one ep.

The previews for BARBIE — which were utterly brilliant — featured the slogan “If you LOVE Barbie…this movie’s for you. If you HATE Barbie…this movie’s for you.”

You could apply the same slogan to “These Old Scientists.” Love LOWER DECKS, it’s for you. Hate LOWER DECKS, it’s for you.

I’ve not seen BARBIE yet, but judging from those previews, I expect it to be very much in the same vein as “Those Old Scientists” — superficially for Barbie aficionados, but more deeply a parody of them. A scathing parody, at that.

 “Those Old Scientists” is what you get when incompetent, socially inept misfits like Boimler and Mariner meet normies. The best line came when Pike muses that dealing with Boimler is like dealing with a toddler. (The dynamic differs from that of LOWER DECKS itself, because on that show, there *are* no normies.) It’s almost a high school sex comedy: – Boimler and his pinup poster is to Una as what a pimply 16-year-old boy (by which I mean Donald Trump) are to Stormy Daniels. – Uhura is Hermione Granger, the Studious One Who Wants to Go to Yale But Just Needs to Get Laid, and Mariner is Stiffler. (I nominate Tawny Awesome to play Sitffler’s mom in the remake 20 years from now.) – Spock ambling around with a dopey grin plastered across his face is what happens when a nerd like George McFly falls for the head cheerleader and gets drunk.

Dude, this is freaking brilliant!

Some other good lines: “that is strangely specific.” “Does anyone else feel two-dimensional?”

I just want to say I really enjoyed this post.

Hey Chat GPT can you help me write a snarky pointless review filled with juvenile quips about a fictional science fiction television show that takes place in the 23rd century? Oh don’t forget the cultural references especially one from Harry Potter that is wrapped in sexism.

This line right here: Uhura is Hermione Granger, the Studious One Who Wants to Go to Yale But Just Needs to Get Laid, and Mariner is Stiffler. (I nominate Tawny Awesome to play Sitffler’s mom in the remake 20 years from now.) 

Interesting how you single out and insult the two Black female characters on the show. Uhura was treated at times like a prop during the original series as were most of the women to give deference to men.

Correct me if I am wrong but Kirks Enterprise made first visual contact with the Romulans decades after the war ended. How would the history of that ship and crew not be important? There are lines spread throughout TNG, DS9, and Voyager that show the reverence given to Kirk and his crew. Did you forget about Trials and Triblelations?

What about Picard’s reaction in Generations? If you don’t like it that is fine but don’t be intellectually dishonest.

You are trying and failing to be funny. It is a television show. Respecfully, get over yourself.

“Uhura is Hermione Granger, the Studious One Who Wants to Go to Yale But Just Needs to Get Laid, and Mariner is Stiffler” …Interesting how you single out and insult the two Black female characters on the show.

If you dropped your outrage shields for a moment, it might have dawned on you that my argument is that Uhura does, in fact, indeed deserve to go to Harvard (I’d never deign to send her to Yale), and the awful *writers* are the ones celebrating the anti-intellectual Stiffler approach.

(Seeing the state of Starfleet these days, Uhura probably should have picked Harvard over Starfleet Academy.)

As for Slacker Mariner (TM), she absolutely deserves to be criticized for her Stiffler-like hazing that Uhura Works Too Hard. Like I say, does anyone remember when Starfleet was depicted as professional, and competent, such that *real-life* organizations showed TNG clips as an example of good leadership? You wouldn’t be one of those folks claiming that “hard work is a white trait,” would you?

Not to worry, though. The slackers are multi-racial, as Boimler the Blathering Idiot shows, not to mention Pike and Spock, they of the Dopey Grins. (Who needs Tom Cruise when you’ve got that pair around?)

How would the history of that ship and crew not be important?

As I (or, allegedly, ChatGPT) argued, I’ve no problem with Spock as a historical figure, particularly given his later-life roles in overtures to the Klingons, Romulans, and (impliedly) the Cardassians. We actually *don’t* know what Pike has done to go down in the annals of diplomatic history, but given that there’s a Christopher Pike medal in DS9’s day, it’s safe to assume he does something.

But Boimler being intimately acquainted with the names and life details of the nursing staff? Absurd. Quick, without looking it up, tell me the name of Ulysses Grant’s adjutant, or Douglas Macarthur’s during the surrender ceremony on USS Missouri, or (like Berman said) John Paul Jones’. And that’s asking for the names of their first officers, not some green ensign in the bowels of the ship.

Agreed — the moronic and dumbass basis for this episode is multicultural — and all races shown in this ep behave like morons in a sitcom.

And if some fans don’t like the fact that Mariner is an insubordinate, shortcut taker, loudmouth know-it-all, who nepotistically relies on her parents to get her out of jams — too bad — take it up with Mike M.

Please stop being so petty and defensive. Some of us just don’t like the idea of this type of an episode, and it’s certainly fair game to consider it a parody and contrast it to other TV series that jumped the shark. That’s no reason to personally attack someone — which is how I read your way out of bounds total BS attempt to play the race card comment on River. There is no place for that here, and I think you owe River an apology

Yes! What a joyride! Those crossovers always used to be my favourites: Trials and Tribbliations, Relics, Flashback, In a Mirror Darkly… and this is the next entry into that wonderful line-up… I loved everything, especially the ENT references towards the end and the animated SNW crew…

Really a gem of a gift..

Agree completely. If I tried really hard I’m sure I could find some things to nit pick. Heck, I usually enjoy finding those things. But this was just so damn good I don’t want to try. It was perfect. Tawny and Jack were amazing in bringing their animated characters to life and the SNW cast were also great playing comedic parts but making it feel seamless with the rest of the season. And all the LDS-style Easter Eggs with meta references to the franchise itself was just awesome. Like Jack jumping on the saddle and yelling RIKER! Ha. This one will enter the pantheon of instant Trek classics.

I totally agree! Everything just came together so well for this episode! Even if some episodes miss with me personally I am always glad that the producers, writers, etc. dared to try something different. This one in theory didn’t sound that great to me, but in reality it was fantastic. Let’s hope they keep experimenting as the series goes forward! I am even looking forward to the musical episode just because I haven’t seen a Star Trek episode like it before.

I guess I didn’t get the saddle “Riker” joke. What was the reference there? I’m assuming it references something from TNG because all the LDX gags are references.

I didn’t get the ‘Riker’ reference until after I watched The Ready Room. It didn’t dawn on me that’s what Boimler was doing. He mentioned he said it was because Frakes was in the room directing him but it totally falls within canon since Riker was his captain too. So well played Quaid! These guys are always on their game!

Yeah… I’m still not getting it.

The infamous way Riker sits when he throws one leg over a chair. There is even a name for it, the Riker Maneuver.

But in Boimler’s situation you ALWAYS throw one leg over to sit on a saddle. ;)

Except that tends to be the conventional way to sit on a saddle, unlike an Eames chair…

Yeah that’s what I just said lol.

I’m aware of the Riker maneuver. But I still didn’t see it. And no, I’m not going back to check it out. I found it a weird thing to say but that’s not unusual with nu-Trek.

That’s why it was confusing because he didn’t do it on a chair, but on a saddle which is obviously different. That’s why I didn’t get the reference at first either. If he did it on a chair, I think everyone would’ve gotten it straight away (and most people obviously did).

And he shouldn’t have yelled “Riker!”. That was super odd. Perhaps if he and Mariner saw Pike do it? They exchange a knowing glance? I don’t know. I just don’t see that sort of thing as funny. It’s more of a wink at the audience. It’s the sort of thing LDX does all the time and it doesn’t work there, either. Those sort of things I think are more effective when done minimally. But subtlety doesn’t seem to be in Secret Hideout’s arsenal.

“It’s more of a wink at the audience.”

That’s exactly what it is. And it obviously has to be since it’s never been acknowledge on TNG in any way. You ONLY know this by being a hardcore fan and/or literally watching videos of Riker awkwardly throwing his leg over chairs on YouTube.

EDIT: Just out of boredom I decided to look up compilation Riker Maneuvers and this came up from an old sitcom.

https://youtu.be/_LlkeK77Vmw?t=14

It’s always fun to spot other shows and movies doing Star Trek pop culture stuff and it’s NOT more parody sci fi. ;)

Now *that* clip was funny. :)

That one was REALLY a hardcore thing. I know about the Riker maneuver but never picked up on it in that scene. Maybe if he did it over a chair instead of the saddle? I don’t know. But the “Riker” yell was really really weird. I think the Picard maneuver is far better known.

In the end it’s yet another gag that didn’t land.

Believe me everyone on Reddit got it lol. But yeah it’s for hardcore fans obviously.

Mariner did the Picard manuever in live action.

I’ve seen a lot of characters do it. But I doubt any of them are meant to be intentional references to the Captain.

I was hoping when Boims mentioned the NX-01 as a solution we were going to fly to the Starfleet museum to see it.

No such luck but still cool they mentioned her. I also just noticed today there is a picture of it in Pike’s Ready Room along with the Phoenix. 🙂👍

And seeing the Enterprise and the entire crew in animated Lower Decks style was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

I did get a chuckle out of the implication that all this animation was really an Orion-liquor induced hallucination.

Yeah I loved that too lol.

I hate to admit it but credit where credit is due. Hearing the SNW crew swoon about the NX-01 was a nice mirror of the LDX fanboys swooning. It’s one thing that surprisingly worked. Not for laughs, though. As a bit of a ‘redemptive moment’ for Boimler.

Yeah LOVED the NX-01 reference and knowing Pike is a fanboy of that ship. But no one could be a bigger fanboy than Riker lol.

Even though NuTrek has actually had MULTIPLE crossovers at this point, it is nice to see one that involve just the new shows and characters for a change. And they hit it out of the park. I hope we see more now in the future…or the past.

The Enterprise references made no sense in the context of the story, it was just pure fan service.

And if that’s what many people want, fine but let’s not try to kid ourselves that it holistically fit in this story.

‘Trials and Tribbliations’ will never be beaten as a crossover episode…..AND I MEAN EVER!!!!!!!

True. That was about as perfect as a comedic crossover could possibly get. It was smart. The characters didn’t break character. Dax represented the fans perfectly well. Very much in tone with the original episode.

That one is your “chef’s kiss”.

Joyous. Loved it.

I actually think that they should do a live action Lower Decks spinoff. Quaid and Newsome were amazingly funny. Make it so! Live action lower decks! Live action lower decks! Live action lower decks! (join the chant)

Live action lower decks! Live action lower decks!

Live action lower decks! Live action lower decks! Live action lower decks!

I think I like the SNW folk better in cartoon form, maybe that is the spinoff/continuation we need!

Yes, with a live action Cerritos. Yes, I’m a ship nerd. I’m disappointed we never saw the California class on Picard.

There was also a very nice meta joke when Ransom was commenting on Una’s poster, given that Jerry O’Connell is married to Rebecca Romijn. Maybe have some sort of Ransom/Una crossover where they are competing over who is the greatest first officer in Starfleet history.

I think the reason that will never happen is that for the serious live action shows, those show runners can see that that design of the CA class would not be taken seriously given the major design flaw that the secondary hull can only be accessed by crew through the warp engines and the pylons.

No Starfleet engineer in their right mind ever design a ship with that amount of piss-poor, lackadaisical concern for crew safety

Erik Pressman and/or JT Esteban will slap you in your damn face.

That ship design has a wrap-around superstructure that avoids that design error.

It’s ok to be a Lower Decks hater (I don’t care for the show myself,) but let’s not be idiots about it.

I’m a huge study of starship design going back to Matt Jeffries, and this design lacks common sense.

You can post emoticon after emoticon here, but that’s not going to magically solve the huge crew safety problem with this design — there is not enough physical access to evacuate the secondary hull to the primary hull and vice versa in the event of an emergency.

It’s a really bad starship design — it’s criminally unsafe.

V22 Osprey *cough*

Great analogy!

737 Max original versions as well.

I tend to agree (and think it’s an ugly workhorse of a ship anyway, which is probably the point), but what about the Grissom?

Actually I heard somewhere they did offer Matalas the chance to include a California class ship on Picard but he decided against it. I can’t remember where I heard this from, probably from one of the Star Trek channels on YouTube. But if so, its unfortunate, but not a huge surprise since Picard season 3 seemed more focus on past Trek than present Trek.

A lot of ships didn’t make into Picard Season 3 that one would think would still be in service (like pretty much everything introduced in Star Trek: First Contact). The California Class may have been retired? ya’ never know.

Maybe but then you have to believe the Excelsior and Miranda classes could somehow still be a thing a century later. I would find it hard to believe the California class would just fade from existence in less than 20 years.

I have my issues with Matalas, but the dude does know his starships for sure. My bet is that he knows what a bad design that class is, and he simply didn’t include it, but was not going to vocalize that obviously, to avoid embarrassing Mike M.

Matalas has been a student of this franchise long enough to be able to spot a starship concept with a fatal flaw design error that could unnecessarily doom half the crew or more in an emergency..

I just watched the Ready Room interviews with Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, and Jonathan Frakes. If you don’t normally watch it, I highly recommend this one. It was mentioned that Tawny joined the writing staff for Starfleet Academy! That makes me a bit more excited about that show! If it is a spin-off of Discovery as predicted, then it will be good to have someone in the writers room that can bring some levity and tone down the melodrama!

That doesn’t make me feel any better about the Academy show if Newsome has any LDX writing credits.

You’re too lazy to find out if she has so you’re complaining about a hypthetical

Yes. I am too lazy to find out. So what?

Well played. Respect.

I was happy to hear it- I just really like what Newsome is bringing to Trek.

Honestly, though, you’re exhausting. The negativity. Let some joy in.

I have plenty of joy in my life. Wife is great. My kid’s business is doing well. I see retirement on the horizon.

Sorry to bring negativity to this entertainment genre I am a fan of. You think I WANT Star Trek to be bad? Absolutely not. But I’m also not going to pretend something is good just because it says Star Trek. When they make crap I’m pointing it out. You don’t like it move on to where the only voices are ones you agree with.

Absolutely. This is where I’m at as well.

Okay, but you’re also acting like your opinion is the authoritative last word on everything, and you also go out of your way to shit all over other people’s enjoyment.

Look, we all have those parts of the franchise we care for more or less than others, and quite a few of us have parts of it we think very poorly of indeed. For example, I don’t think Picard (the show, not the character) is very good, and I think the Kelvin timeline movies are mostly garbage. I want to like both and think they’re good, but I just… generally don’t. But plenty of other people do, and that’s fine! When those particular iterations of the franchise come up in discussion, I sometimes will give my opinion, but I don’t dwell on it. I don’t try to bully and browbeat people into not liking them or tell them how stupid and evil and wrong and bad they are for doing so. I accept that other people find value in those productions that I do not, and don’t devote all my time to trying to ruin those movies and shows for them.

You, along with UpperDecks-Normalnecks, make a point of coming across as being all “well, actually, this thing you like is objectively awful and you’re worthless moronic trash if you persist in enjoying it”. Are you not capable of being even the eensiest bit constructive or gracious? Please… try to surprise and impress me.

The problem with comments like yours is they assume people who dish out opinions on things think that those opinions are objective. We all know nearly every comment here is an opinion. If someone says, “That was great!” and someone else says, “no, it sucked” it doesn’t mean that either comment is the authoritative last word on everything. Thinking that is never a good look.

Honestly I feel like if someone can’t handle people with differing opinions then they really ought to stay off message boards where many opinions are dished out. I myself have been ripped only of having a different opinion. I’ve never felt “attacked” or “bullied” or that the person who feels differently is less than myself. And I’ve never ripped on others for liking something I don’t.

These boards are not here so everyone can exclusively talk about how great everything is and if there are opinions that say it’s not enjoyable is not “shitting” all over everyone else’s enjoyment. If you think someone is telling you that you are “worthless moronic trash” merely by dishing out a contrary opinion then that speaks more about you than the person who thinks opposite of you. It’s your personal issues, not theirs.

I’ve been constructive in that when I say how bad it is I nearly always explain exactly why. Can’t get less constructive than that. So please, could you at least try to accept that others are not browbeating merely by having differing opinions?

I’m not saying you’re browbeating others simply by having different opinions. I’m saying you’re browbeating others by harping on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on every single time anyone expresses joy or delight at the shows, or merely discusses them neutrally or reports basic factual information, or even even talks about some other show entirely (detailing the subject, something like “yeah, Star Trek II is great, unlike that appalling Lower Decks , a show that could only be enjoyed by prepubescent subterranean troglodytes educated in Florida”). Possibly a few such comments could be constructive, or at the very least amusing. The constant haranguing isn’t.

Yeah I saw that too. That’s amazing Newsome not only got a writing job on the Academy show but we learned due to this episode because of how well she improvised things so well. I was always for that show (but still more interested in a Picard spin off show) but I’m more excited about it too now that she’s on it and CLEARLY gets Star Trek.

Fingers crossed it will happen at all though given everything.

Exactly- every time we get someone who loves trek into writing rooms or the production staff, good things start to happen. Newsome clearly loves the franchise.

AG says he loves Trek. So does Kurtzman. Who gave us STID. As well as some other nu-Trek writers. Kinda blows a hole in your theory.

To be fair STID was literally over a decade ago now and very early in his Trek career. He’s gotten much more experienced with the franchise since and has helped produced 5 shows and over 150 episodes at this point. But I know you haven’t enjoyed most of them but a lot of people, including me, has.

He’s not writing the shows. And also to be fair, I think he has valid concepts for what to do with Trek. His problem is he has no clue how to implement those ideas. And he seems to be hiring the worst writers he can find and/or the showrunners he hires are hiring the worst writers they can find. Meaning he is hiring really bad showrunners in general. If he has personally grown from STID regarding Trek it certainly hasn’t shown. STID is actually better than most of the Trek episodes he has overseen.

OK, I promised never to do this, but I’m curious now, if you were in charge of Star Trek like Kurtzman then who would you hire to write and make these shows?

Because frankly, listening to you for 5 years now, I don’t think anyone will really satisfy you outside of maybe someone like Manny Coto and he unfortunately just passed away.

Wow… Very sad news about Coto. He did a really great job on Enterprise. I had no idea.

The thing is, I cannot really say because I’m not in the industry. I only would have mentioned Coto because he did it well before. I’d like to find someone new but Coto seemed like a safe bet in the past. Obviously before I knew about his passing of cancer. And I will admit I don’t have an answer. I would personally need to interview candidates. But I’m just a fan. So it’s really for naught.

Honestly I didn’t have a huge issue with Kurtzman when he started. I never had huge problems with the KU films and his other TV projects that I knew of, while not great, for the most part didn’t outright suck. I thought he had the right idea when he spoke about creating different genres of Trek and even the Short Treks were a good idea. But after a while it became obvious his shortcoming was hiring the right people. Who would I hire? I have no idea. All I can say is the people there now just aren’t getting the job done and I would be very happy with anyone who could make good Trek.

Wow you didn’t hear that? I assumed you saw it here at least. But yeah, very sad. He really was one of the best show runners as well.

And your response is fine, but it goes to my main point, here is no ‘savior’ waiting in the wings. Sure when Kurtzman is done and someone else takes up the mantle, they can be better…or much much worse, right?

And you made another point, you actually liked Kurtzman originally but then you soured on him when he took over the whole thing or at least the shows. It doesn’t take much to stumble for a lot of Trek fans. And you can’t just blame who he hires, the guy has the final say on everything that goes up on the screen. And since no one has lost their job he obviously think they are doing fine, right? You obviously heard me say how bad of a show runner Michelle Paradise is for Discovery and to this day the only show runner I want fired. So I’m obviously not defending every decision he makes but my guess no matter who comes next half the people will like them and the other half will hate them. It’s happened with Berman, than Abrams and now Kurtzman.

And dude if you can’t find ONE show to like out of five, I’m going to guess you’re never going to be completely happy regardless who runs it or who hires who. Maybe I’m wrong but just a guess.

I hold out hope that there could be a “savior” waiting to get plucked to run the franchise. If there is ever a change it will indeed be a gamble as we won’t know for sure until we get results. But I would put it out there that Secret Hideout has been so very bad at this the odds are fairly good that whoever comes in won’t be worse. Is it possible? Sure. I just don’t think it likely.

I didn’t sour on Kurtzman until he established a track record with the shows. Star Trek Discovery was bad but I didn’t lay that completely on him. But then when the next shows proved to be less than stellar it was difficult to not blame the man at the top. Yes, obviously he is fine with his hires. Which to me, only reinforces my thinking that he is the biggest problem. I do think it is possible to get more than half the fans on the new producers side. Most seemed at least OK with Berman. I know there are some who were unhappy but I honestly think they were the minority. That is probably as good as it will get with the fandom. But with Secret Hideout it seems those unhappy with their results are far far more than ever were unhappy with Berman.

I don’t think there is statistically anyone who would be “completely” happy with anyone running things. Even you aren’t. And even I can say there is a positive element in Kurtzman. But his overall record with TV Trek is just not good. Obviously I’d rather see someone in charge who makes the occasional mistake than a multitude of them.

Kurtzman is there for the business deal. I’m sure it’s a lucrative one for him. What we all need to grasp is he is there to keep the train rolling, and it is. He doesn’t have a clue about the Gorn and canon, or how Spock should be acting or anything, nor does he care. When he sees viewership for SNW is consistent with Picard S3, then he sees no referendum on the product. We can gripe all we want, until it hits P+’s wallet, it won’t matter. I don’t think Alex Kurtzman has any understanding of what good sci-fi is, let alone good Star Trek. He does know how to produce these shows and assemble writers rooms. The ultimate problem with the writing at the top is the power a guy like Goldsman has. No matter what you think of him as a writer, he has a pedigree, and he has the power to do what he wants, even if it is flawed. Kurtzman does not care as long as the show performs. Clearly it is.

One could argue he is doing what is asked. What the shows actual viewership #’s are no one know for sure. The only thing I think I can trust is that Yellowstone is the biggest thing on P+ at the moment. They have renewed his company’s deal so he is probably at the very least doing the minimum of what he is asked. I get all that. My complaint comes from the other side of all that. As a fan. I’m actually hopeful that current industry situations (streaming economics and strikes) might lead to an ouster of Secret Hideout in some way. Which I think would be good for the franchise even if it means nothing new for years.

Calling out Alex Kurtzman for his (in your opinion) mishandling of an entertainment franchise you love is entirely fair. Besmirching the motives of a total stranger for doing his job just because you don’t care for the end result probably isn’t. Perhaps there are something’s you need to grasp yourself.

Exactly. He loved Malalas’ take on Picard. Between Kurtzman and Orci, Orci was the Trek fan when they took on that writing assignment. Everything Kurtzman knew about Trek before getting the CBS / Paramount+ gig stems from that experience. he then hires writers that know syndicated TV, some of whom say they were fans, but only superficially, judging by the output. He hasn’t hired Sci-Fi writers, but just your typical Hollywood careerists that know drama. That’s why this is all so Soap Opera-ey.

*Sigh* As it happened, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Ira Behr, and Brannon Braga hired very few bonafide SF writers either (I wish they had). Neither, honestly, did Roddenberry and Coon, for the most part, after TOS’ first season — most of Season 2 was written by staffers or the very “Hollywood careerists” you decry. Manny Coto did hire the very solid Trek novelists Judith and Garfield Reese-Stevens to work on Season 4, but to decidedly mixed results. The use of in-house writing staffs on all shows, for better or worse and regardless of genre, has become standard in television for a variety of practical and creative reasons, and isn’t a Kurtzman ploy to keep you from getting the kind of hard-edged, extrapolative SF that Trek has been only on very rare occasion in any case. You people really need fresher material for you complaints.

As a counterpoint, Patrick Stewart hasn’t generally been impressive as a writer or producer of Star Trek.

Exactly. Nor Shatner.

I don’t agree with that at all. Patrick Stewart for season 1 and 2 of Picard and William Shatner for Star Trek V. Nuff said!

I’m not saying Newsome won’t be good. I am saying that you’re statement has been proven wrong many times, and is frankly meaningless.

Loving Trek doesn’t mean they’re right for the job. On this show, it clearly hurts the finished product. They like playing in the sandbox, and can’t disregard their own personal impulses to just write a good story. Know what shuts people up about canonical problems? Writing good stories. There are exceptions, but supposedly, most of this writing staff are fans, and they can’t disregard their fandom when they probably should. Their ‘love’ for the property is a liability, not an asset. A blind spot. It’s sad.

I do think it can help to be a fan of Trek as the showrunner. But that is obviously not a prerequisite. Coto loved Trek and was really good at running it. Goldsman says he loves it and has produced garbage.

But yes, the bottom line is the quality of the show. If the show is good most can get past the smaller canonical issues. They are reduced to mere nitpicks because overall the story was riveting. But if the show is bad suddenly the canonical issues become mountains. This phenomenon cannot be avoided. I would also put out there that if the writers are good the canon violations will likely remain smaller ones. Not the monstrous ones that require an entire universal reset like SNW has done.

Anything announced is up in the air. Once Discovery burns off it’s final season, that’s probably a wrap on any new Star Trek episodes until 2025.

Actually the Academy show wasn’t suppose to even come out until 2025 but yeah I suspect we won’t see LDS or SNW again until that year too.

And it’s so frustrating because they had another show with 20 episodes available with Prodigy season 2 and now that’s gone too. Maybe they would’ve kept to their decision but I have to think someone probably regrets it more now with NO new shows or episodes running. In fact season 2 probably would’ve gained more viewers with only that and Discovery around next year.

For never having watched LDS, I liked it! I love how Boimler and Mariner represent the Trek fandom with all of their knowledge of Trek history. I guess I have been missing out.

My only disappointment was when they returned to animated form. They seemed to work well in live action.

Now for season 3 of SNW, I would like to see a Galaxy Quest inspired episode!

Loved it. Absolutely loved it and laughed multiple times, and there were surprisingly a good few moments when I was genuinely moved.

I loved it. It was well done. Wow. Top five all time Trek episode easy.

By the way everybody who has been insisting that SNW is an alternate timeline and not Prime, this episode pretty much kills that theory. I hope one day they do a TNG prequel series called Stargazer and really make folks mad lol.

I am so proud of SNW as a fan. It exceeds my expectations. We need to appreciate Trek and not complain about nonsense like uniforms. This is my favorite incarnation of Trek since DS9.

It actually reinforces it. It even references the episode that confirmed SNW was a reboot. What this did was suggest all the SH shows are reboots.

🤦🏻‍♂️ 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ (I just can’t facepalm hard enough.)

You’re tired of these reboots, eh? I’ve no problem with reboots. I just wish they were better.

It’s absolutely not a reboot. Unless the studio and/or the production team decide it’s a reboot, it’s not a reboot. And this constant insistence to the contrary is borderline-gatekeeping.

I would describe it as a reimagining and a readjustment. The writers have found ways to answer many of the questions we have without outright answering them. The Khan episode line of “Time reasserting” itself sticks out to me.

Star Trek has always done this. TOS happened but how it happened has to be and is being reimagined and thats okay. Enjoy this gift Trek fans have been given. They preserved the identity of TOS without turning into a Battlestar Galactica reboot which I loved but Trek is different.

JJ Abrams tried to capture the spirit of Star Wars in the Star Wars sequel trilogy and failed because he had the material and forgot the DNA. (His Trek is a another conversation lol)

SNW has the DNA. I love it.

Plus TOS wasn’t exactly consistent with canon. Stardates were all over the place, same for the warp scale, and they didn’t even reference a United Federation of Planets until late in the first season. Wasn’t there also a line in one of the episodes where McCoy implies that Vulcan was conquered by Earth? It’s almost like the writers of TOS didn’t realise Star Trek would become this massive cultural phenomenon with fans obsessing over every minor detail as canon.

I agree they had no idea that what they were doing would lead to a franchise that has endured for decades. Gene Roddenberry disregarded episodes he hated and even went so far as to call Star Trek V “Apocrypha” which by the way I can’t blame him for when you consider the poor quality of that script.

Star Wars is trying to do now what Trek has done for decades which is create a interconnected universe. Long before the MCU even did it.

Star Trek deserves so much more love for the great things they have done. Have they had some duds? Sure. Trekkies get mad at JJ Abrams but if it were not for that film series, we wouldn’t have Strange New Worlds.

We need to appreciate this journey. Anson Mount is so good as Pike. I Love the way they have developed Uhura. It was a crime the way she was marginalized and underdeveloped not to mention the way they treated their female characters. I could go on all day about how much I love this show.

You don’t know what you are talking about. The TOS presented women with far more power and agency than anything else in the 60s. Nothing else came remotely close, not even Doctor Who. I’m sick of this historical revisionism. I can’t wait until 30 years from now when all the so-called progressives of today are derided by future progressives for not being progressive enough.

You don’t have to wait 30 years; it’s already started.

What? Janice Rand? Marla McGivers? Really? In the orignal Cage episode Pike said he did not like the idea of having a woman on the bridge and then the line was cut.

Mudd’s Women? You call that Power and Agency? There was not one female Captain on Star Trek until Star Trek IV and they didn’t have enough respect to give her a name. Stop.

It’s not “revisionism” to point out that TOS is sexist by the standards of 2023 — that’s just a fact — so long as you go on to put that in historical context.

Gene Roddenberry disregarded episodes he hated and even went so far as to call Star Trek V “Apocrypha” 

This practice is going to become a lot more widespread, what with the splintering of shows.

“Reimagining and readjustmnt” IS a reboot.

That’s not a bad thing. I’ve no problem with reboots. I even enjoyed the flawed ST09 reboot.

The reason the SW sequels failed wasn’t because of DNA. I think JJ actually understood SW better than ST. The problem was the writers had no clue how to write a hero’s journey so they copied what came before without the heart or the struggle.

SNW doesn’t seem to understand Trek at all. The writers constantly talk down to the audience and don’t respect the source material. Even as a reboot, which again I’ve no problems with, it just doesn’t work. And it’s almost entirely because of the writers and producers.

A reboot is when you blow it up and collect the piences you want like Battlestar Galactica (2005).

Star Wars failed because JJ did not grasp or get the DNA. He co wrote the films so please miss me with that. He made the beautiful Lupita Nyongo an old ugly alien. Seriously? He did things I thought were arrogant and stupid. He wasted Mark Hammil and worried about the opinions of 2 people on Twitter more than he did the actual fandom and his boss who shall remain nameless.

SNW gets it and often goes out of its way to show that it does. It preserved and modernized the DNA of the orignal series which I wish you guys would stop acting like it was so perfect. It had a lot of issues.

Sexism (Women treated like props) Racism (Klingons in face paint and allusions to stereotypes). I still love the show but I am not intellectually dishonest about where it sometimes fell short.

The Omega Glory was awful for example. Terrible. When social commentary goes wrong. The first season of the Next Generation had its issues too. Code of Honor is horrible and deeply racist.

I can love Trek and be honest about its failings at the same time. SNW is great. Its my opinion and I am sticking to it. Giving Uhura a purpose other than saying “hailing frequencies open” is where they have my respect.

A reboot is when you blow it up and collect the piences you want

Sounds exactly like what they did with Star Trek Discovery and SNW.

JJ I think did grasp SW better than ST. What he failed to do was understand the concept of the hero’s journey. And he just copied what was done the first time.

I don’t think SNW “gets it” at all. It comes across as arrogant they way they write down to the audience and their disgraceful treatment of Spock. And listening to some of the things said by the producers it almost feels like their intent is to “fix” TOS. Goldsman is truly high on his own flatulence.

No one is claiming there weren’t dog episodes on TOS. Of course there were. But there were far more good than bad. And they made 26+ episodes a season. This show has 10 and in 17 has only produced one episode that could be considered “good”. That’s an awfully bad batting average. TOS had 17 good episodes in their first season alone.

👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

They devoted an entire episode that proved this show to be an alternate timeline/reboot just like the KU feature films. Everything about nu-Trek from the start screamed “reboot”. The only thing missing was an actually comment from TPTB confirming it. But now that we had episode 2.3 there is no doubt any longer. Did you even see the episode?

About a story line that has been going since DS9, voyager and enterprise. That both had episodes after the so called nukes destroying the world.

Star trek has rewritten that timeline already for ages. And was already effecting the future for ages.

So having the timeline change here changes absolutely nothing of what is the main timeline.

TOS timeline was an absolute mess and can’t really be counted as canon.

They had episodes with nukes destroying the world? And then they changed their own history?

Please name them.

PS… When I was a kid the thing that drew me to Trek was it was the only Sci-Fi that didn’t present future Earth as a nuclear wasteland. It had a positive view that such a thing wouldn’t happen. They mentioned the Eugenics wars but that seemed like nukes weren’t used.

That is bantha poodoo and you know it. Yes the timeline has been adjusted but it is still the Prime universe.

Stay on that hill sir.

What you just described is called an “alternate timeline”. Feel free to hem and haw all you wish. But even in that very episode a character who supposedly knew said it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. That makes the show the alternate. Just like the KU. And in both cases the alternate timelines were just excuses to do a reboot because they feared fans would go nuts with just a straight reboot.

But that’s what he’s saying, it’s simply an alternate timeline of the prime universe, he’s not saying it’s a different universe entirely like the Kelvin movies. You guys are literally saying the same thing, he’s only saying it will have a bigger impact on how ‘alternate’ it will become.

Lower Decks has referenced just about every episode of classic Trek. There is no way that Lower Decks is an alternate timeline.

Well, they did appear on the show that IS an alternate timeline. Unless that portal is also a universe hopper it strongly suggests LDX is a part of the SNW new alternate timeline, or reboot.

Loved it! Thank you Paramount+ for this surprise release. Thank you casts and crews of SNW and LD for this special episode.

As a fan of both shows I really enjoyed this. Went into it with some trepidation but it was nicely done.

Was that Jason Clarke as the Orion captain?

Greg Bryk. The last thing I remember seeing him in is in The Expanse as that Martian officer who interrogates Holden(?) early in the show.

Was that the same guy? Hard to tell with the green makeup and facial hair, but the intensity of that scene on “The Expanse” where he interrogates Holden and the others under the influence of some kind of focusing drug was one of the first things that made me realize how much the show was beginning to hook me.

One of my favorite lines was when Mariner notes that everyone on the Enterprise talks too slowly and quietly. And I’m totally with Boimler. Smiling Spock is creepy.

Smiling Spock scared me a bit.

..the talking slowly and quietly thing is exactly what is prohibiting me from enjoying Lower Decks – it way too speedy and manic for me.

Me too. Yet, on occasion, some of the clips I’ve seen on YouTube have had some real conceptual wit as Trek satire — the Starfleet collection of Nasty AIs; the Borg holodeck training regimen; the cheesy Cochrane amusement park memorial. I gave up on the show early as it’s too frenetic for my tastes, but after this episode (which had a tag as funny and clever as any that I’ve seen watching this Trek thing in over fifty years), I may give it another go.

As soon as I heard this episode was happening I was nervous and excited. If they didn’t get it right it would’ve been one of the worst hours of Trek ever. Thankfully they nailed it. I loved every minute of it and thought that everyone did an amazing job. It was great to see the LDS crew at the beginning, then transition over to live action and back to animation.

A few observations:

– I actually think the Enterprise looked better in animation than it does in live action. I feel like every week it looks more like the hull is made of tin foil. Way too metallic and reflective

– I loved the bit at the end where Ransom was going on about how hot Una was since the actors are married in real life

– Interesting bit of info that it’s a tradition for new ships of the same name to be made with at least one piece of the previous. We know they did this with the Titan in Picard, but didn’t know it was a fleet-wide practice. I wonder how they did that with the Enterprise A and D since their immediate predecessors were destroyed?

– It was a lot of fun to see Mariner and Boimler for a double-feature since LDS episodes are usually 22 minutes. I’m surprised they didn’t try to work in a joke about that

Maybe both times the Klingons mailed them some debris?

Well said JBX…well said! :)

For the A, it could be something as simple as a few objects retained by Kirk or the others from 1701, but also since 1701 was several times, they may just have had parts in storage that had been removed during a previous refit.

So many great moments — I cannot wait to rewatch it.

The best possible outcome is that fans who have seen one show and not the other (for whatever reason) will now discover they’ve been missing out.

People, listen. It is entirely possible that sometimes, we take our love for Star Trek the entertainment franchise too seriously. This episode both showed us how to relax and have a good time, while also holding on to everything we love.

Lower Decks! Lower Decks! Lower Decks! – sincerely, a Strange New Worlds fan.

What I love about Lower Decks is it does and doesn’t take Star Trek that seriously at same time. ;)

It makes the universe whacky but every frame of it is truly a love letter to Star Trek. Mariner ironically is a contradiction onto herself. She questions how Starfleet does things and turn her nose up at the rules when it suits her but she loves everything about it. She can cite every Starfleet regulation as Uhura found out and knows its history backwards and forwards. She doesn’t come off as starstruck as Boimler does but clearly look at the early explorers of Starfleet like Pike and Spock as iconic. I can understand why others don’t love her but it’s why I do.

Lower Decks is a great show filled with lovable and heartwarming characters. And it really showed in this episode.

LOVED IT!!!!!

Easily my favorite episode of the season. So much fun and yeah can never get enough of all the Mariner/Bomiler references they threw out. My favorite was the Trelane/Q one. Perfect. Of course we knew it was going to be about them geeking out over everything but it really reminded me of Dax in Trials and Tribble-ations. She was fangirling just as hard too being on the original Enterprise…second original Enterprise.

And nothing felt out of place (except Spock’s smiling lol). They didn’t go as broad as LDS normally would and all the SNW characters sounded exactly like themselves. They all have comedic vibe, ironically Spock moreso these days, so the tone worked. And I liked how they made Una a representation for Starfleet in the future (although augments are still allowed in 120 years later but whatever).

Both Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome fit right in. Yeah I definitely want more live action Lower Decis now too. We even got a Boimler yell lol.

If I had one nitpick, it’s the whole Uhura is always working thing. Every other episode this season she’s hanging out drinking and talking to her friends. That felt a bit forced, but everything else was great. I laughed through the whole thing.

And yep, it was a clever way to have them animated as the bookends as we all thought. But making the entire Enterprise animated crew was priceless. I assumed we would see Pike animated but not everyone. That was great!

This is going to be one of the more timeless and iconic crossover episodes fans will be discussing for the next 20 years up there with Relics and Trial and Tribble-ations and thankfully not another These Are The Voyages. ;)

I love Star Trek!

My comments are hung up in Admin, but I really liked it too, Tiger. My favorite of the season. And I rewatch Relics and Trials and Tribbleations a lot as well.. :)

Sooo much fun dude, I’m happy you liked it too! Especially because I know you don’t really like LDS that much, so for you to like it says a lot and not just fanboys like me. ;)

Yeah easily my favorite of the season. As the review said, it is a love letter to Star Trek and they just hit all the beats so well. I’m watching The Ready Room and then I’m going to watch it again! :)

Can’t wait to read your review too! It’ll show up.

I find it amusing that people refer to this as a “love letter” to Trek. I tend to agree because the last time that line was used was for the Enterprise finale. Easily the worst episode of the entire series. And among the worst of the entire era. So when it is referred to as a “love letter” my brain immediately goes there and I am forced to agree. It is at a similar level as THESE ARE THE VOYAGES.

The difference is people mocked TATV for it and it was Berman who originally called it that, NOT the fans lol. That’s why it was so harshly criticized because most disagreed with him even if they had a good intent.

This is actually the opposite, fans are calling it that because for many, including me, it was.

But yeah I get it, not a fan lol, we know. We know, we know, we know! But TATV is currently rated at 5.3 on IMDB, one of the worst Star Trek ratings ever (although the lowest of all time is Shades of Gray with 3.3). while this episode is rated at 9.4, literally the highest rating for any Trek episode.

TATV is literally what made me hate Brannon Braga and Rick Berman for a long time and I wasn’t even watching it lol. It was so bad I was actually thrilled to see JJ Abrams taking Trek over after that. Those two clowns should never be near Trek again. That’s how much I originally hated it.

People seem to think I am only hard on NuTrek or hate only bad shows like Discovery. But I hated just as much old Trek back in the day and Enterprise was high on that list and TATV didn’t make it any easier.

However you feel about TOS it’s a complete masterpiece over what TATV delivered. And I forgave Braga when he apologized and admitted it was bad and loved his work on The Orville. I don’t think anyone from Bad Robot or hack supreme JJ Abrams himself has apologized for Star Trek Into Dumbness to this day.

I’d prefer that he apologize for Trek 2009, honestly. INTO DARKNESS has a lot of issues, to be sure, but at least its narrative plays with some meaningful ideas. Apart from a likable cast, Trek 2009 is about nothing at all but terrible science and franchise cliches grafted onto a plot that I’ve always thought of as “TOP GUN on the far side of the stratosphere.” It is, literally, one of the least creative films, of any genre, that I’ve ever seen.

Yes it was Berman who said that. And if a fan says it I consider it as mocking the show ironically because of how TATV turned out. And because of it I will NEVER use tha’t term for any episode that I feel works really great. Like “Trials and Tribblations”.

I don’t put a lot of stock in those ratings, though. I mean, THE VOYAGE HOME is rated pretty high, too.

Yeah because most people really like TVH lol. To this day you’re the only person I met that doesn’t like it all. Even if people don’t love it, most seem to generally like it.

As far as TATV, the fanbase spoke after the episode aired and nearly 20 years later it’s still considered pretty bad. Not the case for TOS…but we’ll see in 20 years. ;)

Yes. I am keenly aware I am in the minority when it comes to TVH as well as NEM. And even though I agree with the ratings for TATV or TOS that doesn’t mean I ought to put stock in them.

Glad to see “Shades of Gray” getting the rating it deserves. Trek has had abysmal shows before and since, but that doesn’t even qualify as a real episode.

LOL exactly. And people ‘question’ these ratings all the time. I get it, but there is really nothing questionable about most of them. Yeah, the stuff people seem to agree as a CONSENSUS that fans think are generally good episodes or movies shockingly gets ratings that reflect that. Same time, the episodes or movies the fanbase generally dislike as Shade of Gray, TATV and others are not surprisingly gets low graded. The overwhelming majority of most Trek episodes,, it literally doesn’t matter what show it is, seem to fall between the 6-7 ratings meaning most are at least decent, just not amazing.

I will say for new shows, yeah, things will be in flux for awhile, but nothing wildly different either. But for shows literally 20, 30, 50+ years old, it’s all etched in stone at this point.

But shades of Grey is the lowest in the entire library. Even other infamous episodes like Spock’s Brain, Code of Honor, Threshold and as mentioned TATV are still fall in the 5 category. That’s generally about as low as it gets for the overwhelming majority of bad episodes. So that tells you just how low people thought of Shades of Gray.

Yeah the Uhura thing was a stretch but it also got the point across to Beckett more than to Brad if that makes sense? Like yes make your friends take a break but let them do it on their terms. If that makes sense.

I also loved this episode though. Most of my thoughts rn are gay ones so I’ll probably give myself about 24 hours to get it out of my system for the most part and really think about the episode.

Yeah like I said, not a big deal. I’m not looking to find an excuse to hate the episode, quite the opposite, but it bugged me a little. I also agree with your assessment.

And dude, gay away lol. BTW, I thought it was funny when Mariner said ‘Hot Spock’ because that was kind of the nickname some fans gave him when he first showed up on Discovery.

Ha ha I don’t think Spock is hot. I’m glad for people that do but I’m not one of them. I say when I’m here like Hemmer is hot. Also I’m like 👀 who was that random Andorian. Andorians are hot.

Anyway Brad was so cute throughout the entire episode. The way he ran is cute too.

So good to hear that after months of anticipation, you were not disappointed Tiger2! As you know, I am not the biggest fan of LDs, but I know many are and it sounds like this was a homerun, maybe even a grandslam. Can’t wait to see real life Mariner and Boimler this Thursday! Btw, since you have seen the episode I assume you are at SDCC, very cool! Sorry the panels wont be filled with actors, but what is it like dwn there and what was the reaction of the crowd to the screening??

Episode is up on P+ right now

Does anybody know if the episode has been released early in Canada as well? I think Dean is in Canada.

No. But good to know. Hopefully it was.

I was afraid it wouldn’t be released early in Canada, but it was. At least on Crave. I don’t think it aired on SciFi or whatever the Bell channel that shows it is called. I didn’t check since I watch it on Crave.

Well others said it and since you posted this 12 hours ago you probably seen it yourself now assuming they have aired it in Canada by now. Can’t wait to hear your review.

And never been to SDCC. Not only have I never been there, you couldn’t pay me to go lol. It just feels and sounds like a huge hassle to even attend and friends I know who have went says it’s not really worth it unless you like cosplaying and all of that (and I don’t ;)). But maybe things were much lighter with this one since so many studios and actors weren’t even there given everything. Funny I haven’t seen any video from any of the Trek panels yet. I have no clue who even attended lol.

Hey Tiger2. No still have to wait until Thursday. It did start streaming on Crave up here, but I dont have a subscription so I have to watch on the CTV Sci Fi Channel. The channel always rebroadcasts the previous week’s episode on Monday evenings – so unless they decide to change the schedule I will have to wait until Thursday night. Sounds like it will be well worth the wait!

Oh wow, that sucks, but understandable. I guess you’ve already been spoiled but well worth it either way. In fact I got spoiled trying to take a peak of this board before I watched it and saw one of the pics. Still loved seeing it though.

Yeah, with the exception of the overwhelmingly positive reviews (without any details) and seeing the first pic above, which Trekmovie captioned with a comment about Stargate lol, I’ve managed to stay relatively spoiler free. Really looking forward Thursday night AND anxiously awaiting and cautiously optimistic for the upcoming musical!

That’s good to know, but now I’m more confused because the next episode is still coming out this week when TOS was suppose to come out. So does that mean you guys watching only CTV will be a week off for the rest of the season? Man, that would suck but I guess its only 3 more episodes.

Re Uhura: you’re not wrong, but sometimes you have to make allowances for these things. Was THE WRATH OF KHAN really the first time Kirk had faced death? Hell no, and if Nick Meyer had known more about TOS when he got the job he might not have written that line, but I’m glad he did, because it works wonderfully in the context of that particular story. Likewise, the Uhura subplot reinforces the idea that these two goofballs, in the very act of meeting their heroes, were instrumental in their becoming the people that they (and we) admire. I think that’s pretty cool, not to mention ambitious, for what on the surface is meant to be a fun, lightweight episode.

How did Pike know Boimler was an Ensign? He doesn’t identify himself beforehand and rank is noted different in the eras…Stripes vs. Pips…

They used pips before. Look at ENT uniforms

To quote the ninth doctor this episode was fantastic. It was also a lot of fun watching a soon to be recognized as a classic episode. Star Trek is a whole of a franchise. The people behind it are fans.

I have to admit I always skip down to the “Analysis” part of these articles. The analysis is the interesting part, not the long synopsis.

What is the point of leaving a comment like that?

I normally don’t like shows recap because most writers just recap it matter-of-factly with no real reason to read it if you’ve seen the episode. But I really like Anthony’s. He makes some jokes, inserts some small commentary and explains certain easter eggs via links (I am more of a casual fan so I didn’t remember Ryker sit like that and learned what that joke was by the link he put in the article.)

Also, I really like the funny captions under the pictures. They are not all classics but some are really funny!

I admit I do read them before I watch the episode so I know what I need to be prepared for. I’m okay with receiving spoilers for myself personally. So in that regard the way they write them is very useful for me personally.

I really enjoyed this one mainly because it was well written. I’ve only seen about three episodes of LDS, because it feels like all the characters are on speed, but to me it didn’t matter too much for the sake of enjoyment. I’m sure LDS fans had a total blast. A great character moment with Pike, and a look into his history. I didn’t have a lot of laughs, but it was a really enjoyable, tight story. Most certainly my favorite of the season. This was a great example of a proper time travel episode, tied in and called back respectfully to what came before, and later. Cute episode, solid writing. I’ll watch this one again. And, I feel LDS worth watching, but it just wish they weren’t talking so ‘speedy.’ It’s tough getting through an episode.

I’ll be giving LDS a watch now as well, which I guess could be one of the reasons why they did the crossover. It was a really fun episode, and I will be watching it again too.

Actually I felt it odd that Pike would choose to open up to this complete stranger. Especially someone he was obviously irritated with. But hey… It’s Secret Hideout. Any chance for a character to open up emotionally it will get taken. No matter the situation or who they are talking to.

I feel like the world might be a better place if that were the norm.

Well… You may not be wrong.

What better person to open up to than someone you won’t ever have to see again? Add in that Pike clearly does like them, despite their flagrant inability to avoid changing things, and he probably feels some responsibility to let them in on the real Pike versus their fantasy of what he was like. Worked for me.

Pike looked like he was irritated they were there and that he had to deal with them. In fact he seemed like he was suppressing a desire to chew out Boimler nearly every time he interacted with him.

Who better? Your closest friends? People who know you and understand you? He has a special lady friend, too. All seem more reasonable to open up to than a stranger from the future who does nothing but irritate you.

I didn’t see that. He seemed bemused to me – irritated but can’t help liking him.

As for confiding, again these are people who think they know him and he has a chance to set the record straight a little. It’s a poignant moment that fits the narrative smoothly compared to some random convo with his subordinates or his gf.

And I’m reminded of Lady Olenna in Game of Thrones goading Jamie Lannister into spilling his secrets because they both knew she was about to die. I would be pretty comfortable telling them that personal revelation.

I will give you that the problem here is a problem similar to Picard on TNG. Neither look like they are close enough to anyone to confide anything in. Kirk had McCoy. Who feel like they had been good friends for quite some time. I would say Pike’s best option would be his Captain girlfriend who shows up from time to time.

Yep, that was a nice Pike moment I didn’t expect at all since it hasn’t been brought up once this season. They handled it well for what is suppose to be a whacky episode.

It was also interesting how much they abided by the temporal accords. It’s brought up in pretty much every time travel episode these days but you don’t usually see them THIS much of a stickler about it. La’an and Kirk certainly wasn’t back on Earth in Toronto and definitely not Picard and the gang making a mess in L.A. It was also obvious Boimler had never traveled to the past before. But I totally love time travel stories and to do two in one season is great. The third one had bigger consequences to the universe but this one was way more fun IMO.

Definitely my favorite of the season so far too.

And it’s funny how Mariner said everyone talks so slow in the 23rd century, so they definitely recognize it. ;)

Glad you enjoyed it bro. My girlfriend watched it and she loved it too and like you not a big fan of Lower Decks at all. Now she wants to watch more of the episodes. She’s only seen 3 or 4 in season one and that was enough for her. 😂😥

That’s funny I remember you said she WOULDN’T watch it because how much she hated Lower Decks. It’s great to see other people here who hasn’t been into the show can still enjoy this episode. And it’s more proof to me LDS can work as a live action show too, just have to tone it down slightly. But that would great IMO.

TBH she really had no interest but after she heard me laugh for most of it she asked me was it really good and I told her she may really like it because it doesn’t come off as silly as LDS but closer to how silly SNW does with their comedic stuff. She only watched one episode of SNW this season too, Charades. And that was also because I told her how fun that was and she watched it and ended up really liking it.

Same thing happened here, she was laughing as hard as I was. Now she’s thinking about giving LDS another chance because like I said she’s only seen 3 episodes before she gave up the first time. I don’t push her to watch anything, like I said I’m happy she likes any Star Trek at this point but always happy when she wants to try more of it.

But she thinks the musical one looks really dumb though so unless I say it deserves an Emmy or something she has zero interest. 😂

To be honest I’m not that far from her thinking on that one but I’m a fan and the show has been more good than bad so may it will surprise me?

And it will still probably be better than Discovery! 😉

It’s still great she gave a chance and watched it. And the fact she loved it says even more. And I hope she does try LDS again. People were very skeptical of it in the beginning but many did come around as they kept watching it. It’s certainly not for everybody but man I do love it too and always great to see others enjoying it. I think the show will get tons more views after this episode by new fans as well!

When I started Lower Decks, I almost stopped after a few episodes too. As I am not one that knows everything in Trek, I felt like I missed 90% of the jokes and the rest I understood was kinda boring. It clicked for me around the last 2 episodes of season 1. And then the rest of the series just kept getting better and better and it’s now one of my favorite Trek shows ever.

Just ask your girlfriend to hang in there until the end of season 1 and if she still doesn’t like it, then that might not be for her :)

Actually that worked with one of my coworkers! 🙂

I tried to get him into it by episode 4 of season one. He went and checked them out but he hated them so much I almost thought he wouldn’t talk to me again after recommending them. 😥

And he’s an older guy. He’s been watching Trek since it started back in 1966. But since he was a big fan of TNG and VOY too and really loved the JJ verse movies I thought he might like it.

But cut to like four months later and I get a random text from him saying he changed his mind and he binged the entire season! He loved Tendi. Who the bleep doesn’t love Tendi except the sad sexist and racist haters who don’t like Orions??? They’re never going to let go and look past their judgement and prejudices. And she’s not Neelix. But he was in after that!

So I know it can be done. If his tiny cold shriveled heart for this show can be changed I think hers can be too. I’m going to test that theory soon because she wants to at least watch the first season now.

If she doesn’t want Mariner murdered by the end of it then I think I got us another one boys! 😃👍

But I appreciate the support man! This is how we should be looking out for each other! :)

You always crack me up man lol. Hopefully she will enjoy the show more now. And I do think season 2 is better so maybe just start her off there first but just an idea.

Here’s hoping man… here’s hoping! 😆

Actually I might jump to season 2 as well. If someone just put Neelix as part of the cast this would probably be her favorite show.

This was a nice one-off. My favorite scene was Boimler talking to Pike about spending time with people who care about you. That was a poignant moment that Boimler learned himself from his own friends. The Spock smiling gag was a bit overdone, and Chapel being collateral damage was an unfortunate consequence. Also strange was Chapel being all up in Boimler’s personal space, which was out of character for her.

Newsome and Quaid were terrific overall. I would love to see more live action LD material. I can imagine the other cast members would be down for it, especially Dawnn Lewis.

Newsome and Quaid were amazing. I totally bought they were the same characters from the show.

And wow, Newsome is pretty hot too! 😍

The Spock smiling thing did come off a bit creepy though. He was funny here though but not nearly as funny as Charades. That one felt like a Lower Decks episode too.

Just saw that this episode was available on the P+. So I watched it 100% expecting pure excrement.

I wasn’t disappointed at first. Bad jokes. Continued Spock as a clown. Facepalms galore. No laughs, just groans. But towards the end it did get surprisingly touching. So it has garnered a 3 of 10 in my book.

And since this show has now been shown to be in the same universe as LDX, it lends credence to my theory that all of SH Trek are reboots in their own nu-Trek bubble not connected to any other Trek that came before.

Dude I’m just happy it got a 3 out of a 10 for you! :)

And it was touching at the end!

Never let it be said that I won’t give credit where credit is due. If there is something decent I will admit it. Those moments came completely out of left field. While touching it did feel a little out of place. But what the hell. Let’s just be happy they grazed the target for a change. :)

I know you try bro…I know you try!

I really do agree with you on this point. I’m not a fan of LD, so if those that are think this is good, then I accept that. My issues here are all big picture, and that’s nothing new. I think I’d feel different if this were the one comedy episode amongst the 10 episodes we have in S2.

I feel like this is SNW attempting to adapt to a Lower Decks episode, not Lower Decks adapting to SNW (which is should have been. So within that context, I suppose it works. But in terms of Trek overall, it continues the same problems this series has. If this had been the single comedy episode, I think it would have been fine. Yeah, some of us like me and you would groan but move on. It’s a much better comedy episode than the Spock becoming human one.. now.. we have 3 episodes left, and we know one of those is the musical, so we have two more opportunities to give us something meaningful, serious or just halfway engaging.. or to visit a strange new world. This has been an absolute waste of.a season.

I thought the point of SNW was having stand alone episodes not a serial so seems perfectly fine for a season.

This season does feel a bit like a waste. They didn’t do much or deal with anything set up in the previous season. Where is Sybok? They had him appear in an episode last time. That’s a problem with the short seasons. And I’m not a fan of the short seasons at all.

I could handle a comedic episode IF the show was decent to begin with and was the only one. But it’s not. So I don’t think they are prepared to take that kind of risk.

There are 3 episodes left. And the next look to be a Klingon one, then the musical, then what would appear to be a Gorn finale. Probably with some pathetic cliffhanger.

I didn’t like the 1st season but this 2nd season has been SO much worse…

Wow this episode is already a huge hit. Just checked IMDB and it’s currently the highest rated episode of SNW so far with 9.4 rating. To keep that in perspective, the second highest rated is Quality of Mercy with 9.1. Ad Astra Per Aspera was the former highest scorer of the season with 8.6.

But to go even FARTHER with it, the only other episodes that rated 9.4 in the entire franchise is TNG’s The Inner Light, DS9’s In the Pale Moonlight and Picard’s finale ‘The Last Generation’. Currently those are the highest rated episodes, period.

Yes it can naturally come down, but FYI, The Last Generation was rated a 9.6 the night it aired in April and being 9.4 three months later is still very impressive. I don’t expect this rating to fall that much either and it could go higher too.

But it’s more proof while NuTrek still has it’s detractors, when something is truly liked across the board like this episode, it bares out time and time again.

Edit: It’s now at 9.5. ;)

It should be even higher! 😎

Not surprised. SNW is awesome. LDS is even more awesome. Put them together and…

Although I was a little more conflicted with how highly rated the Picard finale was (I would rate it closer to 8.5 which is still high lol) I actually agree that this episode probably at least deserves a 9. Because when there is soooo much hype (like Picard and SNW both got) and they generally deliver which SNW did out of the gate but PIC stumbled until season 3 on a level people who don’t even love LDS or SNW still likes it shows how big of a home run it is. We see it in this thread with people who says they don’t necessarily like one or the other show but still enjoyed it. So imagine all the people who DO love both of these shows are feeling over it.

And when you do something like this, you’re taking a huge risk. A lot of people were excited about it or at least curious how they would do it, but I think a lot of people were scared it was going to be a disaster. So that alone made it a bigger hit than it probably would be.

Now it’s the musical which is easily a bigger risk. But I’m more hopeful about it now after how well this came off at least.

Agreed. Strange New Worlds is simply the best Star Trek ever made and it’s a shame it has to share its name with those old, bad shows

Dude, I know you have your issues with it, but c’mon! You can certainly admit SNW is a decent show at times even it still has flaws.

Tiberius Mudd, I like you and we actually agree on quite a bit including this show and its canon problems (although ironically this episode didn’t present any…or at least nothing major.) But I don’t understand how some fans look at everything so binary at times? It’s either the greatest show around or its pure trash. I just don’t look at any Trek show that way. There are things I love about all of them, but I can also admit they all have their flaws too, both SNW and LDS included.

But I guess I try to see the glass half full with everything too.

Can someone tell me why there was a koala in the opening credits?

That’s a reference to LD, there’s a koala in that that people see when they’re ascending or having a near death experience

Ah thanks! I figured it was some kind of LDS reference but had no idea what it meant. I have some catching up to do.

The Great Koala represents a very spiritual ascension in the Star Trek universe that connects the meaning of existence through all time and space.🐨

Yeah but is also seen in near death experiences as Brad talked about seeing the koala in the season 2 finale

Yeah I think the Koala can show up in near death or maybe even death itself. Who knows maybe Spock, Yar, Kirk, Kelvin Kirk, Dax, Tucker, Scotty, Worf, Deanna, Picard, Janeway, Shaxs, Kim, Culber, O’Brien, B’Elanna and Neelix all seen it at least once. ;)

Weyoun has seen the Koala many times. If we ever get Weyoun Nine I hope someone asks him if he remembers it.

LOL, yeah the Koala is probably like “You again????’

How far we’ve come from “Bread and Circuses.”

#CapnMorgan

I can totally agree with that. Look how far we’ve sunk.

The koala shows up in LD’s Star Trek ident in the upfront too, which I think is cute.

OK let me set the stage!

I was in line waiting for popcorn getting ready to watch Oppenheimer with my girlfriend and her sister when I get an article on my phone saying that they are dropping this episode today and in about 90 minutes from that time!!! I was like WHAT THE BLEEP??? I was so excited but knew I couldn’t watch it until after Oppenheimer. That thing was 3 bleeping hours!! Was it always suppose to be this long??? My girlfriend could tell I was losing it because I wanted to see it right away. Yeah, yeah, Nolan’s magnum opus, possibly the best film of the year, presenting a very important historical figure that changed human history forever, blah, blah, blah, BUT I NEEDED TO SEE BOIMLER’S FIRST REACTION TO BEING ON THE ENTERPRISE AND HOW AWESOME IT MUST BE TO MEET SPOCK!!!!!!! 😒

Later as the movie started and as if the universe was just bleeping with me now, Jack Quaid shows up in the bleeping movie and I still have over 2 bleeping hours to get through. I was even thinking maybe we can just leave a little early? We kind of all know how it ends, right? I was so restless knowing it was airing soon, that when 7 p.m. finally hit I told my girlfriend I had to go the ‘bathroom’ but I really went to the lobby just to watch the opening scene of the episode on my phone. I knew I was going to love it after that (TENDI AND RUTHERFORD WERE THERE TOO!!!!) and it calmed me enough to get through the rest of the movie.

I think I missed the scene where they tested the bomb for the first time or something, I don’t know, it’ll be on Netflix, Disney+. Peaccok or somewhere in a month or two anyway. I’ll catch it there again.

BUT THIS EPISODE WAS AWESOME! GOT HOME AND WATCHED IT TWICE!!! BEST EPISODE OF THE SEASON. LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT!!!!

P.S. Oppenheimer was also good. You should check that out too.

I saw you posted this at Trekcore as well and nearly died laughing. I watched the movie on Friday, thought it was great and will probably watch it again. But as a life long Trek fan I’ll watch this episode a dozen times over. ;)

But glad you enjoyed both of them so much.

In all seriousness I did really love the movie. Could’ve been 20-30 minutes shorter but solid overall.

But being a Trek fan is a 24/7 a day job and this was the episode I was looking forward the most after Picard season 3 ended. I been counting down this last week. I was super happy it dropped today but the second it did it was all I could think about lol

Just so happy it didn’t disappoint! 👍

One of the party poopers has arrived. I think said party pooper needs to go drink whatever it was he said that people that like LD does (before anyone says anything, I don’t drink alcohol, or think about it or even look at it) and go accept that the fandom isn’t going to change its mind before we get another long ass comment that boils down to tl;dr: I hate young people and animation.

I been saying it forever now, it’s OK not to like any of these shows but if a show is just not for you, it’s just not for you and its no point torturing yourself to watch it unless you just like to hate watch which sadly has become a thing on the internet.

Yeah it’s definitely okay to not like a show. You can just ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist and not waste your time. Which is what I usually do. Aside from the times that I’ve been like this would have been really cool potential, it’s what I do with PIC. I could talk about what I hated about it but I can instead use that energy to be gay for Trek characters which is a better use of my time anyway.

Yeah. Hate-watching is dumb, as is watching something you don’t like just to be a completeist.

I have to be fair about it and I been a party pooper myself at times over the years with Nemesis and Enterprise and Nemesis and JJ verse movies 09 and STID and Nemesis and Discovery and Picard…oh and Nemesis! 🙄

So all fair in love and war! And I really like Enterprise today and Picard turned it around for me in season 3. Take a guess which one I still really hate the most though?

Heres a hint: It’s Nemesis.

To be fair to you though. You’re not always talking about how much you hate Nemesis or how you hate the characters from it or insulting their intelligence or the intelligence of fans of it. You don’t even do most of that with Discovery and you’re pretty open about your dislike of it. Those particular things is what I’m calling being a party pooper. Maybe I’m just too sensitive but there’s only so much “purple haired idiot” I can take before I want to reply the lyrics to one of my favorite meme songs (if you’re curious it’s called “I am now going to bark at you” and the particular part is “hey clown, jester, you have done it again, constantly raising the bar for the circus and doing it foolishly.”) and wonder when a moderator will ask for that to just stop or reduce by like a lot. Because yes people are allowed to dislike and criticize shows but when it gets to be too much it just gets to be too much.

Ok I get your point now. I’m always honest with my opinion to a fault but I don’t try to shove it down anyone’s throat or insult them for liking something I don’t or tell others what should or shouldn’t be considered canon just because I don’t like it.

Those all cross the line to me. And I don’t really discuss my hatred for Nemesis because it’s not discussed in places anymore directly like the newer stuff is today. And I made my peace with it after 20 years…kind of.😆

But I hear you and I blocked people like this on other sites. In fact a big reason I didn’t post here for a long time is because you can’t do that here and you really see how some of these people disrupt these boards. When a dick like me is saying other people are being too much of a dick…you should really listen.

I don’t know why this place doesn’t have an ignore feature? It would be such a better board with it, especially the people who always gets triggered but then do a lot of the insulting to others themselves because they can’t handle other people opinions.

Those are the worst.

Yes ignore feature really needs to be added because I would use it a fair amount. I need to not insult others myself, gotta work on that. Gotta work on a few things tbh. Until then I just gotta ignore the 💩, ignore my temptation to reply with stuff that’s not really helpful and focus on what I like in particular.

Yeah unfortunately you can only just ignore people on your own. I’m actually ignoring someone here but it’s really over stuff that happened on another board lol. But I’ll admit he’s been very good about it and a big reason I feel more comfortable posting here now.

Another guy was being so abrasive, bullying and attacking others for just HAVING an opinion I was just going to stop posting here once Picard ended, but luckily he finally got banned. You probably know who I’m talking about but that guy was a nussance to say the least.

So an ignore button saves you all the melodrama, just click and go on your way. I’m sure most boards I’m on are thrilled they can ignore me. 😆

You can’t take any of it personally. No one is being paid to be here and as long as you’re secure about yourself it shouldn’t matter how others feel about TV shows or even you personally as long as they don’t stalk or harass you over it.

Surprisingly I get along with most people here like with you even though there is so much fighting here lol. And others who do most of that or want to constantly pick fights, I just keep scrolling down.

as long as you’re secure about yourself it shouldn’t matter how others feel about TV shows or even you personally

This exactly. As long as no one is personally ripping on others even for having a different take on a show it’s all good. No one really should have any issues with obvious opinions. We all know they are opinions and constantly clarifying with, “in my opinion,,,” just isn’t necessary. I will never understand the desire to rip on people because they “state their opinions as facts.”

I don’t think you’re a dick at all. You simply give your opinion and you do it very jokingly and in a lighthearted way most of the time as well. I never seen you once get upset over someone for hating a show or movie you happen to love like Lower Decks. You let people say what they want and never get on anyone’s case about it. That’s how message boards should work but some people just can’ seem to do the same and why we need an ignore button here. Seriously.

And yes people like AlphaPredator was the perfect example of that. I don’t care about bringing up his name. That’s the kind of poster that drive people away from sites but probably would still be around today if there was an ignore button in place and the people who couldn’t tolerate him could’ve just ignored him instead of reporting him because he was attacking everyone in sight he disagreed with.

Thanks bro I appreciate that. But I don’t always keep it together. I ran into a huge LDS hater on YouTube once who badmouth Tendi by saying and I quote ‘I don’t think Tendi is bridge material yet.”

I nearly bleeping lost it!!!!! “What the bleep do you mean Tendi is not bridge material you bleeping hater??? Tendi is excellent at everything thing she does loser and you need to shut the bleep up because you’re just here to put down the show because you can’t stand to see an Orion WOMAN getting promoted and excelling beyond just being another slave girl…racist!”

She had the nerve to block me after that because she couldn’t stand to hear the truth. But it’s why you should ALWAYS stay off the YouTube comments section man. You meet a lot of unaware bitter toxic a-holes who will snap at you for no reason.

But maybe at some point she’ll unblock me and apologize.

Well, at least you put her in her place lol.

And I obviously love Lower Decks but I’m fine if others don’t. It’s cool it’s just a TV show, nothing to get that worked up about over it. My own girlfriend hates it… we’re still together anyway.

I really respect everyone who don’t like it. But I have seen others insult people because they do happen to like it. Not many but a few. It shouldn’t be OK if others like or hate something you don’t to get harassed or insulted over it. 🙄

Hey… My wife and kid don’t like Trek. I’m flying solo with it in my own home!

Yeah I completely get your point as well. MOST of us are just here to have fun and talk Star Trek, positive or negative. I am fine with either of those. I don’t have a single issue if people are negative about a show I love, but when that negativity crosses over into insulting others, questioning their fandom over it or outright gatekeeping, these people need to be banned, period . I don’t mean if they do it once or twice, we’re all human, but when it becomes a trend as it has for some.

Now that said, I don’t see a lot of that in this thread specifically and this thread is one of those rare times where the positive posts are overshadowing the negative ones by 9-1. So I don’t see it as a huge deal in THIS case personally. But honestly man, if there is someone who is really bothering you specifically where they just want to fight with you all the time or is insulting you, then just tell them to ignore you. Even if it doesn’t stop their overall behavior, at least you don’t have to directly deal with it. It’s really all we have and I don’ t think its a bad thing to ask for when all you are doing is trying to keep all the nonsense arguing down on a pretty small board and it benefits your mental health.

If they are decent people and understand where you are coming from, they will abide by it. And BTW, someone once asked me to ignore them here as well and I had no issues with that. I didn’t take it personally and was happy to give him his space. I’m not claiming to be perfect at all. I just want to talk Star Trek with like minded people like yourself but if I’m getting on someone nerves even if I didn’t realize it and I can’t make it right then I will happily ignore them if they think I’m being too much of a jackass. I don’t come here to create silly drama, most of us don’t but some personalities just clash more than others, that’s all. And after a few months, me and that poster worked it out and started chatting again, but sadly it look like he left the boards for good and he was here when the first Kelvin movie premiered.

So that’s my advice, just tell them to leave you out of the conversation if you feel you are being attacked or always getting into a fight with someone. But if they can’t do that, then report their ass! There is no need for toxic people here at all man. We’re discussing escapist entertainment, not abortion or politics. Calm down.

when 7 p.m. finally hit I told my girlfriend I had to go the ‘bathroom’ but I really went to the lobby just to watch the opening scene of the episode on my phone

Like I say, Cap’n Morgan and all that.

Who is Captain Morgan?

As far as I know Captain Morgan is a brand of rum.

Read my long-form review of the episode above. :)

OK I’ve read it, and wow that was a rant man lol. But I got the gist obviously and your issues with it. And I’m not much of a drinker and haven’t had rum much outside of having a glass maybe once or twice in my life so lost on all the names and labels. But yes, I get it now.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds has become the first Star Trek series to have a hybrid of live-action and animation and a full-on musical.

LOL, wow, that is soooo true. I didn’t think about that until now. They are doing some crazy things with it and I’m all for it as long as its good . The crossover is now a mega hit, so that gives me some confidence the musical can be great too.

I personally am intrigued by the musical episode, but also know many really dont like musicals and will not want to see it! I’ve read many are tired of hearing about the big swings SNW is taking in S2, but the crossover sounds like it was a homerun, so maybe the musical will be the same. With Celia Rose Gooding being a broadway and show trained singer, I am really looking forward to hearing Uhura sing. And with most fans seemingly liking the SNW cast and the characters, I think the audience is going to be about as receptive as it is going to be with a musical episode. Let’s hope this isnt a swing and a miss!

At this point, I think SNW and LD should be their own little mini-verse within Star Trek. SNW really needs to either decide what it wants to be, and take Trek seriously, or establish it as outside of regular continuity and just cut loose and do all the silly stuff they want. Just go ahead, break the 4th wall and forget about canon.. I don’t think “Big Swings” means what they think it means. It’s a waste of a great idea, but at this point, I’d rather them just disregard and go be whatever whacky, zany, offbeat show they want.

I think SNW and LD should be their own little mini-verse within Star Trek. SNW really needs to either decide what it wants to be, and take Trek seriously, or establish it as outside of regular continuity and just cut loose and do all the silly stuff they want. 

Well, yes, but I think they’ve probably crossed that Rubicon already.

No, YOU need to decide what you want to be.

Just go ahead, break the 4th wall and forget about canon..

I think they have done that a long time ago. In fact much of nu-Trek has.

Meh.. not sure I agree. I really meant in the context of this particular episode. Just make it exist outside of the regular stuff.

At this point, I think you should just accept the fact that these producers and their creative output are never going to be your cup of tea and move on, much as many of us have moved on when it became obvious that, however much we love Trek in general, a particular series was just not going to work for us. (In my case that would be a good chunk of Voyager and just about all of Enterprise.) No need to convince everyone else on these boards that the shows are as without value as you think they are — and as to canon, you actually don’t need the permission of the producers to exclude LDS, SNW, or anything else you don’t like. Just do it anyway.

I just don’t see the musical being good. If the show was better I’d say go for it. But with the show as bad as it is it feels like a really bad risk. Nothing has happened to make me think this episode will be any good.

And to be fair, I thought the musical Buffy episode would floop but was surprised how they pulled it off. The difference is that show was GOOD. It was run by competent people. Something SNW lacks.

Hell even the Arrowverse musical episode kinda worked for me. And it wasn’t that good but still better than anything from Secret Hideout.

Dude I’m just being honest, but I would shocked to hear you say anything else but this given how much you dumped on SNW for two seasons now.

And of course it could be awful. I was worried this episode may be awful but was pleasantly surprised. But yes a musical is on a different level entirely. Trek has been doing comedy and crossover episodes for decades now but a musical will definitely be a first.

I think I’m one of the tens of people who has never seen that Buffy episode but I’ve never seen the show period. I did see the Flash/Supergirl musical episode though and I did like it. So we’ll have to see. But I predicted with this crossover episode most people will either love it or hate it, it probably won’t be many people in the middle. The musical episode will be 10 times that easily.

I guess the silver lining is that my expectations for Secret Hideout couldn’t be any lower. Hell, it was low expectations that cause me to think the front half of Picard S3 was OK. So my bar for something decent from these people is not high at all.

You don’t like SNW? I remember you not liking Lower Decks so I understand why you don’t like this episode. But do you like SNW itself?

I like it but I still like the animated shows and Picard season 3 more. But the show is really fun. And I don’t care about canon too much. This show feels more like an alternate universe show and where Chapel is super hot so I’m good with it! 👍

Yeah… Haven’t been impressed with SNW. That first season for me disrespected TOS so much it was hard to get over it. Then the writing and plotting was just Star Trek Discovery level. I don’t like feeling like the show is talking down to me. They did do that episode that explained away all their inconsistencies by making this a reboot. But the bad writing and plotting remains. And this season they just treated Spock like a clown. I knew in reboots all bets are off but that is just unacceptable.

Fair enough bro, fair enough! 😎🖖

There is definitely some bad writing in places but I wouldn’t describe it anywhere near as bad as Discovery level bad.

The canon stuff doesn’t bother me as I said but mostly I’m not as familiar with TOS like you. I’m more focused on 24th century Trek.

But you also believe it’s now in a different timeline so it shouldn’t even matter now. I would actually like Spock to stick with Chapel because A. She’s hot B. She’s not an insufferable Vulcan who will make your life miserable and will end up trying to get you killed in a match to the death so she can keep her boy toy and C. She’s hot. Like T’POL, Dax and Seven level of hot. Let’s not go back to the timeline where the original Chapel is such a plank of wood even a Vulcan finds her too dull to date.

And don’t get me wrong, T’Pring is hot…for a Vulcan, but not hot enough to lose your life over either.

I feel I’ve gone off topic somewhere. In conclusion, I understand your issues!

I will just add that It’s not that I personally believe the show is set in an alternate timeline. They themselves showed it was. They did an entire episode to set it up as such.

PS… I’ll give you Dax but Hoshi is the hottest chick in Trek. :)

Maybe it’s just me but for all of the hype about Spock and Brad, it didn’t really feel like anything much at all happened there. If Brad walked away with any friends from the past, in my mind it was Pike and then La’an.

I know most of the hype there was behind the scenes stuff but 🤷.

Was it about Boinler walking away friends with Spock? I thought it was about Spock freaking Boimler out by smiling.

A lot of the hype leading up to this episode was about Boimler and Spock. I personally feel like there was nothing to it.

What were you expecting? They were never going to fuck.

I wasn’t expecting that. I was saying that all of that hype that made us think they were going to be friends didn’t seem to have happened. That’s all. Which is okay, that’s fine. I love Brad regardless and always will.

I agree. The term Spoimler was being thrown around a lot, which I always assumed was hyperbole. But they still only really had one scene together.

Wow, that was an amazingly entertaining episode of TV.

And that is with me knowing nothing about LOWER DECKS, having given up on it twice, both times partway through first episode. I may have to reconsider …

First time that Mount has really seemed to be wholly comfortable with the character in awhile too.

Really, this was just charming, no complaints from me at all (at least until I watch it a 2nd time, which I will — something I almost never do these years with the current live-action.)

Kmart, any time you like an episode, any episode, I always look outside to see if any elephants are flying lol. Really happy you enjoyed it dude! :)

Based on your past posts I honestly wouldn’t recommend you watch LDX. Doesn’t seem like something up your alley. The bulk of their gags are references to past Trek. So unless you get huge charges out of that it’s probably not for you.

But hey… My ability to read people based on posts is pretty limiting. So take it for what it’s worth. Which admittedly is not much.

What’s the matter, aren’t you feeling well?

I made a substantial reply to you two days ago, but they apparently didn’t like it since it never showed up on the site. Short version is that I am actually unwell right now, but that happened after seeing the ep, not before.

It wasn’t amazing as an episode but it shows how good this show can be, if it were more about the characters like Lower Decks is. But I guess, doing only ten episodes a season means no filler- or bottle episodes which have often been my favourites.

And I kinda wann see an SNW-ENT Crossover now 😅

I mean there is absolutely no reason why there can’t be one. Now that we know Pike is a huge Archer fanboy it would be cool to put them together. And we don’t have to worry about it happening on any fucking holodecks either.

More Buffoonary. Better comedy episode than the Spock one, and now we have two that re beyond rediculous. 2 out of 10. Season 2 is officially terrible at this point. No substance.

it’s REDICULOUS BUFFOONARY

WITH NO SUBSTANCE

So I’m a bad typist. Sue me.

NO – sue yourself.

From my point of view there has been one episode that has been higher than a 4. One out of 17. The show was officially terrible to me about 3 or 4 shows into the first season.

By two out of 10, I meant 2 straight up comedy episodes out of 10. Definitely confusing the way I typed it.

Wow. Amazing episode! I had just ordered food at a bar down the street when I got the notification the episode was released early. Immediately asked for my food to go, downed my beer, and walked home. One hundred percent worth the heartburn from downing that beer!

This was the first episode of SNW where the crew felt like family. I’ve felt that way about LDS since season 1 and my hopes are high for SNW going forward.

Also – the trailer for season 4 of LDS is amazing! Looking forward to September!

Just realized a very tiny thing:

The photos in the article show that the male actors in SNW have the traditional TOS style, Star Trek angular or pointed sideburns.

Brad does not have the traditional Trek angular or pointed side burns. His sideburns are cut horizontally / square-type.

The lack of Trek-burns on Brad makes me sad.

More importantly, has there ever been an explanation for why many Trek shows have the men sporting angular or pointed side burns? I have always been curious about this.

The pointed sideburns in TOS were basically a compromise between the male cast members and Gene Roddenberry, who wanted “futuristic” haircuts that reminded viewers they were in the 23rd Century. The cast objected, stating that off-camera they still had to live in the 20th Century. Roddenberry relented, and they stuck with the sideburns instead.

What did Roddenberry’s full-blown “futuristic” haircut look like?

Maybe the do’s in Hunger Games. With bellybuttons on people’s foreheads.

I have no friggin’ clue on that one, pard (and tbh, I’m not sure Roddenberry did either). The story was related in THE MAKING OF STAR TREK, the oldest book about the production of TOS.

Really enjoyed it, and I’m not into the animated stuff! Well done to all involved in making this :-)

ok…..that was pretty great. Who would have thought that it would be Lower Decks that would help clear up some of the oddities of Spock’s characterization?

How exactly did it do that?

My guess is that the whole “experimenting with emotion” thing is a retcon to explain the smile and emotionalism in “The Cage.”

Although, I guess the events in “The Cage” have already happened…so who knows.

And this is now an alternate timeline/reboot. So there technically are no oddities to fix anymore. This is Spock they way they wish him to be.

as much as we may wish it to be an alternate timeline / reboot – it is not according to the makers, mores the pity

According the the show they made it is. Did you not see episode 2.3? They went out of their way to say that just like in the KU movies timey-whimey shenanigans created a new timeline. And like the KU, by extension a reboot.

Yeah, you just keep blowing on that kazoo, Johnny. It never gets old.

I’ve never blown that kazoo until episode 2.3. Many others had. All I did was point out the myriad of ways the show doesn’t line up or even respect what came before it.

But now that episode 2.3 has been seen it is now perfectly obvious this show is an alternate timeline/reboot. What is on screen is what counts. Not what one might wish. Example: I’m not a fan of the concept of Spock’s half brother Sybok. But it’s on screen so nothing to be done about that. It is a part of the mythos, now.

That was so good!

I’ve warmed up to  Lower Decks , after disliking the first couple of seasons because of how selfish (and thus how non-Starfleetish) Mariner was back then. But the show I really adore is  Strange New World s. So when they announced that they were doing a SNW/LD crossover, I wasn’t just against the idea, I was REALLY against it; I didn’t want LD’s juvenile humor sullying my pure SNW Starfleet.

I was wrong. I was SO wrong!

Everyone involved in this episode did a superlative job, from the writers to the actors to the animators to the costume designers and so on. Just beautifully done from start to finish.

We even got some life advice, from Boimler to Pike, and a classically Trekkian message about judging groups. The part that made me cry, though, was Una’s realizing that in the future, Starfleet uses HER image to recruit people. She had to fight for the right to even BE in Starfleet, but now she knows that history judges her as the quintessential Starfleet officer. That moved me to tears.

Great job, everybody!

We’ve already discussed it on the other board but so happy how much you enjoyed it. I was a little worried you might hate it, especially if Mariner help get Spock get demoted for a week or something. 😆

(It’s Mariner, it’s always bound to happen)

Hee! You’re funny.

I remember back when they first announced this episode, Tawny Newsome said she was so enthralled by the Enterprise set that she treated it as if it were real, which resulted in her breaking SEVERAL of the more fragile items. So the Mariner chaos aura caused trouble behind the scenes. :-)

You can’t take those two anywhere! 😉

Being such a big ENT fan, or Endearing New Travellers as I like to call them, this episode brought me such joy. Archer and his Enterprise have had a few references since S1 of Discovery, but name-checking Travis and Hoshi was a proper heart eyes emoji moment.

ENT got a lot of love in this episode. It was great!

I instantly rewatched the scene where Pike imagines how he would react to being on the NX-01 before even finishing the episode haha. It really was!

Yeah… I’m forced to admit that as a fan of Enterprise I got a charge out of that. And it served a purpose for the episode. So it was a rare moment of fan service that felt a little organic. So again, credit where credit is due. It’s part of why the episode didn’t merit a 1 of 10 like the bulk of the others have.

So basically the episode got a higher point from you because it referenced Enterprise lol. Hey, whatever helps.

Not just a reference for reference sake. It actually helped with the story seeing Boimler see this group become mini fan boys about a historical crew for them. Honestly I feel like someone on the writing staff made a mistake when that was written. I’d wager someone in the production probably wanted to pull it out. LOL

Yeah it was a great moment for sure. It’s like when other famous actors fanboys/girls about actors they idle too.

And to be honest, Hoshi is probably a bit more famous in Starfleet history because she helped refine the universal translator.

Agreed with that. Archer not only was a member of the UFP’s founding generation, but he also eventually became UFP president. He’s comparable to George Washington. It makes sense that Pike might have read his bio. And I can see how Uhura might have a niche interest in Hoshi as a historical figure. (A friend of mine in the intelligence community had a similar reaction to the female intelligence analyst at Bletchley Park who first figured out the German V-2 program. Not a household name, but a figure of historical interest to *her*.)

The ENT references indeed felt a lot more organic than Boimler The Blathering Idiot knowing the names of all the nursing staff.

Boimler and Mariner are the most irritating main characters in all of Trek. I don’t think it’s even close. That’s one of the reasons why this crossover just didn’t work.

Yeah – I do wonder if LDS focused more on Tendi and Rutherford whether it would be more palatable.

Would’ve loved it more if Tendi was there with them too. And she could’ve met her ancestor as well and would’ve been a great tie in.

Perhaps. But I could probably handle those two if the show was actually, you know… Funny.

I think in this time period Archer is still very revered so it would make sense for Pike to be so enamored with him.

And the Hoshi shout out by Uhura made my day! 😍

That was one of the best Trek crossover episodes ever and a mighty entertaining episode in its own right. Too bad we couldn’t see Tendi and Rutherford in live action too. Also it seemed kind of weird to me that both Boimler and Mariner didn’t do any gag about La’an’s surname. I expected some sort of a Khan reference (maybe it got cut) Also am I the only one that feels like Pelia is being shoehorned into the stories and is not a naturally developing character. Maybe there is gonna be some sort of twist with her at the end of the season but so far I don’t feel like she fits in naturally with the show or the characters, she seems too forced, a bit like Doctor Pulaski from TNG.

Yes, you’re the only one.

It does seem like the Chief Engineer role is being used as a placeholder for the eventual arrival of Scotty. Which is unfortunate if true. I enjoyed Hemmer and would like to see more of Pelia.

I’m prepared for that, I just need to prepare myself for the headaches that will be people complaining because oh no Scotty has a personality beyond the warp core and Scotland (that’s hyperbole of course). I’m gonna completely trample TOS canon now by saying I hope they make him the gay man I always knew he was but I’ll take bi as long as they don’t stick with the heteronormativity that’s still all over the franchise.

I would be on board with that if the show does eventually transition to the TOS era. It would be great to see the character developed more. Which makes me wonder what they would do with Sulu in that regard.

I’m not exactly sure when either character joined the Enterprise. It may not be until KIrk is in command, so there are some years left until that happens.

iirc the only one we know for sure is Pavel Chekov and there’s already been hints of Scotty. Being real I don’t expect Scotty to be canon LGBT, if they pair him with anyone it’ll probably be Uhura because that’s what was said in TFF. But honestly he probably won’t be paired with anyone which is okay in my book.

Sulu I really hope they do make LGBT. I know making Kelvin Sulu gay was a choice that people didn’t like but making Prime Sulu gay too would be great. I realize that’s probably not what you meant. Both characters being developed more would be great too.

Yeah I wish Tendi and Rutherford was in live action too but I was happy they were at least in the episode itself.

As for Pelia, I really like her personally but she does seem a bit divisive in places. But she is a very interesting character IMO.

Everything this show does is unquestionably outstanding.

No. You are not the only one. She doesn’t show up much and when she does it does feel a bit forced. 7 episodes in and they really haven’t used her.

I feel like having a Jett Reno as the Engineer would liven the show up a bit.

Yep. I love Jett Reno; they should have kept her back in the good ‘ol 23rd century so that she could have appeared on SNW.

My favorite line from her… “Yeah I forgot you already.”

Best crossover episode and one of the best episodes of the series so far.

Back during Enterprise’s run, we (our online group) used to joke that Hoshi and Travis were the most neglected characters. So when at the very end of the series, in the Mirror Universe episode, Hoshi ends up as Empress and Mayweather as her right hand, we thought that was hilarious.

And in this episode, Archer gets mentioned, of course…but the only other two mentioned are Hoshi and Travis. I’m just going to assume that was deliberate.

Hoshi had a fair few episodes focused on her, and she actually had a personality. Travis, on the other hand, had nothing going for him.

The very first episode after the pilot was a Hoshi episode with Fight or Flight. I rewatched that one a few months ago and really like it today. And it is funny how they obviously used some of Hoshi’s backstory to create Uhura’s on SNW.

As for Travis, he only got one episode that was about him. So far Ortegas feels like the Travis of SNW but she definitely has a personality.

While I agree Travis Mayweather was under-utilized, he had a lot more substance than Uhura in TOS, for example. Not only was there “Fortunate Son”; there was the episode where he and Archer got trapped in that Suliban prison camp, and also “Dead Stop.”

We actually don’t disagree on that, but Enterprise came out in 2001 and not 1966. He should just had more to do by then.

As for Uhura, it’s pretty funny how they are making her to be such an iconic figure in Trek history as this episode emphasized but I can’t think of a single thing Uhura did on her own that would be considered memorable 120 years later in Mariner and Boimler’s time. Yeah she was there for a lot of it, but had little to do with any of it. But I guess it’s more about the historical representation of the character than the character itself they were really talking about.

Uhura stepped up to take command of the ship in TAS’s THE LORELLI SIGNAL.

Spock complemented her on her ability to rework her communications console.

I didn’t like how they treated her in THE THOLIAN WEB. No one believed her, even McCoy until everyone saw the Captain. That wasn’t cool at all.

She did a little bit here and there in some episodes but the nature of the show precluded having an entire episode revolve around her.

Yes, I’m sure her ability to rewire a console is in all of the 24th century history books and why Mariner admires her so much. ;)

I watched TAS but I don’t remember that episode at all. I’ll have to look it up.

Yeah that was always a weird subplot in The Tholian Web but I guess they needed to gin up drama somehow.

I always liked Uhura but honestly most of the time she was just…there.

I’m happy she’s getting more fleshed out on this show.

I’m just worried. She’s the only legacy character on the show they haven’t ruined. And there is still time…

Right, that’s true, but she still had a lot less than the other five.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be — I’ll give it that much. Proves once again that good acting and good writing can sometimes make the diarrhea of an idea taste like hummus.

If it turned out good, maybe that means it wasn’t actually a diarrhea of an episode, and the writers and showrunners actually knew what they were doing when they came up with it?

The Tooth Fairy is good, so maybe she’s real?

I legitimately don’t understand your analogy.

There’s quite a bit of discussion on Twitter today about why, suddenly, Hollywood is having a banner weekend with Barbenheimer, whereas the box office for the summer so far has been so lackluster — see Indiana Jones, the Flash, and even Mission Impossible.

The most plausible theory — although it’s not airtight — seems to be franchise and sequel fatigue. Really, the Paramount folks ought to think about that. The entirety of Star Trek recently has been far too self-referential inside baseball, and the quasi-journalistic blogs like this one and Trek Core have aided and abetted that problem; no one, except Tor.com has been willing to call out the emperor for his new clothes.

“These Old Scientists” was a fun, if out-of-canon, parody that avoided a jump-the-shark fiasco I feared. As I noted in my review, I think that the writers consciously thought of this episode as a Barbie-style parody, something accessible to both those who love and hate Star Trek (or at least LDS). However, it was nowhere near the best-of-franchise, or even best-of-season, some are making it out to be.

Self-referential inside baseball is still the sign of franchise fatigue. A decently executed parody won’t change that. I’m increasingly of the view that they should take the writers’ strike as an excuse to let Star Trek lay fallow for a few years, and resurrect it under new management.

Self referential is something LDX has been since day one. A big problem the show had from the start was it was far to afraid to poke fun at Trek tropes. And no, copying a Trek trope and being self aware you are doing it ISN’T poking fun at it. The first season of The Orville there were a number of really good gags that could have easily transferred to Lower Decks. What the Trek comedy needed was a show runner who was aware of Trek but had no issue with good natured pokes at the tropes. Of which there are a ton.

I’ve noticed that the episodes the fans tend to like the most are the ones that feature “legacy” characters and references. The episode of Picard S1 people liked was the Riker one. The season they liked was the one where the band got back together. Many liked Prodigy for it’s connection to Voyager. Lower Decks is liked and it’s nothing but the world’s biggest fangasm of Trek references. SNW still decided to throw in 3 TOS characters on their show. Why? Playing it safe, obviously.

Nu-Trek has only succeeded when it referenced the past. To me this means one of two things. Either the “inside baseball” thing does indeed represent franchise fatigue, which it seemed to have from the very first episode of Star Trek Discovery, or the writers aren’t capable of writing new original Trek.

But I do agree with the bulk of what you said there regardless.

I think you are being more fair to the people making these shows than maybe they deserve because it feels like they’re mocking Star Trek whenever they can and seem to get off on it, too. Nothing loving about any of it. It’s cynical and easy to be self-referential. And then they get another layer of easy jokes by commenting on the self-referential comments. I have, like, 5% sympathy for them because it’s incredibly difficult to write a solid Star Trek story, especially one that’s distinct enough from stories that have come before it. I just don’t enjoy how low the bar audience has for the shows because most of the time the episodes barely even clear it.

That said, I think the obsession with TOS and TNG is just born of Paramount+ freaking out about its survival. Paramount almost let Noah Hawley make a Star Trek universe-set motion picture (not something to be dumped on streaming) with no connection to anything before panic-canceling it at the last minute probably to shore up the brand on P+; but, there was, if only for a moment, a thought that they should expand beyond the same top three “known things” about Star Trek (Kirk, Spock, the Enterprise) in the market research they seemingly haven’t updated since 2007. I guess I should give Discovery the “originality medal,” but that show is just so unbelievably awful in a general TV sense that it’s using stock melodrama and schlock sci-fi TV tropes just as much as it references, utilizes, or expands on any Star Trek .

“That said, I think the obsession with TOS and TNG is just born of Paramount+ freaking out about its survival.”

This I fully agree with and I would go as far as Discovery season 2 when Pike and Spock showed up and when we were told we wouldn’t even see a grown up Spock on that show. And this was followed by the announcement of Patrick Stewart coming back to play Picard and it’s been nothing but nostalgia bait since then. Because although people here will watch anything with the name ‘Star Trek’ on it, I still highly doubt that makes up the majority of their subscribers. And they are not doing ANYTHING differently than every other streaming site out there with their big IPs.

Perfect example, look at Disney+ and both Star Wars and Marvel. Originally Disney started with an actual original character with The Mandalorean and a huge hit. But what followed that, tons of legacy characters like Obi Wan, Boboa Fett and Ashoka is coming next month. And Mandalorean season 2 was filled with as many legacy cameos as SNW and PIC brings in and TWO of those characters got their own spin off show as I mentioned. With the MCU shows, they had a great opportunity to introduce new characters and to give them credit they did with She-Hulk, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel but the overwhelming majority of those shows were based around characters already introduced in the movies from Wanda to Falcon and Winter Soldier to Loki, Hawkeye and now currently Nick Fury.

I get it, I agree with you and others, but I wish people stopped acting like this is some kind of Star Trek thing alone. It’s a Hollywood thing and everyone is doing it because it is about survival. Big or small if you have a streaming site and a big enough IP, you are bringing in as many legacy characters you can dig up. It’s exactly why I know it’s only a matter of when and not if we’ll get the Picard spin off because that’s going to bring WAY more attention and eyeballs than the Academy show will, that’s for sure.

And hey know it.

Fair enough. At least in my case, I’ve struggled with what’s happened to the property ever since they handed it over to JJ Abrams. Just a fundamental “So what? Who cares?” quality to the storytelling for a very long time — again, at least to me. I get that I’m one of only six people on the planet who takes issue with any of this “””content.”””

And I get that too. And I always admit I’m on both sides of the fence. On one hand I would love to start completely anew in a new time period and wipe the slate clean. You can’t put shows in the 23rd or 24th century anymore if you are trying to avoid having a revolving door of old characters as PIC, SNW, LDS and PRO all proved. You have to go out farther where these characters are literally all dead (and since its Star Trek, not even that stops them lol, but it keeps it at a minimum).

But same time, sure I love seeing more Riker, Seven, Worf, Kira and on and on.I’m a big fan today because of these characters in the first place (but I can do without the new Kirk though ;)). So it’s a double edge sword.

As for Abrams, although he was obviously cashing in on legacy characters to sell the movie, I at least think they were trying to be more ambitious with the idea. But sadly it went the Marvel/Star Wars blockbuster movie route right away with the same formula three movies straight and people just lost interest, both old and new fans. What could’ve been?

And also, I agree with you Noah Hawley’s idea was the Trek movie I was the most interested in because it was something completely NEW and not dwelling on nostalgia which I do really want in a movie, if one ever comes around again before I die.

BTW, it was 7 years to the day yesterday since Beyond came out in theaters. No new movie in sight but we did get a fun crossover episode to ‘celebrate’ its birthday. ;)

I’m afraid I don’t see them mocking Trek anywhere. I feel that LDX is far too fearful of the fans to do that. Which is unfortuante. To do good comedy sometimes you need to be willing to cross some lines.

I don’t think the legacy character thing was the original intent. Obviously the Spock sister thing was a safety net they hoped they wouldn’t use. But they pulled that cord early and fast. Then it became clear the audiences were only responding to the legacy stuff. And down that hole they went.

It’s only recently with the news of streamers losing steam that not taking the risk became an even bigger thing. But since Picard S1 I think they knew they HAD to use legacy characters in everything.

If I have a friend with a distinct voice, maybe a manner of speaking, a certain way they walk, just a style unique to them, it’d probably be fine and even charming to occasionally poke fun at that friend’s style. But if I did it every single time I saw the friend — if, my entirely personality suddenly became about repeating something they’d already done to an exaggerated effect — I don’t think it could reasonably be called “poking fun,” and certainly not “honoring,” “respecting,” or “(fan) servicing” some need. Whatever these shows don’t cobble together from prior Treks, they take from stock dramatic situations and whatever’s in pop culture to fill in the rest (Burnham’s Iron Man suit is just… wow).

But to specifically address LDX, it’ll be hard for me to come around on Mike McMahan having any sincerity. Dude’s one of those stinky comedy bros who makes fun of people because he was made fun of. Google “mike mcmahan mocks pre wga solar opposites”

Well, I’ve suffered through all the LDX episodes (God help me I’m still a Trek fan) and not once did I see any of the gags poking fun at any Trek trope. What they have done is copy a Trek trope and are self aware of it. That doesn’t mean you are poking fun at it. And it certainly isn’t funny.

Very well. I will defer to your experience and only add that I think impressions and reference humor are the lowest form of comedy next to puns. I grew out of Family Guy and SNL a long time ago, but recognize that most people haven’t and never do. That doesn’t make me better, it just means Star Trek isn’t for me anymore.

Paramount has never had great management. They’ve always had incredibly lucky management. Nobody knows anything in Hollywood. Unfortunately, this is the most popular Star Trek of the 21st century (and maybe ever), so, Strange New is the de facto flagship of the IP. They’re not going to cut it at its knees. Much like what happens when generative AI only has content produced by generative AI to generate its material, they’re going to let it self-reference until it goes insane. Star Trek fandom has firmly crossed over into Disney adult territory, where there’s more appreciate for “””the Disney magic””” than the material itself.

I think people are over thinking the problems with Hollywood. People didn’t see a lot of the summer movies because they weren’t very good. Also Ezra Miller kidnapped and beat up a few people. People saw Barbie and Oppenheimer because they were good. When Hollywood makes good movies, whether or not they are parts of a franchise, people go to see them. When they make bad movies, people stay home.

Yes exactly this! Also Barbie is in fact a franchise that originated with toys, just like the LEGO movies. With a ton of animated movies before they finally released one that was just like the first LEGO movie back in 2014 with the main difference being it seems to be toys to life like the short lived game trend that was around in the mid 2010s.

Also it’s the end of summer vacation so parents are taking their kids to see it before they go back to school as well as the loyal fans that Barbie has.

I’m curious to see what the box office drop off for Barbie will be. Many are annoyed it wasn’t marketed to be what it is and think the drop off will be severe.

Loved every minute of it! Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid nailed their performances. I hope it’s not the last time we see the Lower Decks cast in live action!

I don’t know what I enjoyed more…this amazing, fun, fan-loving episode with all it’s great references to all that we love about Star Trek, or really great review (“Computer. End program.”) Man, I just love this website!

It was fun and I’m a fan of both series but I wasn’t quite as blown away by it as everyone else was. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting but it fell a bit short for me.

So, yeah, it was fun and made for an entertaining hour of television but that was pretty much it for me.

Although I was super excited for this episode I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did actually. It’s just something about it that made it extra special for me and I guess others.

It’s still cool you liked it.

I did. They decided to swing for the fences and it worked.

I am a bit disappointed you didn’t love it more dude. Not in a negative way, just wish you could’ve liked it more. But of course I’m still happy you liked it at least. Like the other poster said I always thought I could like it but I didn’t really expect at this level either. It’s not one of my top 10 episodes of all time or anything….but maybe top 20? I just really loved how fun and clever it was and had some nice poignant moments.

Pelia’s ancient wisdom came from Cary Grant.

Wow even Cary Grant believed it faking it until you make it then.

Well, I’m very late to the party here, but I had fun there. A few good chuckles. Not the best SNW or the best LD, but it was lighthearted, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t feel like I need or want to re-watch it the same way that I have with other episodes this season, but that’s okay. 3/5

I was looking up old articles about the episode and found the original.

https://trekmovie.com/2022/07/23/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-to-cross-over-with-lower-decks-in-season-2/

It’s crazy they released the episode practically to the day it was announced a year ago at CC. BTW, is CC ALWAYS around the same dates? I completely forgot it landed last July too.

But man I think this episode turned out better than most of us ever thought it could. Certainly compared to when it was first announced lol.

The comments section was a blast! 😆

I completely forgot I even posted on it. Have I been on this board that long already??

LOL yeah it was. But of course at the time I can understand why people were freaking out. The whole thing really seemed bizarre at the time. But once it was made clear it wasn’t going to be Roger Rabbit, I think most people calmed down even if they were still skeptical of the whole thing.

I think it came out better than even people like us who supported it on day one thought it would. And I’m just happy it knocked down one of those bizarre fan theories that shows like LDS and PRO weren’t part of the prime universe, but an alternate animated universe lol. Fortunately that never caught on much in the fanbase but I seen people say stuff like this. No, it takes place in the exact same universe as the other shows and movies do, they are simply made in another format. It’s amazing how literal some people take this stuff at times.

But now that theory has been killed dead for good at least.

Lol some fans over think things a little too much sometimes! 😆😒

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BREAKING – Holly Hunter Joins Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Series

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REVIEW – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – “Those Old Scientists”

In a Comic-Con twist, the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has dropped a few days early. It’s streaming now on Paramount+! The rest of the season has been moved forward as well. This week’s Strange New Worlds – “Those Old Scientists” was the long-awaited crossover episode with animated comedy Lower Decks . Going in, this was easily the episode that I was most excited about. Especially since it had a director like Jonathan Frakes at the helm. So does this episode, written by Kathryn Lyn and Bill Wolkoff live up to the hype?

It’s the first proper crossover the franchise has had in years, possibly ever (it really depends if you count Generations ). Anticipation is very high, and with both of these series being so beloved, there’s not a lot of room for error. So does this live up to that high bar? Was it worth all the big hype and announcements? Here are all my thoughts on this latest edition of Strange New Worlds !

SPOILER WARNING – This is a full review for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7 “Those Old Scientists” . As such, it contains spoilers. Trust me when I say that these are spoilers you don’t want spoiled. You have been warned.

One of the aspects teased from this Strange New Worlds – “Those Old Scientists” announcement is the blending of animation and live-action. I really appreciated the episode’s use of animated opening and closing scenes. It essentially makes Boimler ( Jack Quaid ) and Mariner ( Tawny Newsome ) the main characters. While the transitions between live-action and animated could be a little jarring, it was all good fun. Even the special opening credits featured an animated USS Enterprise, which was exactly the sort of surprise this episode needed.

The #StarTrek #StrangeNewWorlds crossover with #StarTrekLowerDecks is NOW STREAMING on @ParamountPlus ! And it even has its own special animated title sequence. pic.twitter.com/TvG0UNA14o — Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) July 22, 2023

Speaking of the intro, seeing Tendi ( Noël Wells ) and Rutherford ( Eugene Cordero ) got Special Guest Star credits as well. While they do appear, it is only very briefly. I thought they would maybe be more involved, but at the end of the day this is primarily an episode of Strange New Worlds . It was also nice to see that Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan got a consulting producer credit. I assume he was involved in making the Lower Decks characters sound like themselves. If so, his involvement paid off tremendously.

Both Boimler and Mariner act and sound like they came out of an episode of the show. Right down to the very specific lore references they make. I love the way they talk about Star Trek history, and their doing it in a TOS setting was a delight. I was laughing and smiling for an hour, which was exactly what this episode needed. What I found myself more mixed on was the final scene, with the animated Strange New Worlds crew. I laughed, especially at Spock’s arm, but the self-aware 2-dimensional jokes bothered me somewhat.

Geeking Out

This was mostly on the part of Boimler, we spend the entire episode geeking out. Given he’s a character aware of all these characters’ ultimate fates, it was the perfect time to do it. Although we didn’t learn anything new, it was the most conscious this series has ever become of where these characters need to end up. Also with La’An ( Christina Chong ) calling back to her experiences in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” , as well as the use of the phrase “Ad Astra per Aspera”, it was like the whole season coming together.

That being said, I got a kick out of the jokes a lot. The scenes where the Boimler and Mariner were able to talk to each other, calling back to such episodes as “Past Tense” with the Bell Riots, were the most fun in this regard. There are so many ways it could’ve gone wrong, but it never feels more overwhelming than your regular episode of Lower Decks . I’m glad that they didn’t mess up the timeline or cause too much lasting damage to the series, outside of something I’ll get to later.

The other real highlight was getting to see Boimler, who’s made his whole life geeking out about Star Trek his thing, get to meet the characters he looks up to. His reaction to seeing Pike ( Anson Mount ), Spock ( Ethan Peck ), and the rest of the crew felt so real. For Trekkies, there’s no better audience surrogate than someone who’s just as much a fan as we are. It’s exactly the sort of fun episode that this show needed after such a varied and at times experimental season of Trek . I really didn’t stop smiling for hours.

Honoring the Past

That doesn’t mean Strange New Worlds – “Those Old Scientists” was all fun and games though. There were emotional scenes too, with the meeting between Uhura ( Celia Rose Gooding ) and Mariner coming to mind in particular. It’s the perfect mark of just how far the franchise has come since the 60s. All these years later, we can have such a perfect scene where two powerful women of color are able to share that moment. I know the first episode already paid tribute to Nichelle Nichols, but this is a perfect representation of how she changed the game.

For a series that pays more homage to The Original Series than any of the others, this was a lovely scene to have. I did end up getting pretty emotional, with Mariner’s idolization of Uhura being incredibly touching. It’s a very small part of this episode’s run time, but it was easily the best moment. Letting Uhura know the sort of legend she becomes, especially given her story this season was awesome. It wasn’t just Mariner looking up to Uhura, it was the entire next generation of the franchise looking up in awe of Nichelle’s legacy.

It wasn’t Strange New Worlds – “Those Old Scientists” only emphasis on the past though. In a twist, this episode had more callbacks to Star Trek: Enterprise than I ever could have predicted. Of all the past Star Trek series, it’s easily the one that gets the least focus. Getting the ship, and even some of the characters namedropped was really touching. It’s nice to know that not only does the 24th Century venerate the TOS and SNW characters, but the TOS era venerates the NX-01 and the entire crew. It affected me quite a lot and made for a sweet scene.

The Science of Orion

Of course, stereotypes and prejudice are bad. But it leans into what one of the episode’s core messages is trying to say. This was the perfect time for the series to comment on the era’s attitudes toward the Klingons, and I think they took the opportunity beautifully. The use of the Orions allows Tendi to have a role in the episode, even when she’s not present for most of it. It also calls back to episodes like “The Serene Squall” , where Pike built up these attitudes around Orions being pirates.

It’s a nice moment where Boimler essentially teaches them how blind prejudice and the presumptions made about people can actually be destructive. The peace between the Enterprise and the Orion Science ship was made so much sweeter by this. There’s a chance that Boimler really did change the timeline, in getting Tendi’s great-grandmother the credit for the portal’s discovery. At the same time though, he was always supposed to. Got to love a time travel episode coming full circle like this.

The full impact of his visit remains to be seen, especially in regard to the relationship between Spock and Chapel ( Jess Bush ). It’s unfortunate that the episode seemed incredibly preoccupied with Boimler not changing the timeline when evidently he was supposed to go back. I wonder if there’ll be any other small changes in character dynamics going forward, there’s a good chance he’s absolutely crushed Chapel and potentially influenced Spock’s shift toward logic. We’ll have to wait and see.

An Episode of Both Series

This is what a crossover episode should do best. It succeeds beautifully. It contributes meaningfully to both the stories of Strange New Worlds and also Lower Decks . Chapel is saddened by Boimler’s questioning of Spock’s happiness. It’s a sad, quiet scene in a turbolift no less, a very restrained set where the characters are forced to sit in that moment. This will almost certainly have ramifications for their relationship, although we’ll have to wait a few more weeks for it to properly set it.

Boimler also gets to meet his idols, and Mariner gets to meet her icon as well. Them seeing their idols as human, constantly growing, imperfect, and in these cases even before their prime in TOS . It’s beautiful. I can see this continuing into Lower Decks Season 4 which is coming out in September. In the trailer, they even allude to this episode, even though they’re not supposed to talk about it. We’ll have to wait a little longer to see what this episode does for the characters, but it should shake up the dynamic enough.

Also, in a season that’s already had a time travel episode, I wouldn’t be surprised if this incident also catches the attention of the Department of Temporal Investigations. There are implications from the Lower Decks segments that Boimler’s journey was pre-determined, so we’ll see how this changes the timeline later on. Even if not though, it was nice to see the Lower Decks side of the episode. I think it enriched Strange New Worlds – “Those Old Scientists” , making certain reveals like the poster of Number One ( Rebecca Romijn ) all the more impactful.

Legendary Director Jonathan Frakes

The director for Strange New Worlds – “Those Old Scientists” was none other than Jonathan Frakes. He’s one of the most prolific directors in Trek , with tons of directorial credits dating all the way back to his days on The Next Generation . I can think of nobody more worthy to direct the first crossover. As someone who’s been involved with the franchise for decades, he understands these characters and this world in ways that most directors just don’t. All the scenes I’ve discussed were beautifully done, with legendary big-deal moments done perfectly.

Both the writers and directors understood this assignment, crafting intimate moments out of the minutiae. This series really excels when it’s about character-driven moments, and this is one entirely without action spectacle. Even the drawcard of the crossover just means more characters and worlds to play with. It’s all the better for letting us sit in these quiet moments. For instance, Captain Pike’s birthday on paper isn’t a big deal, until they turned it into one.

He also has a thing for tracking shots, and even a POV shot in this episode which I absolutely adore. It turns a quiet conversation around a table into something really interesting. It also turned Boimler’s appearance on the bridge, where he’s obviously freaking out like any of us fans would, into something truly majestic. It’s a real feast for the eyes, with more than a few fun moments with the camera. I think it’s probably the best-directed episode of Season 2 so far. Frakes’ direction is always a treat.

Episode Images

There’s nothing to complain about. So much could’ve gone horribly wrong, especially how they handled the Lower Decks characters. But it didn’t. They allowed for some character development for Boimler and Mariner in meeting their idols, and for the SNW characters, it’s potentially helped them grow much the same. Even calling Ortegas (Melissa Navia) a war hero would probably work wonders for her confidence. Literally, every character came out of this episode better than when they came in, which I can’t say about many.

This was, in no uncertain terms, a delight. It builds on most of the previous episodes of the season. It also incorporates the Lower Decks elements in ways I genuinely didn’t think they’d approach them with. This is definitely an all-time classic episode of Star Trek . I only hope it doesn’t lose sight of what makes it so good, though. Which is how it’s so special, being really the only crossover in the 900 or so episodes of the franchise.

Sure, the first crossover was a resounding success, and it paid off tremendously. But I hope this is the only full crossover episode for a while, letting this remain unique and special. If there is another crossover in the near future, I would hope it’s done with different shows and done differently. Although the door was certainly left open for the possibility of them returning to Pike’s Enterprise, there’s really no need.

Looking Forward to “Under the Cloak of War”

Next week’s episode sounds pretty interesting. It’s called “Under the Cloak of War” , and is written by Davy Perez. It’s coming out on the 27th, days ahead of when it was supposed to. Perez contributed to Season 1 episodes involving the Gorn. I’ve been a little mixed on the series’ handling of the Gorn. That being said, both “Memento Mori” and “All Those Who Wander” were solid episodes. The latter of which was similar to the film Aliens in a lot of respects, so anything in that ballpark would be a significant shift from this week’s episode.

It’d also be nice to properly pick up on the Gorn War subplot. It was hinted at toward the end of “The Broken Circle” a few weeks back. I look forward to seeing if it addresses any of that, maybe even the refinery from “Lost in Translation” . The possibilities are pretty vast, and I remain pretty invested in seeing how this plotline continues. That being said, this is all overshadowed by the musical episode announcement, but that’s not until episode 9.

Where to Watch

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  streams Thursdays via  Paramount+  in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Latin America, France, Germany, Brazil, South Korea (via Tving), France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland & Austria. As well as CTV Scifi / Crave in Canada, & TVNZ in New Zealand. And on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7 Review – Those Old Scientists

The highly anticipated Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover is everything we could have wanted it to be.

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This Star Trek: Strange New Worlds review contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7

It’s official: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds really can do anything . Look, most of us probably snorted at the announcement last summer that the show had plans to do a crossover episode featuring characters from Lower Decks. After all, not only is Lower Decks an animated series, but its events also take place 120 years after those depicted in Strange New Worlds, when names like Christopher Pike, Una Chin-Riley, Nyota Uhura, and Mr. Spock had already become the stuff of Starfleet legend. The shows are wildly different in tone and content, and it’s challenging to imagine figures like Brad Boimler and Beckett Mariner existing in the world of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

But I’ve got to stop doubting the folks behind this show. “Those Old Scientists” is one of the best episodes of the season, a ridiculously fun and funny time travel-based old-school adventure that shouldn’t work at all, but absolutely does, largely because it fully embraces the heartfelt and hopeful ties that bind these two very different threads of the Star Trek franchise. 

Directed by Jonathan Frakes, everything about this hour feels like a love letter to the Trek universe writ large, from entertaining commentary about the evolution of tech like comm badges and tricorders to multiple generations of Starfleet crewmembers geeking out about those who came before them (Jonathan Archer shout out!). That the episode title is a sort of in-universe explanation for where The Original Series gets its name and a reference to a Lower Decks season 1 episode is just the icing on the cake. Plus, the animated opening credits are beautiful .

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The hour begins as though it’s an episode of Lower Decks , in full animated style. The U.S.S. Cerritos are conducting a routine check on a dormant portal—famously discovered by Captain Pike over a century earlier—when they somehow manage to activate it, blasting Boimler back to a past in which Spock, La’an, and Number One just happen to be investigating the same artifact. (And turning him into a live-action character played by Jack Quaid in the process.) 

At this point, Pike and his crew are weirdly familiar with people getting sent to or otherwise experiencing other timelines, so they’re less surprised about this than you might expect.  As the crew tries to figure out how to reactivate the portal to send Boimler home, a live-action version of Mariner steps through it, played by Tawny Newsome, and the Enterprise’s problems only get worse from there. 

Quaid has perhaps never gotten the praise he deserves for his voicework as Boimler on Lower Decks , but he is utterly charming playing his live-action counterpart, full of fanboy glee at experiencing the history he’s only read about in books and meeting the Starfleet heroes he’s idolized for so long. Newsome, to her credit, is as much a fast-talking wrecking ball here as she is in cartoon form, as Mariner ogles young Spock and provides surprisingly sage advice over cocktails. Yet, the presence of the lower deckers is about more than just jokes, although there are plenty of those as the pair stumble through trying not to give away enough knowledge to irrevocably alter the future they left behind. They also manage to provide a much-needed reminder for many of the Enterprise crew about why what they’re doing matters.

Pike’s birthday is an official holiday. “Ad Astra Per Aspera,” the phrase that encapsulated Una’s desire to join Starfleet in the first place, adorns recruitment posters. Spock…well, we all know the many necessary things he will go on to do, in this universe and others. Their adventures—triumphs, struggles, and all—will long outlive them. That’s the sort of knowledge that is…possibly a threat to the fabric of reality, but mostly it’s a gift, a broader exhortation to keep pushing forward to one day create the future that Boimler and Mariner now inhabit. 

However, “Those Old Scientists” also deals with more immediate concerns, in ways that will likely continue to play out over the rest of season 2. Strange New Worlds season 2 hasn’t really dealt much with the looming specter of Pike’s dark destiny this season —the last time the topic even really came up was the season 1 finale “A Quality of Mercy” . Pike, flattered by Boimler’s obvious adulation of him, begins to wonder if his regard is somehow evidence that his future isn’t necessarily as dark as he’s been promised. 

It’s a stark reminder of the painful foreknowledge Pike still has to live with day in and day out, even when the show doesn’t explicitly mention it or when he himself seems as though he’s not haunted by the knowledge he carries. But thanks to Boimler’s intervention—and insistence that Pike allow his crew to throw him a birthday party—it’s also a strangely hopeful moment. Perhaps the fact that he does know exactly how much time he has left will push him to put as much as he can into the relationships he has now , rather than worrying about things in days past or yet to come. 

There’s a similar subplot going on with Spock, though it’s not tied up nearly so neatly. Both Boimler and Mariner are taken aback by how human Spock seems when they arrive in the past: he’s laughing at jokes, smiling, and clearly being flirty with Christine Chapel. For them, this is obviously distressing. They know all the crucial things Spock will go on to be and do, and the version of him that does these things is the extremely Vulcan version that has chosen to suppress most of the sorts of emotion this incarnation is clearly displaying. But when Boimler confronts Chapel about how weirdly Spock is behaving, he awkwardly realizes she’s the person who’s been influencing him to indulge his human side more openly. 

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Jess Bush is generally great as Chapel, but her brief scenes this week are some of her best yet, particularly her absolutely gutted expression when she realizes what we all already know—that she and Spock have no future, not really, no matter how much she might want to believe otherwise. Has Boimler inadvertently planted the seeds of their break-up before the Spock/Chapel relationship is even fully off the ground? 

At the end of the day, “Those Old Scientists” is a sillier, lighter hour than many we’ve seen from Strange New Worlds in the past. The rapid-fire humor and ridiculous situations may not work for every viewer, and it’s possible to argue that the final coda, which sees the Enterprise crew themselves turned into animated figures after sampling some real Orion hurricanes at Pike’s birthday bash, is a bit ridiculous. (I am not one of those people, however, I want The Animated Academy Adventures of Christopher Pike right now .) But no matter how you feel about the arrival of Boimler and Marinier in the quote-unquote “real world” of Star Trek , we should all take a second to celebrate the fact that not only is Strange New Worlds a series that’s bold enough to take risks like this in the first place but to make them really work within the confines of the show we’re watching. Because that only means even greater things are in store in its future

4.5 out of 5

Lacy Baugher

Lacy Baugher is a digital producer by day, but a television enthusiast pretty much all the time. Her writing has been featured in Paste Magazine, Collider,…

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7 Recap – the Star Trek: Lower Decks Crossover Special

We recap the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7, “Those Old Scientists,” which contains spoilers.

Crossover episodes usually end up feeling forced or gimmicky, but Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks have managed to transcend the format, joining forces to pull off the impossible with a genuinely great crossover TV special.

“Those Old Scientists” is a fun and entertaining addition to the Star Trek universe, one which will please fans of the series no end.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7 Recap

The seventh installment begins in animated form, in the Star Trek: Lower Decks timeline. Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) is excited about visiting a historic portal, which Captain Pike and his crew discovered 120 years ago. Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is leading the mission, but she is nowhere near as enthusiastic.

While visiting the ancient portal, crew mate  D’Vana Tendi (Noel Wells) quarrels with Brad over who discovered the device first. She believes that her ancestors, the Orions, were the true discoverers. Then Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) geeks out and snaps a photograph of the portal.

How does Brad go back in time?

This reawakens the portal, and Brad is subsequently drawn into the device. He reemerges in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds timeline, coming into contact with Spock, Una, and La’an. After meeting his heroes, Brad passes out. Viewers are then treated to a special, animated version of the show’s opening credits.

Brad has traveled 120 years into the past and is now onboard the USS Enterprise. La’an runs through the time-traveling rules with Brad, as she is a bit of an expert on these matters.

Brad is unable to interfere with past events, he is unable to share knowledge of the future and La’an adds in a personal caveat, Brad should not get attached. Of course, he will break all of these rules during the episode.

While Brad gets to meet his other heroes, Orion pirates close in on the Enterprise. Brad urges Pike and the crew not to attack, stating that this is a peaceful science vessel.

Pike follows Brad’s orders, but the Orions steal the portal anyway.

What does Brad say about Spock’s future?

After this huge mistake, Brad socializes with the other crew members. He mentions Pike’s upcoming birthday and Erica suggests throwing a surprise party. Brad continues to inadvertently break protocol, ruining future scenarios. He even hints at the tragic end of Christine and Spock’s relationship.

Brad helps Pike’s team track the Orions. They negotiate a deal for the portal. Brad prepares to reunite with his own team by going through the portal on a return journey.

Just as the portal kicks into action, Beckett Mariner comes flying out of the other end. The portal then closes shut.

The Enterprise now has two time travelers and no way of reactivating the portal. Beckett helps Uhura translate the glyphs on the portal, but this is a dead end.

Meanwhile, Brad helps Spock . During this interaction, Spock figures out his possible fate with Christine .

What does Brad say about Pike’s future?

Brad and Beckett try to fix their mistakes but are quarantined by Pike. The Captain orders them to stay out of trouble and to cancel his surprise party. Again, Brad hints at Pike’s fate, implying that he may not have that much longer left to live. Brad suggests that Pike enjoys living in the moment more and spares some time for his crew-mates.

This discussion leads to a realization. The product they need to restart the portal can be found in the NX-01 starship. A piece of that historic ship is also found onboard the Enterprise.

They use this to activate the portal once more.

Before returning to their timeline, Brad and Beckett tell Una how she inspired them to join the Starfleet, with her image being used as promotional material for recruitment.

Una is astounded by this revelation.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7 Ending Explained

Pike and his crew journey to the portal. The Orions are waiting for them there though. Pike formulates a deal, if the Orions let him use the portal then they will say that the Orion scientists discovered it first. The Orions agree to these terms. Brad and Beckett then return to their timeline.

The crossover episode ends with the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cast socializing together in two-dimensional form. They share Orion alcohol and joke about. Whilst Pike thanks the team for his surprise party, which he stuck around for. It’s a fitting conclusion, the live-action characters now in animated form.

What did you think of the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 7? Comment below.

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Article by Adam Lock

Adam Lock is a highly experienced Freelance Entertainment Writer who has written for Ready Steady Cut since January 2022. He is passionate about all things film and TV-related and has devoted his time to tracking streaming content on his social media.

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When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Starts Filming According To Anson Mount

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• The crossover episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with Star Trek: Lower Decks features animated opening credits in the style of Lower Decks.
• The animated credits include in-jokes, such as a space monster munching on the Enterprise's nacelles, referencing Lower Decks.
• The animated sequences confirm that animated Star Trek series are canon and take place in the Prime Timeline, showcasing the beauty of the Starship Enterprise in both animation and live-action.

Warning: This Article Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 7 - "Those Old Scientist" Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2's crossover episode with Star Trek: Lower Decks comes complete with animated opening credits. Directed by Jonathan Frakes and written by Kathryn Lyn and Bill Wolkoff, Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 7, "Those Old Scientists" brings Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome to the Starship Enterprise, where they play their USS Cerritos Ensigns, Brad Boimler and Beckett Mariner, in live-action. But the gimmick works both ways, and the Enterprise crew led by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) also become animated.

Star Trek on Paramount+'s Twitter shared the amazing opening credits of Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 7 , which are animated in the style of Star Trek: Lower Decks . Check it out below:

The animated credits for Strange New Worlds' "Those Old Scientists" is a spot-on recreation of the show's live-action titles, complete with hero shots of the USS Enterprise soaring through space. However, Lower Decks' animators couldn't resist adding in-jokes like the same space monster munching on the Enterprise's nacelles that chomps on the USS Cerritos in Star Trek: Lower Decks ' credits.

Strange New Worlds' Crossover Shows Lower Decks' Animation Works With Live-Action Star Trek

As eye-popping as the animated credits are for the Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover, the best was yet to come at the end of the episode. The main cast of Strange New Worlds all appear in animated Lower Decks -style in a scene where they celebrate Captain Pike's birthday in his quarters. Blaming feeling and looking "two-dimensional" on the Orion Hurricane cocktails Ensign Mariner introduced to them, the Enterprise crew starts acting weirdly, with Spock's arm even elongating and flopping around.

Strange New Worlds ' animated sequences confirm that Star Trek's animated series like Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy (as well as Star Trek: The Animated Series ) are canon and take place in the Prime Timeline, as opposed to existing in their own animated reality as some Trek detractors believe. Whether live-action or animation, these are just mediums for telling stories . Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks brings the two mediums and two generations of Starfleet hilariously together, and it's amazing to see how beautiful the Starship Enterprise looks in animation as well as in live-action.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

Source: Star Trek on Paramount+ Twitter.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show follows the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show follows the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show follows the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike.

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• Trivia Bruce Horak , the actor who plays Hemmer, is legally blind, just like his character's species, the Aenar, who are also blind.
• Goofs There are some rank insignia mistakes. Number One is introduced as "Lieutenant Commander Una Chin-Riley" yet she is wearing the rank insignia of a full commander: two full stripes. A Lieutenant Commander's rank insignia is a full stripe under a thin stripe (in TOS it is a full stripe and a staggered stripe). It is not uncommon for a ship's first officer to be a Lt. Commander if they have not been in the position long. Spock at this point is a Lieutenant but he is wearing Lieutenant Commander's stripes; a Lieutenant just has one stripe. La'an is the ship's chief of security and the ship's second officer. She is also wearing Lt. Commander stripes but is addressed as a Lieutenant, but it would make more sense for her to be a Lieutenant Commander. Either way both of their rank insignia are not matching the rank they are addressed by. Ortegas is addressed as a Lieutenant but is wearing Lieutenant Commander's strips. A Lieutenant Commander may be addressed as a Commander or Lieutenant Commander but never as just a Lieutenant, so either her rank insignia or the manner she is addressed by the rest of the crew is in error.

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Captain Christopher Pike : Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

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Star Trek: Lower Decks stars enter the world of live action in first look at Strange New Worlds crossover

Tawny Newsome's Mariner and Jack Quaid's Boimler have arrived!

The Lower Decks crew have entered live-action!

The new trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, premiering on Paramount+ this June 15, brings with it our first look at the big crossover event. Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome , who voice the animated characters Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler on Star Trek: Lower Decks , will embody their characters in live-action form.

"Surprise!" Newsome's Mariner tells a perplexed Captain Pike ( Anson Mount ) and Spock (Ethan Peck), alongside a noticeably purple-haired Boimler.

Quaid and Newsome will appear in a season 2 episode directed by Jonathan Frakes , a.k.a. Captain Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Picard . The hour will also feature animation in addition to the actors' live-action performances.

Quaid previously teased the television event to EW by saying, "Ethan Peck and I have a bromance for the ages. We call it Spoimler: Spock and Boimler. It's amazing, but that whole cast is so friendly and welcoming and cool. We just had a ball, and we got to be directed by Jonathan Frakes. So what could be better?"

The trailer teases that Spoimler bromance with Spock giving Boimler the Vulcan salute as he's about to beam off ship. "Live long and prosper, Mr. Boimler," he says.

The footage also gives fans a fresh look at Paul Wesley 's James T. Kirk and new addition to the cast Carol Kane , who will portray the recurring role of Pelia.

Returning are Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley, Jess Bush as Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as La'An Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas, and Babs Olusanmokun as Joseph M'Benga.

Episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will drop weekly every Thursday starting June 15. Watch the trailer above.

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LOWER DECKS and STRANGE NEW WORLDS’ Epic STAR TREK Crossover, Explained

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Star Trek fans just received a surprise gift. Paramount+ dropped the seventh episode of season two of Star Trek: Strange New World s early, after a Comic-Con premiere. And this wasn’t just any episode either. In “Those Old Scientists,” we saw the 2D animated lead characters of Star Trek: Lower Decks , Ensigns Brad Boimler and Beckett Mariner, not only go back in time to meet the Enterprise crew, but also move from animation into live-action. And played by their actual voice actors, Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome, respectively. Luckily, they both look pretty close to their animated counterparts in real life. Here’s how the first epic (but also low-key) crossover between live-action and animated Star Trek shook out.

How Did the Lower Decks Characters End Up in the Strange New Worlds Timeline?

This crossover episode actually began in the animated world of the late 24th century, on board the U.S.S. Cerritos . For the uninitiated, that’s the main starship on Lower Decks . The ship arrives at Krometh B, where an ancient time travel portal was first discovered by the Enterprise 120 years prior. They task the away team with checking if the portal is still functioning, simply because there’s no record of it working for over a century. Ensign Tendi, an Orion, insists however that her people actually discovered the portal, not the Enterprise . Despite what any historical records might say.

The portal has not worked in over a century. However, Boimler is excited to interact with anything discovered by the crew of the original Enterprise . Well, original Federation Enterprise , as he later points out. (This will matter later). While analyzing the portal, he realizes that there are traces of a rare alloy called Heronium. Boimler’s fumbling around then results in the machine activating, sending him back in time to the 23rd century. Right into the era of Strange New Worlds . And right away, he meets the Enterprise away team of Spock, Una, and La’an. They’ve just arrived on the planet too.

What Happened In This Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds Crossover Episode?

Now onboard the Enterprise NCC-1701, time-tossed Boimler , who worships the heroes of Starfleet history, is star-struck in meeting them. Especially Captain Pike and Number One. Boimler constantly almost breaks the temporal Prime Directive. Accidentally, he gives way too much information about the future to people in the past. Boimler nevertheless befriends Enterprise crew members, and tries to set up a surprise birthday party for Captain Pike. Orion scientists, who actually discovered the portal, then beam it onto their ship. Boimler helps to provide information for Pike’s crew to get it back. But when they attempt to send him back to his proper time, things go awry yet again. Boimler’s friend Beckett Mariner then appears in the past too.

With two future people on board his ship, Pike doesn’t know quite what to do with them. Mariner fangirls over meeting Uhura. But Boimler worries they will both become stranded in the past. In a moment of bonding with Pike, Boimler realizes they both idolize Captain Archer of the NX-01 Enterprise (famously of Star Trek: Enterprise ). Then it hits him. Starfleet actually plated the first Enterprise with a Heronium alloy. The exact metal needed to make the portal work and send them back home. And since tradition demands that one piece of an old ship needs to be incorporated into the namesake version, some Heronium alloy exists on board the current Enterprise. And with that discovery, Boimler and Mariner can use the portal to go home. But not before Spock gives them a “Live long a prosper” salute. One final moment for Brad Boimler to geek out about.

Is It Likely That the Lower Decks Characters Will Return Again to Strange New Worlds ?

Time travel happens pretty much all the time in the Star Trek universe. Someone sneezes and they are in another century it seems. So while there’s nothing suggesting that the Cerritos crewmembers will ever encounter Pike and company again, there’s nothing really stopping them from having another encounter either. After all, there are other crewmembers of the Cerritos who still could appear in live-action. Of course, the Enterprise from S trange New Worlds could also travel forward in time, arriving in the 24th century, becoming animated themselves on Lower Decks.

Other crossovers that involve time travel could see the Enterprise crew meet a live-action version of the crew of the Protostar from Star Trek: Prodigy . Or, the Enterprise encounters the crew of a future namesake, the Enterprise -G. That was the starship under the command of Captain Seven of Nine seen in the Picard series finale , and which has Jean Luc Picard and Beverly Crusher’s son Jack as a crewmember. Fans are clamoring for a spin-off series from Picard called Star Trek: Legacy , but in the meantime, it sure would be fun to see the NCC-1701 come across the NCC-1701-G out in space. In the Star Trek universe, anything can happen as long as portals, wormholes, or a warp-speed slingshot around a star are part of Trek lore.

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Breaking news, trump found guilty of all 34 counts in hush money case, ‘star trek: strange new worlds’ renewed for season 3 and returns in june.

Paramount+ has also renewed 'Star Trek: Lower Decks.'

By James Hibberd

James Hibberd

Writer-at-Large

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Even before season two premieres, Paramount+ is renewing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for a third season.

The company has ordered another 10 episodes of the popular Star Trek series. In addition, Paramount+ announced Strange New Worlds will return Thursday, June 15, for its second season.

The animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks has been renewed as well, for a 10-episode fifth season, with a premiere date to come for later in the summer.

Both shows will be rolled out globally on their respective premiere dates.

The upcoming new season of Strange New Worlds includes a crossover episode with Lower Decks , combining live action and animation. The episode was directed by The Next Generation actor-director Jonathan Frakes.

Also, the animated kids series Star Trek: Prodigy returns for its second season this winter.

Paramount+ has become the exclusive home to every series and every episode of the Star Trek TV catalogue.

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Anson Mount Just Beamed Up a Huge ‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Update

One of pixar’s best movies is getting a disney+ spin-off, 'the righteous gemstones' are "so back" as season 4 gets a big update.

It's a happy day for Star Trek fans — Paramount has just put up the entire first season of Strange New Worlds to stream for free on the Paramount+ YouTube channel. That's right, every episode from Season 1! The prequel series follows Captain Christopher Pike ( Anson Mount ) and the crew of the USS Enterprise as they explore uncharted territory in the early days of the Federation.

Strange New Worlds is set to return to Paramount+ in just a few weeks for Season 2, so this is the perfect opportunity for fans without a subscription to the streamer to catch up on the series. The series marks a return to the episodic storytelling style of the original series and the franchise's 90s-era spin-offs. Each episode takes the crew of the Enterprise on a contained adventure that is generally resolved by the end of the hour.

In addition to Mount, Season 1 stars Rebecca Romijn as Number One, Ethan Peck as Spock, Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura, Jess Bush as Nurse Chapel, Babs Olusanmokun as Doctor M'Benga, Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas, Christina Chong as La'an, and Bruce Horak as Hemmer.

RELATED: 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Season 2: Release Date, Trailers, Crossover, and What to Expect

What to Expect From Strange New Worlds Season 2?

The second season of Strange New Worlds is right around the corner and the series has a lot of surprises in store for fans. Carol Kane is set to join the cast as the Enterprise's chief engineer, replacing Hemmer, and the ship is set to get a pair of very interesting visitors when Lower Decks stars Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid stop by for a crossover of epic proportions. The highly anticipated episode will be directed by Star Trek legend Jonathan Frakes , and you can see the first image of Mariner and Boimler in live-action right now . The second episode is also set to follow up on that Season 1 cliffhanger as Starfleet puts Number One on trial .

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 premieres on Paramount+ on June 15. You can watch the first episode of the series down below and see all of Season 1 on YouTube.

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Published May 21, 2024

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Taps Academy Award-Winning Actress Holly Hunter

The all-new Original Series from CBS Studios will follow the adventures of a new class of Starfleet cadets.

StarTrek.com

Paramount+ today announced that Academy Award winner Holly Hunter will star in the upcoming original series  Star Trek: Starfleet Academy   as the captain and chancellor of Starfleet Academy. The series will follow the adventures of a new class of Starfleet cadets as they come of age in one of the most legendary places in the galaxy. Produced by CBS Studios, the series will begin production later this summer. 

"It feels like we’ve spent our entire lives watching Holly Hunter be a stone-cold genius," said co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau. "To have her extraordinary authenticity, fearlessness, sense of humor, and across the board brilliance leading the charge on  Starfleet Academy  is a gift to all of us, and to the enduring legacy of  Star Trek ."

Ricky Middlesworth/Disney/Pixar

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy  introduces viewers to a young group of cadets who come together to pursue a common dream of hope and optimism. Under the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they discover what it takes to become Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships, explosive rivalries, first loves and a new enemy that threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself.

Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau serve as co-showrunners and executive produce the series alongside executive producers Gaia Violo, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Jenny Lumet, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Frank Siracusa and John Weber. The series premiere episode is written by Gaia Violo.  Star Trek: Starfleet Academy  is produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy  is the latest addition to the expanding  Star Trek franchise on Paramount+, which also includes the fifth and final season of  Star Trek: Discovery ,  Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , the animated series  Star Trek: Lower Decks , and  Star Trek: Section 31 , an original movie event with Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh.

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We learned in March that the upcoming  Starfleet Academy show will be set in that same era (after the events of Discovery’s just-finished final season), and that choice to continue 32nd century storytelling has been a controversial one with fans who might otherwise prefer a return to the  Star Trek: Picard -era 25th century.

Franchise boss Alex Kurtzman   — who will be directing the first two episodes of Starfleet Academy — went into detail about why Academy was designed for the far, far future in a new interview with the LA Times published today, explaining exactly why he and his team decided to explore the lives of future Starfleet officers in the  Discovery future.

“There’s a specific reason for [the 32nd century setting]. As the father of a 17-year-old boy, I see what my son is feeling as he looks at the world and to his future. I see the uncertainty; I see all the things we took for granted as given are not certainties for him. I see him recognizing he’s inheriting an enormous mess to clean up and it’s going to be on his generation to figure out how to do that, and that’s a lot to ask of a kid.   My thinking was, if we set “Starfleet Academy” in the halcyon days of the Federation where everything was fine, it’s not going to speak to what kids are going through right now. It’ll be a nice fantasy, but it’s not really going to be authentic. What’ll be authentic is to set it in the timeline where this is the first class back after over 100 years, and they are coming into a world that is only beginning to recover from a cataclysm — which was the Burn, as established on “Star Trek: Discovery,” where the Federation was greatly diminished.   So they’re the first who’ll inherit, who’ll re-inherit, the task of exploration as a primary goal, because there just wasn’t room for that during the Burn — everybody was playing defense. It’s an incredibly optimistic show, an incredibly fun show; it’s a very funny show, and it’s a very emotional show. I think these kids, in different ways, are going to represent what a lot of kids are feeling now.”

In addition to sharing this insight into the show’s timeframe, Kurtzman also reiterated that while the Academy itself will return to the traditional San Francisco setting, the series will be both “Earth-based” and “space-based” as their team is working to design “San Francisco [of] the 32nd century.”

He also concluded the interview without spoiling anything else for the Star Trek Universe’s future… but did hint that there “are a couple of surprises coming up” for the franchise.

Keep checking back to TrekCore for all the latest  Starfleet Academy  news!

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Nami Melumad (‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' composer): ‘As a huge Trekkie myself, I am always tempted to use the theme' [Exclusive Video Interview]

"As a huge Trekkie myself, I am always tempted to use the theme, to install all these little Easter eggs," reveals “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” composer Nami Melumad . about the most exciting parts of the show’s score; the orchestral melodies that duck and dive between robust action drama and beloved old-school flourishes like the instantly recognizable original series theme. For our recent webchat she adds, "I think for all composers who work on ‘Trek’ you have to be very aware of when you’re choosing to use the ‘Star Trek’ theme. You want to bring it when it’s earned, otherwise, if you just continue to use it all the time, it loses its effectiveness. It’s like the icing on the cake, it’s like something we’re all always so looking forward to." We talked with Melumad as part of Gold Derby's special "Meet the Experts" Q&A event with 2024 awards contenders. Watch our exclusive video interview above .

SEE Exclusive Video Interview: Jason Zimmerman (‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' visual effects supervisor)

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" was co-created by Emmy nominee Alex Kurtzman (“Star Trek: Lower Decks”) alongside Oscar winner Akiva Goldsman  ("A Beautiful Mind") and  Jenny Lumet . The sci-fi series is a prequel to the legendary 1960s "Star Trek," following Captain Pike ( Anson Mount ), Science Officer Spock ( Ethan Peck ) and First Officer Una Chin-Riley ( Rebecca   Romijn ), Nurse Chapel ( Jess Bush ), Security Chief La’an Noonien-Singh ( Christina Chong ), Cadet Nyota Uhura ( Celia Rose Gooding ), Helmsman Erica Ortegas ( Melissa Navia ) and Chief Medical Officer Joseph M’Benga ( Babs Olusanmokun ), who reprise their roles from the second season of "Star Trek: Discovery."

The 10-episode second season features various genres and storytelling formats as the U.S.S. Enterprise crew explore new worlds around the galaxy during the decade before "Star Trek: The Original Series.” The sophomore season deftly shifts from romantic comedy and time travel (“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”), a court-room drama (“Ad Astra per Aspera”), horror (“Lost in Translation”), existential sci-fi (“Among the Lotus Eaters”), broad comedy (“Charades”), a crossover episode with Paramount+ stablemate animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks” (“Those Old Scientists”), war (“Under the Cloak of War”), a musical (“Subspace Rhapsody”) and action-adventure (“Hegemony”).

“I do try to honor past scores as well,” Melumad says about giving the score a sense of nostalgic wonder. “I’m listening to Jerry Goldsmith . I’m listening to Dennis McCarthy . I’m a huge Michael Giacchino fan, and having worked on a show like ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ as well, and having done 20 episodes for ‘Strange New Worlds,’ it’s been a lot of fun. It is balance between honoring the tradition and also bringing new and exciting elements, because because we’re doing a new show. I feel overall, our show really honors the legacy of ‘Trek.’ Everything they’re doing from costumes to characters to production design, the writing and the the format of one mystery every time in a big arc. All of this is honoring the original series so much, that music is also just one more element that does that same thing. It’s like honoring what was done in the past and building on top of it.”

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‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is over. Now Alex Kurtzman readies for ‘Starfleet Academy’ and ‘Section 31’

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In “Star Trek” terms, and in the real world of “Star Trek” television, Alex Kurtzman, who oversees the 21st century franchise, might be described as the Federation president, from whose offices various series depart on their individual missions. Indeed, to hear him speak of it, the whole enterprise — honestly, no pun intended — seems to run very much on the series’ ethos of individual initiative and group consensus.

The first series to be launched, “ Star Trek: Discovery, ” has come to an end as of Thursday after five seasons on Paramount+. Others in the fleet include the concluded “ Picard, ” which brought “The Next Generation” into a new generation; the ongoing “ Strange New Worlds, ” which precedes the action of what’s now called “The Original Series,” from which it takes its spirit and several characters; “Lower Decks,” a comedy set among Starfleet service workers; and “Prodigy,” in which a collection of teenage aliens go joyriding in a starship. On the horizon are “Starfleet Academy,” with Holly Hunter set to star, and a TV feature, “ Section 31, ” with Michelle Yeoh back as Philippa Georgiou.

I spoke with Kurtzman, whose “Trek” trek began as a writer on the quantum-canonical reboot movies “ Star Trek ” (2009) and “ Star Trek: Into Darkness ” (2013), at Secret Hideout, his appropriately unmarked Santa Monica headquarters. Metro trains glide by his front door unaware. We began the conversation, edited for length and clarity here, with a discussion of his “Trek” universe.

Alex Kurtzman: I liken them to different colors in the rainbow. It makes no sense to me to make one show that’s for everybody; it makes a lot of sense to make a lot of shows individually tailored to a sect of the “Star Trek” audience. It’s a misnomer that there’s a one-size-fits-all Trekkie. And rather than make one show that’s going to please everybody — and will almost certainly please nobody — let’s make an adult drama, an animated comedy, a kids’ comedy, an adventure show and on and on. There’s something quite beautiful about that; it allows each of the stories to bloom in its own unique way.

Do you get pushback from the fans?

Absolutely. In some ways that’s the point. One of the things I learned early on is that to be in love with “Star Trek” is to engage in healthy debate. There is no more vocal fan base. Some people tell you that their favorite is “The Original Series,” some say their favorite is “Voyager” and some say their favorite is “Discovery.” Yet they all come together and talk about what makes something singularly “Trek” — [creator] Gene Roddenberry‘s extraordinarily optimistic vision of the future when all that divides us [gets placed] in the rearview mirror and we get to move on and discover things. Like all great science fiction, you get to pick your allegory to the real world and come up with the science fiction equivalent. And everybody who watches understands what we’re talking about — racism or the Middle East or whatever.

What specific objections did you find to “Discovery”?

I think people felt it was too dark. We really listen to our fans in the writers’ room — everybody will have read a different article or review over the weekend, and we talk about what feels relevant and what feels less relevant. And then we engage in a healthy democratic debate about why and begin to apply that; it seeps into the decisions we make. Season 1 of “Discovery” was always intended to be a journey from darkness into light, and ultimately reinforce Roddenberry’s vision. I think people were just stunned by something that felt darker than any “Trek” had before. But doing a dark “Star Trek” really wasn’t our goal. The show is a mirror that holds itself up to the times, and we were in 2017 — we saw the nation fracture hugely right after the election, and it’s only gotten worse since then. We were interpreting that through science fiction. There were people who appreciated that and others for whom it was just not “Star Trek.” And the result, in Season 2, Capt. [Christopher] Pike showed up, Number One showed up, Spock showed up, and we began to bring in what felt to people more like the “Star Trek” they understood.

‘Star Trek’ is the greatest sci-fi franchise of all. Why it’s stood the test of time

Full of ideas and emotions, the ever-expanding ‘Star Trek’ canon is still finding new ways to go where no TV show has gone before, 55 years on.

Oct. 28, 2021

You’re ending the series after five seasons. Was that always a plan?

You know, we were surprised we didn’t continue, and yet it feels now that it was right. One of the things that happened very quickly as streaming took off was that it radically changed watch patterns for viewers. Shows that used to go 10, 12 seasons, people would tap out after two — like, “I got what I want” — so for any show to go five seasons, it’s a miracle. In ways I don’t think we could have predicted, the season from the beginning feels like it’s the last; it just has a sense of finality. The studio was wonderful in that they recognized we needed to put a button on it, we needed a period on the end of the sentence, and so they allowed us to go back, which we did right before the strike, and [film] the coda that wraps up the series.

“Discovery” is a riot of love stories, among both heroes and villains.

There’s certainly a history of that in “Star Trek.” Whether or not characters were engaged in direct relationships, there was always a subtext of the love between them. I believe that’s why we love the bridge crew, because it’s really a love story, everyone’s in a love story, and they all care for each other and fight like family members. But ultimately they’re there to help each other and explore the universe together. If there’s some weird problem, and the answer’s not immediately apparent, each of them brings a different skill set and therefore a different perspective; they clash in their debate on how to proceed and then find some miraculous solution that none of them would have thought of at the outset.

One of the beautiful things about the shows is that you get to spend a long time with them, as opposed to a two-hour movie where you have to get in and out quickly and then wait a couple of years before the next one comes along. To be able to be on their weekly adventures, it affords the storytelling level of depth and complexity a two-hour movie just can’t achieve in that way.

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It’s astonishing how much matter you got into these things. Some storylines that only lasted an episode I remembered as seasonal arcs.

The sheer tonnage of story and character we were able to pack into “Discovery” every episode was kind of incredible. The thing to keep in mind is that “Discovery” was made as streaming was exploding, so what I think you’re also seeing there is a lot of writers who were trained in the network world with an A, B and C story applying it suddenly to a very different kind of storytelling in a much more cinematic medium. And when you have that kind of scope it starts to become really, really big. Sometimes that works really, really well and sometimes it was too much. And we were figuring it out; it was a bunch of people with flashlights in the dark, looking for how to interpret “Star Trek” now, since it had been 12 years since it had been on a television screen.

Are you able to course-correct within a season?

Sure. You get people you really trust in the room. Aaron Baiers, who runs Secret Hideout, is one of my most important early-warning systems; he isn’t necessarily in the room when we’re breaking stories, but he’s the first person who’ll read an outline and he’s the first person who’ll read a script. What I value so much about his perspective is that he’s coming in cold, he’s just like, “I’m the viewer, and I understand this or I don’t understand it, I feel this or I don’t feel it.” The studio executives are very similar. They love “Star Trek,” they’re all die-hard fans and have very strong feelings about what is appropriate. It then goes through a series of artists in every facet, from props to visual effects to production design, and they’re bringing their interpretations and opinions to the story.

Did “Strange New Worlds” come out of the fact that everybody loved seeing Christopher Pike in “Discovery?”

I really have to credit Akiva Goldsman with this. He knew that I was going to bring Pike into the premiere of the second season of “Discovery,” and said, “You know, there’s an incredible show about Capt. Pike and the Enterprise before Kirk takes over; there’s seven years of great storytelling there” — or five years, depending on when you come into the storyline. I said, “We have to cast a successful Pike first, so let’s see if that works. Let’s figure out who’s Number One, and who Spock is,” which are wildly tall orders. I hadn’t seen Anson Mount in other things before [he was cast as Pike], and when he sent in his taped audition it was that wonderful moment where you go, “That’s exactly the person we’re looking for.” Everybody loves Pike because he’s the kind of leader you want, definitive and clear but open to everyone’s perspective and humanistic in his response. And then we had the incredibly tall order of having Ethan [Peck] step into Leonard [Nimoy’s] and [Zachary Quinto’s] shoes.

He’s great.

He’s amazing, just a delight of a human being. And Rebecca Romijn‘s energy, what she brings to Number One is such a contemporary take on a character that was kind of a cipher in “The Original Series.” But she brings a kind of joy, a comedy, a bearing, a gravitas to the character that feels very modern. Thank God the fans responded the way they did and sent that petition [calling for a “Legacy” series], because everybody at CBS got the message very quickly. Jenny Lumet and Akiva and I wrote a pilot, and we were off to the races. Typically it takes fans a minute to adjust to what you’re doing, especially with beloved legacy characters, but the response to “Strange New World” from a critical perspective and fan perspective and just a viewership perspective was so immediate, it really did help us understand what was satisfying fans.

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What can you tell me about “Starfleet Academy?” Is it going to be Earth-based or space-based?

I’m going to say, without giving anything away, both. Right now we’re in the middle of answering the question what does San Francisco, where the academy is, look like in the 32nd century. Our primary set is the biggest we’ve ever built.

So you’re setting this —

In the “Discovery” era. There’s a specific reason for that. As the father of a 17-year-old boy, I see what my son is feeling as he looks at the world and to his future. I see the uncertainty; I see all the things we took for granted as given are not certainties for him. I see him recognizing he’s inheriting an enormous mess to clean up and it’s going to be on his generation to figure out how to do that, and that’s a lot to ask of a kid. My thinking was, if we set “Starfleet Academy” in the halcyon days of the Federation where everything was fine, it’s not going to speak to what kids are going through right now.

It’ll be a nice fantasy, but it’s not really going to be authentic. What’ll be authentic is to set it in the timeline where this is the first class back after over 100 years, and they are coming into a world that is only beginning to recover from a cataclysm — which was the Burn, as established on “Star Trek: Discovery,” where the Federation was greatly diminished. So they’re the first who’ll inherit, who’ll re-inherit, the task of exploration as a primary goal, because there just wasn’t room for that during the Burn — everybody was playing defense. It’s an incredibly optimistic show, an incredibly fun show; it’s a very funny show, and it’s a very emotional show. I think these kids, in different ways, are going to represent what a lot of kids are feeling now.

And I’m very, very , very excited that Holly Hunter is the lead of the show. Honestly, when we were working on the scripts, we wrote it for Holly thinking she’d never do it. And we sent them to her, and to our absolute delight and shock she loved them and signed on right away.

And then you’ve got the “Section 31” movie.

“Section 31” is Michelle Yeoh’s return as Georgiou. A very, very different feeling for “Star Trek.” I will always be so grateful to her, because on the heels of her nomination and then her Oscar win , she just doubled down on coming back to “Star Trek.” She could have easily walked away from it; she had a lot of other opportunities. But she remained steadfast and totally committed. We just wrapped that up and are starting to edit now.

Are you looking past “Starfleet” and “Section 31” to future projects?

There’s always notions and there are a couple of surprises coming up, but I really try to live in the shows that are in front of me in the moment because they’re so all-consuming. I’m directing the first two episodes of “Starfleet Academy,” so right now my brain is just wholly inside that world. But you can tell “Star Trek” stories forever; there’s always more. There’s something in the DNA of its construction that allows you to keep opening different doors. Some of that is science fiction, some of it has to do with the combination of science fiction and the organic embracing of all these other genres that lets you explore new territories. I don’t think it’s ever going to end. I think it’s going to go on for a long, long time. The real question for “Star Trek” is how do you keep innovating, how do you deliver both what people expect and something totally fresh at the same time. Because I think that is actually what people want from “Star Trek.” They want what’s familiar delivered in a way that doesn’t feel familiar.

With all our showrunners — Terry Matalas on “Picard,” the Hagemans on “Prodigy,” Mike McMahan on “Lower Decks,” Michelle Paradise, who has been singlehandedly running “Discovery” for the last two years, and then Akiva and Henry Alonso Myers on “Strange New Worlds” — my feeling is that the best way to protect and preserve “Star Trek” is not to impose my own vision on it but [find people] who meet the criteria of loving “Star Trek,” wanting to do new things with it, understanding how incredibly hard it is to do. And then I’m going to let you do your job. I’ll come in and tell you what I think every once in a while, and I’ll help get the boat off the dock, but once I hand the show over to a creative it has to be their show. And that means you’re going to get a different take every time, and as long as those takes all feel like they can marry into the same rainbow, to get back to the metaphor, that’s the way to keep “Star Trek” fresh.

I take great comfort because “Star Trek” really only belongs to Gene Roddenberry and the fans. We don’t own it. We carry it, we try to evolve it and then we hand it off to the next people. And hopefully they will love it as much as we do.

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‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Series Casts Holly Hunter in Main Role (EXCLUSIVE)

The “ Star Trek: Starfleet Academy ” series at Paramount+ has cast Holly Hunter in a lead role, Variety has learned.

Hunter’s character will serve as the captain and chancellor of the Academy, presiding over both the faculty and a new class of Starfleet cadets as they learn to navigate the galaxy in the 32nd century.

“It feels like we’ve spent our entire lives watching Holly Hunter be a stone-cold genius,” said co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau. “To have her extraordinary authenticity, fearlessness, sense of humor, and across the board brilliance leading the charge on ‘Starfleet Academy’ is a gift to all of us, and to the enduring legacy of ‘Star Trek.'”

Popular on Variety

With its focus on higher education — from the throes of budding romance to the pressures of academic achievement to the angst of painful self-discovery — “Starfleet Academy” is part of a wider strategy to expand what a “Star Trek” show can look like.

“These are kids who’ve never had a red alert before,” Landau told Variety in a March 27 cover story about the future of “Star Trek.” “They never had to operate a transporter or be in a phaser fight.”

Hunter is part of an elite society of actors to boldly go into “Star Trek” after winning an Academy Award, including Whoopi Goldberg, Louise Fletcher and F. Murray Abraham. Hunter earned an Oscar for best actress for her performance in 1993’s “The Piano,” along with nominations for 1987’s “Broadcast News,” 1993’s “The Firm” and 2003’s “Thirteen.” Her career has spanned five decades, from her breakout role in the Coen brothers film “Raising Arizona” in 1987 to her iconic role as the voice of Elastigirl in 2004’s “Incredibles” and 2018’s “Incredibles 2.”

Hunter is repped by CAA, Entertainment 360, and Ziffren Brittenham.

Kurtzman and Landau serve as co-showrunners and executive produce “Starfleet Academy.” Gaia Violo, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Jenny Lumet, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Frank Siracusa, and John Weber also executive produce. The series premiere episode was written by Violo. CBS Studios produces in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

“Starfleet Academy” is the latest addition to the “Star Trek” TV universe at Paramount. Next year, “Section 31” will explore Starfleet’s cloak-and-dagger black ops division in the first “Star Trek” streaming movie, starring recent Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh (reprising her role from “Discovery”). Elsewhere, “Lower Decks,” the first “Star Trek” animated comedy, will conclude its run after five seasons in the fall, while “Discovery” — the flagship show of the revamped “Star Trek” TV projects — will end its run after five seasons on May 30. The popular series “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” has been renewed for a fourth season ahead of the third season premiere.

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