Oh, baby, this has been a long term coming.
Announced over two years ago, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 Episode 1 may be very plenty the end result of the fan love that poured out for Pike, Spock, and Una when they appeared on Star Trek: Discovery Season 2.
That being stated, not anything organized me for the sheer satisfaction of this new series.
While the most advantageous presents a lot of backstory and context, there is also a benefit to the Big Three being added on Discovery.
Anson Mount’s Pike is a uniquely located Trek individual in that we’ve visible where he is been via his time with Discovery, however we also realize in which he’s going to end up because of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Furthermore, whilst he become with Discovery, he noticed his future even as on Boreth on Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 Episode 12.
Spock: Sir, I could advocate information of loss of life is critical for effective leadership.
Pike: Knowledge is one factor, Spock, however I skilled it. How will it live in me? Will it make me hesitant? Cautious? Not cautious enough? I’m already second-guessing myself, and that is the ultimate thing a captain can manage to pay for.
That revel in has modified him and can have feasible repercussions on how he lives the next decade of his existence.
Already, he’s wondering whether or not he desires to continue to be in Starfleet.
When Admiral April recalls him from his mountain man recluse life, he is not even inclined to step again in to save Una.
Pike: Send someone else. You don’t need me in control of that deliver.
April: You’re getting us stressed. You don’t want you in command.
I appreciate that they set up the Enterprise’s lifestyle of captains with a singularity of vision and backbone.
Canonically, Robert April changed into the U.S.Enterprise’s first captain. His refusal to simply accept Pike’s refusal is consistent with a captain who is aware of his group member is able to extra than they know themselves.
Throughout the highest quality, visitors are reminded that that is very tons a spin-off, that Strange New Worlds might no longer exist if now not for Discovery.
Pike’s revel in on Boreth is simplest the primary.
Pike: I requested how you have been, Spock.
Spock: I am properly, Captain, even though I confess whenever I go back to area, the weight I carry for the loss of my sister feels heavier.
Pike: I’m sorry. I leave out her too.
Upon reuniting with Spock on the Enterprise (after interrupting a tryst I will talk approximately greater later), they both take a moment to acknowledge the lack of Michael Burnham and the team of Discovery.
And then, whilst they arrive at Kylie 279, it is simplest to analyze that the entire situation resulted from them sending Discovery into the future on Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 Episode 14.
T’Pring! Right? Who else became utterly tickled by means of looking Vulcans flirt?
T’Pring: Don’t.
Spock: I need to. I took an oath.
T’Pring: As you just did to me.
Spock: Matrimony and responsibility. They will supplement each other.
T’Pring: I remain skeptical.
Of all the characters we probably didn’t count on to ought to struggle with a piece-existence stability, Spock is probably close to the top of the list.
Now that he has a very Vulcan fiancée to consider, Spock’s life has the ability for lots more situational comedy than analytical drama.
Pike: Spock. Are you bare?
Spock: No, Captain.
T’Pring: No Chris, he is not. He became about to be. It’s a unique night.
Keeping in thoughts Spock’s half-human background which can also or won’t were the basis of what T’Pring within the future that is Star Trek: The Original Series does — IYKYK — I can’t wait to see how he navigates the intricacies of an intimate, devoted dating.
Strange New Worlds additionally maintains the Trek lifestyle of speaking to cutting-edge problems.
Playing with sun shades of Fredric Brown’s quick tale “The Weapon,” the assignment to Kylie 279 entails a comparatively primitive society discovering the name of the game to warp power best to turn it right into a warp bomb alternatively.
The electricity you’re harnessing can bridge the gap among worlds, but its potential for destruction can’t be underestimated. Pike
To make certain, it is amazing that they had been able to opposite-engineer a depend-antimatter reactor from watching a fleet of ships touring through area a mild-year away. However, given their preoccupation with struggle, it is very a good deal a case of giving paintballers loaded machine weapons.
Pike: You’ll don’t forget that after elephants combat, it is the grass that suffers. The Kikuyu humans of Kenya Africa on Earth, they educate us that lesson each day.
Kylien Leader: You’ve given me a proverb. Which is much less beneficial than a large stick. Whoever has the most important stick wins.
All this checks Pike’s ideas as each a Starfleet officer and a person of cause.
His direct approach in managing the Kyliens is some thing we have not visible due to the fact TOS Kirk. James T. Kirk, to be clear.
To be truthful, he does not so much preach (as Kirk every now and then did) as he educates and illustrates.
And at the same time as a single script isn’t always too much to move on, it’s charming to observe that he says the equal element to each the Kyliens and La’an.
“The choice is yours.”
Of the new team members introduced, one is without delay intrigued by using La’an. And you’re meant to be.
When Pike is drawing near the Enterprise, it’s La’an’s file that he’s reading on the trip. (Shuttle STAMETS, did you word?)
La’an is the front and middle from the start, taking Una’s place as First Officer at the same time as they are trying to locate and rescue Una.
So while her history of captivity, trauma, and survival points Pike in the direction of an answer, it is not surprising, however is it ever engaging.
Spock: They’ve turn out to be used to episodes of violence for centuries. The proper price of a civil conflict is abstract.
La’an: Not believing you’re gonna die is what gets you killed.
It’s additionally clever how they’ve already drawn Una and La’an into parallel. In a latest roundtable interview, Rebecca Romijn commented that Una’s dating with La’an is deeply essential to Number One.
La’an’s ultimate call is Noonien-Singh, a fact that precipitated a stir while the new forged’s characters’ names were announced ultimate year.
With that closing name, she is glaringly related to Khan, who, at this factor, should be in stasis aboard the SS Botany Bay, having escaped the Eugenics Wars along with his contingent of fans.
But the call is a chunk like being named Hitler or Mussolini in our world. It comes with a number of baggage.
I suspect that mastering of her reports with the Gorn foreshadows a few future journey. I’ll additionally admit to being a piece freaked out through the concept of Gorn planetary nurseries and sufferers becoming egg sacks. For a cheery and upbeat show (to date), La’an’s proving to be the shadow that suggests the shine.
Earth. The dust and sky is my fireplace, but Enterprise is my home. We can move forward collectively, understanding that something shadows we carry with us, they make the light all the brighter. I am a fortunate guy. Pike
By all measures, this is a triumph of a most suitable. Cast, script, context, and messaging are all on-point.
Can the relaxation of the season stay up to this first imparting?
Who stood out maximum for you? Personally, I’m obsessed with getting to know greater approximately Ortegas, specially after actress Melissa Navia shared how approach she’s been approximately flying the starship.
Was Samuel Kirk a gleeful surprise? How will he play into the crew’s dynamic, do you believe you studied?
My biggest OMG second changed into seeing Colonel Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut, and standard all-round celebrity, on the crew as Pike gives his task speech.
After Stacey Abrams’s appearance on Star Trek: Discovery Season four Episode 13, I didn’t think they may thrill me greater with a cameo, however there you go.
No matter how many stars there are inside the sky. No rely how many galaxies swirl past our own. No count the mathematical possibilities or the wide variety of instances we are saying, ‘We are not by myself within the universe,’ our first visit from the celebs is continually the province of children’s stories and science fiction. First contact with extraterrestrial beings continually lives squarely within the impossible. First contact is just a dream till at some point, it isn’t always. Una
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