Familiar characters, fresh frontiers
“Hit it,” says star Anson Mount as Capt. Christopher Pike on “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” sending the storied starship USS Enterprise careening off into warp speed and new adventures. Like Patrick Stewart’s “Make it so” on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” it’s a turn of phrase that feels destined to become a fan favorite, illustrating a perfect marriage of actor and character.
It could also just as easily signify the confidence with which “Strange New Worlds” kicks off its television run. The show, which premiered this week on Paramount+, is the 11th “Trek” series since the ’60s. More interestingly, it may mark the longest gap between a pilot episode and subsequent series pickup in TV history.
The version of “Star Trek” that began airing in 1966 — created by Gene Roddenberry and starring William Shatner as indelible space hero Capt. James T. Kirk in command of the Enterprise — was actually the second attempt at the property after a previous pilot, titled “The Cage” and starring Jeffrey Hunter as the introspective Capt. Pike, failed to catch fire with the network.
Well, 58 years after “The Cage” was filmed, Christopher Pike finally gets to sit in the center seat for a show all his own. And it’s about time.
Set roughly 10 years before Capt. Kirk’s five-year mission (chronicled in the original and 1973 animated show), “Strange New Worlds” picks up a few years after the second season of Paramount+ stablemate “Star Trek: Discovery,” which introduced viewers to this incarnation of Pike, as well as Ethan Peck’s Spock (neatly evoking original Spock Leonard Nimoy while making the role his own). After their appearances on that show, there was instant fan fervor to see them again, and so here we are.
Along with Mount, Peck and Rebecca Romijn as Number One Una Chin-riley, all returning from “Discovery,” “Strange New Worlds” introduces Babs Olusanmokun as ship’s doctor
M’benga, Jess Bush as nurse Christine Chapel and Celia Rose Gooding as eager-toplease cadet Nyota Uhura (still a ways from becoming the confident communications officer played by Nichelle Nichols in the original series and feature films), among others.
Created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, “Strange New Worlds” marks a shift from the franchise’s two most recent liveaction incarnations on Paramount+
— “Discovery” (heading into its fifth year) and “Star Trek: Picard” (setting course for its third) — both of which rely heavily on the modern appetite for serialization across a season-long canvas.
By contrast, a few continuing subplots notwithstanding, these are episodic, one-anddone stories. And, man, does it feel nice. The five episodes of “Strange New Worlds” made available for review demonstrate the wide variety of storylines available within the format while getting us comfortable with this crew and their relationships.
In that vein, enough can’t be said about how effortlessly charming Anson Mount is as Pike. Conveying compassion, humor and resolve in equal
measures, the “Hell on Wheels” star has always had great presence, but this role truly feels like — to borrow a phrase from 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” — his first, best destiny. More important, given that a tragic fate is very much in store for poor Pike, it makes the journey toward that end so much more heart-rending.
A great strength (and, for its creators, an enduring frustration) of the “Star Trek” franchise has been the resilience of its accrued, interconnected canon. Spanning almost 700 hours of TV and film, it’s allowed for an ever-unfurling tapestry stretching backward and forward chronicling the history of this sci-fi utopia.
While existing within that
canon, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” leverages audience familiarity in a manner that’s welcoming rather than suffocating. As the title implies, this is a loving throwback to the spirit of exploration and derring-do so intrinsic to the brand over the past six decades (right down to Mount reciting a version of the “Space, the final frontier” narration that both Shatner and Stewart had a go at in previous incarnations), while pointing toward a future full of possibilities.
Here’s hoping they get the chance to keep boldly going for several more light years to come.