REVIEW: With an Enterprise captain suffering from PTSD and a sexy, shirtless Spock, long-time Trekkers may be wondering what on Earth they have encountered during the opening minutes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (now streaming on TVNZ OnDemand).
However, if you can put such early tonal and canonical “tribbles” aside, then you’ll be rewarded with a rollicking adventure that successfully evokes the spirit of the original 1960s series.
Set in the decade before Captain James T. Kirk and company’s five-year mission “to seek out new life forms and new civilisations”, Strange New Worlds opens with his predecessor Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) questioning his suitability for further command.
On leave while the Enterprise is in Space Dock, he’s haunted by a terrifying vision of the future he saw on the Klingon planet of Boreth. However, he’s reluctantly persuaded back into the saddle when informed that his No.1 (Rebecca Romijn) has disappeared when a first contact went bad. Spock (Ethan Peck) also answers the call, despite the protests of his fiancée T’Pring (Gia Sandhu), who remains sceptical that matrimony and his duties with Star Fleet “will complement each other”. “I won’t chase you across the galaxy,” she warns.
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As usual, the Enterprise isn’t quite ready for the rescue mission, all the simulations haven’t been run and the crew somewhat hastily assembled. “I hope I didn’t catch anyone with their hair wet, or pants down,” Pike quips across the tannoy. “But we need to find our people, bring them home – and maybe make some new friends.”
He, and we, also have some of those to make onboard the Enterprise, including the ship’s doctor M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) and an acting No.1 by the name of La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong). A character who is clearly sowing “the Space Seeds” for famous future events.
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Rebecca Romijn, Anson Mount and Ethan Peck star in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Arriving in orbit around the M-Class planet of Kiley-279, the mystery of No.1 and her team’s disappearance deepens. Their starship lies empty – and the planet below is emitting a warp signature, when their population’s technology level suggests that is simply not possible.
What follows is classic Star Trek, as those beaming down encounter some resistance, the captain puts himself in harm’s way in order to ensure the safety of his crew and allusions and allegories to our contemporary society are writ large. Pike speaks of an insurrection and a third World War that eradicated hundreds of thousands of species and 13 per cent of the human population. “They just wanted to crush their enemy – and we gave them the means,” he laments of the situation on Kiley-279, which might just sound familiar to followers of American intervention in foreign countries over the past half-century.
While such sombreness and critical theory may come as something of a surprise, it is in keeping with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s original vision, while the show isn’t without its lighter moments. Spock also suffers the indignity of having to wear shorts on their away mission, while there’s a quite brilliant bait-and-switch while teasing the arrival of a major character.
Strange New Worlds also introduces the idea of genome manipulation – “compressed, jury-rigged metamorphosis” – which is essentially a high-tech, futuristic version of a device used on almost every episode of another famous 1960s series – Mission: Impossible. A mask.
It’s a clever conceit, ripe for comedic potential too, but one hopes they don’t fall back on it every week.
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Christina Chong’s La’an Noonien-Singh is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ breakout star.
As with most Trek shows, the ensemble has been well cast, Mount (Hell on Wheels) making for a thoughtful, but troubled leader, while Peck’s (The Midnight Sky) Spock feels organically like the same persona created by Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto – which is no mean feat. Special mention must also go to Chong (Line of Duty), whose character comes with a certain weight of expectation, but who nevertheless imbues her with such nuance and mystery that you’re just desperate to know where Strange New Worlds will take her.
As an opening instalment that’s built around the idea that “the future is what you make it” and “the power of possibility”, this Trek whets the appetite exactly for that, as it delivers sci-fi action, emotion and intrigue in spades.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is now available to stream on TVNZ OnDemand. New episodes debut at 7pm on Thursdays.
