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Title: Star Trek: Strange New WorldsΓÇÖ third season falls short of its
second

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2025 02:00:30 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-mov...

This is a spoiler-free preview of the first five episodes of season three.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ended its second season with arguably the
single strongest run of any streaming-era Trek. The show was made with such
confidence in all departments that if there were flaws, you werenΓÇÖt
interested in looking for them. Since then, itΓÇÖs gone from being the best
modern Trek, to being the only modern Trek. Unfortunately, at the moment it
needs to be the standard bearer for the show, itΓÇÖs become noticeably weaker
and less consistent.

As usual, IΓÇÖve seen the first five episodes, but canΓÇÖt reveal specifics
about what IΓÇÖve seen. I can say plenty of the things that made Strange New
Worlds the best modern-day live-action Trek remain in place. ItΓÇÖs a show
thatΓÇÖs happy for you to spend time with its characters as they hang out,
and almost all of them are deeply charming. This is, after all, a show that
uses as motif the image of the crew in PikeΓÇÖs quarters as the captain cooks
for his crew.

Its format, with standalone adventures blended with serialized character
drama, means it can offer something new every week. Think back to the first
season, when ΓÇ£Memento Mori,ΓÇ¥ a tense action thriller with the Gorn, was
immediately followed by ΓÇ£Spock Amock,ΓÇ¥ a goofy, starbase-set body-swap
romantic comedy of manners centered around Spock. Strange New Worlds is the
first Trek in a long while to realize audiences donΓÇÖt just want a ceaseless
slog of stern-faced, angry grimdark. And if they want that, they can go watch
Picard and Section 31.

Marni Grossman/Paramount+

But, as much as those things are SNWΓÇÖs greatest strength, itΓÇÖs a delicate
balance to ensure the series doesnΓÇÖt lurch too far either way. And, it
pains me to say this, the show spends the first five episodes of its third
season going too far in both directions (although, mercifully, not at the
same time). No specifics, but one episode IΓÇÖm sure was on the same writers
room whiteboard wishlist as last seasonΓÇÖs musical episode. What was clearly
intended as a chance for everyone to get out of their usual roles and have
fun falls flat. Because the episode can never get past the sense itΓÇÖs too
delighted in its own silliness to properly function.

Marni Grossman/Paramount+

At the other end of the scale, we get sprints toward the eye-gouging grimdark
that blighted those other series. Sure, the series has gone to dark places
before, but previously with more of a sense of deftness, rather than just
going for the viscerally-upsetting gore. A cynic might suggest that, as
ParamountΓÇÖs other Trek projects ended, franchise-overseer Alex Kurtzman ΓÇö
who has pushed the franchise into ΓÇ£grittierΓÇ¥ territory whenever he can
ΓÇö had more time to spend in the SNW writersΓÇÖ room.

Much as IΓÇÖve enjoyed the seriesΓÇÖ soapier elements, the continuing
plotlines take up an ever bigger part of each episodeΓÇÖs runtime so far.
Consequently, the story of the week gets less service, making them feel
weaker and less coherent. One episode pivots two thirds of the way in to act
as a low-key sequel to an episode from season two. But since weΓÇÖve only got
ten minutes left, it feels thrown in as an afterthought, or to resolve a
thread the creative team felt they were obliged to deal with (they didnΓÇÖt).

In fact, this and the recently-finished run of Doctor Who suffered from the
same problem that blights so many streaming-era shows, which is the limited
episode order. Rather than producing TV on the scale broadcast networks were
able to ΓÇö yearly runs of 22-, 24- or 26 episodes, a lot of (expensive)
genre shows get less than half that. The result is that each episode has to
be More Important Than The Last One in a way thatΓÇÖs exhausting for a
viewer.

But Strange New Worlds canΓÇÖt solve all the economic issues with the
streaming model on its own. My hope is that, much like in its first season,
the weaker episodes are all in its front half to soften us up for the moments
of quality that followed toward its conclusion.

ASIDE: Shortly before publication, Paramount announced Strange New Worlds
would end in its fifth season, which would be cut from ten episodes to six.
It's not surprising ΓÇö given the equally-brilliant Lower Decks was also axed
after passing the same milestone ΓÇö but it is disappointing. My only hope is
that the series doesn't spend that final run awkwardly killing off the
series' young ensemble one by one in order to replace them with the entire
original series' roster as to make it "line up." Please, let them be their
own things.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-mov...
third-season-falls-short-of-its-second-020030139.html?src=rss

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