Review of 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' 2.1-2.5

Great to see Star Trek: Strange New Worlds back with its second season, even if it has too little of Pike, who may be becoming my favorite Star Trek captain. I should add, Strange New Worlds is already my favorite new Star Trek series.

And episode 2.1 does have Spock (Ethan Peck) and M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) in the spotlight. So why did I put just Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) in the title? Because she's in the best scenes with Spock and the ship's doctor, and in fact is the glue that holds the whole episode together.

[Ok, more spoilers ahead ... ]

Spock is acting in command in episode 2.1, and takes the Enterprise to a place in space where the Klingons and humans alternate being in control, and it's now the Klingons' turn. Spock defies an admiral's order to not go there, and that's a good sign about what kind of leader he is becoming.

Of course, the Admiral isn't wrong that the Enterprise going there could provoke a war with the Klingons, and M'Benga and Chapel have to fight off a whole bunch of them to make good their escape. How do they do this? By taking some drug -- a guess akin to a super steroid -- that gives them almost super powers. But the drug doesn't last too long, and their fight with the Klingons starts off this second season with some fine action scenes.

The two escape, barely with their lives, and the scenes with Spock and Chapel are another kind of excellent. Spock has tears in eyes as he sees Chapel survived, and what she says to Spock shows she clearly loves him. In terms of continuity with TOS, did Chapel and Spock love each other back in our 1960s? I'm not sure, but I don't care. (My friend Ken Hudson tells me that Chapel had feelings for Spock on TOS, but Spock kept his feelings for her, if any, to himself.) They two are an emerging great couple now in SNW, and I look forward to seeing more of that.

Which I expect will definitely happen.

***

One of the great things about the original Star Trek back in the 1960s was how it addressed then current issues like racism and fascism. The crew encounters a humanoid species with faces that have two colors, black and white, and which color was left and which was right determined which was the superior variant of the species ("Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"). Or, in another episode, Kirk and Spock go to a planet with a Nazi-like regime ("Patterns of Force"). Kirk has to pretend to be a Nazi, and Shatner plays the part perfectly with some casual sieg heils.

Well, sadly, as we know all too well, fascists and Nazis are still very much a part of this world, and Strange New Worlds takes a different kind of crack at addressing this in episode 2.2, with Lt. Commander Una put on trial because she hid her Illyrian genetic modifications, illegal in Starfleet. So, yes, Star Fleet is the vehicle of the fascism and racism, including a Vulcan lawyer who is able to recite the policy chapter and verse.

The trial itself is a venerated plot device in TOS, most notably in "The Menagerie," the two-part blockbuster with introduced Pike himself in the Star Trek universe. The courtroom at Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco is adeptly presented, with the SNW crew watching the proceedings via video on their ship. Hey, our U. S. Supreme Court should get a clue about the value of video, not to mention the upcoming trial of Trump.

TOS excelled in its mix of action and heady philosophic issues, and it was a real pleasure to see SNW going forward with this tradition. I think more than ever that Strange New Worlds is the very best of the new Star Treks that are now with us.

***

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continued not to disappoint with a strong episode 2.3 that served up time travel ala "City on the Edge of Forever" and "Assignment Earth", two of the very best episodes of the original series.

Not only that kind of time travel, but SNW 2.3 also brings back Captain James T. Kirk, as La'an Noonien-Singh finds herself in alternate universe with the Federation having a different name and Earth on the edge of destruction. Her job of course is to make sure that does not happen, and in a story that is both tender and tough she cannot bring herself to do anything but protect the boy who will become Khan in our Star Trek universe, while she also must endure Kirk dying, even as she may be starting to fall in love with him. (Apparently James T. Kirk is irresistible in all universes.)

The episode is capped off with the revelation that there are time-cops in our universe, whose job is to make sure the timelines stay put. This is a nice call out to Asimov's The End of Eternity, and a welcome staple in any time travel story done right.

Which this one is. Strange New Worlds continues to mine the tropes of Star Trek in every episode, and that's very good to see, since those tropes are still the best things going in any science fiction in outer space story. It may well be that this season may do nothing but that, but that's more than ok.

***

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2.4 was about forgetting, and it's not that I forgot to review it, I was just a little too busy, and I just saw 2.5, and that was so good, so special, that I'll say definitely see 2.4, it's excellent and you'll like it, but I'll get right to my review of 2.5. It was outstanding.

Chapel and Spock were already my favorite couple, and it was great to see their relationship start to flourish in 2.5. The vehicle for that was a clever piece of science fiction, with a rich human payoff -- Chapel and Spock are in a shuttle accident in which Chapel is not hurt but Spock is, and an advanced alien species "repairs" him, but mistakenly makes him completely human. Chapel finds out that Spock deliberately diverted the damage from her to him, because she was more vulnerable, and of course that makes her love Spock even more.

Spock starts this episode still betrothed to T'Pring -- I thought they broke up last season -- and in addition to the humor of Spock pretending to be at least half-Vulcan to placate T'Pring's mother, I was glad to see T'Pring tell Spock near the end of the episode that they should take some time off. This set up the kiss between Chapel and Spock at the end perfectly.

About that kiss: good to see and, although their story ultimately will be limited by what we saw of the characters in their future and our past in Star Trek: TOS, I'm hoping for as much of that as possible in Strange New Worlds, including, who knows, maybe even a kid or two who could pop up in some new Star Trek series in years to come.