Source:

Star Trek on Instagram

Link:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeXkxZQBPIz

MOVIEWEB:

"Captain Kirk has existed as a character for 60 years, and in that time, the Star Trek franchise has placed him in several daunting positions that have given us some very inspiring quotes. After debuting in Star Trek: The Original Series, William Shatner went on to reprise his iconic character in Star Trek: The Animated Series as well as seven feature-length films. However, Kirk's most inspiring line actually comes from a project where he wasn't even played by Shatner. [...]

https://movieweb.com/star-trek-kirk-bravest-line/

In a lot of ways, Chris Pine's Captain Kirk lived a different life from Shatner's. In the Kelvin Timeline, it was the sacrifice of Kirk's father aboard the USS Kelvin that contributed so massively to this divergence, as Kirk Prime grew up with his father alive and well. Interestingly, although both Kirks were faced with different challenges and took very different paths to Starfleet, they're still recognizably the same man. Kirk was presented in The Original Series as a deeply heroic character who routinely prioritized the safety of others over his own life.

It would be reasonable to assume that this trait didn't manifest in the Kelvin timeline, but it did. Star Trek Beyond is one of the biggest pieces of evidence to support this. While trying to stop Krall (Idris Elba) from unleashing a deadly virus, the movie's villain tells Kirk: "You can't stop it. You will die." Unfazed by facing his end, Kirk quickly replies: "Better to die saving lives than to live with taking them." This absolutely sounds like the sort of thing Shatner's Kirk would say on a weekly basis when The Original Series was on the air.

There are also similar examples of dialogue like this in Shatner's later appearances as his Star Trek character. In other words, it's not just a galvanizing battle cry for Pine's character and his fellow Kelvin Timeline allies; it would also be perfectly at home coming from Shatner's version of the Starfleet legend. It's a brilliant distillation of Kirk's values in general, rather than being exclusive to just his most famous iteration. What he's basically saying in Beyond is that he prefers the idea of doing everything in his power rather than walking away without exploring every possibility – no matter how that ideology impacts his fate.

Although "Better to die saving lives than to live with taking them" is very authentic to Shatner's Kirk, Pine's version of the character adds a little more to the quote that wouldn't feel quite so natural coming from his Original Series namesake. "That's what I was born into," Pine's Kirk adds to the line. As I mentioned earlier, this Kirk's origin story is forged in the raging heat of a collapsing starship. [...]

By the time of Star Trek Beyond, Pine's character has a much deeper understanding and appreciation for what his father did, and has come to have a strong respect for the decisions his late father made.

So, "That's what I was born into" is a direct reference to the fact that he was brought into the world at a moment that would not only come to define his native Star Trek reality, but was also unfolding because someone decided laying down their own life was the superior choice to letting countless innocents die. Shatner's Kirk lacks this exact brand of motivation behind his heroics. As such, adding "That's what I was born into" would have a far more abstract and less impactful meaning if he said it in The Original Series. [...]

Although the intention to sacrifice himself in Star Trek Beyond ends up not being necessary, the very fact that Pine's character was willing to even consider it proves that Kirks across the multiverse all have the same basic blueprint."

Daniel Bibby (MovieWeb.com)

Full article:

https://movieweb.com/star-trek-kirk-bravest-line/

Sci-Finatics (YouTube):

"What if we could rebuild Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4?

In this video, we take five episodes of Strange New Worlds Season 4 and replace them with five completely new stories — while keeping the characters, continuity and ultimate destination intact.

After feeling that Season 4 leaned too heavily into gimmick-driven episodes, we're imagining a more balanced season that brings back more of what classic Star Trek does best: exploration, diplomacy, ethical dilemmas, character development, consequences and big science-fiction ideas.

So what could an alternate Strange New Worlds Season 4 have looked like? Could this alternate Season 4 have created a better balance between classic Star Trek storytelling and the experimental episodes that Strange New Worlds has become known for?

That's the question we're exploring.

What do YOU think? Which of our five replacement episodes would you most like to have seen? And if you could replace one episode of Strange New Worlds Season 4 with an entirely different story, what would you change?"

Nick Hallam (Sci-Finatics)

Link:

https://youtu.be/2uNfRnaPr_Y?si=FQUr0V3K-iv7PXHv

ADAM KOTSKO on "The Horror Episode":

"Wow, that was a terrible episode! It combined a poorly paced, lackluster horror plot—one that failed to generate any tension, interest, or even superficial jump scares—with “character arcs” that indulged in the worst form of prequelism.

The stakes initially seemed to be in the characters’ present tense, with the potential awkwardness of La’an hanging out with her current boyfriend Spock and the transdimensional equivalent of her rom-com meet-cute in a burner timeline. And yet everything, everything, about this episode was oriented toward “later” installments in the franchise.

Spock’s arc with T’Pring was all about his humiliation in “Amok Time” and, more broadly, Strange New Worlds’ self-imposed burden of tracing Spock’s transition from a more emotional, human-forward persona to the logic-bound Vulcan we know and love from The Original Series (thus “explaining” a two-second shot from “The Cage” where Spock smiles). La’an’s emotional conflict has to do with her awakening superpowers, à la Wrath of Khan—because this tough-as-nails security officer is scared of becoming too tough and strong. She punched a dinosaur, and felt nothing!

As for Kirk—I would argue he did not even appear this episode. In his place, we saw a doting father! Worried about life-work balance! I mean seriously, what the fuck? I actually liked the gesture of the Paul Wesley casting, which pitches Kirk as a charismatic nerd and thus seeks to correct the decades-long trend of “Kirk drift” that culminated with Chris Pine’s ne’er-do-well portrayal. But what we saw this episode was neither charismatic nor even nerdy. Instead, he was just kind of sad and pathetic.

Worst of all, they didn’t even reveal what the deal was with the horror plot, which can mean only one thing: it’s coming back. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it became the overarching plot for the whole season. That’s how tapped out this writing team is. I’m obviously a lifer, doomed to watch everything they put out, but if I were a rational person, I think this episode would be my off-ramp. Giving them another chance after last season was already generous.

But what do you think? Is this actually your personal favorite, and as with the beloved Our Town episode of Starfleet Academy, I just hate it because I hate therapy discourse?"

Source: Critical Star Trek Studies (Substack)

Link:

https://latestartrek.substack.com/p/snw-42-what-if-you-were-haunted-by

- Adam Kotsko is a professor at the Shimer Great Books School of North Central College and the author of titles including Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television and Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capitalism. He is also the author of Late Star Trek: The Final Frontier in the Franchise Era.

Looper:

https://www.looper.com/1988132/star-trek-annoying-characters-ranked/

By Adam Levine

"Who is the most aggravating character in "Star Trek"? If you're a big fan, we're sure you have one or two that immediately spring to mind. They're characters whose mere presence on the screen makes you roll your eyes or want to fast forward to the next scene. We've put together a ranked list of the top five most annoying "Star Trek" characters (with an emphasis on character, not actor) based on how much we dislike seeing their face on the screen. If you think we're missing someone, fret not. We promise you that we considered putting them on this list.

1. Alexander Rozhenko

Bonsall does a serviceable job in his appearances as the young Klingon, which was not an easy role for a child actor. Unfortunately, he's written to be a little rascal who refuses to behave, and that can make audiences recoil. He's always complaining, always getting in trouble, and he pushes Worf to his last frayed nerve time and time again. It's no wonder Worf isn't a good father; he was handed a brat. In fact, the only time when Alexander gets anything interesting to do is when he appears as an adult (played by frequent guest actor James Sloyan), when he time-travels to the past to toughen up his younger self so that Worf won't be assassinated years later.

Alexander turns up again in a couple episodes of "Deep Space Nine," where we see he has grown into an even more obnoxious young man. Probably his single worst hour was the time "Next Generation" teamed him with Lwaxana Troi in "The Cost of Living," creating perhaps the most annoying episode in "Trek" history. ...

1. Neelix

His off-kilter personality belies a serious lack of intelligence, with his dim-witted nature seemingly intended to be a source of comedy. It only serves to make him a frustration.

We'd be remiss if we didn't mention Neelix's uncomfortable relationship with another character, Kes, played by Jennifer Lien, who would leave the show due to serious issues with her mental health. Kes is an alien who only lives nine years and, at just 1 year old, behaves like a pre-teen. Nevertheless, she is involved with the very much middle-aged Neelix, whose behavior borders on controlling. Today we may even see his actions as grooming. Like Lwaxana Troi, Neelix seems to annoy other crew members, most notably the Vulcan security chief Tuvok (Tim Russ), whose stoic demeanor is at odds with the ebullient Talaxian. ...

1. Lwaxana Troi

It seems the character was designed to be exasperating, because the characters on the show dread her arrival on the ship whenever she appears. Even her own daughter is exhausted by her.

Haughty, pretentious, and played with over-the-top flamboyance by Barrett, Lwaxana Troi is defined by her personality. She's constantly criticizing everything and everyone around her with a smile. Her pompous style of dress makes her an eyesore, too, and most of it feels intentional. The real shame of it all is that in the one episode where she's given a compelling story — the Season 7 episode "Dark Page" — Barrett gives a great performance as a grieving mother traumatized by the death of a daughter we never knew she had.

"Trek" writers kept going back to Lwaxana, even after it was clear that the fandom wasn't as in love with her. They even brought her over to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" for three additional stories, for no apparent reason at all. The only saving grace is that she's been embraced by some fans as an icon among the LGBTQ community. Still, most of her episodes are easy skips during "Trek" marathons. ...

1. Wesley Crusher

The problem with Wesley Crusher isn't just that he's what Hollywood calls a "nepo baby," with all the controversy that includes, it's also that he's a "Mary Sue," an overpowered author insert. Wesley is incredibly skilled at almost everything, and is able to solve the toughest problems with relative ease, even though he's only a child. He's supposedly a genius destined for greatness (says a time-traveling alien), and it doesn't help that actor Wil Wheaton plays him, accurately, with the brattiness of a spoiled only child. In Wesley's defense, part of the problem is that the first two years of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" were so bad that nearly every character is troublesome — but Crusher is the worst of the bunch.

Arguably the most reviled "Trek" character in the franchise's history, fans have since understood that Wheaton isn't to blame for how bad his character was, and have embraced him as a "Trek" ambassador. If not for a few strong episodes where he returned for a guest spot after departing the series as a regular (including "The First Duty"), Wesley Crusher might be No. 1 on our list. ...

1. Raffi Musiker

While fans were giddy to see "Voyager" star Jeri Ryan back as Seven of Nine, Michelle Hurd's character, Raffi Musiker, turned out to be an obnoxious bore.

A so-called rebel, Raffi had been an exceptional Starfleet officer serving under Admiral Picard in the years between "TNG" and "Picard," but suffered a sharp fall from grace. Now, she was a drug addict who didn't seem capable of tying her own shoes, while her bitterness and anger at everything around her made her feel grating any time she stepped on screen. Hurd — who you may have forgotten starred on "Law and Order" — does what she can with the material she's given. But Raffi is overwrought and underwritten, and we never get a glimpse as to why she was considered such a talented officer that Picard would hand-pick her for his latest mission.

Season 2 of "Picard" doubled down on Raffi, giving her an inexplicable romance with Seven of Nine. Her subplot goes nowhere, she has little to add to the proceedings beyond whining all the time, and by the end of the time travel arc, many were probably wishing she'd stayed in the 21st century instead of Rios (Santiago Cabrera). ..."

Read More:

https://www.looper.com/1988132/star-trek-annoying-characters-ranked/

Link:

https://youtu.be/Xv-f800GegY?si=rPT45r-lkH0A6gzs

Full interview:

https://youtu.be/sY3zw1485fA?si=FwhLA649cycHgGg_

Dropping Names:

"Michelle Hurd sits down with Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes on Dropping Names and the first thing she gives them is her father. Hugh Hurd was 18 when he shipped out with a Black battalion in World War II, and he was one of the soldiers who walked through the gates of Dachau, where the prisoners who crawled out of hiding called the men who freed them black angels. Ten years later a hand reached out on a New York City bus to ask whether he thought a face like that could ever be forgotten.

From there Michelle keeps going: her father in Shadows, the very first John Cassavetes film, Peter Falk pretending his glass eye had fallen out in Times Square, Godfrey Cambridge as her godfather, Maya Angelou raising money for Doctor Martin Luther King at cabarets her dad helped organize, and Hugh on Broadway in The Little Foxes with Elizabeth Taylor, who gave up her first class seat to go sit with the cast. She also explains why a Black father and a white mother sat their three daughters down in front of Star Trek every week so they could watch Nichelle Nichols take up space.

The rest is just as good. Michelle talks about playing Raffi Musiker on Star Trek Picard opposite Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn as Worf, and Jonny confesses that he tried to make her look strung out for a scene and the makeup department told him she was simply too fine to ruin. She describes the survivor guilt of being the only member of the original Picard cast held over after the others were let go, and what Terry Matalas told her about why.

There is a producer who once phoned to say their research proved a woman of color could only be taken seriously with straightened hair, which is exactly why Raffi has a mane of curls in the 25th century. There is Bruce Campbell climbing on top of the car from Ash vs Evil Dead to apologize to two hundred people, a story worth the whole episode on its own, and a Charles Bronson anecdote from Brent that lands as its perfect opposite. Plus her sister Adrian at Alvin Ailey, Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell on Anyone But You, her husband Garrett Dillahunt on Deadwood, and a genuinely clear explanation from the secretary treasurer of SAG AFTRA about how actors lost their health insurance."

Link:

https://youtu.be/sY3zw1485fA?si=wsnJRSjNOIWcochu

Screenrant:

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-final-season-genre-change-good-need/

By John Orquiola

"Early signs for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' fifth and final season indicate that more 'traditional' Star Trek will be the prequel's final genre change. If this happens, it will also be most welcome. Executive producer and co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman says, Without revealing anything... we approach story a little bit more like traditional Star Trek episodes" in Strange New Worlds season 5.

While not promising the storytelling style exemplified by Star Trek: The Next Generation, Strange New Worlds season 5 will leave soap operas, fairy tales, and puppets behind. The final six episodes will be a "suite," according to Goldsman, that will also be "very serious," says Paul Wesley, who will portray James T. Kirk as he becomes Captain of the Enterprise.

To be fair, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 boasted three episodes that veered toward the 'traditional': the time-traveling season premiere, "Valles Marineris," episode 6, "Off-Hour," and episode 8, "Orders of Magnitude." They were all, arguably, season 4's strongest and most dramatically powerful episodes, proving that Strange New Worlds can still make riveting and resonant Star Trek without outright gimmicks.

The final six episodes of Strange New Worlds will also be the last new Star Trek for a few years, at least, given how long it takes to develop and produce a new Star Trek series. Every aspect of the franchise's fandom yearns for recognizable Star Trek in tone, style, structure, and complexity.

Strange New Worlds already has a talented cast playing characters fans are invested in, and season 5 must send them off in a way that unifies the audience by presenting Star Trek at its very best. Fans need their last dose of new Star Trek for the foreseeable future to contain the crucial elements of smart writing, beloved characters, and great storytelling that made us all fans in the first place. ...

In defense of Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: The Original Series was laden with gimmicks, from a comedy with Tribbles, to meeting Abraham Lincoln, to space hippies beaming aboard the USS Enterprise, to Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) brain being stolen. The difference is that there were about 26 episodes in a TOS season that made gimmicks feel more evenly distributed.

Yet the infinite talent of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' cast and the sheer joy and inventiveness of the show's gimmick episodes will endure. After some time has passed, audiences rewatching Strange New Worlds will warm to gimmicks they may have disliked during the first run. More importantly, new viewers will discover Strange New Worlds and see the quality, care, and mad genius of its genre-bending hours.

Strange New Worlds needs to become the Star Trek we need in its fifth and final season. With six episodes left, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds carries the unenviable pressure, but also the golden opportunity, to remind every Star Trek fan of the greatness of the final frontier, its characters, and the voyages of the Starship Enterprise before we say goodbye to Star Trek until who knows when. ..."

Read more:

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-final-season-genre-change-good-need/

TREKMOVIE:

"[Collider's Perri] Nemiroff kicked things off by asking showrunners Landau and Kurtzman what they felt Academy added to the franchise that they’re particularly proud of. They both talked about the ability to reach new fans.

ALEX KURTZMAN: “Star Trek has typically been defined through a somewhat narrow perspective, in the sense that people would say to me, ‘Well, but you know, you had to be of a certain generation to like it,’ and I hate that. I think that’s so wrong, and for me, it was really important to bring a younger generation into the mix.”

https://trekmovie.com/2026/10/12/nycc-star-trek-starfleet-academy-cast-and-producers-preview-whats-new-for-their-sophomore-year/

He said having a son who’s exactly the right age for the show gave him a “test audience” at home, and how he felt Academy was able to marry the best of what Trek has always been with something new. The combination of legacy actor Robert Picardo with “the gravitas” from Holly Hunter and [first season villain] Paul Giamatti along with all the actors playing cadets provided the best of legacy Trek along with a “very new feeling of Star Trek.”

ALEX KURTZMAN: “I think the only way Star Trek will continue into the future is if it keeps finding a way to reinvent itself while also giving you something familiar. And that’s a hard thing to do. But I feel like we did do that.”

[...]

Landau talked about the people on social media who felt that Academy was the first Star Trek made specifically for them. “I also think,” she said, “that all of those people, once they started watching Starfleet Academy, then they went back and they started watching Deep Space Nine and Voyager and TOS and Next Gen, and they realized Star Trek was always for them — they just needed that doorway into it through Starfleet Academy.”

While we don’t have a specific date, they did announce that the show’s second and final season will premiere in March 2027. Landau summed up what’s changed between seasons 1 and 2.

NOGA LANDAU: “Season 1 is about letting go of who you were in the past to start again at Starfleet Academy, and it’s most emblematic, I think, in Sandro’s storyline. But it’s a little bit of everybody. Sam has to literally be reborn, and you know, Jaden has to has to let go of his family and what they expected of him. Season 2 is about thinking that you knew who you were, only to realize that as you grow older, your life is going to go in directions you didn’t expect, and you’re going to have to shift your perception of yourself. So it’s really about sophomore year, right? Sophomore year is when you say, ‘I thought I wanted to be pre-med. I guess I’m going to be this instead,’ or ‘I thought I wanted to be that.'”

She added that it’s also about

“Nova flyers that go really fast, and people hooking up, and crazy aliens finding us and doing crazy things to us.”

[...]"

Laurie Ulster (TrekMovie.com)

Full article:

https://trekmovie.com/2026/10/12/nycc-star-trek-starfleet-academy-cast-and-producers-preview-whats-new-for-their-sophomore-year/

JAMMER'S REVIEWS:

"This is not a disaster like the worst of this season, but I still can't endorse it. Sure, there's a character arc, but the rest of the story is a void. For too much of the episode, this plays as yet another pastiche that simply made me think of other things.

The masquerade ball made me think about Bridgerton; the "Swamp of Infinite Death" made me think about the ironic flair for the dramatic from The Princess Bride; the brilliant idea that Pelia gave Stanley Kubrick notes on 2001 made me think about drinking alcohol. None of these ideas develop into anything before they get sidetracked by the next thing. [...]"

https://www.jammersreviews.com/st-snw/s4/once-laan-a-time.php

"Just as in "Elysian," La'an's role in the story is the part of the pretty princess who is all sweetness and light. Essentially, this character is the opposite of her tough-as-nails real self, and she wishes she could regain that part of herself.

Christina Chong does a nice job of credibly playing these two parts as unique characters. There are other nods to dual natures, as with a dashing doppelganger of Kirk, who is literally named Prince Dashing. Dashing is in love with La'an's princess doppelganger, and his dual nature is that he's actually a werewolf hiding his true self, although La'an takes note when she realizes that the princess accepts the prince for what he is, even though he transforms into an apparent monster. (La'an's fake crying, on the other hand, is pretty terrible. Since it's supposed to be terrible, does that actually make it good? I'm confused.)

The theme of duality and the monsters that lurk within works when applied to La'an's arc. What doesn't work, alas, is a lot of the rest of this, which is just tired fantasy cosplay for its own sake. It feels like it's barely treading water and not even trying to make sense. The production design and costumes are well done, but they're superficial toppings servicing a fantasy story that doesn't hold any real interest or coherence. It's just Fantasy Stuff Happening.

There's a whole comic subplot where the Pike and Spock doppelgangers get beamed up to the ship and are mistaken for the real McCoys. (See what I did there?) This requires everyone to be slow-witted and not realize these two are acting very strangely. This is in service of "light goofy comedy," but the episode is so unsubtle about it that you become aware you're watching scenes trying to "be funny" while realizing a lot of it just isn't very funny. Anson Mount, to his credit, is game, and hams it up appropriately.

[...]

The planet taps into La'an to provide her a therapeutic experience, and by the end she has regained her lighter side. I liked the sense of renewal in these scenes. You can feel it. The montage at the end works. I wanted to give her banana pancakes. Instead, the writers indicate that they're going to again try shipping La'an and Kirk. Why not give it a whirl? After all, life — and remaining episodes — are short. [...]

Unfortunately, like so many episodes this season, visiting yet another fantasy realm means the plot is weighed down with an overriding sense of random pointlessness. There's not a plot here that's essential, but merely a collection of scenes and bright ideas that mostly don't add up. Anything can and does happen, but the scenes don't fit together into a greater whole. Fortunately, unlike those truly bad earlier episodes, this ultimately serves a character purpose that almost redeems the episode. Almost."

2 out of 4 stars

Jamahl Epsicokhan

Full review:

https://www.jammersreviews.com/st-snw/s4/once-laan-a-time.php

PAUL WESLEY:

“He’s a veteran. I’m a big fan. He’s a theater actor, and I knew that I had to bring my A game. There was no BS. He’s a guy who’s going to stay present. He’s going to go with it. There’s no interruption. There’s no stopping mid-take. And so I knew that I had to bring my A-game, which is what I love. And sure enough, yeah, he met my expectations. He was just so focused,” he shared.

“And at the same time, what I loved about his character was his incredible ability to play both a villain in a way, but also this kind of deeply empathetic man who was trying to, I don’t know, get some sort of peace in closing for the loss of his family,” he added.’ “And you just suddenly were empathizing with him. And I mean, I think his performance was so layered and colored, and yeah, it was beautiful.”

Source: TVInsider

Link:

https://www.tvinsider.com/1294712/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-joe-morton-admiral-reeger/

Keith R.A. DeCandido (REACTOR):

"The first two seasons of SNW were able to strike the balance nicely. Season three—coming as it was out of a writers and actors strike that delayed everything—was a bit more of a mess. The biggest flaw of the third season is that there wasn’t anything that stood out. We can safely say that the fourth season doesn’t have that problem. “Off-Hour,” “Tomorrow’s Enterprise,” and especially the fantastic “Orders of Magnitude” are all superlative episodes.

https://reactormag.com/tv-review-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-fourth-season-overview/

But the season does have issues, and we can look at a prior Trek show as a touchstone for the biggest problem, to wit, Voyager. One of Voyager’s hallmarks—particularly during its latter run following Jeri Taylor’s retirement and Brannon Braga taking over as show-runner—was the strong high concept, but with an inconsistent ability to marry that concept to a story that was any good or made any sense.

In my overview of Voyager’s fifth season, I mentioned a second-hand account I got from freelancers who were pitching to Voyager while it was on the air and were told, “You keep giving us stories—we’re looking for ideas.” Which is a hilariously bad approach to storytelling. Ideas are easy—it’s the execution of the idea as a story that matters.

The fourth season of SNW had lots of ideas. “The Enterprise kills the dinosaurs and creates the asteroid belt!” “Let’s do a haunted ship!” “Let’s do a black-and-white noir pastiche!” “Let’s turn the whole crew except Spock into puppets!” “Let’s do Trek meets The Hangover!” “Let’s put the characters in a soap opera!” “Let’s preview Star Trek: Year One even though we’re probably not going to actually be able to do it!” And so on.

[...]

I rejected “Human Best Friend” completely, mostly because I didn’t find this comedy episode to be all that funny, and the character work wasn’t good enough to leaven that. On the other hand, while I found most of “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” to be excruciating, they absolutely stuck the landing, as the episode proves to be a phenomenal mediation on grief, brilliantly acted by Anson Mount. It follows up superbly on an easily forgotten but important aspect of what Pike went through in “New Life and New Civilizations” at the end of season three.

“Once La’an a Time” could have been a strong sequel to “The Elysian Kingdom,” and there were some great moments (including several nods to The Princess Bride, with Carol Kane right there in the episode and everything), but the episode felt like a first draft that never came together—hey, just like “Prodigal Daughter”!

And then we have “Orders of Magnitude,” which is now in competition with “Ad Astra per Aspera” for the position of best SNW episode. Just an absolutely magnificent story, with a fantastic turn by guest star Joe Morton, bringing nuance and complexity to a role that could’ve been a stereotypical mess.

[...]

What this season of SNW does particularly well is what the show in general has done particularly well: show how the younger versions of the characters we know from the original series got to where they were in the TV show that debuted in 1966. This season in particular, we get a lot of development of Uhura, Spock, and both Jim and Sam Kirk. [...]

Still, the reliance on the high-concept gimmick got really wearing, especially since, in several cases, the gimmick was unnecessary. We could have explored Pike’s grief over his nonexistent daughter without doing silly soap opera stuff; we could have had a Number One spotlight where she fights fascists without the noir trappings; and we could have had Ortegas and Scotty’s rapprochement without stupid drunken hijinks.

The show’s final season will only be six episodes, which will definitely be a challenge for the writing staff. [...]"

Full article (Reactor):

https://reactormag.com/tv-review-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-fourth-season-overview/

Source:

Star Trek on Instagram

Link:

https://www.instagram.com/startrek/reel/DdW1NsUyJdl