Trekkie | At Home with Tech

August 3, 2025

Why Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Continues to Hit It

The crew of the Starship Enterprise is back! After what feels like a century-long break, season 3 of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” has finally arrived on Paramount+. I’m not sure why the producers waited so long (season 4 is already in production), but I couldn’t be happier.

Putting the Band Back Together
If you’ve been stuck somewhere in the Guardian of Forever, you may not know that “Strange New Worlds” is the Back to the Future of Star Trek. It chronicles the voyages of the Enterprise immediately before the saga of Captain Kirk and his crew. This crew is led by Captain Christopher Pike (played by Anson Mount), but we already know many of the characters.

Ethan Peck is Spock. Celia Rose Gooding plays Nyota Uhura. Rebecca Romijn is Number One (originally seen in 1966’s “The Menagerie” episode). Jess Bush plays Christine Chapel, and Babs Olusanmokun is Dr. M’Benga (who was in two episodes of the original series).

There are also new characters on the bridge, including La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia).

And some familiar characters have joined the series along the way: Martin Quinn as Scotty and Paul Wesley as Lt. James T. Kirk.

Returning to the 23rd Century Never Felt So Cool
“Strange New Worlds” is inevitably bound by Star Trek canon but does a remarkable job not being incumbered by that limitation. In so many ways, the show embraces its roots. Sure, the writers (and designers) push the canon edges a bit, but not so much that a Trekkie would cry foul.

Of course, the bridge of the Enterprise looks more high tech, but the same floor plan is still in place. Of course, the CGI shots of the ship look significantly different than the five analog shots we repeatedly saw during the original series. There must be a team of talented art directors for “Strange New Worlds” regularly declaring, “You think that shot of our NCC-1701 was cool? Well, take a look at this!” They’re clearly having way too much fun.

No Dystopian Future Here
And fun is the key ingredient that permeates throughout this entire prequel series. The writers have also given a lot of time to the ensemble cast, and the series is stronger for that reason.

“Strange New Worlds” shines by capturing the optimistic and entrepreneurial spirit of the original series. This success has also enabled the series to take a few really big creative swings. (I’ll leave it at that.)

Fate Fuels this Series
But this series is not without its serious side. Most significantly, this Captain Pike (minor spoiler) learns his unfortunate fate in the not-too-distant future, and season 1 deals with that theme.

Just as importantly, we know the future for many of these characters. And for the new ones who don’t show up later in the timeline… well that doesn’t necessarily bode well for them. (The series has already killed off one major character.)

There’s already a sense that time is beginning to run out before we get to the end of this beginning. (More on this later.)

Lt. James T. Kirk
But happily, we’re not there yet. The series is acutely self-aware of these variables and the writers have clearly embraced the challenge of how to maximize the impact of fate for this show.

But that factor hasn’t limited the writers either. They’ve discovered and explored plenty of storytelling opportunities within the strict limitations of Trek canon. This has been most apparent with the re-introduction of Kirk. The original series makes no reference to Captain Kirk’s adventures with Pike, other than they knew each other. But that’s enough.

Season 3 Starts Strong Enough
As I write this, I’m four episodes into season 3. I can’t say I’ve been blown away by the scripts from a science fiction perspective. (Episode 3 was about zombies.) But the series’ existing strengths have sufficiently carried each episode.

Plus, if you’re a Trekkie, there have been some huge additional payoffs.

Season 3, Episode 2 – “Wedding Bell Blues”
This is a fun episode, if not a little silly (but also bittersweet).

More significantly, the writers finally answer the question decades in the making whether Trelane (originally seen in 1967’s “The Squire of Gothos” episode and now played by Rhys Darby) is a confirmed Q.

Spoiler: He is.

Season 3, Episode 4 – “A Space Adventure Hour”
The plot is effectively a retread of holodeck episodes from “The Next Generation.” But it’s still an instant classic. The opening minutes are simply priceless. It’s a spoof on bad science fiction from the 60’s. And a parody on “Star Trek” itself. And stunningly, it takes a huge jab at William Shatner’s acting. Wesley effectively does his own Shatner impression.

It’s wonderful without being mean-spirited. And this scene definitively answers a lingering fan question why “Strange New Worlds” Jim Kirk hasn’t tried harder to imitate Shatner’s Kirk.

This episode (directed by Jonathan Frakes) also cleverly offers its own commentary on the success and failure of the original “Star Trek.”

Fresh and Confident
“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is so self-aware. It needs to be. But it hasn’t had to tip toe as it travels uncomfortably close to own predecessor. (successor?) In fact, it charges through this space, both creatively and respectfully.

It knows this story is not about the end. It’s about the journey.

Only a Five-Year Mission
But as Paramount+ has announced that we’re only getting five seasons, I can’t help but feel the pressure that the end isn’t far away. This makes each remaining episode that much more important.

“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” may not live long, but it certainly continues to prosper.

So, let’s “Hit it!”

January 26, 2025

Star Trek: Section 31 Tries to be a Dumpster Fire and Succeeds

If you’ve also been waiting since 2020 to see what happened to Michelle Yeoh’s Emperor Georgiou from “Star Trek: Discovery,” she’s finally reappeared in “Section 31.” Here’s my review of this crazy TV movie.

There’s been a hole in my Trekkie heart ever since the very first episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” back in 2017. My heart broke early in the episode when Starfleet Captain Philippa Georgiou played by the wonderful Michelle Yeoh shockingly died with a Klingon blade to the heart.

More than a plot device, it was a clear message from the showrunners to all Trekkies that the old Star Trek you knew and loved was dead.

I was all set to watch another five-year mission with Captain Georgiou at the helm. But no, that wasn’t the plan. That said, this unexpected Trekkie betrayal also contained a hidden twist… with a lifeline to a future redemption.

It didn’t take that long. Soon we had a mirror universe replacement of Georgiou. And I’ve got to admit that Yeoh’s Emperor Georgiou from the Terran Empire was a blast.

Yeoh was unleashed to embody a delightfully naughty version of Georgiou. Every scene with her was always a bright spot through the entire “Star Trek: Discovery” series until she was banished by the writers through the Guardian of Forever in season 3 (another disappointment).

But wait. Trekkies then heard the producers were going to create a Section 31 series with Yeoh as part of this sinister and secret Federation spy division that has popped up in so many Star Trek series, including “Discovery.”

But no… the series ended up just being a one-off TV movie, which has finally arrived.

Back to the Future
Running just over an hour and a half on Paramount+, this ‘extended episode’ feels somewhat Star Trek adjacent. It’s filled with the quirky characters you might find in a “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie but pulled from the back pages of a “Star Trek” encyclopedia.

When the movie begins, Georgiou has already been transported back to the past a few decades before “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” She’s set up shop running a ritzy space station bar just outside of the Federation. The opening credits explain she had previously joined Section 31 but then disappeared (to apparently follow in the ‘legendary’ footsteps of Quark from Deep Space Nine).

But a threat of galactic proportions sends a Section 31 team led by Agent Alok Sahar (played by Omari Hardwick) to find and re-recruit Georgiou to help save the Federation.

It’s Good to be Evil
Section 31 isn’t as scary an organization as I remember, and the team that finds Georgiou initially acts like a second-rate band of misfit thugs.

Thank goodness they’ve got the ‘evil’ Georgio to save the day. Clearly Section 31 needs her anti-hero vibe to stop a terrorist with an uber-destruction device called the ‘godsend.’

As the story likes to remind us, you can’t escape your past, and so the Terran Empire plays a prominent role in the story.

Warped Sense of Fun
“Star Trek: Section 31” is sometimes clever, but often silly. The writers are clearly Trekkies, but tonally, this story is out of control. The closest parallel might be “Star Trek: Lower Decks.” And that’s a cartoon.

The Terran Empire in the mirror universe used to be the place where the writers and directors allowed the actors to chew up the scenery, but the producers have flipped that equation on its head. Here, all the Terran Empire scenes feel like normal Star Trek. And now it’s the Federation that looks like an extended frat party.

Does that mean “Star Trek: 31” is bad?” Not necessarily. It tries hard to be irreverent, fun and completely over the top. Yes, it’s mostly absurd, which is not your typical Star Trek formula. And you’ve got to be a Trekkie to really appreciate all the hidden references in plain sight.

This movie ends up being an absolute dumpster fire, but intentionally so (both figuratively and literally).

Mayhem with a Touch of Heart
In the middle of the mayhem highlighted by near-constant fighting, shaky camera work and fire spitting out of almost every orifice in the scenery, you can find a small core of Star Trek humanity still aglow. It takes the form of lost love and impossible redemption. This gives Yeoh her only opportunity to stretch her role a bit.

For a movie specifically built for her character, the script doesn’t really offer her enough and instead needs to focus on the new characters, especially due to all the twists in the plot.

Plus, the script requires the film to burn precious minutes with an opening Terran Empire flashback sequence featuring a younger Georgiou played by Miku Martineau.

A Guilty Pleasure
The final scene with our newly congealed team feels like any TV series’ pilot, and as Shatner’s Kirk liked to say, “There are always possibilities.”

Is this gritty, crazy but imperfectly lightweight “Star Trek: Section 31” good enough to stream?

Sure.

It’s a nice diversion… perhaps even a guilty pleasure. And it’s always great to watch the awesome Michelle Yeoh. And yes, I could get used to spending more time with the new characters, who thankfully became more likable by the end of the movie.

No Future for “Section 31?”
But is “Star Trek: Section 31” deserving of getting its own sequel ahead of the non-greenlit “Star Trek: Legacy” spinoff from “Star Trek: Picard?”

I’m not totally feeling it, and no sequel has been announced. But it doesn’t matter, because we’re all going to “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” soon enough with Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti.

Happily, next up is season 3 of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.”

Hit it.
(please)

June 2, 2024

Did Star Trek: Discovery Get a Proper Series Ending in Just 15 Minutes?

“Discovery” had only fifteen minutes to wrap it all up after five seasons. That’s certainly a Kobayashi Maru test. This life-long Trekkie shares his experience watching this no-win scenario play out at the end of the final episode.

Being a “Star Trek” fan isn’t what it used to be. Not that being a Trekkie with a phaser was ever especially cool… like sporting a “Star Wars” light saber. I’ve been a Trekkie-nerd all my life, and though there’s admittedly a resurgence of Trek via the several new series on Paramount Plus, “Star Trek: Discovery” has hardly been dominating water cooler chats. (Do those even happen anymore?)

Except for the newest series, “Strange New Worlds,” which somehow captured the magic of the original series, Star Trek hasn’t been ‘must-see TV’ for a long while.

Science fiction fans I talk with admit to having missed entire Star Trek series from decades past and are only now starting to check them out. That says a lot about the cultural state of Star Trek.

Still, I love my Star Trek.

No, I haven’t exactly loved, “Star Trek: Discovery,” but I’ve stuck with it since 2017, through its course corrections and time traveling to reset itself.

Time to Say Goodbye
I reflected last week about how most of the past Star Trek series have had trouble giving us a satisfying final episode.

Now, “Star Trek: Discovery” has streamed its own finale. As part of this extended episode, there’s a closing fifteen-minute epilogue. This sequence was shot two months after season five wrapped filming. And the production on these extra three days of shoots were the only time that the cast and crew knew the series was ending.

So no, there was no gradual way across this final season to wrap up loose ends.

The writers’ mission: Finish “Star Trek: Discovery” in fifteen minutes.

And how exactly did they decide to do that? (Spoilers ahead.)

Answer a Thousand-Year-Old Question
Inexplicably, the writers focused their critical coda on filling a plot hole left behind during the 2018 “Star Trek: Short Treks” episode “Calypso,” which takes place a thousand years in the future.

“Short Treks”? Who remembers any of those?!

Okay, I did find it confusing when I originally watched this mini episode. Zora, our favorite AI voice since Majel Barrett rescues a soldier adrift in an escape pod. The crew apparently abandoned Zora and the Discovery to float into the far future, and no further clues are provided.

It’s a plot gap I never really thought about again, and clearly not one the writers were eager to return to after all these years. I don’t feel there was a huge need to devote any of the last precious minutes of “Discovery” to explain it.

Discovery’s Final Mission
But that’s what happens. The final scene in the series is between Burnham and Zora and explains how the Discovery and Zora get sent on their final lonely mission to wait around in deep space for a millennium. The rest is conveniently shrouded in ‘Red Directive’ secrecy. (So, more questions than answers.)

This same scene is simultaneously tasked with handling the crew goodbyes in a swift pseudo-flashback sequence.

And that’s the series’ conclusion. The whole thing runs about six minutes.

And what about the first nine minutes?

Meet Michael Burnham’s Family
The epilogue begins with ‘Admiral’ Burnham and Book happily living their lives together decades in the future.

It’s well-crafted and takes its time. But this sequence plays like a beginning more than an ending. It could be the intro to a whole new series- “Star Trek: Burnham” (like “Star Trek: Picard”).

But there just isn’t time to introduce us to this new family… not at the expense of everything else.

What about our Discovery family? These are the characters we really want to say goodbye to.

But we don’t get the chance. Not really.

What Happens to the Rest of the Crew?
So, the writers devote the epilogue to explain how the Discovery gets sent to the distant future (not why), and they start with this lengthy love letter to the future Burnham family.

These plot choices rob the Discovery’s crew, who we’re supposed to know and love across these five seasons of getting their satisfying set of goodbyes. Sure, there’s some hugging, but it’s rushed, and the imagined-flashback plot device is a cheat.

To be fair, maybe that’s really all the production had time for with only three extra days of shooting given to them.

And so, the writers chose the Burnham family over the Discovery family.

Angry Trekkie
But I’ve got to tell you, this all feels so unnecessary.

It’s not 1969. Star Trek is not some experimental ‘Wagon Train to the Stars’ anymore.

This established franchise that’s endured for more than a half century deserves better than three days to wrap it up on whatever sets are left standing and then get out of Dodge.

Look, I know that “Star Trek: Discovery” was uneven. And I’ve complained my fair share. I’m not surprised it was time to move on. But this is about ‘how’ they did it.

In the articles I’ve read, the Star Trek PR machine says that everyone involved with the series was ‘satisfied’ with this tacked-on standalone ending sequence.

But I know that’s just spin.

Management
Should I, as a Trekkie, be happy that ‘management’ (to reference a healthier sci-fi series) was magnanimous enough to grant this cancelled series an ending?

Sure. But come on. I think we can do better than this.

Management didn’t have to create an impossible Kobayashi Maru test for the writers.

Fifteen minutes just isn’t enough time for a proper ending.

That’s All Folks
So, they effectively gave it all to our captain and star of the series. And Sonequa Martin-Green indeed did a really nice job with it.

I then watched the U.S.S. Discovery get banished (again) into the future to close a forgotten past plot hole and perhaps satisfy some future, unstated plot requirement. And that was it. Roll credits.

I shrugged.

“Discovery” now joins a long list of Trek series’ endings that underdeliver.

Except for “The Next Generation” and “Picard,” all the rest left me wanting more.

Goodbye “Star Trek: Discovery.” Even though I gave you a hard time across your journey. I was glad to know you. And I haven’t forgotten that you brought Star Trek back to TV.

Live long and prosper… in streaming reruns.

Tag: Trekkie

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