User Reviews

I have to admit that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was so much better than I expected. This is the prequel to the original Star Trek and even has some familiar characters like Spock and Uhura. It's led by Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and has basically the same plot as the original in where they explore the galaxy. This is actually one of the most well received Star Trek shows ever by both the critics and fans, it currently has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a new fresh feel while also honoring the original. This is a show that both new fans and longtime fans can both enjoy. This hooked me from the very first episode and didn't let go. I binged the entire first season over a weekend and I'm already looking forward for next season.

I just finished watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and have to say I really enjoyed it. I don't consider myself a huge Treky or anything, I watched the original a little but it was on before I was born and watched Next Generation when I was a little kid but don't remember too much, I do like the recent movies a lot though. Anyway, just as a sci-fi fan with a little knowledge on Star Trek...I liked it. It seems that even most die hard Star Trek fans like this one and they hate all the new stuff. The writing and cast are what makes this so good and the visuals are also pretty good for a tv show. I'd definitely recommend this to both Star Trek fans and sci-fi fans who don't know anything about Star Trek and are just looking for a good sci-fi show to have fun watching.

Strange New Worlds is a fabulous Trekverse series in contrast to some recent offerings. Vintage stylistic choices from uniforms, through technology to sounds, together with opening credits and episodic stories make this a joy to watch for lovers of original Trek.

The stories are focussed, setting the tone, challenges and developing relationships between the crew members very well. The inclusion of younger versions of familiar characters, is a welcome and relatable anchoring to the series.

SNW comes with the familiar plot holes and humour blended nicely together with subtle references to earth's history and Kirk-like problem solving.

Mix all the above together with an excellent cast, this is a winner - I, for one, am very much looking forward to seeing more.

TOS morality tales and TNG science, updated for 2022 with an ensemble cast and one full story per episode.

I can even forgive the fact that the 2022 Enterprise looks two centuries ahead of the 1966 Enterprise, because they got the details right and we do have good cgi and sets these days.

A dream come true, this incarnation of Trek. Having watched the first three episodes, Thank you production team and writers!

I've only seen the first episode, but I can say with certainty, this is the first time I've been optimistic about nu Trek.

It is actually optimistic. It seems episodic. It seems like Trek. Characters are also likeable, relatable.

This is BY FAR the best realization of ST:TOS -- The Original Series. It was a self contained mission. It delivered a morality message. It addressed issues of psychology and emotional intelligence. It worked to connect various timelines. It did not take itself too seriously, at the right times.

Stories that leaked about series development, indicated that Anson Mount had a number of conditions, for taking the role. I am pleased that he persisted and persevered, and has taken the rigid "starch" out of the captains uniform -- present in every series after TOS.

I am also VERY impressed with the rest of the casting. And, I hope they explain why the bridge is mostly female -- which is absolutely WONDERFUL! The rethinking of Nurse Chappel's character is compelling. The casting of Babs Olusanmokun as the Doctor is genius. Christina Chong as security chief (a position that didn't exist in TOS) brings a spirit reminiscent of Cara Gee in The Expanse, and manifests Gene's vision realized in ST:TNG.

Let's face it, ST:TOS was full of mistakes, inconsistencies, and many rediculously bad stories. ST:SNW isn't perfect either, but is clearly making the best effort yet.

And yes, screenwriters of today are less literate and don't do their homework or research. ST:DIS confused flaunt with flout, and now ST:SNW confused com (communications) with conn (control). Even other reviewers spelled it wrong. To err is to be human. Embody the Star Trek ideal -- HAVE COMPASSION & EMPATHY.

I would love to see more than 10 episodes per year.

In terms of when this is set, it's important to remember it's just before the original series with Kirk and way before The Next Generation. You need to take this into account when evaluating, looking at what the mission is, looking at the sets, costumes and all round character of the show.

It has embraced that which we're all used to from that era of the Trek universe.

The rule breaking, edge of your seat decision making, pushing boundaries, constant uncertainty and volatility, tongue in cheek scenarios, a healthy dose of sarcasm, wit and humour all mixed with a decent amount of action, wide variety of aliens and great effects and CGI.

Anson Mount nails Pike. Particularly as a predecessor to Kirk who was a happy maverick. The surrounding cast just excel it even further and it's tough to fault any of them.

The mention of other reviewers with "wokeness" I believe are mixing it up with ethnic diversity, which is beautiful and rich across the entire cast.

If you're looking for wokeness and a trek through emotions.......watch Star Trek Discovery.

This, nails what Star Trek is. Great stories, on a 5 year mission with wonderful diversity and a fresh take on that era of the trek universe.

Long may it last. They have so many possibilities to deepen a lot of the characters and expand the universe even further.

I see a lot of high ratings for Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Let me warn you, this is another review where I ask what show are they watching?

Compared to the other new Star Trek series on Paramount+, this one is brilliant. But that's a low bar.

In fact, original programming on Paramount+ is uniformly mediocre. There's not one winner in the bunch. The first season of Picard, if I recall correctly was pretty good. The second was miserable. Star Trek Discovery is a very uneven series that finally, irrevocably went off the rails.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds is somewhere in the middle. It's just good enough to make you watch just to see if it gets better but not good enough to make you want to watch the next season.

Not only is the story uninspired but the characters are mostly uninteresting. There is an outright dumb character on the bridge crew whose only purpose is to make comments and wisecracks that simply wouldn't be tolerated on any ship other than the S. S. Minnow.

First episode, and we have an encapsulated story, with a beginning, middle and end, in which the dilemmas of modern society are explored in a self-reflective way, using an alien civilization as a parable.

The old classic trek formula with updated and impressive visuals.

And the same can be said of the cast, all charming and easily relatable. But keep in mind that some are remakes of familiar characters. Some people will not like that.

So far, this is the Kurtzman-era series that has positively impressed me the most. Let's see if the quality holds up.

Still. There are some creative choices that bother me a little.

Probably my favorite character from this new series, is La'an Noonien-Singh. One of the best officers onboard and a dashing beauty. But just the fact that she's a Noonien-Singh is going to unnecessarily stress many of the more purist fans.

So far this series is a significant improvement, it has everything many fans have long claimed. And still. They keep some of the tricks, which mess with the cannon, unnecessarily. For me is a minor complaint, but for some boomer fans it's sacrilege.

But clearly, in my opinion, it's the most enjoyable of all the recent Star Trek series. I really liked this episode. And I will look forward to the next.

Season 1: Stories lacking emotion or drama, boring characters you don't care much about, actors with blank expressions just going through the motions. It's start trek, so you watch it, but it will not leave a lasting impression.

It's clearly trying to focus on female characters, the male ones look a bit like side stories, but the women here have very little character, pun intended. You may criticise Discovery, but that one had some strong ladies that shook the screen. The ones in SNW look like high school girls.

Hope the series takes some risks and moves at warp in season two, instead of dragging its feet... Fingers crossed.

In general, season 1 was quite good and promising. I liked the retro stand alone episodic approach. Season 2 however has removed all of my promise.

The reason being, none of the characters behave in a believable way, and are all too far up themselves for me to care about them.

The crew, especially the bridge crew, are working under a chain of command, in potentially dangerous situations. Yet they show their superiors zero respect, in fact quite the opposite, they often talk down to them with sly remarks and belittling comments, which the senior officers then happily accept. Someone of the same rank would not stand for these remarks, let alone a ranking officer, and on the bridge in front of the other crew for all that matter. It's just completely unrealistic and the ship would have descended into complete chaos within weeks in reality.

This has to be my biggest complaint so far and it is hugely putting me off the show. We don't need to go back to the largely rigid environment of TNG, but the current trend completely takes me out of the emersion of the show and leaves me eye rolling.

For some reason, the writers have decided to write the crew as negative, moany, childish characters who seem to think of themselves as quite infallible, often making smug remarks... until an episode calls for some random past event that is shoehorned into the episode to explain why they are acting scared/shy/timid etc. Which is completely out of character or context at the time.

It's become a cheap writing trick used to avoid any actual intellectual character development or real emotion the audience can connect with for more than a couple of minutes.

The show is not terrible, but it's becoming more and more of a cheap emotion grab with weak character back stories, of characters who have been written as very unlikeable people in the first place.

Finally, this show largely came about due to Anson Mounts impact as Captain Pike on Discovery, yet he is barely a bit part character in this. If you didn't know he was the Captain and in charge of the ship, you'd never guess! The writers need to remember why people wanted this show in the first place as currently, my interest in Captain Pike and his adventures before Kirk on the Enterprise is very much waning.

After the rather drab, talky and alienating Alex Kurtzman soap operas of Picard and Discovery, Strange New Worlds returns us to the Roddenberry version of the show (ST, ST:NG, ST:Voyager, movies). Once again, we can imagine ourselves on the bridge, empathize with real characters and most of all, enjoy tightly-written scripts that don't insult the audience with dull backstory or gratuitous dialog.

It's not all perfect. There are no characters that immediately shine like a Data or a Seven, the bridge is a little too busy in its design. But the writing is the sharpest since Deep Space Nine, the actors better cast and most of all, while there's no acting on par with Stewart or Mulgrew, there's reason to celebrate this return to the Roddenberry version where disciplined writing and a well-lit Enterprise invite us in to experience adventures that include all of us. Hooray!

Finally. Star Trek finds its soul again. Great episodic stories, modernised but true to its source. Interesting characters, with both entertaining and engaging exploration. My only small complaint is that the intro music doesn't have the same pull as the earlier series but there's no such thing as perfect. Overall, the creators have managed to balance the old with the new, and the result is both visually and emotionally stimulating. In my humble opinion, it has refreshed the Star Trek timeline and given hope that more will be possible. Strange New World's has become a firm favourite. Keep it coming!!

It's a great throwback to TOS. The characters we know joined by characters who's history we never got to see on air. The easter eggs are plenty with only 1 I didnt really like. The sets of course look way beyond TOS which is unavoidable but they do a good job in general of recreating the feel of TOS. I enjoyed the premiere and look forward to the series.

After 5 years they've finally got it right, star trek the way it should be. I now serial is the way modern show are these days but star trek has it's sharm when it's episodic. Every week a new adventure.

2 episodes in and I am impressed. So far this is a great show with a great cast of people. I have enjoyed the episodes I have watched to date and I predict that I will continue to enjoy this show. It is great to see this science fiction classic being treated the way it deserves respecting the attributes that made it great instead of trying to change it into something "better" and in the process ruining the whole reason it was great.

Like "Picard" and "Discovery" Strange New Worlds has lost the original bright, hopeful future that made Star Trek so refreshing. Instead of showing as a world where justice and equality finally win we are give a glimpse of a future plagued with all the same petty, short-sighted leaders we have today! If the new Star Trek vision is to be believed then we as a people will learn nothing in the next 300 years about working together and getting along. That is just depressing. Especially considering the great strides of the last 100 years.

What happened to Roddenberry's vision? Something we can dream of and aspire to!

The big question that remains is why didn't CBS and its showrunners do this sooner? What led to the production of flops like Discovery and Picard if they already had all the gold in their hands? But, in the end, reason (and emotion) seem to have won their place in the trajectory of Star Trek's legacy. Strange New Worlds managed to bring tears to the eyes of millions of trekkers. May it continue like this, boldly going where no other series can go.

We've been watching all Star Trek series since TOS. This show's storyline is supposed to be roughly 10yrs before Kirk became captain. The original series "Pike" was a much stronger character. Actually, the handful of male characters are too woosified. I am a woman and I certainly want strong female characters, but the men here are wimps. And there are far too many women on the bridge! The "Spock" in this series does not act like a Vulcan. He should be more precise and generally more knowledgeable. The idea of him asking a human woman for advice about his Vulcan fiancée is totally out of character. Even "T'Pring" being upset because Spock prioritized duty over relationship is wrong. I'm sure the writers, directors and producers wanted to present some of the characterization of some current trends, but it is not in line with the Star Trek canon.

I made it 6 episodes into the first series of Strange New Worlds and I'm going to rate the show with one star, because fundamentally it fails as an authentic prequel to the 1960s TV series. You have to suspend a LOT of belief to buy into this Enterprise universe preceding the original.

The most immediately obvious problem is with the set. The design of the ship is stupendously advanced compared to Kirk's first Enterprise, as is the technology onboard the vessel. Thinking logically, the ship should have been a back-to-basics construction with rudimentary tech. And with a more basic ship, various technology-related struggles could have been added to the storyline, which in turn would have helped the story arc by giving the opportunity to show the crew developing into the more experienced team of the first Kirk era.

As for the crew....well. The Captain (Pike) exhibits all the gravitas, hard-earned knowledge and experience of a man who's bluffed his way into a job with faked qualifications. He's constantly having to ask the crew for advice, not to reinforce or offer an alternative to his own assumptions, but because he genuinely doesn't seem to know what to do.

And amongst the crew there's almost zero sense of command-structure or respect for rank. When orders are given by senior officers during imminent moments of danger, crew members have a tendency to respond casually with a sarcastic comment or wisecrack. It's more like watching Scooby Doo and his pals on a weekend jaunt in the Mystery Machine than a military crew dangerously navigating uncharted and potentially life-threating corners of the Universe. Even the Cadet (Uhura) addresses senior officers as if they're fellow members of a social club.

The storylines are nothing amazing, coming across as very diluted versions of the type found in the original series. Not only is the writing style quite one-dimensional and unoriginal, it completely lacks the evergreen social or political comment which was so cleverly layered into the 1960s Trek scripts keeping them relevant today. From a writing perspective it's just not a patch on the original.

Ultimately Strange New Worlds is more of a reboot than a prequel. And to be blunt, remove the Star Trek branding and you're left with a middle-of-the-road Sci-Fi show, one which otherwise probably wouldn't have made it past a second series. If it made it that far.

With the story being set in the Enterprise's early days the writers had the opportunity to create something truly original, and not just in the Trek world but within the genre. Instead they've made something which looks like a bit like Star Trek but plays out like a myriad of lesser Sci-Fi shows.

So, I'll give Strange New Worlds one star as a Star Trek prequel. But with the Star Trek branding removed and viewed as just another modern Sci-Fi show, two stars.

This is way better than Discovery. It was very enjoyable to watch and I'm looking forward to the next episode - something I'd never say about Discovery.

So, when I was growing up corporations were taking over major studios, and the formulation of film and TV went from showing how to behave, to showing how mental health was the cause of all problems, to hos not to behave, to how domestication was the solution for everything.

It's why soap operas are all but gone It's why original 1960s Star Trek and other TV shows and films had stronger stories. It's why there's so much junk produced today.

That includes this show. Huge production values but another complete trashing of what had been established in the form of a kind of reboot, but with a lot of female domestication flourishes to make the thing watchable by couples and even some single females. There're a lot of emotional flourishes here that really have absolutely nothing to do with the story.

I shouldn't get too upset. Film and TV are all about visual deception to tell a story, and so you get producers who keep thinking that if you dump more money and art direction into a project that that'll sell a show to a veteran and newer audience both. Make it look pretty and all will be forgiven. Make it sound good too and they'll love you.

In shows like Time Tunnel, I dream of Jeannie, Adam 12, The Rockford Files and so forth, the story took precedence over character. Men did not speak in hushed tones in a mock attempt to seduce the ladies, they spoke in clear tones. People who had issues either held it together for the sake of other characters or just let it out to further the actual plot and story, they didn't have their own dramatic moments to accentuate anything that might be afflicting the audience members.

And that's the difference not just between the old Star Trek TV show I loved in reruns in the 1970s and early 1980s, but the huge shift in media emphasis or story focus. In Strange New Worlds we have a female officer in the ship's luxuriant galley that looks like something out of Architectural Digest issue commenting on how delicious a slice of cake is, and talks to the captain in between mouthfuls. And again the plot is secondary. It's the personal issues of individual characters and their relationships that is the focus.

Oh sure, the uniforms look better, the actual ship has all kinds of detail touchups, but it's just mental health TV when original Star Trek was about addressing problems and plots that were the actual story, and any character issues were derived from that, they were not their own thing and given their moment in the spot light so that individual audience members with similar issues could feel momentarily important, nor so that older fans who stuck with this garbage could feel that their show was important; i.e. An ego-boost from a rebooted good looking show that was just the same old trash re-invented by sociologists.

And the reason I keep trashing more iterations of what used to be my favorite media property is because Star Trek was an adventure show whose emphasis was on solving plots, and presented what people thought a practical future might look like, not a future that people would like to see, complete with commentary on slices of chocolate cake made in the galley.

To me "Strange New Worlds" is just more therapy TV. Older TV shows showed people who had personal issues as part of the story, not as a tapestry of interpersonal interactions where every character had their moment for attention, and not the focus for a plot driven show.

Why on Earth these people just can't go back and make a simple adventure show with the old story format I'll never know. A good part of it is to cater to demographics, especially now since females have taken up what in my time would be called non-traditional roles; i.e. There're more female police, soldiers, even fire fighters and construction workers. But if a producer feels the need to alter an adventure show's format to make it more open to emotional interpretation, then maybe that show isn't worth making in the first place.

The first several minutes of an old school Star Trek TV show you knew the threat or dilemma Kirk and Crew were facing, even if it involved Captain Pike on some level. With this show I couldn't tell what the story was about until a full ten minutes into the thing, and by that time my eyes were heavy and I wanted to fall asleep.

Again, why people continually give praise to gloss is beyond me. The truth of the matter is that I understand that they are taken in by the costumes, the nebula in the space ships shots (which I made popular by fan fic I posted on the net), the sets, the delivery of dialogue ... but that's still not strong nor solid story material. It's gloss meant for all of the aforementioned reasons I put in this commentary.

Well, I've had enough of trying to give this media property second chances. I guess I'm all Trekked out. One of the many reasons I quit film and TV was because I did not understand the continued deception for formulating story material. As it turns out all of film and TV are mental health exercises. And where that's sort of always been kind of the case, prior to the corporate takeover in the 1970s emphasis was on story, not aggrandizing personal emotions and relationships. You took care of the problem first, and then relaxed with your favorite people afterwards.

In short, I can't take this junk anymore. At least it's not shot a-la Shaky-cam style to give it a faux documentary feel, that would have had me putting my foot through my TV.

As a lifelong Star Trek fan I sometimes have to remind myself that the beginning is more often than not a very rough ride. I felt this new series actually had one of the more solid pilot episodes in Trek history and unlike the horrid Discovery and overly dark and cynical Picard, at least gets the tone of Star Trek right. The cast is mostly great, with the laughably bad Melissa Navia being the one exception. The pilot episode plot was simplistic and downright dull but as long as the cast and tone are good I expect to his to be a great addition to the Trek Universe and certainly the best in a long time.

Just finished watching the first episode. The only advice I have to give to the writers and studio is - KEEP THIS FORMULA. Finally, a Star Trek series the FEELS like Star Trek. Watching this gave me goosebumps and satisfied a deep craving for Star Trek I haven't felt in many, many years. For the love of the Federation, stick with what works and everything will be fine.

I quite liked the first episode, i like the intro, the music is almost as good as Prodigy's theme, but not as good because the repetitive part (the one which can be learned by the fans) is missing but is still great, the visuals are fantastic, the acting is great, only Khan's relative belongs to 2022's omnipresent kringe era. This is probably one of the best, Star Trek productions of the present and it is what Discovery should have been from the start.