‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’: Catch Up on Season One With This Handy Primer
With two weeks to go before Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, here’s everything you may have forgotten about season one.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is arguably the easiest of the Star Trek shows to follow. Its episodic nature makes it so that, more often than not, you can jump right into any given episode and know what’s going on.
But don’t let an episodic series fool you–SNW is actually pretty complex. Hiding beneath the genial surface is a complex storyline that incorporates elements of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: The Original Series, and, coming in season 2, Star Trek: Lower Decks. And none of those shows even touches on the complex undercurrent of what happens on SNW from episode to episode.
So, just in case you forgot, here are all the storytelling strands of season one woven together in one, easy-to-read article.
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A Matter of Time – Captain Pike’s Destiny
On the Klingon moon of Boreth there is a monastery which holds time crystals. What are time crystals? They’re plot macguffins. As pertains to Captain Christopher Pike, they are something he needs for a time travel suit. It’s a long story. What’s relevant here is that Pike must trade for the time crystal. And what Pike trades is his future.
Pike sees that in about 10 years’ time, he will suffer a horrific accident while saving cadets. The accident will leave him disfigured, in a wheelchair, and unable to communicate beyond blinking and beeping. Once Pike sees this future, it is inevitable.
Pike’s story in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season one focuses on how to deal with this inevitable future. In the pilot episode “Strange New Worlds” Pike learns that knowing how you die is not an impediment. He also discovers M’hanit, a comet that seems to have the gift of prophecy.
Basically, Pike’s story is about destiny vs. free will. Is it truly Pike’s destiny to be in that accident? According to his own future self, it is. Pike’s attempts to change the path of time yield a Federation and Romulan war. And according to future Pike (and those Boreth time crystals again), all attempts to prevent Pike’s fate lead to Spock’s demise.
Basically, what you need to know is that, as of now, Pike has no way out from his inevitable fate.
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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Love Triangle
In Star Trek: The Original Series Spock has only one, true love: James T. Kirk. He does have dalliances here and there, sure. Heck in the Kelvin universe, he messes around with Uhura! But his only official prime universe romantic partner is his T’Pring. They are bonded, betrothed, but not besotted. In fact, T’Pring basically sets Spock up to either die or be a murderer in the episode “Amok Time” just so she can be Stonn. That’s right. Her other Vulcan man’s name is Stonn.
Obviously, that is not a lot to go on so SNW is beefing things up. At this point in time, T’Pring and Spock are heavily besotted. The besottin’ all over the place. However, there’s someone else in the mix–Nurse Christine Chapel.
We know Chapel is down bad for Spock from TOS. But what SNW heavily implies is that Spock is down bad in equal measure for Chapel. And that creates all sorts of juicy drama. Spock works at the spaceship office too much. T’Pring tries to get his attention by being horny on main, Earth-style. T’Pring and Spock swap bodies. And Spock kisses Chapel, but it’s only to prevent T’Pring from being blackmailed into releasing Spock’s half-brother Sybok (more on him later). It’s wild.
Long story short: without Kirk as her captain, Spock is Enterprise‘s biggest player. Who knew?
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Tragic Stories Galore
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is often a silly show with body swaps and pranks and basically just Erica Ortegas’ entire vibe. However, scratch beneath the surface, and basically every character has spent some serious time in Bummer Town. Let’s run it down:
Uhura – her parents died in a car crash and she ran away to Starfleet in order to start over. And then she finds a new father figure on the Enterprise in the form of Hemmer, who also dies. We’re all still mad about this.
La’an – her entire family winds up on a Gorn breeding colony where all of them, save La’an, are eaten alive. Specifically, La’an’s brother saves her life by giving her the code the Gorn uses to communicate before sacrificing himself so La’an can escape. La’an usually copes with her loss through stoicism. However, at the end of season one she leaves the Enterprise to help Oriana, a young girl whose life is also torn apart by the Gorn, find her family.
M’Benga – his wife is dead (we think) and likely due to the Klingon war. Plus, his daughter Rukiya has an extremely rare, terminal disease. The only way to “cure” Rukiya is by leaving her with a sentient space cloud. Long story short: M’Benga is also without a bio family.
Una – she is secretly an Illyrian, a species that is not allowed to be part of the Federation because they alter their genetic codes. The first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ends with Una being arrested for hiding her Illyrian status.
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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Villains
The big bad guys for season one of SNW are the Gorn. The Gorn are lizard monsters who hatch and kill in ways that are somewhat similar to the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. The big thing to know going into season two is that the Gorn’s hunting grounds are changing. And as a result, it’s entirely likely that a war with the Gorn is on the near horizon.
The other relevant “villains” from this season are the V’tosh ka’tur, a group of Vulcans who abandon logic. T’Pring works at Ankeshtan K’til, a rehabilitation center for wayward Vulcans. And, very notably, one of said Vulcans is Spock’s half-brother Sybok.
In “Serene Squall” we meet Captain Angel, who is both the captain of a crew of space pirates and Sybok’s romantic partner. During the events of “Serene Squall” Angel attempts to get T’Pring to release Sybok, but ultimately fails. Angel is still at large going into season two. And Sybok can escape at any time.
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The War
There are a lot of subtle references throughout the season to a war. Although it is never officially stated which war, safe money is on the one between the Federation and the Klingons. It seems that a number of characters on the Enterprise have pre-existing relationships due to the war.
Ortegas mentions the war in one of the trailers for season two. But also M’Benga, Chapel, and La’an all seem to know each other previous to crewing the Enterprise and it seems likely that at least some of those relationships begin with the Klingon War.
Bottom line: we know Klingons appear in season two and there’s a strong implication that their appearance will trigger strong feelings in multiple crew members.
And that is everything you need to know about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season one!
