The New Season of Strange New World Proves What Kind of Star Trek Fan You Are
By Chris Snellgrove | Published
Star Trek is currently dealing with an identity crisis. Starfleet Academy tried to attract younger fans, but that effort failed, and the new show was canceled after one season. It joins the graveyard of canceled shows, including series like this one Picard again Lower Decks which were aimed directly at older fans. Now, the new leadership of Paramount has decided to spin the franchise on the big screen. That means Strange New Worlds will be the last show to carry the torch before Trek stops making new shows for the foreseeable future. Because of these factors, this exhibition is probably the last to directly convey the pioneering spirit The Original Series.
That's a lot of responsibility for the show as it turns to Season 4. Fortunately, Strange New Worlds carries that weight very well with a new piece that feels like a love child Doctor Who again Jurassic Park. The result is a tale with plenty of breath-taking action, exciting character moments, and top-notch special effects. There's only one side: every dramatic bit of the episode requires the characters to make complete fools of themselves. Ultimately, this leads to a fun but dumb episode that helps you decide what kind of Star Trek fan you really are.
See you, Space Cowboy
The basis for this Strange New Worlds The Season 4 premiere (“Valles Marineris”) is about the Enterprise investigating a stress buoy inside a solar storm. They were summoned from within and appeared 65 million years ago, and the only way to return home is for a Team of the Absent Ones to fend off the dinosaurs and find fuel for the warp core. Meanwhile, aboard the ship, Captain Pike and crew encounter a highly advanced alien race from Mars that wants to make the Enterprise part of a fierce battle with nearby aliens. The workers now have to find a way to return home without doing anything that destroys their future.
For the most part, “Valles Marineris” works as a modern take Star Trek: The Original Series episode. That first show was billed as a Western in space (“Wagon Train to the stars,” in the words of Gene Roddenberry), and Strange New Worlds The season 4 premiere leans towards this with the first shot of Pike and his Away Team dressed as cowboys and riding horses on an alien planet. Rick and Morty. It's a really fun, really cool scene that's never been in context; it just seems cool. In a way, that's the thesis of this episode and, now, Star Trek as a whole.
Hit The Ground Stunning
Let's start with what works about “Valles Marineris.” First, it has a great amount of action and adventure, including cowboy shenanigans, wacky space hijinks, and dinosaur problems. Although no one has suspected Strange New Worlds being a boring show, the start of this season never goes long without offering a new scene to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. Obviously, it's the kind of episode you show your friends who are convinced nothing is happening on Star Trek. Here, many shocking things happen, including events that profoundly redefine our characters' understanding of human history.
That leads to the next good thing about “Valles Marineris:” is yet another example Strange New Worlds taking a big, creative leap. Those swings don't always come together, but I'm glad the show keeps doing it, even if we end up with failed attempts as a piece of music. Like, without going into too many spoilers, this episode gives us a time travel episode unlike anything we've seen, one that channels Ray Bradbury's “The Sound of Thunder.” Between this and a broader exploration of the paradox of predestination, “Valles Marineris” delivers a creative and surprising story that honors some of the most difficult ideas in sci-fi history.
TFW Your Team Keeps Getting Stupid
Besides the beautiful visuals, the ultimate strength of “Valles Marineris” is its delightful character moments. Indeed, some of them fell to the ground; I thought the Ortegas/Scott feud was silly, and the annoying new Vulcan cadet was equally annoying in both of his scenes. Anyway, this is great. We get to see Pike being a real cowboy (talk about him Hell on Wheels flashbacks!) and see Number One lead the craziest Missing Team in Star Trek history. La'An gets to punch a dinosaur and (more specifically) rides Spock dressed as a cowgirl. Throw in characters doing things like dissecting a T-rex, and you have a truly unforgettable adventure.
Hovering over all these cool features, however, is a more pressing truth: Star Trek is now a business more about looking cool than making sense, so its biggest moments are tied to these highly trained, brilliant Starfleet officers acting like complete idiots. For example (and watch out for mild spoilers!), Number One takes a shuttle to a nearby planet to get iridium so the Enterprise can get home. On the planet, they suddenly find dinosaurs thanks to a personal tricorder. This caused my crazy ass to sit up in my seat and ask the obvious question: “wait, you didn't explore the planet in orbit with your shuttle?”
Apparently, they didn't think to do so. The character's stupidity is especially annoying when we get to the big speech revealing that the Enterprise has traveled 65 million years into the past and that Team Away is actually on Earth. This revelation takes time because the trip to the past damages the ship's senses, and it takes time to restore them. Why, I wondered, did Number One not bother to run the scans as soon as the shuttle was in space? For that matter, why didn't Spock suggest that anyone try this? After all, it was the most logical thing they could do.
There is Life on Mars
Later, we get the strange revelation that not only was there an advanced alien civilization on Mars, but they were fighting aliens from a seemingly new planet in our solar system. Many characters note how this planet is not in their timeline; when the Martian ship is ready to destroy that planet, Pike orders his crew to let it happen. They argue, leading him to announce, “In the future…there is no fifth planet.” This is included as a surprise revelation, but this factoid was previously explained to the other characters and, effectively, the viewer. Why are they surprised, and why should we hear twice?
That last one reminded me of Matt Damon's amazing revelation. Namely, that Netflix encourages writers to repeat the plot three or four times because they know most of the audience is playing on their phones. Apparently, Paramount+ subscribes to this idea, too, which is why we have an elementary school factoid about our solar system. Writing for a bored, distracted audience can also explain why the characters seem so stupid. After all, why do the characters remember how the sensors work if half the audience isn't looking up? Why do the characters remember what they heard one minute ago while half of the audience doesn't know they heard it one minute ago?
Basically, all the subtle nuances of Trek are sanded down so we can get to the cool parts (horses, dinos, and explosions, oh my!) much faster. That's why this episode is the perfect way to answer the big question: what kind of Star Trek fan are you?
What kind of Star Trek fan are you?
If you like a lot of fast-paced action, snappy one-liners, and vibe-based storytelling Star Trek (2009), you will probably like “Valles Marineris.” And you're in luck, too: based on NuTrek and what little we know about the next Trek movie, it sounds like Paramount is doing everything they can to turn the franchise into something like this. Guardians of the Galaxy than The Original Series. By the way, if you're a big fan of TOS or the Golden Age of Trek, you'll probably hate “Valles Marineris” because the show often silences the characters for the sake of drama, something that wouldn't happen in, say, The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine.
Before someone calls me a snob, there is no wrong way to love Star Trek. Although I love the cerebral Trek of the '90s, I'm a big fan of it Star Trek (2009) and generally preferred Strange New Worlds Season 4 premiere, “Valles Marineris.” If this is going to be nothing more than a schlocky action/adventure franchise, then, as Captain Sisko might say, I can live with it. What we have now is a thrill ride, consistently delivering pure fun. Unfortunately, this first season is a constant reminder that the Golden Age of Star Trek is a little like the dinosaurs featured in this episode: complex. The great one. It is powerful. An icon.
And, above all, completely and utterly destroyed.
