Strange New Worlds Season 2 Ep 1 is the first instalment of the second season of an American scifi space opera television drama created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet for the streaming service Paramount+. A spin-off of the Discovery series, Strange New Worlds features the USS Enterprise captained by Christopher Pike and set a decade before the events in the original Star Trek TV series.
S P O I L E R S
Entitled “A Broken Circle”, Strange New Worlds Season 2 Ep 1 drops us into a scenario which finds Captain Pike leaving the Enterprise under the command of Spock as he goes to assist his Number One with her own pressing dilemma. A setup which presumably is meant to give us character development of Spock in this timeline as he grapples with his emotions.
The premise of the episode involves a distress call from ex-security officer Lt. Noonien Singh which forces Spock to disobey orders and ‘steal’ the Enterprise to undertake a rescue mission in disputed force. The episode also involves the Klingons and it is rather unnerving to see the species look quite different from their depiction in the first season of Discovery.
READ OUR ANALYSES OF STRANGE NEW WORLDS.
The threat is simple – a rogue group of Klingon and Federation mercenaries plan to stage a false flag operation to restart the Klingon-Federation war for financial gain. Spock, Noonien-Singh and the crew have to stop them. Nothing more complicated than that really. However, the manner in which this is all achieved is the result of Dr M’Benga and Nurse Chapel rather unrealistically bashing their way through scores of Klingon warriors with the aid of a power booster (?) but there you go. Why this ‘booster’ is not standard issue for Starfleet is beyond us. Ah well.
Strange New Worlds Season 2 Ep 1 ends with the hint of a Gorn-Federation conflict, which will presumably occupy most of Season 2. An average episode which hopefully will prove anomalous. Hmm.
Now streaming on Amazon.
… still there’s more …