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Even when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is good, you're left with the nagging feeling that it could have been better. The show has always been uneven in quality and tone, which is distinct from its intentionally uneven storylines, dancing as it does between genres and tropes. Part of its mission statement has been to take big swings and push the edges of its format. But even if those swings weren't the best, it was made so confidently you were still sold on the overall product. But when that confidence started to ebb away across the third season, you were suddenly left with a desire to start poking holes in the flimsier narratives.
In its fourth season, Strange New Worlds remains as unafraid as usual to take risks with each episode. The news that the series teamed up with Jim Henson Studios to do a puppet episode is already in the public domain. But while I'm forbidden from sharing specifics about any of the other episodes, suffice to say there's more parodies-of-the-week than stock episodes of Star Trek across the season. Sadly, several of the episodes would be far more fun if the show leaned hard into the tropes they're playing off. Instead, the show puts so much effort in justifying why it's doing what it's doing that it saps the energy from the fun you're meant to be having.
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Swings and lurches
Coexisting with the Muppet-y whimsy, we get more of the heavy gore emblematic of any Trek show with Alex Kurtzman's involvement. If you thought the eye-gouging body horror of season three was a bit much, skip the second episode here. Look, I'm an adult and I'm not going to hand down pronouncements on what Is And Is Not Star Trek™. But there's a time and a place for this sort of hard-edged content, and I don't think that should be here. Imagine trying to sit down with your kids to watch the ostensibly main-line Star Trek series du jour. They'd only be able to watch about half the run, something unthinkable in the pre Kurtzman-era.
And, while I'm finding fault, the show's slavish insistence on bringing Paul Wesley's Jim Kirk into as many episodes as possible was tiring to begin with, and has gotten worse over time. As much as Strange New Worlds was greenlit on the back of Anson Mount's star power, and Wesley was brought in while Mount was on paternity leave, his presence here is vexing. Not because I dislike Kirk, or Wesley, but because it simply feels like the show's creative team has been trying to sideline Mount out of his own show ever since it started. If I was Kirk's commanding officer on the USS Farragut, I'd be putting him on notice for spending too much time not doing his actual job.
But when it works...
But there are still moments when Strange New Worlds reminds us why it is the best live action Trek of the streaming era. The sixth episode, in particular, isn't just a series standout, it's one of the best episodes across Trek's six-decade history. It's a taught, gutsy thriller that — despite the fact I know it's a prequel and so every character in this is guaranteed to survive — had me on the edge of my seat. The fact it includes a little hat tip to Burnistoun, no doubt included by Martin Quinn himself, made my British heart soar. But even without the nod, I'm sure it'll top every poll for best episode of the run. Unless the final episodes of the series, which I haven't seen, go on a run we haven't seen since the second season.
So, Strange New Worlds season four is a lot like the rest of it: Uneven in tone, erratic in quality, sometimes gratuitous in gore and utterly charming. So, for all of its flaws, it's best you enjoy it since it might be a few years before we get to spend any more time in this part of the future.
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