‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’
Paramount+ has made no bones about its goal to be the streaming home of all things Star Trek, but its latest series, Strange New Worlds, might feel the most like coming home for hardcore Trekkies. Set on Captain Christopher Pike’s Enterprise in the years leading up to Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds trades in the dark, edgy, serialized storytelling that defines modern sci-fi for optimistic, technicolored, episodic adventures. Strange New Worlds gives us an adventure of the week, a diverse crew of courageous officers, and enough Easter eggs to get theorists going. However the best part of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds might be the man at the helm. Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike is heroic in an old school way, but paternal in the most progressive definition of the term. Like the greatest Starfleet captains, he puts his people first. It’s the kind of leadership that’s inspiring in sci-fi and in real life.