Star Trekking: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 In Review

 

No new episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds this week as season 4 has come to an end.

So I guess this is a good time to look at the season gone by.  

At the halfway point of season 4, I ranked the first five episodes of the season.

#5 - "Human Best Friend"

#4 - "The Griffin Incident" 

#3 - "Level-Five Transporter Accident"

#2 - "Valles Marineris"

#1 - "A Case of Chiaroscuro"

I suppose in the interest of symmetry, I will rank the last five episodes of season 4.

#5 - "Once La'an A Time"

The set up for this fantasy based episode is convoluted and confusing.  Saving points for this episode: 

• Christina Chong as La'An and a princess in a sword fight with each other.  
• Enterprise vs. Space Dragon

Otherwise, this one is a wipe out.  

#4 - "Like Chronitons Through An Hourglass"

I actually kind of liked this "Star Trek as soap opera" episode and it is a very strong spotlight for the criminally underutilized Anson Mount as Capt. Pike. 

Mount was so good as Pike in Star Trek: Discovery that fans willed Strange New Worlds into existence so it seems a shame we've spent so little time with him this season.    

#3 - "Orders of Magnitude"

Upside: Powerful outings for Nyota Uhura and Jim Kirk.  

Downside: the appearance of the "Bad Admiral" trope. 

#2 - "Off Hour"

An episode with everyone has something to do as everything that can go wrong with the Enterprise goes wrong.

We get to spend some quality time with Christine Chapel as she valiantly struggles to keep  M'Benga alive.  

And haggard young engineer Scotty makes the first steps to becoming "miracle worker" Scotty.

In the midst of chaos and disaster, Scotty calmly puts a hand on the deck plate and confidently reports to Pike, "The Enterprise will hold!" That is such an epic and powerful scene. I totally geeked out over that moment!  

#1 - "Tomorrow's Enterprise"

I don't want to oversell this episode but damn! I cannot say enough good things about this season finale.

• Epic space stuff! 
• Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey!
• Nyota Uhura kicks ass! BOTH of her! 

So I suppose the task now is to merge my first half of the season list with the second half of the season.  

#10 - "Human Best Friend"

#9 - "Once La'an A Time" 

#8 - "The Griffin Incident" 

#7 - "Like Chronitons Through An Hourglass"    

#6- "Level-Five Transporter Accident"

#5 - "Orders of Magnitude" 

#4 - "Valles Marineris"

#3 - "A Case of Chiaroscuro"

#2 - "Off Hour"

#1 - "Tomorrow's Enterprise"

This is admittedly a subjective list.

I would posit that "Like Chronitons Through An Hourglass" was objectively better than "Level-Five Transporter Accident" but damn, my love of Muppets gets the better of me and I gave the puppet one the edge.

Likewise, I would argue from a purely objective perspective, "Valles Marineris" was better than "A Case of Chiaroscuro" but I am a sucker for classic B&W film noir and Rebecca Romijn.  

Season 4 received a lot of grief online for the "gimmick" episodes.  And you may note that all but one of the gimmick episodes are in my bottom five. 

But I'm fine with the weird swings that helped Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stand out from the rest of the Star Trek canon and stand apart as a unique television viewing experience.  

That being said, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds works best with a solid sci-fi plot married to nuanced character building. 

"Tomorrow's Enterprise" is an extraordinarly powerful example of this kind of storytelling.  

Overall, I think season 4 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was good more often than not and certainly corrected for the mis-steps of season 3.  

Sadly we're looking down the barrel of the end of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds when season 5 drops next year.  It will only be six episodes but we should count ourselves lucky to have that.

Paramount wanted to end the series with season 4. A last minute appeal by the producers to save the show was met with a lackluster offer to do a Strange New Worlds movie.  The production team said they needed more time than 1 single movie so a reluctant Paramount green-lit a 5th season for 6 episodes.

Paramount sucks! 

OK, now I'm in a bad mood.  I need to think of something positive.

Scotty: "The Enterprise will hold!"

That helps.  Thanks, Scotty!

So that is that for Star Trekking's tour of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4.

What's next for Star Trekking? 

Next week we're back to the beginning with a series of posts looking back on season 2 of Star Trek, the original series.

Until next time, live long and prosper, y'all!