New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” Became Unconvincing “Star Trek” Karaoke…

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. The first season finale broadcast today, and so it seemed like a good opportunity to look at the culmination of these ten episodes.

Strange New Worlds has spent most of its first season riffing on familiar Star Trek narratives, offering retreads of classic templates. A Quality of Mercy takes the concept to its logical conclusion, and throws the cast of Strange New Worlds into a remake of Balance of Terror. Unfortunately, this becomes an extended argument about why Strange New Worlds is inherently inferior to Star Trek, with the show making a very literal and very aggressive argument for its own irrelevance while treating the larger franchise as a fetish object.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.