By Joshua Tyler
| Revealed 11 seconds in the past

We’re about to get the fourth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ third season, which implies it’s 40% performed. 4 episodes in, and the present nonetheless hasn’t had a brand new concept.

The primary episode was the finale of a cliffhanger arrange by season 2’s finale. A cliffhanger that appeared prefer it may type of be ripping off the Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology cliffhanger two-parter “The Better of Each Worlds.” Now that we’ve seen the second a part of Strange New Worlds’ story, we are able to verify that, yep, it undoubtedly was.

The Gorn have been substituted for the Borg after altering the Gorn to be extra Borg-like. The story adopted all of the “Better of Each Worlds” story beats and finishes in precisely the identical manner “The Better of Each Worlds” did, by actually placing the Borg… er, the Gorn to sleep.

The second episode introduced again Trelane, the child-God from the unique sequence episode “The Squire of Gothos.” He was as soon as once more obsessive about getting girls to put on fancy clothes. 

Nothing new was added aside from affirmation of issues all of us thought all alongside. Oh, Trelane is a Q precisely as everybody has been saying for thirty years. What a shock.

Episode three was essentially the most distinctive story of the season as a result of it didn’t rip off a earlier Star Trek episode; particularly, it recycled commonplace zombie tales usually. That’s what now passes for creativity among the many writers working for Paramount to create Star Trek.

The fourth episode is being launched this week. Paramount is gleefully trumpeting it as a holodeck detective journey, precisely like Dixon Hill on Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology. 

At the very least when Deep Area 9 did this, they modified genres. As an alternative, they did James Bond-style spy adventures on the holodeck. Star Trek: Voyager did black-and-white B-movie holodeck adventures within the fashion of Flash Gordon. There was additionally that bizarre episode the place Janeway lusted after a hologram. Perhaps Strange New Worlds will rip that off subsequent. 

Insert an compulsory rant about how Starfleet isn’t alleged to have invented holodeck know-how on this period, right here.

The remainder of the third Strange New Worlds season appears unlikely to do higher. Paramount has been closely selling an upcoming episode through which everybody on the crew turns right into a Vulcan. 

This can be their most egregious type of cribbing as a result of they’re stealing from themselves. The present beforehand did an episode the place Spock grew to become human, so now they’re simply flipping it the wrong way up.

Think about if, after doing the episode the place Spock goes loopy from Pon Farr, the 60s Star Trek did an episode the place Kirk went loopy from Pon Farr! The unique sequence would have been canceled even quicker.

When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuted its first season, it had enormous potential. It was, at occasions, slightly by-product, however it additionally blended in new concepts right here and there. First seasons are sometimes patchy, and Star Trek exhibits have a historical past of not discovering the suitable warp discipline frequency till they’re just a few years in.

The other has occurred with Strange New Worlds. Within the two seasons since, the brand new concepts have light and been changed by gimmicks like a musical episode (which ripped off Buffy the Vampire Slayer).  That is particularly egregious in a franchise whose whole purpose for present is to have new concepts. Boldly go isn’t only a catchphrase, it’s an operational crucial.

It’s now clear that Strange New Worlds goes nowhere, and the “New” in its title is nothing however gaslighting. So is the “Worlds” for that matter. When was the final time this crew went to discover a world? Final week, they explored a marriage, as a substitute.

Perhaps the ultimate episodes of this season will flip it round, however once you solely do 10 episodes, turning issues round is hard. Mixing in a single new concept per season, ought to they in some unspecified time in the future handle to do one in season 3, doesn’t justify the existence of this present.

For all its aesthetic and casting charms, Star Trek: Strange New World has been cursed with the identical horrible writing plague that has ruined the entire new Star Trek, and nobody concerned appears eager about curing it. Perhaps Skydance will do higher once they end taking up Paramount. It’s exhausting to think about them doing worse.