The timeline of the latest “Star Trek” series begins on January 6, 2021.
Let me explain.
“Star Trek” has always, always been socially conscious, subtly – and sometimes not subtly – weaving commentary about race, gender, war and violence, any topic you care to name, into its stories.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” the latest Trek series from the Paramount+ streaming service, following “Star Trek Discovery” and “Picard,” is blessed with opportunities to tell its stories with not only action and good humor but the grace of equality, justice and fairness.
But in the first episode of “Strange New Worlds,” Enterprise Captain Chris Pike, in helping two warring factions on a planet find some common ground, talks about his birth country, the United States, and its fraught history.
As these factions prepare for civil war, Pike talks about his country’s own two civil wars. (Sandwiched in this history lesson here is the Eugenics Wars, which as longtime fans know gave rise to one-time Earth strongman Khan Noonien-Singh, played by Ricardo Montalban in the original TV series and the 1982 feature “The Wrath of Khan.”) Pike recounts the Eugenics Wars, World War III and the second civil war, and the video that is shown includes footage from January 6. Including the impromptu noose that loomed on the grounds of the Capitol during the insurrectionists’ assault on democracy.
Maybe that inclusion seems crass to you, not unlike citing September 11 in fiction. But I thought it made a couple of points, including another dose of the optimism that is characteristic of all “Star Trek” series and movies.
The point of the original series – and “Strange New Worlds” is a prequel to the 1960s show, showing us Spock and Chapel and Kyle and Uhura and Pike in their younger-by-a-few-years days – was that mankind struggled for years, decades, even the better part of a century, to survive and become unified and worthy of joining a galactic race.
There’s a reason that Pike is watching “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” the 1951 classic – directed by Robert Wise, who in addition to directing “West Side Story” also directed the 1979 “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” – when the first episode opens. There’s a pretty clear through-line between the benevolent but “fuck around and find out” alien of the movie and the Federation of Planets, a benevolent group that totally steers clear of interfering with less-developed planets until, well, some interference is necessary. I don’t know if someone kept track of every time “Star Trek” has violated its own Prime Directive but it happens again in “Strange New Worlds.”
And it’s wonderful.
Of course Pike, like the “Star Trek” captains before him, would never threaten an uncooperative society with planetary annihilation. That’s what the evil Federation does, the “Darkest Timeline” parodied so well on “Community.”
But no “Star Trek” series would be “Star Trek” without the hearts-on-their-sleeves Federation crews getting involved to prevent death and chaos. The one time in the new series that I thought Pike might be forced to stand by and let something horrible happen, the decision was taken out of his hands by a well-timed clobbering over the head, or something more high tech. A cheat? Yeah, probably. But even though, by the 23rd century, the Federation was supposedly cool and collected, we would not want our heroes to just let something horrible happen if they could help it. They’re our surrogates and our idols and our ideals, after all.
I’ll probably have more to say about “Strange New Worlds” at some point, as well as some of the modern-day “Trek” series that I have not yet watched. I jumped into these new Paramount+ series with “Strange New Worlds” because reviews of it have made it sound like my ideal “Trek” series.
And it really is.
I’ll only mention in passing, for now, how amazing this diverse and talented cast is. I find myself wanting to spend more time with every Enterprise and Starfleet character we have met so far, and a number of the recurring and episodic characters. It’s truly inspired writing and casting and performances when there are just so many characters who are so good and seem so true that you’re never like, “Oh, an episode featuring BLANK.” This won’t be one of the strongest episodes.” That has not once been the case here.
“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is boldly going and I love every minute of it.
keithroysdon 