Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

[Drunk Monk]

[Drunk Monk]

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Renewed for Season 2 Ahead of Series Debut
In addition, 'Star Trek: Discovery' has been renewed for a fifth season, and premiere dates have been revealed for all three live-action 'Trek' shows.
[color=var(--color-brand-primary,#d92128)]BY JAMES HIBBERD[/color]

[color=var(--color-black,#000)]JANUARY 18, 2022 1:00PM[/color]

[color=var(--color-grey-dark,#5a5a5a)]JOHN MEDLAND/CBS [/color]
Two [color=var(--color-brand-primary,#d92128)]Star Trek shows received their orders for new seasons Tuesday.
Paramount+ has renewed flagship series [color=var(--color-brand-primary,#d92128)]Star Trek: Discovery[/color] for a fifth season and, more unusually, renewed the upcoming spinoff Strange New Worlds for a second season before the first season debuts.
In addition, the streamer announced premiere dates for Discovery, Strange New Worlds and season two of Picard.
Discovery’s fourth season will return from its winter break with new episodes starting Thursday, Feb. 10. Picard will launch Thursday, March 3, and then Strange New Worlds will have its series debut Thursday, May 5.
[/color]The scheduling strategy will keep fresh live-action Trek episodes on Thursday night from early February into the summer.
On the animated front, Star Trek: Lower Decks will return this summer for its third season of 10 episodes, with the show renewed for a fourth season. Star Trek: Prodigy is currently airing its debut season on Thursday nights.
“Four years ago, we made a promise to grow Star Trek into something it had never been before, and thanks to the incredibly hard work done by our many talented showrunners, writers, and directors, along with the extraordinary support of CBS Studios and Paramount+, we’re keeping our word,” said Alex Kurtzman, architect and executive producer of the Star Trek franchise. “Now our current shows are set up for the future as we work to build Trek’s next phase of programming for years to come.”
Strange New Worlds stars Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike as he leads the U.S.S. Enterprise in the years before Captain Kirk. The show is billed as a return to the classic planet-of-the-week space exploration format of the original Star Trek series. It also stars Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock. Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers are co-showrunners of the CBS Studios series.

[Greg]

Did they announce they were tripling the price of the service?

[Drunk Monk]

[Drunk Monk]

[Drunk Monk]

Been in denial about dropping P+

This helps...

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Casts Captain Kirk: Paul Wesley to Play Iconic Character
The 'Vampire Diaries' actor will step into the sci-fi role made famous by William Shatner.
[color=var(--color-brand-primary,#d92128)]BY JAMES HIBBERD[/color]
[color=var(--color-black,#000)]MARCH 15, 2022 3:00PM[/color]


Paul Wesley in 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.' [color=var(--color-grey-dark,#5a5a5a)]COURTESY OF MARNI GROSSMAN/PARAMOUNT+

There is a new James T. Kirk.
[color=var(--color-brand-primary,#d92128)]Star Trek[/color]: Strange New Worlds has cast actor Paul Wesley in the iconic sci-fi role.
The Vampire Diaries actor will join the upcoming Paramount+ series in the show’s second season, which is in production in Toronto. In an unusual move, the second-season casting is being announced before the first season has debuted.
Above is a first-look image of Wesley in character on what’s presumably the U.S.S. Enterprise bridge.
“Paul is an accomplished actor, an astonishing presence and a welcome key addition to the show,” said executive producer Alex Kurtzman and co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers in a statement. “Like all of us, he is a life-long Star Trek fan and we are excited by his interpretation of this iconic role.”[/color]
Kirk was first immortally first portrayed by William Shatner in 1966’s Star Trek and across many films. The character was also played by Chris Pine in the newer Trek feature films.
Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) as he leads the U.S.S. Enterprise. The show is billed as a return to the classic planet-of-the-week space exploration format of The Original Series. It also stars Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock.
The series is a spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery, which introduced these new iterations of Pike, Number One and Spock during its second season.
While Pike is the ship’s captain, and Kirk will eventually be the ship’s captain, Mount will continue as a series regular on the program in season two.
Wesley is best known for his leading Vampire Diaries role across eight seasons. He also starred in the series Tell Me a Story and the miniseries Medal of Honor. He will next be seen in the film History of Evil.
Previously, Goldsman confirmed that one of the CBS Studios series’ new castmembers has a link to the show’s most iconic villain, the infamous Khan Noonien-Singh. Actress Christina Chong was announced as playing a series regular named La’an Noonien-Singh in the show. Goldsman hinted that Khan might eventually appear on the show, but not in its debut season.
Strange New Worlds launches May 5 on Paramount+.

[Drunk Monk]

[Drunk Monk]

First one’s free…

[Drunk Monk]

E1 watched this again because I forgot I’d seen it as a freebie but about halfway through I remembered that I knew more about what was going to happen than the trailer revealed. It’s a decent start. I like the new cast. Growing accustomed to Spock. Chapel feels way off. Uhura is spot on tho and it’s more about her than anyone. Ortega is cool. Noonian-Singh reminds me of Drummer from the Expanse.

E2 Uhura’s first away mission. She’s just a cadet. This ep combined Alien, Close Encounters, and maybe some Star Trek. Hemmer the blind Andorian engineer has potential. This series is more episodic like ST:TOS, complete with moralizing speeches. The only real carry over story arc is Pike knows how he’s going to get burned in ten years. Nice updates on the tech - loyal to TOS but cooler effects and style.

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E3 was all about #1. Nice plot twist. Did NOT see that coming. I’ve been skeptical of Romjin in this role but she just won me over with this ep. It was a ship’s plague story. And La’An’s connect to Khan is explained.

[Drunk Monk]

E4: the gorn ep. A spin on the Wrath of Khan spaceship fight. A thrilling ep. Lots of nice ST battle moves, in a brown dwarf and then a black hole. Good stuff.

I was going to be done but the next ep is Spock Amok and starts with a pon farr fight, so I’m in for one more…

[Drunk Monk]

E5 Well damn. Did I really just binge 5 hours of ST:SNW? Totally worth it. I’d binge it all if it wasn’t a work day. Spock Amok was a shore leave ep, and it was funny - got a genuine lol out of me. After last eps tension, this was a delight. There was one issue however. Chapel meets T’pring and in Amok Time, she was surprised when Spock says she’s his bride. I like this SNW Chapel but she seems so different than Majel - still doesn’t work. I’m warming to Spock - he works better if I think of Quinto’s take instead of Nimoy’s. They let Rebecca be tall, which is cool (she’s 5’11”). It’s amusing that both the new Chapel and Rebecca as #1 were both played by Majel, and here they’re played by two very different actresses.

Loving SNW. It feels the most like TOS of any of the ST series. 10 eps in season 1 so I’m halfway through already and finding it very satisfying. 

Mount’s Capt Pike is awesome. He’s got a dry wit about him that really works.

[Drunk Monk]

E6: One of those morally ambiguous tales - I guessed the end. Uhura is the rock star of this enterprise. La’an is totally lifted form Drummer and I’m fine with that.

Now I gotta take a break and write. If I get my piece done tonight, maybe I’ll watch some more. But I gots deadlines…

[Drunk Monk]

Finished my feature - just needs a final polish and a conclusion. 

So on to e7
This ep was another Spock tale. The T’pring Chapel triangle is feeling like the Kelvin timeline and as much as I feel this Chapel misses the mark, I like her. I just need to let go of Majel’s take on it. And pulling in Sybok is an intriguing play. Stonn too. 

It bothered me that they have TOS phasers because if this is Pike’s time, they should have those clunkier phasers like in the pilot. 

This crew has great chemistry and apart from Pike, Spock, and M’benga, it’s predominantly female driven. There was a different doc in the pilot too. I’m confused about M’benga too - he was in TOS when Bones was preoccupied.

Just 3 more eps…. Then there’s Picard & Lower Decks + finishing Disco.

[Drunk Monk]

E8 was a flight of fantasy ep, akin to some of the more whimsical TOS eps, or way too many of the TNG eps. After surveying a space cloud, the crew hallucinates that they are in a children's bedtime story that Dr. M'Benga reads to his daughter, who is dying of an uncurable disease so he kepts her stored in transporter memory until he can find a cure. It allows the actors some range because they all play against type in a pseudo renn-faire fantasy. It was feeling a tad dumb but then it turns into a father/daughter tale about M'Benga and his sick daughter, which has been a background story arc for much of the series. Then it drops the hammer, and becomes a heartfelt closure to that arc, replete with all the feels. 

E9 is another Gorn ep. The Gorn are like the new evil race, but here, they're cgi lizards that use other species to incubate their eggs, then pop out of chests like xenomorph cubs. Yes, this is an alien poach. Like the previous ep, it felt a tad dumb as it was such an obvious poach, complete with a little girl like Newt in the sequel. But then again, it drops a hammer, or maybe I should say the Hemmer. A major character dies (and that hurt because i liked how that character was progressing) and another leaves. And it's very sad. There's another inconsistency because Uhura in TOS seemed unfamiliar with the Gorn, like the rest of the crew. But according to SNW, she encountered them as a cadet. 

E10 - the season finale. And does it stick the landing? Yes and then some. Pike has had this fatalistic view because back in ST: Disco, he visited a Klingon monastery and saw his future in time crystal. He knows he's going to be horribly scarred and confined to a weird space wheelchair box as he appears in TOS. And in this ep, he grapples with that. He meets his future self, clad in a Wrath of Khan style uniform, who sent him on another time crystal journey that lands in the TOS ep, Balance of Terror - the first encounter with Romulans. It's well played - in this alternative timeline, because Pine averted his fate, he's still captain of the Enterprise. We hear Scotty is now the engineer. He meets Jim Kirk, Captain of the Farragut. Note that Jim's brother Sam serves on the Enterprise. He's been a character since the beginning. The SNW Jim doesn't come anywhere near Pine's take, just as the SNW Spock isn't as good as Quinto, but at least he's growing on me. Anyway, the replay of Balance of Terror was clever, even repeating some of the same lines in an altered context. It's a grand nod to TOS, well played on many levels. And once that is all resolved, it leaves with a nice cliffhanger for next season. 

I enjoyed SNW immensily. It's the most like TOS in tone and composition. It's episodic, with only a few overarching story lines, unlike Disco or Picard, which is a front to back saga so you have to watch those beginning to end to get it. I look forward to season 2.

[Drunk Monk]

After some thought, I decided what I dislike about this SNW Kirk. He’s not dashing. Shatner & Pine are handsome. This new worlds Kirk is kinda homely.