Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Premiere Review: Dinosaurs, Martians, and Space Storms, Oh My!

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

4

Some season premieres fill you with unreasonable levels of joy.

After the chaos and trauma of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 finale, it was an immense relief to fall back into the arms of our familiar crew in all their exploratory, healing, humorous glory.

Yay, they’re back, and things are fun, even when dealing with trauma, as odd as that seems.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 1, “Valles Marineris,” doesn’t exactly take Enterprise anywhere strange or new, but it’s a rollicking ride to worlds unlike they’ve ever seen before.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Valles Marineris”

We jump right into the season, picking up six months after the events of “New Life and New Civilizations,” with Captain Pike still in a depressed stage of grieving Captain Batel’s absence.

And, as the captain, that means dragging and driving the Enterprise and its crew from mission to mission in an effort to distract and deflect attention. Including a medical rescue mission where they get to ride horses.

As his number one, Una points out that 15 missions in a row is a lot, and expresses concern that the crew is feeling the strain.

Love that Mom and Pop are back in action. Also loving her slipping her request to lead away missions in there. And that he hears her.

Like I said, unreasonable levels of joy. This is how command teams are meant to work. #CompetencyPornIsAThing

Oh, Buoy

While the horseback riding was very fun to watch and a solid callback to Pike at home in Montana on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 Episode 1, when he’s called back to Starfleet and away from Marie Batel’s side, it purposefully misdirects us on the bent of the premiere.

Far from a planet of floating sand dunes, the main mission takes them home to Earth, but 65 million years in the past.

And in an elegant echo, the production employs some classic Trek — we’re talking real TOS stuff — throwback camera techniques, like rotating the lens to simulate the ship spinning out of control.

Also, props to the props department for the single rock that the T-Rex’s tail flings in Ortegas’s general direction. The TOS vibes are strong with this one.

Real Live Martians

It’s par for the course that Starfleet captains live extraordinary lives. Adventure seeks them out. The universe’s wisdom smacks them across the face. It’s not a life of nuance.

Pike’s path has been more extraordinary than most. Perhaps he’s more stubborn than most and requires more attention and guidance.

When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiered, he’d decided to hide from his destiny. It took Una being captured to get him back in the game.

Now, he’s spinning his wheels, wasting his present, and refusing to move on from Batel.

“I guess never slowing down, never stopping, has been quieter than being in my head.” — Pike

It takes being thrown 65 million years into the past and a Martian Battle Commander to hit him with some hard truths.

Battle Commander K’sel is a helluva representative of the Martian contingent. She embodies the definition of a wartime leader. Ruthless, honest, and effective. But so short-sighted; that is the effect of living and knowing nothing but war.

The Martian war with the Dol’drms feels like one that has come to define the Martian culture. Not only does it drive their actions, but it restricts their ability to grow, create, and dream of anything but victory by annihilating their enemies.

Like the future Pike from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 Episode 10, “A Quality of Mercy,” K’sel puts Pike on his path forward, providing a cautionary tale to set his thinking straight.

Meanwhile, the entire debate about the Prime Directive as it pertains to first contact with a species that predates the Federation by nearly 65 million years is unexpected comedy genius.

Pike: …by the time our present comes around, Mars has been lifeless for eons. I’m going to wager that nothing we say here is going to change the future, so long as she doesn’t leave the ship with anything material.

Spock: Alternatively, any single one of our actions could result in our future never occurring.

Pike: Okay, so out of an abundance of caution, we’ll keep her from…

M’Benga: Everything?

Pike: It feels like you’re not helping.

K’sel’s inability to comprehend a cooperative, collaborative relationship with alien species borders on farcical, paralleling the Vulcan-human interaction challenges demonstrated by Cadet A’Sha and Uhura.

Yeah, There Are Issues With The Dinos

In another homage to classic Star Trek: The Original Series shenanigans, the entire IRL fossil record is disregarded, lumping all the coolest dinos into one giant Lost World landscape to await the chunk of Sol V that’ll kill them.

Of course, Una has to stun a T-Rex, and La’an gets to punch a raptor. To be fair, both of those species did exist in the Late Cretaceous period which in nearly in the 65 million years ago window.

But all the brontos and pteranodons? Gorgeous background performers, but nowhere near the appropriate eras for them. Any Grade 4 student could’ve educated you on that.

(It’s nearly as bad as the year Coca-Cola added penguins to their Christmas polar bear ads. WTH, Coke?)

Sibling Friction

I’m usually one to focus on the quality of a finale, but I have to appreciate the plot pieces set out in this premiere in anticipation for the series arcs.

Specifically, the Ortegas-Scotty squabbling is equal parts bewildering and adorable. Pilot versus engineer? When did that become a thing?

“You haven’t heard the constant noises? Scotty acts like every time I steer the ship, it makes his job harder, so he added endless beeping to literally make my job harder.” — Ortegas

How will that play out? I KNOW it’s not a pre-romance hint because the writers would NOT do that to us.

What it does do, is possibly explain why Ortegas isn’t around when James Kirk takes over the Enterprise.

Similarly, Una’s promotion makes her move to her own starship more probable.

I do have some questions as to why she got a promotion just because Pike turned down his. Is there a quota system? Did the higher-ups HAVE to promote SOMEONE? Anyone?

Pike’s promotion was supposed to be from captain to commodore. That doesn’t seem equal to promoting a Lt. Commander to full Commander. Someone clarify that for me, please.

In other corners, we have La’an worrying about her emerging Augment abilities and her hot-friends-with-benefits arrangement with Spock.

Did anyone predict how much action Spock was going to get when he first went missing during Star Trek: Discovery and Michael Burnham had to go looking for him?

Time Travel’s All Wibbly-Wobbly, But Not As Much As You’d Think

So it makes total sense that, in a narrative that sends the Enterprise back in time, that Pelia would drop yet another reference to Doctor Who.

Pike: This is an unusual mission. We are to face a Category 10 interstellar squall, something we rarely see in the Alpha Quadrant

Pelia: I’ve seen one once. A long time ago, but not from this close. I think I was in a phone box at the time.

But rather than worrying about creating new branching timelines (looking at you, Star Trek: Picard Season 2), the Enterprise’s adventure is a primer version of the mind-bending time contortions they encountered with the Vezda last season.

Every action, or inaction, is what was always meant to happen. Their presence in the age of dinosaurs provided the tools to destroy Sol V, which led to life in the solar system as we know it.

After all that, an emergency buoy that is still operating after 65 million years BECAUSE IT HAS TO makes total sense.

What did you think, Fanatics? Rate the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 finale and drop a comment below!

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