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It didn’t take long for fans to figure out that the fourth season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" was going to be unlike any season of "Star Trek" before it. The entire season was one giant gimmick, and that gimmick was shoving "Trek" into as many genres as possible and often directly adapting classic films from those genres.
You could argue that an entire season of gimmick episodes is a bold risk: putting the characters in fun, wacky situations to see how they react. It could be interesting, but the season we got never made the most of the concept. It was all so safe and paint-by-numbers, and, most importantly, it didn't have anything profound or interesting to say.
That should trouble any Trekkie. "Star Trek" — a show built on progressive ideals, thoughtful characters, and boundary-breaking television — was completely and totally afraid to say anything at all.
Mash it up, Scotty(Image credit: Paramount)To be clear, "Star Trek" is no stranger to genre mashups, and they're not inherently a bad thing. Trek has been running for nearly 1,000 total episodes, and they've been doing mashups since the very first season of "Star Trek: The Original Series", which featured gangster, historical fiction, and war-themed episodes.
The holodeck took things further, giving the writers an excuse to set the action anywhere they could dream up. No more alien planets that look suspiciously like Earth were necessary to completely flip the series’ genre; just work up a hologram malfunction and suddenly "Trek" is a Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery or a noir thriller. And even without the holodeck, genres are fluid things that often take from each other to tell stories within each other’s realms.
But while "Trek" has always dabbled, it's never done an entire season of genre episodes… in fact, that might be unprecedented in all of science fiction TV itself, let alone "Star Trek". This season of "SNW" didn’t use occasional gimmicks to take a break from space fare; it was all gimmick, all the time.
Check out the episode rundown below:
* Some of you are screaming that Episode 4 was a noir. It was not. Not everything in black and white with fedoras is noir.
(Image credit: Paramount)"Strange New Worlds" season 4 was genre-blending at scale. This wasn’t a hint of another genre influencing the episode; it was full-blown immersion into each and every one.
In the past, when other genres have come into "Trek", the series still felt tonally consistent; the characters never bent to the will of the genre, and its direction stayed the same. That was not true of this season. Characters, directorial style, and tone all bent to the will of the selected genre instead of fitting into the already established universe. There were multiple episodes this season that felt nothing like a "Star Trek" episode.
Also — and I may be in the minority here — there were only two episodes this season that I’d argue were executed well (Episode 6 and Episode 8), meaning that the relentless gimmicks paraded out each week felt not just detrimental to the show itself, but they weren’t much fun to watch either.
To go where everyone has gone before(Image credit: Paramount)The real question that crops up from this season is why they did it at all. If you listen to the show’s producers, it’s because they love "Trek" so much and they thought it would help move the characters along.
"I really do respect and hear the criticism that: 'When you have 10 episodes [per season], should they be more homogeneous?’”, co-showrunner and executive producer Akiva Goldsman told TV Line when addressing the criticisms for the season. “For us, the answer was no, because the original series always jumped around in genre … Part of what 'Star Trek' did well was use genre for storytelling, and that was what we wanted to explore in this series.”
He is, of course, absolutely correct; that is exactly what "Trek" has traditionally used genre episodes for. When "The Original Series" went to the Nazi planet, it was one of the first and earliest examples of directly confronting fascism and Nazism on American television. When the show played with Greek gods, it took the moment to have a groundbreaking interracial kiss. Even when it went broad comedy in “The Trouble with Tribbles,” it at least kept its characters consistent and its universe coherent.
(Image credit: Titan Books/Paramount)For the most part, that practice continued throughout classic "Trek" and even into the modern era, with genre being used to aid storytelling, not overwhelm it.
Season 4 of "Strange New Worlds" does none of this. It isn’t using genre as elevation; it’s using it as a distraction: a shiny gloss over a collection of episodes too afraid to say anything that will get the series accused of being “woke” or progressive. Later in the interview, Goldman claims that they can’t please everyone, but that seems like exactly what they were trying to do this season-- resulting, of course, in pleasing no one.
This season is running scared from the current moment, and it’s doing so by hiding behind gimmicks. Any previous series of "Trek" (or any great science fiction) would be tackling subjects such as immigration, fascism, war, or any other societal issue that is overwhelming us right now, but "SNW" is doing none of that, instead presenting farcical genre fare
Fear exists for one purpose; to be conquered(Image credit: Paramount+)It’s hard not to draw a direct line from this approach to the purchase of Paramount by Skydance last year and the company’s new leadership, who are more than cozy with President Donald Trump. There seems to be little other reason that a franchise and series that were being bashed for being “too woke” and overly progressive would veer so hard into gimmickry that barely hides the hollow shell this show has become.
Rewatching the first three seasons of "SNW" shows how hard a turn this series has taken since the re-election of Trump and the steady march of companies trying to kowtow to a government that wants to squash progressive ideology.
The show has gone from telling powerful stories for both its characters and society to a series of running gags that do little more than slap the Federation delta onto people’s chests so people think it's still "Star Trek".
(Image credit: Paramount)It isn’t. This season of nothingness is exactly what you get when you ask "Trek" not to push boundaries, not to be hopeful, not to be bold, and not to progress forward. When a show founded on speaking out and saying something spends an entire season running away from doing just that, it’s not just a condemnation of the show itself; it’s a condemnation of the creative process behind it.
The real issue with this season isn’t the attempt to play in genre for ten episodes straight; it’s that the reason they did it was fear, not hope.
Matthew has more than 30 years of experience talking about movies, TV shows, and video games, and for 20 of those years someone has actually paid him to do it. He's just as surprised as you are.