Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun, Bruce Horak, Rebecca Romijn, Adrian Holmes, Dan Jeannotte, Gia Sandhu, Melanie Scrofano, Samantha Smith, Lindy Booth, Ian Ho, Huse Madhavji, Jesse James Keitel, Paul Wesley.
Strange New Worlds, a misfortune that we today are stuck in between two different periods of exploration and that we have lost the capability to be curious and respectful of cultures vastly different to ours; and it is to this era in which we inhabit that has flexed our need to change the world we live in, to push discovery further up the social agenda.
Our understanding of the future is driven either by the dystopia we see unveiling before our eyes, or the hope that we might find a truth, a belief that we can move beyond our petty squabbles and not be the ones that completely destroy the planet with our self-entitlement and bloated excuses.
The reason why the Star Trek franchise resonates with the public is plainly clear, it is that overriding sense of hope that we need in a world run by mad men and detractors of the human spirit, the capitalists, the magnates, the self-serving politicians, the crooks, and all who keep insisting that humanity is a slave to its own desires, and that hope finds its deserving place in the first season of the inspired Strange New Worlds.
Carrying on with the fine tradition laid down by writers over the decades, the series sits somewhere comfortably in terms of attitude and expression of the original series, Voyager, and the final outstanding series of Picard, and that is undoubtedly down to the accessibility of the cast portraying younger versions of those that the viewer will be already comfortable in the company of.
Set just a few years before James T. Kirk becomes the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, the chair and responsibility is in the custody of the superb Anson Mount in the role that the legendary but ultimately tragic Jeffrey Hunter was able to showcase in the original pilot, and as Mr. Mount gracefully gives Captain Pike the respect he obviously deserves, so the others in the cast, the younger versions of characters that the fan has always loved, including the impeccable Ethan Pike and Jess Bush as the incomparable Vulcan Spock and Nurse Chapel, the riveting performance of Celia Rose Gooding in the role made glorious by Nichelle Nichols, Nyota Uhura, and British actor Christina Chong as the descendent of a major historic villain, La’an Noonien-Singh.
The ten-part series is illuminating, to be able to witness characters in their formative years, still malleable before they become fully rounded, is creative brilliance, and is a terrific nod to a series that paved the way for social change over fifty years before hand.
In its first season the story lines set the pace of what is to come, the story already understood still requires a boldness of interpretation to show how the likes of Spock, Pike, and even Kirk, progress through the early trials set before them.
Strange New Worlds is a brave new world that isn’t afraid to underscore the past whilst presenting on screen a delicious and absorbing feast for the eyes and for the memory. Outstanding!
Ian D. Hall