Reading Time: 14 minutes I’ll admit, it’s been tough to wrap up this season of Strange New Worlds, knowing that the ongoing writers and actors’ strikes all but guarantee a long delay before Season 3. Season 2 also ends on a cliffhanger, which makes not only the wait but also the write-up a bit more challenging. However, what really […]
Strange New Worlds
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Singin’ in the ‘Subspace Rhapsody’: Music and the quest for harmony
Reading Time: 11 minutes Singin’ in the Rain (1952) was by no means the first musical, but one reason it remains among the most acclaimed is its express engagement with the role of sound and song in our lives. Maybe you only know the film by its iconic and titular “singing in the rain” scene, or maybe you remember […]
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Whose justice will emerge from ‘Under the Cloak of War’?
Reading Time: 13 minutes This week’s main episode of Strange New Worlds, which was moved up to accommodate the surprise early launch of a crossover episode on July 22, enters difficult territory. On the surface, “Under the Cloak of War” bears some resemblance to facets of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which grappled with Klingon-Federation peace and what […]
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How do we manage our myths around ‘Those Old Scientists’?
Reading Time: 10 minutes I’ll be blunt: I do not like Star Trek: Lower Decks, an animated series set in the timeline for The Next Generation, and a crossover element in the first of this past week’s episodes of Strange New Worlds. When it comes to Trek comedy, the non-canon homage series The Orville is more my cup of […]
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How what’s ‘Lost in Translation’ can be found again in empathy
Reading Time: 12 minutes What defines a “Trek” story varies between Trekkies, but one abiding feature in many series is the role of trust among crew mates. In a 2019 essay for Uncanny Magazine, Nicasio Andres Reed explored what makes this trust extraordinary. Here’s the way the story often goes, in classic Trek like TNG, DS9, or Voyager: First, […]
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The ‘Charade’ of showing care in culturally sanctioned ways
Reading Time: 12 minutes When J.J. Abrams adapted Star Trek: The Original Series for a new era of cinema, he made choices that reflected a 21st century shift in representation: no, not by including people from more diverse backgrounds, but by reducing the acceptable parameters for onscreen masculinity in a franchise with a much more storied past. Gone, in […]
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Memory, forgetting, and choosing our better selves ‘Among the Lotus Eaters’
Reading Time: 12 minutes Ask and ye shall receive! Last week, when noting the structural approach taken in the first three episodes of Strange New Worlds Season 2, I expressed a hope for one focused on Erica Ortegas, while also noting that, as a foil character, she might best serve in an episode where she supports others. Lo and […]
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‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’: How time travel creeps into Trek today
Reading Time: 11 minutes This week’s episode of Strange New Worlds takes us boldly to Canada, but I promise: just because most of the show is set in my birthplace of Toronto, we won’t go off-mission too much to reflect on how it uses the location. I will only say that if you’re buying street meat (veg or otherwise) […]
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‘Ad Astra per Aspera’: How we escape from hardship into wonder
Reading Time: 11 minutes Last week, I gave the opening episode of Strange New Worlds (SNW) Season Two a bit of a pass: I called it a “mission statement” more than a typical outing from this version of the Enterprise. The plot and script seemed intent on solidifying character gains from the first season, and there were whole sections […]
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How do we heal ‘The Broken Circle’ in ourselves, our worlds?
Reading Time: 10 minutes Last year, Strange New Worlds offered a breath of fresh air in a sea of Star Trek-themed shows that demonstrated little patience with the original groundwork of the franchise. From Discovery‘s relentless reinvention of its world to serve the lead character’s journey, to Lower Decks‘ erasure of a post-scarcity economy to give us a crew […]