Get ready to boldly go where no one has gone before again, as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds launches in Australia on Paramount+ from June 15.
Additionally, Paramount+ is offering fans the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for free until Wednesday 22nd June. Yep, Trek fans: you can watch the whole dang episode without a subscription right here.
Starring Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Strange New Worlds was spun off from the second season of Star Trek: Discovery and follows the crew of the starship Enterprise as they seek out new lifeforms and new civilisations, boldly going… well, you know the drill.
As veteran Trekkies or Trekkers, or Trekans, or whatever they’re calling themselves this week, know, Pike commands (or commanded, or will command…) the Enterprise before James Kirk, and he’s up against the clock—a horrific accident will cripple him in the future, and thanks to Star Trek’s flexible relationship with time, he knows it. That lends a bittersweet tinge to the series’ space-faring derring-do that is unusual in the galaxy-spanning franchise.
For all that, Strange New Worlds embraces Star Trek’s traditional combo of progressive politics and two-fisted adventure, with many calling it the best series since the original. Perhaps that’s helped by so many classic characters showing up here, including Spock (Ethan Peck), Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and lesser known but nonetheless canonical legacy characters such as Dr M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), plus Paul Wesley as a young James T. Kirk, an officer no doubt bound for greater things…
If we’re being real, Star Trek has struggled a bit over the past decade or so. The movie franchise is all but dead, Star Trek: Discovery and Picard have been hit and miss, and Below Decks is fun but dispensable. This second season of Strange New Worlds will determine whether it too belongs in the “hit and miss” file. We’re hopeful, though; so far its managed to capture the essence of the series in a way no other reiteration has.
