SNAPSHOT
The series follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise as they explore new worlds throughout the galaxy during the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series. (synopsis courtesy Wikipedia)
I am huge fan of multi-layered, season-long or series-long arc storytelling in Star Trek of the kind that made Deep Space Nine such an affectingly fulfilling joy to watch and which is making Discovery one of the great thrills of modern streaming viewing.
Having said that, there’s something innately wonderful about seeing the same crew, people who are close to each other and who trust and know each other implicitly, embark on a new adventure each week – think The Original Series (TOS), The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise.
The latest celestial kid on the Star Trek block, Strange New Worlds, a spinoff of sorts from Discovery, is all set to embrace the weekly episodic approach, and to burnish its everything-old-is-new-again approach, its opening titles pay homage to TOS before becoming their own remarkably brilliant thing as Gizmodo observes.
“Paramount has released the opening titles sequence for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and they’re both suitably strange and suitably familiar for a show that’s leaning all the way in on the retro aesthetic of the original Star Trek. From Anson Mount’s Captain Pike narrating that classic “These are the voyages…” opening, to the gorgeous shots of the Enterprise soaring through interstellar anomalies and, truly, past some strange new worlds, to the music itself riffing on the original Trek theme, these titles are a reminder that this show is setting itself apart from the rest of the current Trek oeuvre to re-embrace the classic feeling of the older shows.”
It’s back to the future and this usually arc-loving guy couldn’t be happier.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds blasts off on its five-year mission on 5 May on Paramount Plus.