- Title: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season Two
- IMDb: link
Returning for its sophomore voyage, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds features more adventures for Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Highlights from the season include the trial of Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) whose career in Starfleet is threatened after the truth about her genetic engineering is revealed. We also get another wacky Spock (Ethan Peck) romance episode when an accident leaves him human without the Vulcan half just as T’Pring (Gia Sandhu) and her disapproving parents arrive. The episode also explores the mutual feelings between the Enterprise’s Science Officer and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush).
The season’s most notable episode is the tremendously enjoyable “Subspace Rhapsody” which offers characters bursting into song after exposure to a subspace field. Although it garnered a mixed response, it worked better for me than the season finale that nearly throws its back out attempting to create a “Best of Both Worlds” cliffhanger.
Also of note here are the crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks featuring Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), and Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) all appearing in live-action Star Trek for the first time, and Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh‘s (Christina Chong) time-travel episode which includes a family reunion and unexpected romance with an alternate version of Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) which complicates her relationship with the one in her timeline.
While the First Season of the show started out strong and stalled a bit in its second-half, the quality of Season Two is much more consistent. There’s no bad episodes here (even if I’m still not completely on-board with the choice of the Gorn as the series’ big bads). Extras available on the Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD release include featurettes on props, the Gorn, costumes, the musical episode, and deleted scenes. The limited edition steelbook release also includes magnets and a poster.
