Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be a return to standalone episodes

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

I love Star Trek and I love serialized storytelling, but while I'm watching Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, I'll admit to yearning for a return to the standalone episodes of previous series. Thankfully, that itch should be scratched by Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, an upcoming series which will focus on Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn).

While speaking with Deadline, franchise producer Alex Kurtzman said that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be a return to the style of The Original Series, although there will still be elements of larger plot arcs and emotional serialization.

I think Strange New Worlds, under the guidance of Henry Myers and Akiva Goldsman, it’s going to be a return in a way to TOS. We are going to do stand-alone episodes. There will be emotional serialization. There will be two-parters. There will be larger plot arcs. But it really is back to the model of alien-of-the-week, planet-of-the-week, challenge-on-the-ship-of-the-week. With these characters pre-Kirk’s Enterprise. I think what people responded so much to in all three characters is this kind of relentless optimism that they have. And that they are at the young phase of their careers.

Although Captain Pike was shown a vision of his unfortunate future in an episode of the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, Kurtzman says that the character will keep his optimism. "The idea is, how does a character who knows how he is going to die live optimistically from that point on and lead a ship?" Kurtzman said. "It’s a great question. I have never seen a show where a character knew that already. You have to have an inherent optimism in your world view in order to say, 'I am going to get up every morning knowing how it is going to end for me.' And still lead everybody to be the best versions of themselves." Although the big-screen side of the long-running franchise may not be in the best place, there's plenty of Star Trek on the small-screen to look forward to. In addition to Strange New Worlds, we've also got the third season of Star Trek: Discovery (set to debut on October 15th) and a second season of Star Trek: Picard, as well as Star Trek: Lower Decks (currently airing), the Section 31 series starring Michelle Yeoh, animated children's series Star Trek: Prodigy, and more installments of Star Trek: Short Treks.