**This review may contain some SPOILERS***
After a fairly strong first two seasons, “Strange New Worlds” begins to suffer an identity crisis in its third season as it seems to shift from its initial concept of an episodic approach in the spirit of “The Original Series” to a show that relies on a “gimmick of the week” approach.
Because the series is episodic, there isn’t much of a season-long plot. While season 2 had the threat of the Gorn woven throughout the season and lead to a big payoff in the finale and season 1 only briefly touched upon any multi-episode plot threads, season 3 somewhat splits the difference. The Gorn are mostly sidelined early on, and while the show eventually teases a much bigger threat, it takes a back seat before being wrapped up in the finale in a somewhat rushed fashion. However, even more so that season 1 or 2, this season places character drama as the main serialized narrative. And while it works in most respects, the emphasis on relationship drama starts to transform the show from “Wagon Train to the Stars” to “The Love Boat.”
As far as the characters go, many of them don’t get a lot of material to work with outside of the adventure of the week. Pike’s relationship with Batel makes up his arc and has a few highs before getting a strong payoff, while a romance between Uhura and Ortegas’ brother never gets out of first gear. Meanwhile, Erica herself only gets a few morsels of an arc that does end up with an engaging resolution. Unfortunately, in a massive departure from his well-known stoic behavior, Spock’s love life seemingly becomes the focal point of the series. Although his fling with Chapel is tastefully wrapped up as she moves on into a direction that takes her towards where she needs to be when she’s on Kirk’s Enterprise, the historically emotionless Spock ends up in yet another romance immediately after.
The season overall is all over the place. Classic Trek sci-fi stories one week, followed by a comedy episode the next and then a gimmick episode the week after that. While some concepts are new to the franchise, like the documentary episode or a zombie-filled one, the rest aren’t so different that stuff other Trek shows have done in the past. However, with a shorter episode count then those series, these types of episodes start to make up the entire season as opposed to being an occasional diversion as they were presented back then.
The show looks fantastic, with cool ships and aliens and finally, some strange new worlds. In another major change to the status quo, this season has multiple episodes featuring modern day pop songs in the soundtrack. While it does help establish the mood, it feels out of place in this far future setting.
Overall, “Strange New Worlds” season 3 has some solid episodes in the classic Trek style, and while they’re not always the most original stories, they’re told in an interesting way. However, half the episodes lean more towards “gimmicks” and they cause the show to lose its charm as an episodic show that hearkens back to show like “The Original Series” and “The Next Generation.” Also, with half the characters involved in some form of relationship drama, it’s less a show about intrepid space explorers and more one about broken hearts, jealously and other soap opera type elements.
**1/2 out of *****