Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3×01 and 3×02 Review: “Hegemony, Part II” and “Wedding Bell Blues”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns with two episodes, starting season three with a bang and a laugh. The Gorn are still trying to invade the Federation, Spock is pining desperately, and Captain Pike’s hair droops with concern.

All versions of Star Trek have always been at their best mixing levity and drama. The premiere episodes for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds give us both.

“Hegemony, Part II” is an action-oriented story picking up from where we left off at the end of season two. Captain Batel hovers at the edge of death, infested by Gorn eggs. The Enterprise crew isn’t far behind her. Several of our favorite characters are being digested on a Gorn ship, while the others are desperately seeking a way to stop the invasion.

There are a few different threads packed into the hour, which is good, because it keeps the action moving at a quick clip. There’s no time for me to get annoyed at Spock for having terrible timing when he simps over Chapel. He goes from a puppy-eyed apology straight into finding novel ways to save Batel from an unceremonious death by Gorn oviposition. (Successfully.) (Thanks, illegal Illyrian blood!)

Meanwhile, La’an rage-punches her way out of a Gorn digestion sack because of course she does. This is La’an! She’s the only one who could save a partially digested Ortegas and M’Benga from her mortal enemies. Did you forget La’an was tortured on a Gorn breeding planet? I did, mostly because it’s been nearly two years since we last saw these characters.

Things seem terribly dire on the Gorn invasion front until the Enterprise bridge crew and engineering come up with a clever solution against overwhelming numbers. They discover Gorn are essentially murder cicadas with long periods of hibernation. Enterprise triggers their sleep and sends them into hiding… for now, as Pike ominously concludes.

Pike and Batel’s reunion is very sweet, but the real highlight of the episode is Pelia harassing Scotty. (Can we all agree Pelia is the hottest chief engineer since B’Elanna on Star Trek: Voyager? Don’t tell me if you disagree. That’s a rhetorical question.) It’s still bananas that they landed the Carol Kane. Clearly, this was the same stroke of casting genius that also gave us our first real Scottish Scotty.

It’s a relief to go from “Hegemony, Part II” with all its intense action to go into something with a bit more humor, even if it leaves us, again, with an excessively emotional Spock pining (understandably) over Chapel.

Episode 2, “Wedding Bell Blues” is the much-anticipated (by yours truly) episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, guest starring Rhys Darby. I predicted he would be playing Trelaine, and I wasn’t disappointed: Darby spends the entire episode kicking up his heels, snapping his fingers, and manipulating reality to his childishly sadistic whims.

It’s a pleasant twist on Spock being a terrible ex-boyfriend. Where I had feared I was sitting down for an hour of Spock hating Roger Korby, canonically Chapel’s deceased fiancé on original Star Trek, this episode teamed up Spock and Korby against Trelaine.

We get plenty of laughs and very little of the petty jealousy I dreaded. Everyone wears fabulous wedding outfits. Trelaine gets into bed with Spock. Korby gets turned, briefly, into a bulldog.

It’s extremely low stakes. Even Trelaine’s threat to kill everyone only ever turns into Rhys Darby declaring “you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re really dead” when he gets his way.

My favorite aspect of “Wedding Bell Blues” is how it seems to canonize the connection between Trelaine from the original Star Trek and the Q Continuum from later series. Rhys Darby’s character is unnamed, but being an omnipotent child restrained by his omnipotent parent is distinctly Trelaine-ish—while his parent being voiced by John de Lancie, the great and powerful Q himself, is surely no coincidence.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds made us wait a long time to get the third season, but it’s back in full force. I almost wish it weren’t so great since they’ve announced it will be ending with its six-episode fifth season. Like Trelaine, I’m already throwing a tantrum thinking about it.

Author: SM Reine

Half-Tellarite SM Reine is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy. She’s been publishing since 2011 and a nerd since forever.

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