“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 3 has come to an end, and the show remains surprisingly strong. Its creatives did a marvelous job of exploring each one of the series’ main characters over the course of the season, giving them each small arcs that were explored from the beginning of season 3 all the way through to its finale. Captain Pike (Anson Mount), in particular, was given a fantastic romantic foil in Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano), while Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) had to wrestle with a bout of PTSD. And while some may not like the amount of romance that Spock (Ethan Peck) experienced, I feel it was handled with tact. There was, however, a tonal issue that merits discussion.
Throughout its run so far, “Strange New Worlds” has mercifully cleaved closely to a “crisis-of-the-week” episodic structure. This has, among other things, permitted the series to vacillate wildly in tone. One episode may be a horror story about eerie ancient ghosts possessing the Enterprise’s crew, while another may involve the Enterprise being swallowed by a massive vessel that looks like it escaped from an issue of Heavy Metal Magazine. Similarly, several episodes of the show have been outright comedic, rife with social awkwardness and romantic misunderstandings.
Indeed, looking back over season 3, three of its 10 episodes were straight-up comedies. In the episode “Wedding Bell Blues,” an impish deity (Rhys Darby) forces Spock and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) to think they’re in love. Likewise, in the episode “A Space Adventure Hour,” the Enterprise is recreated on the holodeck for a whimsical murder mystery. Then there was “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans,” an outing in which four of the Enterprise’s human crew members were biologically changed into Vulcans, leading to zany awkwardness. One might even count elements of “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail” as comedic, as engineer Pelia (Carol Kane) was forced to wire landline telephones into the Enterprise’s communication systems.
These episodes are all amusing, of course, but one might notice that a full third of season 3 wound up being comedic. Really, it feels like “Strange New Worlds” has pushed right up to the line when it comes to how much comedy it may be able to handle.
More than a quarter of Strange New Worlds is comedy
This is not to say that the “Star Trek” franchise shouldn’t include humor. Far from it; “The Original Series” alone featured many excellent comedic episodes that are now regarded as classics. There was “Shore Leave,” which saw Starfleet officers interacting with samurai, knights, and the White Rabbit from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” And then there was “The Trouble with Tribbles,” an episode featuring a whimsical infestation of adorable cooing furballs. Heck, even “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” included comedy episodes occasionally. “The Next Generation,” for example, transformed the members of the Enterprise’s crew into “Robin Hood” characters for the episode “QPid,” while the episode “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” took a break from the terse wartime drama on “Deep Space Nine” to gather the show’s characters together for a lighthearted baseball game.
No, comedy has its place in “Star Trek,” and it’s fine that “Strange New Worlds” has bravely experimented with fairy tale episodes, body-swap episodes, and musical episodes. The tone of “Strange New Worlds” is, when compared to other “Star Trek” series, suffused with an unbearable lightness of being, so it’s only befitting that it’s devoted multiple episodes to shenanigans involving love, slapstick, and even a crossover with the animated workplace comedy “Star Trek: Lower Decks.”
The problem is, we’re now dangerously close to “Strange New Worlds” tipping from being a sci-fi show with comedy elements into being a comedy show set in a sci-fi universe. Indeed, it feels like the series is creeping closer and closer to resembling Seth McFarlane’s comedic “Star Trek” homage show “The Orville” with every passing episode. Ironically, “The Orville” itself went in the opposite direction, creeping closer and closer to being a straight-faced “Star Trek” riff and away from its crass, comedic origins. At this point, “The Orville” and “Strange New Worlds” essentially have an overlapping Venn diagram.
It’s not that there’s too much comedy on “Strange New Worlds” … but we’re aaaaaaalmost to that point.
Star Trek comedy episodes are better when they’re rare
It’s worth remembering that from the 1960s until the mid-2000s, “Star Trek” shows were mostly presented in 26-episode seasons. They ran weekly from the fall — usually starting in September — all the way through the following May. Their writers had to come up with dozens of stories and tended to cleave closely to an episodic structure, as that was more friendly to syndication deals and reruns. When there were 26 episodes a year, it was more tolerable to have three or four comedic outings in the mix, as it allowed for a break in the routine. The characters of the “Star Trek” franchise tend to be stiff and professional, and audiences usually see them when they’re on the clock, commanding a starship. The mood was formal and intelligent.
The comedy episodes, then, became the “let your hair down” exceptions to the rule. Trekkies tended to love them for this very reason. They were special for their rarity.
But modern “Star Trek” series — that is, the streaming shows that have premiered since 2017 — have shorter seasons. With only 10 episodes each time around, “Strange New Worlds” has far less leeway to play around and tell stories. After three seasons, in fact, “Strange New Worlds” has barely surpassed the episode count for a single season of a pre-2017 “Star Trek” series. More to the point, there have been eight whimsical comedy episodes of the show so far, which is very nearly a third of its 30 total episodes. Could you imagine a season of “The Next Generation” that sported eight or more episodes like “Qpid?”
Basically, when comedy episodes become that common, they’re no longer exceptions to the rule. To be clear, the more humorous episodes of “Strange New Worlds” have so far been, by and large, well-made, well-considered, and pretty good to boot. But they would sing far more loudly if there were 16 additional sci-fi-themed episodes in a season. Trekkies like comedy, but we’re definitely pushing up against the wall.
“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is streaming on Paramount+, with season 4 expected to premiere in 2026.
