YMMV / Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Is Pike a superlative captain committed to the ideals of the Federation, or is he a passive-aggressive, pathologically conflict-avoident, dangerously-optimistic people-pleaser who tries to solve problems with denial? The negative interpretations became particularly strong after the events of "A Quality of Mercy"^note in which it's revealed that if he'd still been captain of the Enterprise at the time of "Balance of Terror" his unwillingness to retaliate against Romulan aggression would have emboldened them to start an all-out war and "Under the Cloak of War"^note in which Una has to directly confront him to make him recognise that Rah is a walking PTSD trigger for many of his crew, rather than purely the image of hope Pike sees him as.
  • The Illyrians in general get hit with this. They're clearly not the self-centered monsters most augments we've seen are. But, is this because their genetic engineering was done explicitly to make them fit their environments better, rather than to create genetic supermen? Or is it just the result of Illyrians not raising their children to think they're better than everyone else? This also effects the interpretation of previous augments, as the series outright shows Khan being raised in a lab.
• Awesome Art: The Animated Intro for "Those Old Scientists" faithfully renders the Enterprise, while adding in touches from Lower Decks to perfectly set the tone of the episode.
• Broken Base: The show retconning the Gorn into Always Chaotic Evil Xenomorph Xerox has divided the fanbase between those who like the new, scarier Gorn and those who feel that this detracts from their depiction in "Arena" as violent-but-civilized Lizard Folk. This being a prequel series, there's also some debate as to whether this constitutes a Continuity Snarl or whether it can be excused by proper First Contact not having happened yet: none of the characters come face to face with an actual adult Gorn until the season 2 finale, which also shows the Gorn attempting to communicate with the Federation after a fashion, if only to make a territorial claim.
• Complete Monster: The Praetor from "A Quality of Mercy" is the monstrous leader of the Romulan Star Empire in this alternate timeline. As in the original timeline, the Praetor orders one of her commanders to destroy several Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone. Christopher Pike tries to stop the Romulan Commander but is confronted by the Praetor and her fleet. The Romulan Praetor has the Commander and his crew destroyed for being caught by the Federation and declares war on the Federation, declaring them to be weak. The resulting war kills millions of people.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Sam Kirk has plenty of fans despite his limited appearances and plot relevance, due to being a character alluded to but never seen alive in canon and Dan Jeanotte’s Endearingly Dorky performance. Him leveling up to fight against the Gorn in “Hegemony” only added to this.
  • Dirty Coward Sir Rauth, swashbuckling Action Girl Sir Adya, and Princess Classic Thalia from "The Elysian Kingdom" are just storybook characters who Pike, Ortegas, and La'an are temporarily hypnotized into assuming the roles of. Still, all three provide some extremely well-remembered lines and scenes.
  • Stranded Vulcan Navy sympathetic mutineer-turned-commander of a wet navy T'Var only appears as a supporting character in the tie-in novel The High Country and is absent from the first act or two of it, but quickly won over a lot of fans.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • How M’Benga went from being Chief Medical Officer in this era to second in command under McCoy in the TOS era.
  • Canonically speaking, Spock is still alive during the events of Star Trek: Lower Decks; fanfic authors were quick to create scenarios in which Mariner, Boimler and a much older Spock could meet up in the 24th Century.
  • The musical reality in "Subspace Rhapsody" apparently propagated throughout the entire Federation, and about half of the Klingon empire; musical fic writers immediately started formulating how other characters that were active in the pre-TOS era but not on the ship (like Bones, Scotty and Chekhov) acted during this event.
• Fan Nickname:
  • La'an Noonien-Singh has been referred to by some fans with the nickname "Drummer", a reference to the character Camina Drummer on the recently finished The Expanse, due to their similar physical appearance, similar tone of voice, and Action Girl role involving being in charge of fighting space battles.
  • It's not uncommon to see Transporter Chief Kyle being referred to as "Transporter Twink."
  • Captain Batel has acquired the nicknamed "Captain Mrs McMurray" in reference to Melanie Scrofano's role in Letterkenny.
• He's Just Hiding: A significant number of fans insist that Hemmer didn't necessarily die at the end of "All Those Who Wander", noting that it had been stressed in dialogue how much more comfortable than the others he was with the ice planet's climate, and speculating that the cold could have killed the Gorn infants parasitising him while leaving him alive.
• He Really Can Act: Nobody will deny that Jack Quaid has acting chops, but there were concerns that bringing Bradward Boimler from Star Trek: Lower Decks into a live-action series from an animated medium wouldn't translate well; those concerns were immediately alleviated when a preview clip was shown, with Boimler perfectly in-character, and arguably more animated than his cartoon self. (In particular, he nails the one-legged, arms-pulled-back reaction when things go south.)
• I Knew It!:
  • As soon as the episode titles became publicly known, several fans theorized that "Subspace Rhapsody" would turn out to be a Musical Episode. A special preview released during SDCC revealed they were right, with the songs being performed by the cast and written by Kay Hanley and Tom Polce.
  • It was also easy to guess that "Those Old Scientists" would be the Lower Decks crossover, since Jack Ransom coined that particular acronym for "TOS".
  • Fans also successfully predicted that the season 2 finale "Hegemony" would involve the Gorn, both because their territory is known as the Gorn Hegemony and because the season premiere ended with some ominous foreshadowing of a potential Gorn incursion.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some fans of Star Trek: Lower Decks who don't have patience for modern live-action Trek expressed excitement to see Boimler and Mariner show up in live-action in Season 2.
• Magnificent Bastard: In "The Serene Squall", Captain Angel is a pirate captain who has replaced Dr. Aspen, a Federation scientist, abandoning the real Dr. Aspen on a barren planet. Angel as Aspen makes up a story about human colonial ships being attacked by pirates. When Pike and the crew investigate, Angel lures them into a trap and has pirates capture the Enterprise. Angel tricks Spock into lifting the computer lockdown on the Enterprise so they can take over the ship. Angel wants to use Spock as a bargaining chip with Spock's fiancee T'Pring, wanting T'Pring to free their husband, Sybok. When Angel is foiled, they manage to escape, leaving their crew in Federation captivity.
• Memetic Badass: George Samuel Kirk became one after "Hegemony" after he willingly volunteered to hunt down the Gorn so he could learn ways to kill them easier.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Paul Wesley with a fake moustache ^ExplanationWhen Sam Kirk('s body) appears in The Original Series, he's played by William Shatner with a fake moustache. As such, several viewers expressed mock confusion that the character was played by Dan Jeannote instead of Paul Wesley Wearing A Fake Mustache, as Wesley's casting as Jim Kirk for the second season had already been announced. ^note Similar comments were made after the Season 1 finale, in which the role of the Romulan commander, originally played by Mark Lenard prior to his casting in the recurring role of Sarek, was not played by Discovery-era Sarek actor James Frain.
  • Spock does not talk about family ^ExplanationSpock often having new members written into his family after the Original Series, thus raising questions about why he'd never mentioned them before, was already memetic in the fandom, but the fact that he knew Jim's brother before and never mentioned it either made it go to a whole new level.
  • Pike's Peak.^note In this series, Pike's hair is hairsprayed into a pompadour that stands two or three inches high and remains perfect through every situation—even after sex. This has resulted in the hair being photoshopped everywhere—as the Paramount+ logo, onto Menagerie!Pike's head, onto Picard's head, etc.
  • Unsettled Pike.^note This shot◊ of Pike from "Charades" has become a popular reaction gif, usually in the context of someone accidentally walking in on something unsavory.
• More Popular Spin Off: If you consider this a spinoff of Discovery, this is true. Discovery has its passionate fans and its quality arced up, but thanks to its characters being developed on Discovery, Strange New Worlds came strong out of the gate. So strong that The Daily Beast declared Captain Pike to be the greatest Trek Captain.
• Narm Charm:
  • The long, melodramatic reaction shot when the Romulans first appear to the bridge crew in "A Quality of Mercy" should, by all accounts, be cheesy—but it's such a near-perfect replication of a shot from the original episode (of a series that was full of melodrama) that it comes across as endearing instead.
  • Pretty much all of "Subspace Rhapsody". The idea of a subspace fold creating a musical reality where people spontaneously break out in song is one of the franchise's goofiest plots (right up there with "Spock's Brain" and "Threshold"), but the songs are catchy and well-performed, and the cast really give it their all, plus the "WTF" faces when things go screwy show that the episode itself is in on the joke. (And you simply can't beat "Klingon K-pop".)
• Salvaged Story:
  • While Nyota Uhura and Nurse Christine Chapel are quintessential characters to the Trek franchise, both got little to do on The Original Series outside of their initial batch of episodes^note Though that can be blamed on the network and Gene Roddenberry due to the more sexist standards of the 1960s. Strange New Worlds takes the time to give them a greater deal of development and backstory than they ever got on TOS, establishing Uhura as having a Dark and Troubled Past and showing Nurse Chapel as having a burgeoning friendship with Spock that eventually blossoms into a crush.
  • Spock's actions in "The Menagerie", including lying to the authorities and kidnapping Captain Pike to live out the rest of his days on Talos IV at the risk of incurring the death penalty, left many fans wondering why he would go to such lengths. SNW provides the answer beyond Undying Loyalty: Pike is taken to a reality where he doesn't step down from command, and the events of "Balance of Terror" occurs. When Pike's attempts at peace makes the Romulans think Starfleet is weak, the resulting war permanently cripples Spock. Pike accepts his fate to prevent Spock from suffering, implying Spock took up a Life Debt to repay Pike.
  • After the highly contentious redesign of the makeup for the Klingons in season 1 of Star Trek: Discovery, "The Broken Circle" and "Under the Cloak of War" completely backwheel them to a simple quality upgrade of the TNG-era design.
  • "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" finally answers why the Eugenics Wars and the time in which they occurred have been subject to constant Retcons. They were supposed to happen in 1992, as described in "Space Seed", but multiple attempts by time travellers to alter or prevent those events (actual in-universe Cosmic Retcons) have pushed them into the 21st century.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Although it isn't mentioned, the episode "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach" is clearly based on the Ursula K. Le Guin short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, a philosophical piece about a utopian city whose prosperity is entirely dependent on the constant suffering of a single child.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Several people criticize the fact that Lt. Erica Ortegas is underutilized; the most we learn about her over the course of the first two seasons is that she's an Ace Pilot with trauma from the Klingon war, but she's consistently Out of Focus to the point where that's basically all we learn about her, apart from the fact that she holds some very strong anti-Klingon prejudice as seen in "Under the Cloak of War". The most focus she gets is in "Among the Lotus Eaters", an Amnesia Episode where she and the rest of the crew forget everything about themselves. She's had less Character Development in 20 episodes than Hemmer had in 9. People are hoping that she survives the start of Season 3 solely so that she gets some episodes focusing on her.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Having Uhura, M'Benga, and Nurse Chapel appear on the show serving on the Enterprise before Kirk came along is definitely a shocker to those expecting an entirely new crew under Pike's command.
    • In an Inversion of this trope, some older Trekkies were hoping that characters from The Cage like Colt, Tyler, and Bryce would return, yet they have been absent.
  • Kirk himself appeared in several episodes of the second season, to the surprise of many who weren't expecting such a solid connection to the TOS era. It was the first time Kirk appeared on any series other than the ones on which his character was a regular (TOS and TAS), other than in reused footage from those series.
  • There is a Kirk in season one, but it's not the one anyone expected. Jim's older brother Sam (who died in "Operation: Annihilate!") is working under Spock in the science division.
  • Let's just say nobody expected T'Pring to appear, or see any development of her relationship with Spock, for that matter.
  • In terms of species, few expected the Gorn — who appeared once in TOS and have since been limited to single Continuity Nod episodes in subsequent series — being elevated to a major recurring antagonist faction deeply tied to the back story of a main character.
  • Sybok, Spock's half-brother, appears briefly at the end of "The Serene Squall", marking his first appearance since Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Sybok just being mentioned is a shock in itself, given Star Trek V has a reputation of being ignored by virtually all other canon material, beyond a few vague references.
  • With all the hype surrounding the appearance of Captain James T. Kirk in season two, who could've predicted that he'd actually debut in the finale of season one? And in the same episode, who would've expected that the Chief Engineer of Pike's Enterprise would have a familiar Scottish accent and claim to not be a miracle worker? And if that wasn't enough, who would have predicted these debuts would have been in the same episode with a What If? with the characters from Balance of Terror?
  • The San Diego ComiCon 2022 had a major bombshell with the reveal of a crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks in Season 2!
  • "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" features the return of the iconic Star Trek villain: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! Or at least a younger version of Khan.
  • Amanda Grayson herself shows up in "Charades".
  • Didn't expect Montgomery Scott himself t'appear in the season 2 finale, did ya laddie?
• Visual Effects of Awesome: A behind-the-scenes look at the season 2 finale revealed that the majority of the Gorn effects were practical, with CGI used for fast-motion shots. Yes, that includes the full-scale adult Gorn that Spock and Christine encounter on the bridge of the Cayuga— it was a person in a suit.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • After rank structure being fairly consistent in the other newer series, this series gives us Lieutenant Commander Una Chin-Riley wearing the braids of a full Commander, Lieutenant Hemmer, wearing the same, and Lieutenants Spock, Noonien-Singh, Ortegas and Mitchell wearing the braids of a Lieutenant Commander, not to mention both medical personnel (M'Benga and Chapel) wearing full Commander braids even though there's next to no way they actually are (and Chapel has been explicitly described as a civilian). As script/dialog always trumps costuming, we can chalk these up to costuming errors, but when did the costume designers forget such basic stuff?
  • Boimler and Mariner's uniforms in live-action have received some criticism for the black region around their shoulders being too large for the period; while it makes them accurate to their native show, some people have stated that they would have preferred an oversized commbadge and smaller shoulders.
• Win Back the Crowd: The viewer reaction to Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard was mixed at best, but one thing nearly everyone agreed on was that Anson Mount's performance as Christopher Pike in DSC season 2 was enjoyable. Strange New Worlds capitalizes on that, putting Pike in the driver's seat and veering back to a Lighter and Softer, more classically styled Planet-of-the-Week exploration/adventure ensemble series from the heavily serialized Darker and Edgier format of its immediate predecessors. While accepting a special award for the show from the Hollywood Critics Association in August 2022, executive producer Henry Alonso Myers summed up the pitch for the show as, "What if we just did Star Trek?" Based on critical and viewer reactions to the first season, this move was apparently quite successful.
• The Woobie: La'an Noonien-Singh, given the trauma, mental and physical, that her character has gotten since childhood (bullied and ostracized as a child due to her relation to Khan, abducted by the Gorn, becoming the Sole Survivor of her family’s colony ship). Especially when you consider she finally met a man who didn't have any baggage regarding her heritage and they fall for each other... Only for him to die. And her timeline's version of Kirk is destined to be her ancestor's greatest enemy.

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