Everything to Remember Before ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Returns for Season 3
Season two of Strange New Worlds ended in a dire situation. With the independent colony Parnassus Beta invaded by the Gorn—destroying the Federation starship USS Caguya and leaving its remaining crew, and the civilian population, to be preyed upon by the Gorn on the surface—the Enterprise found itself attempting to mount a rescue mission against all odds.
It was a rescue mission that didn't go entirely well. Although the Enterprise managed to successfully get a rescue team down to the surface to locate survivors—and destroy a Gorn jammer blocking transporter signals on the planet—just three crewmembers made it back to Enterprise, leaving several of its own crew (including La'an, Sam Kirk, and Dr. M'Benga), and the survivors of the colony and the Caguya to be beamed aboard the Gorn flagship now orbiting the planet.
If that wasn't bad enough, while being pummeled by the newly arrived Gorn fleet, Starfleet gave Enterprise the order to retreat rather than attempt to rescue their captured allies, leaving them to a grim fate. And if that wasn't enough, one of the trio to make it back to the Enterprise, alongside Pike and a familiar young face (more on that in a bit), Marie Batel—Pike's romantic partner and the captain of the Caguya—was discovered to have been infected with Gorn eggs. Which is not only a seemingly fatal condition, it could mean that the Enterprise now has a potential Gorn infestation aboard.
We do at least know a little about how some of this is going to play out. Back at New York Comic Con last year, Paramount released a clip that showed the battered Enterprise having its cake and eating it with Starfleet's retreat order. Unable to go toe-to-toe with the Gorn ships, the clip sees the Enterprise tag the Gorn flagship containing their captured crewmates with a dummy torpedo, letting them warp away to recuperate before, presumably, tracking them down at a later time.
One other important thing to remember about season two's finale aside from all this is that it also marked the first time that Strange New World had attempted to show the Gorn as anything other than primitive, aggressive monsters. During an encounter aboard the remains of the Caguya, Spock and Nurse Chapel came across an adult Gorn, ultimately killing it—but both feel a pang of sympathy watching the alien being succumb to its wounds. It's a tiny step, but an important one to bring more nuance to Strange New Worlds' visions of the species… and bring us slowly towards the still-hostile, but distanced, relationship between the Federation and the Gorn by the time of the original Star Trek.
Before we get to that aforementioned familiar face, let's address the big Chapelephant in the room. Christine departed the Enterprise between the events of the finale and its predecessor episode, the musical 'Subspace Rhapsody' after being accepted into a research fellowship with the scientist Roger Korby. This not only pulled Chapel away from Enterprise, it also brought an end to her brief romantic relationship with Spock, which had only just begun to flourish in the wake of the collapse of his betrothal to T'Pring.
Or at least, seemingly. Although Christine happened to be reunited with Spock and the Enterprise under unfortunate circumstances—she was aboard the Caguya being transported to her fellowship while it stopped at Parnassus Beta—and will stick around for a bit, we know that she both has to go and complete her fellowship with Korby at some point this season (Cillian O'Sullivan has been cast as the character in a recurring role) and that, eventually, she will fall in love with him and become engaged to be married.
Trek nerds up on their lore know that Chapel's return to the Enterprise comes at least a few years after this time period, when she rejoins Starfleet after her fiancé's disappearance, but in the meantime, maybe the sparks between Chapel and Spock aren't fully extinguished. Our first trailer for season three did include an intriguing shot of Spock and Christine sharing a bed together, after all.
Back to the Gorn situation. The other successful escapee of the incident on Parnassus Beta alongside Pike and Batel was none other than a young Lieutenant Montgomery Scott (played by Martin Quinn), who had successfully hidden himself on the planet after his own research vessel had been attacked by the Gorn. Now aboard the Enterprise, in season three it looks like Scotty is going to be formally integrated into the Engineering team, setting up his eventual rise through the ranks to become the ship's Chief Engineer. He's not there yet, though, as we know that Carol Kane's Commander Pelia is remaining in charge of the department for at least some of this season.
Paul Wesley's young Kirk will return seemingly at least a few times this season, finding more ways to conveniently be aboard the ship he's destined to take over in a few years's time. When we last saw him in the musical episode, he had been brought aboard Enterprise to begin a command training program, preparing the current lieutenant for his future ascent to captaincy. That's a theme that will return this season, if the latest trailer for the show is anything to go by, hinting that there will actually be an emergency at some point this season that will see Kirk, at least temporarily, command the Enterprise.
Just why Kirk is going to keep crossing paths with the crew he'll eventually lead remains to be seen, but we know from trailers he's in at least a few episodes: one that puts the crew in its own retro riff on a '60s esque sci-fi show in the vein of the original Trek, and another where there's a retro vibe of a different sort with a murder-mystery twist. But we also know from those same trailers that Kirk will get a drink in the Enterprise lounge with Scotty, so he's slowly but surely meeting a good bunch of his future crew.
Although it's hard to say just how much this will impact the narrative of this upcoming season—production on season four has been underway for a while now after it was confirmed in April last year—we're heading into season three knowing that Strange New Worlds now has an end point.
It was announced just last month that the show will conclude with a truncated fifth season, meaning a lot of the things we've touched upon here in regard to the Enterprise's future timeline, from the arrival of familiar crew to things like Pike's eventual fate, are now probably going to be set up even more so over the course of this and the remaining two seasons beyond it. Just as we're ready to contemplate one five-year mission coming to an end, the most famous one of all has to begin at some point!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns to Paramount+ next week, on July 17.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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