Finally, we have an extended preview of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2! The second season launched last week with the premiere episode titled “The Broken Circle”. Now we have a new trailer to keep us intrigued with what is coming up this season for the gallant crew of the USS Enterprise. From Troubles with the Gorn, Temporal hijinks from the past and the future, courtroom drama, to an imposter being among us. this season promises to give us a whole host of different episodes to enjoy!
So as always, you all know the drill. We will be breaking down the important aspects of this trailer and what they can tell us about this season going forward!
Hardships in Starfleet
At the beginning of the trailer, we hear Una played by Rebecca Romaijn saying:
We must endure hardship, to get to the stars. In the mystery and vastness of space, I like to think we might each also find salvation
Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romajin)
This might be a monologue that Una says during her trial for being an Illyrian and having genetic augments and in essence lying to Starfleet does not allow augments to serve.
It’s nice that as we hear this from Una, we see clips of all the crew, who is really becoming a family and are also enduring hardships but being able to get to the stars. We’ve had hints of M’Benga and his trauma during the Klingon Federation War. We know La’an suffered a lot from the Gorn. And then we have Uhura, who fled to Starfleet to run away from the memories of her family dying in a shuttle crash.
The speech ends with Una in prison probably, looking at her Starfleet delta. It is nice that she is holding onto this, representing her hope for still serving in Starfleet and hopefully changing them for the better in regards to their treatment of augmented individuals, though we know from Deep Space Nine, this doesn’t get better for a while yet.
Strange Energies
While the monologue is going on we see a very interesting clip of note, of some multicoloured anomaly with streaks of light. We see a beam hitting this anomaly, which later in the trailer looks to be coming from the Enterprise. So we may get the classic, channel an energy pulse throw the deflector dish to disrupt an anomaly.
The colours of this anomaly remind me of another scene from a previous trailer, that of Uhura, Ortegas and Chapel in this cave with similar lighting surrounding them. Could this be a nexus-like anomaly, while the nexus traps people in happy alternate scenarios, surrounded by loved ones, could this anomaly trap its prey in traumatic memories?
This could be the reason why Uhura sees the shuttle crash that claimed her family. This anomaly is making her relive those memories, whether the anomaly is doing this for good, making sure she can come to terms with what happens and move past it, or the anomaly is doing this for more nefarious means, trapping people within it.
Pike on a Mission
We see Pike in civilian gear with a respirator around his neck. From the promo for episode 2 of Strange New Worlds, we know this is on the planet where Pike has to recruit an augmented lawyer to represent Una in her trial. Pike is wearing a respirator because this planet’s atmosphere is not breathable for humans, but it is perfectly fine for those with genetic augmentations that allow them to be able to breathe the air.
The reason Pike isn’t wearing it now is that the lawyers’ office was filled with a breathable atmosphere for Pike, for both his comfort, but also so Anson Mount could act without a mask over his face.
Pike’s Relationships
He says he is trying to save an old friend, which is Una. We know that Una and Pike have worked together since at least 2254, though whether their relationship with one another goes back further, we do not currently know.
Obviously, we know that Una will be fine, we see Pike hugging Una who is back on the Enterprise in Uniform. So she will somehow serve in Starfleet again, whether Starfleet makes an exemption for her, or she gets the augments removed from her system, we don’t currently know, but we will find out next episode. However, we do know this won’t change federation policy on the issue of augments.
We have the return of Captain Battel, Pike’s friend-with-benefits, probably the best way to describe their relationship, who was seen in season 1 not only with Pike on his ranch but also arresting Una at the end of the season. Captain Batel is captain of the USS Cayuga, another constitution-class starship.
Prosecutor Batel
As we have seen in previews of episode 2, when they showed a scene of the trial, Captain Batel will be serving as a prosecutor against Una. I don’t know if she is going to serve a Riker role, such as he did in The Next Generation court episode “The Measure of a Man”, where he was reluctant to prosecute data, but had to because of his job. Batel could be similar, not wanting to do this, but doing it so Chris does a good job in proving Una’s case against the Federation.
We also see Batel later in the episode kissing Pike, so if this is after the trial, then she was just reluctantly doing her job.
An Imposter Among Us
We see Uhura in Engineering, which is actually nice. Obviously, she had a good friendship with Hemmer, the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise in Season One. Hemmer passed away near the end of that season and I do hope we see some aftermath of that during this season. Seeing how Uhura might interact with the new chief engineer, Pelia, could be the place we see that.
We do see Pelia interacting with Uhura in the very next scene of the trailer, with pelia and her Lanthanite accent, which is starting to grow on me, saying that she found evidence of sabotage. I wonder what episode this will be, and why someone will have sabotaged the enterprise.
We do see Uhura fighting an engineer in some sort of room, I don’t think it’s an off-room of main engineering, and it could instead be the nacelle control room. This could be the saboteur that Uhura is fighting, and he is trying to stop Uhura from either fixing what he sabotaged or trying to get her to stop investigating him.
Spock and Chapel
This season seems to promise a lot of Spock and Chapel tension that was set up last season. They obviously both have feelings for each other, but with Spock, it is much harder considering he is already betrothed, and he also finds himself between two worlds, his human side and his Vulcan side.
At the end of the trailer, we get a scene of Spock waking up in sickbay, without his Vulcan hairstyle and his Vulcan ears. This will definitely be some sort of his human side manifesting itself whether, by alien anomaly or weird illness, we shall have to see. We saw he had nightmares of this in season 1, showing him with human ears and essentially laughed at by other Vulcans, obviously without them laughing. He even had to fight his Vulcan self in that nightmare.
This episode might have more inner conflict within Spock, but with Ethan Pecks’ performances already as Spock, especially in the season 2s premiere episode, this side of Spock we will see is in good hands.
Pike on a Mission II
We see Pike and a security team in tactical gear make their way down to a planet at night time with flaming trolleys for some reason. This is very similar to the episode “Memento Mori” in season one of a colony attacked by the Gorn.
Pike in his tactical gear is seen in the trailer while he is in the captain’s chair, and there is a lot of turbulence on the bridge. This could be when some Gorn ships are attacking the Enterprise, and Pike has beamed back from the surface.
This seems to be the colony we have seen in earlier trailers as a scene from this trailer shows what looks to be a Gorn child patrolling the playground of this colony. The away team looks to have Pike, La’an and George Kirk in it.
Gorn Invasion
We have seen shots in earlier trailers and this trailer of a Gorn mothership appearing in the atmosphere over this colony. Captain Batel of the USS Cayuga was on this planet when the attack happens. Hopefully, nothing bad will happen to her, though if it does, it will make it personal for Pike, who might violate orders and go to this colony planet in order to try and save her.
If the USS Cayuga is in orbit of this planet when the Gorn Mothership attacks, the ship will likely not fare well. We have seen shots of a constitution class starship being destroyed above a planet, with Spock in an EVA suit as well as another, who could be Chapel. In this trailer, we see Spock on the outside hull of presumably this ship as an alien appears behind him.
Later in the trailer, we do see Spock in an EVA suit coming from the Enterprise through a debris field, which is probably going towards the USS Cayuga. We also see the Gorn mothership and some of the smaller attack ships firing on a constitution-looking ship. Whether this is the USS Cayuga or the USS Enterprise is not known. There looks to already be some debris around the gorn mothership, but we just cannot tell.
New Adult Gorn
It is highly likely that this alien behind Spock is an adult Gorn in an EVA suit. We can see that it has interesting plating as well as what looks to be a mechanical tail. It looks like you can also just about make out its face, which does look reptilian.
What is interesting about this design, is that one of the concept artists for Season 1 of Strange New Worlds did do designs for reimagined adult gorn. A couple of these designs had mechanical tails integrated into their armour so, these designs could be used for season 2.
Kirk and Uhura
For a while now we have gotten footage of Uhura and Kirk interacting in season 2 of Strange New Worlds. We’ve seen them drinking in the new bar on the ship, but this trailer shows that Kirk actually consoles Uhura. This might be after the incident of Uhura witnessing the shuttle crash that claimed her parents. She says that she has never been able to face death.
Kirk responds by saying “You can let death win, or you can fight back”. This actually means a lot to Kirk. As a kid, he survived a mass murder on Tarsus 4 when Governor Kodos ordered the execution of half of the population. Kirk would also fairly recently in 2257, be witness to the dikironium cloud creature killing over 200 people on the USS Farragut. Kirk is probably the best person to be talking about how to overcome the fear of death.
They may get on well, but there is also a clip of Kirk holding out a phaser with one hand and a communicator in the other, while seemingly using Uhura as a shield. Could the imposter be a shapeshifter, taking the form of other Starfleet officers on the ship? Or could Kirk be doing some sort of move to get an advantage over someone?
La’an & M’Benga
While Kirk is talking about death, we see La’an look pretty bad lying on a bed and almost emulating with her hand crying. She is next to Dr M’Benga. M’Benga seems to mimic wiping a tear off his face, so perhaps La’an can’t speak and M’Benga is doing his best to keep her spirits up.
La’an is the least safe person on the crew of the Enterprise at the moment. We don’t know whether she is alive or where she is during the events of The Original Series but she definitely isn’t on the Enterprise. Could La’an die this season?
It is also interesting as from the outfits and the architecture behind them, this looks to be Rigel VII, so perhaps La’an got pretty badly injured by one of their warriors.
Rigel VII
We know we have been returning to Rigel VII since last Star Trek Day when we got a scene from that episode of Ortegas getting ready for an away mission to Rigel VII. Pike even refers to the warriors as “Kalar warriors” which are the warriors Pike fought in “The Cage” and lost three crew to. They seem to be standing outside a gate which has a Starfleet delta on it. So some sort of cultural contamination has happened to Rigel VII.
This will probably tie into Pike’s last mission here. Perhaps some of the crew that were killed, their bodies could not be recovered. These Kalar warriors also seem to be holding phaser rifles, so if they managed to figure them out from Pike’s crew they killed, Starfleet might send Pike back to somehow fix the natural cultural development of a planet which nearly caused Pike to retire.
M’Benga Fighting
There is a great scene where M’Benga even says “Doctors love being tasked for a mission because of their combat skills” but we learn that M’Benga is a good fighter. Babs Olusanmokun, the actor who plays M’Benga, is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I am glad that they are using his skills in season 2.
La’an also fights some Kalar warriors, though this looks to be more sparring than training considering the laid-back nature of the other people around them.
Weird Structure Blowing Up
We see something blow up in front of the Enterprise. I do not have any idea what this thing could be. It looks to have some sort of central pillar, with some sort of mesh or shielding around it, like an umbrella. I would love to theorise more on what this is, but we really have nothing to go from for this.
Anomaly over Ruins
We see a Type F shuttle flying over some ruins towards an anomaly. I have no idea what episode this could be, whether it be the reason for the temporal episode with La’an and Kirk back in the past or what.
Lower Decks!
We’ve known for a long time that we are getting strange new worlds and lower decks crossover episodes in season 2 of strange new worlds. We have gotten some looks at this episode, with Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome reprising their roles in live-action as Bradward Boimler and Beckett Mariner.
Hearing Boimler wax poetically about what it means to be in Starfleet in the 23rd century, is just great, and I can’t wait to see this episode in full.
Temporal Hijinks with Kirk
And talking about being in the past, we see a shot of La’an and Kirk seemingly teleporting to the past. They are both holding onto each other and have been brought to the past. Whether they were fighting, or this was their intention to come to the past is not known. Kirk does look quite surprised.
We do know that this seems to be another alternate timeline. You can see that Kirk is wearing a different style of Starfleet badge. In a recent interview with Paul Wesley, they did show a scene where this is apparent as another timeline, as he is shown in command of the Enterprise nearly a decade too early.
For some reason La’an is the only one who notices, kind of a Yesterday’s Enterprise feel with some time travel thrown in.
Conclusion
The second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has started, exclusively on Paramount+, with new episodes dropping weekly on Thursdays. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams via Paramount+ in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Latin America, France, Germany, Brazil, South Korea (via Tving), France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland & Austria. As well as CTV Scifi / Crave in Canada, & TVNZ in New Zealand. And from June 16 on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe.
If you want to know what we thought about the premiere episode of season 1, make sure to check out our review!
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