We’re finally at the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3. This season has been an interesting one. For example, we’ve had no shortage of moments where you sit back and go, “What did I just watch?”. However, the season has continued to push forward with the experimental format that the series is known for. Season 3 Episode 9 is titled “Terrarium“. The episode is written by Alan B McElroy and directed by Andrew Coutts.
The episode sees Ortegas (Melissa Navia) take the helm, in her first proper character spotlight. It’s well past time for the occasion, but after three seasons can it live up to expectations and give her character the depth and focus she desperately needs?
WARNING – This review contains full spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 9 “Terrarium”.
Shipwrecked
The episode opens with a bit of a silly premise, that most episodes of Star Trek fall victim too. Sending Erica out on this charting voyage on her own in a shuttle is silly. Granted, it’s not as silly as the entire senior officer complement beaming down somewhere, but it’s silly nonetheless. It was also obvious that covering the shuttle’s viewscreen, despite the technobabble, was a cost-cutting measure.
Still, for those measures, the rest of the effects are really solid. The shots of the wormhole made me yearn for a remaster of Deep Space Nine, and the alien landscape with a blue sun behind it looked more than passable as well. While on the production’s visuals, the lighting was a touch too dark for my taste in places, though it was never too hard to see what was going on.
Navia’s acting across the episode was almost undebatably her best performance in the show yet. It’s when she’s completely alone on the shuttle, talking to herself as she’s desperately trying to survive, that the episode really takes off. After spending most of her scenes this season tinkering in her quarters, seeing her thrust into MacGyver-ing her way off a moon was cool. It wasn’t necessarily a character arc, but a neat payoff nonetheless.
Small Talk
Although Ortegas doesn’t spend the whole episode alone. With a small supply of water, she ventures off in search of food. Before long, she stumbles upon a camp, with evidence of someone living there. Off in the distance, a veiled figure approaches, revealed as a Gorn. It’d be a surprising moment if Ortegas having Gorn-related trauma from “Hegemony” wasn’t one of two things she’s done this season.
A human and a Gorn stranded alone, a desperate battle for survival. I imagine most of you have seen “Arena”, an episode with a near identical setup. This episode however manages to avoid the Shatner fighting, and instead becomes something more akin to “Darmok” from The Next Generation. In essence, “Terrarium” becomes a tale of communication and understanding.
For me, it goes some way to fixing one of the biggest problems in the show’s treatment of the Gorn. Here, they are portrayed as far more than alien cannon fodder and are given depth. She’s given a voice, even if it’s only simple computer-generated yes and no responses. It’s some decent character depth, and a change of pace for the Gorn. Watching her and Ortegas collaborate was really heartwarming.
Calling All Stations
Despite Ortegas finally being given the spotlight, it’s not a one woman and one Gorn show. While Navia’s at all-time high, Celia Rose Gooding‘s Uhura is another of the episode’s strengths. Her desperation to save her friend after she goes missing is gripping. With Ortegas being one of the unaccounted for characters in The Original Series, the idea that something could actually happen to her character made for a great viewing experience.
Spock (Ethan Peck) isn’t talking her out of running these tests to the point of failure, but his logic forces him to be realistic. The chances of Ortegas being alive, the chances of the Enterprise launching a successful rescue mission, aren’t exactly big. Still, she perseveres and finds a path through the wormhole. It’s not a route for a shuttle though, but the entire ship.
I half thought this would lead to a “needs of the many” moment, but it never came. What we did get though was Uhura fudging the numbers to convince Pike (Anson Mount) of the plan’s chances of success. It’s another moral quandary, one I wish Pike did more than shove to the side. It’s nice to see how far he’ll go for his crew in a more wholesome light though, it beats wilfully covering up some of your best friend’s murders.
There Must Be Some Other Way
The final rescue of Ortegas by the Enterprise is a little on the silly side. She causes a little destruction, risking the moon’s stability, to signal the ship. Soon enough, a landing party arrives to take her home. Though without having the ability to communicate before, La’An (Christina Chong) shoots the Gorn on sight. It’s an understandable reaction from her given her past, but the Gorn wasn’t visibly a threat.
Wishing they’d come up with a better explanation for the Gorn’s inevitable death aside, the fact it was still a gutpunch of an ending is commendable. Again, Navia’s acting is sublime, with her reaction feeling very raw. It’s here that the episode goes off the rails for me, with the series again turning to desperate TOS fan service. What could’ve been left at an odd-looking star in the sky, becomes a full-on recreation of the end of “Arena”.
For an episode that’s already namechecked the USS Constellation from “The Doomsday Machine”, it was beyond over the top. Sure, the updated Metron cloak design is cool. But their blatant inclusion just to clone “Arena”, an episode “Terrarium” was already holding a mirror to, is baffling. It’s not a fresh take, it’s the exact same thing. The show feeling the need to aggressively hammer home TOS callbacks and setups is increasingly irritating.
Conclusion
Despite another ending that’s nothing but fanservice, this is definitely one of the better episodes of the season. There’s some real gutwrenching stuff here, and flipping “Arena” into a tale of survival was nice. It’s not exactly great though, as much as it is carried by a great performance from Melissa Navia. An episode being passable shouldn’t be high praise, but the season has had such a low bar that this looks more impressive than it is.
Still, it’s a big improvement. Maybe the series is finally on the right track again? It’s no doubt too soon to tell. But, heading into the finale next week, “New Life and New Civilizations”, I’m more optimistic than I was a couple of weeks ago. Details as of time of writing are a scarce, but I’m hoping that it brings the season to a satisfying conclusion.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 premiered on July 17th (2025) and will continue weekly on Paramount+ in the US, UK, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Japan. It is also available to stream on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe.
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