We’re at the halfway mark for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3. This episode is titled “Through the Lens of Time” and appears to be a classic Star Trek-type adventure. It’s directed by Andi Armaganian, while being written by Onitra Johnson and Davy Perez. Once again, we’re joined by Cillian O’Sullivan’s Doctor Roger Korby, who joins the USS Enterprise for an archaeological dig.
Season 3 of the series has been off to an interesting start so far. While I haven’t loved much of what’s on display, the season has certainly had its moments. Now thrown onto a mission on a proper strange new world, uncovering a lost piece of an ancient civilisation, the Enterprise crew find themselves in great danger as an ancient evil is unleashed. Can the team get through it unscathed?
WARNING – The following contains major spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 5 “Through the Lens of Time”.
Korby’s Enterprise Mission
It feels weird saying this, but finally Strange New Worlds is going to another Strange New Worlds. Sometimes, with this Star Trek series, it feels like there is a lack of new environments. However, this time we are visiting one. Even if it does feel like a quarry site in Canada, some elements of this episode were a little predictable. For example, when the away team navigates the maze of doors, it is easy to see them getting split apart. These are long-standing franchise tropes though, and it was lovely to see them used effectively.
Seeing the crew work to resolve the mystery on the planet was really interesting. This is some classic Star Trek mission-of-the-week type of stories. Playing with space and time is nothing that the franchise hasn’t done before, but using the drone cameras to figure it out felt distinctly modern. While they were all occupying the same space, pairing off the characters also allowed for closer interactions through the chamber sequence.
The ending felt like something ripped straight out of Indiana Jones, though. Notably with Korby learning that sometimes the past is best left buried, a demonstrably tough lesson for an archaeologist. Taking a leap of faith onto an invisible bridge and leaving the artifact behind expanded on Korby’s character nicely. Having him play off Spock, with the pair squabbling over leadership titles, was a nice way to use their romantic rivalry without the show becoming too much like a teen drama.
A Sickbay Problem
Strange New World Season 3’s new character, Nurse Gamble, gets to be a part of the away team mission in “Through the Lens of Time“. Chris Myers has really stood out as an excellent addition to the cast in a recurring role this season. Despite a forced introduction, his enthusiasm on the Enterprise has been infectious. In typical Starfleet fashion, this goes off the rails quite quickly, though. After doing what any Redshirt would, Ensign Gamble picks up an object, and it blows up in his face. After being beamed aboard the Enterprise, the real mystery starts.
In what is another gruesome medical event for Star Trek, Gamble has seemingly had his eyes blown out, rather gruesome for Star Trek. After a typical mid-episode meeting with Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Scotty (Martin Quin), Pelia (Carol Kane), Ortegas (Melissa Navia) and Sam Kirk (Dan Jeannotte), the team realises that something is very wrong. In an interesting turn of events, seeing Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano) and Gamble have a punch-up in sick bay, which was not on my bingo card for today.
Batel’s story is part of an overarching line running through the third season, with a large focus on her recovery from “Hegemony”. An expression of Gorn-DNA seems to be the reason for Batel trying to kick the hell out of Gamble. Is this a good time to say USS Enterprise security sucks? Unfortunately, it is a tragic ending for Ensign Gamble, who only started being fleshed out this episode. Still, the crew’s debriefing gives some spotlight to the conversation between Good and Evil, some distinctly Trek philosophising.
Making of a Star Trek
Actor Mynor Luken returned as Beto Ortegas. We’ve already seen him in the opening episodes of Strange New Worlds Season 3. It seems he’s a filmmaker who has once again returned to make a film set aboard the USS Enterprise. He’s also accompanying the away team down to the archaeological dig site with Doctor Korby and the others. Most of his screentime this week is spent alongside Uhura, who he’s been shown to have a budding romance with.
Thankfully the episode doesn’t subject us to too much of the romance, leaving the characters as players in an unravelling psychological mystery more than anything. While using the cameras could have produced a more “found footage” aesthetic, a presentation like that could easily have been cliche. Instead they were used sparingly, though perhaps too much so that the documentary felt like an after thought.
I can’t shake the feeling that maybe having six people on the away team was too many, especially given the intensity of the episode’s b-plot on the Enterprise. Juggling too many elements, it feels that Beto’s story and documentary are still left less fleshed out than they should be. Although I hope that as a recurring character for the season, he continues to follow around the crew for a little while yet.
Primal Fear
It’s a shorter moment, but having Batel appear in the sickbay, with a primal, violent reaction to Gamble’s infection produces some interesting questions. Being fused with the Gorn from earlier in the season, she’s bound to have some kind of connection to their instincts. We’ve seen them attracted to light in the premiere, is there a possibility that they’re repulsed by pure evil forces?
Whatever was inside Gamble was a malevolent and manipulative entity. Knowing his brain was dead for the episode, it’s quite likely that he was dead the whole time. By sitting in the mystery of his death, and Batel’s violent, uncontrolled reaction, the episode managed to be a lot scarier than it otherwise would’ve. Using Pelia’s long-overdue presence effectively, with her Lanthanite age still turning up nothing, made it such a creepy viewing experience.
Overexplaining and overanalysing ideas is where they serve to become less scary. Being a more pure science fiction series, Star Trek tends to try and find a rational explanation for everything. By allowing some open-endedness, be it the lack of concrete answers, or the episode’s final shots, the series has crafted a genuine psychological horror. If the horror genre is the “final frontier” the franchise is yet to touch, this explored it brilliantly.
Conclusion
“Through the Lens of Time” is your classic style of Star Trek adventure for Strange New Worlds Season 3. After a few weird episodes, this is an episode I have been wanting for some time. It’s horror without the violent excess, and some real scariness coming from the face of the unknown for the first time in years. The episode also set up a hell of a story with Batel going forward, that’s sure to end similarly violently.
But perhaps we’re not done with the villains of this episode either? The finishing moments of the episode, as Doctor M’Benga calls Earth about Gamble, show the USS Enterprise computers glitching. Are we about to see another recurring threat for the Enterprise crew? An original one, especially in this otherwise nostalgia fuelled season, would be a lovely treat. It does help that the episode’s final moments are genuinely really creepy, ending the episode on a very high note!
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.
More From Trek Central
📰 – Filming Starts for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4
🔥 – Christopher Pike – The Journey to Strange New Worlds Season 3
🔍️ – Star Trek Online Beams Down New Timeless Legacy Starship Bundle!
Join the Star Trek conversation via our social media platforms:
- Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TrekCentral
- Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/TrekCentral
- Instagram – https://instagram.com/TrekCentral
- BlueSky – https://bsky.app/profile/trekcentral.net
- Twitter – https://twitter.com/TheTrekCentral
- YouTube – https://youtube.com/TheTrekCentral
- Mastodon – https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]
- Discord – https://discord.gg/fF2heMbfW8
