Star Trek Series Strange New Worlds: The Inevitable Spock

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This is what »Enterprise« looked like in 1979 – Paramount does not release image material for the current look for Germany

Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection / IMAGO

The almost perfect time machine sounds like this: »Space – endless expanses.

These are the adventures of the spaceship Enterprise.« To see this: the well-known forms of this very spaceship, planets, stardust.

The Magic of the Unknown, which has been aiming to accelerate television viewers' imaginations to warp speed for over 50 years now.

Even the music sounds like the yearning optimism of the 1960s, almost like the original by Alexander Courage, which first rang out on television sets on September 8, 1966 when »Star Trek« flickered across US screens.

But the series to which these opening credits belong and which has now also premiered in the USA bears the addition »Star Trek: Strange New Worlds«, the captain's name isn't Kirk but Christopher Pike, and the stories take place ten years before the adventures by Kirk and Co.

»Strange New Worlds« is the latest chapter in the »Star Trek« universe.

A series as a pure nostalgia trip;

a time machine that transports fans not to a future in which the wise humanity poses as the law enforcement agency of the universe, but to a feel-good past when television consisted of a few programs and problems, no matter how galactically complicated, solved within 45 minutes of airtime.

Today, even television is complex: too many channels, too much streaming, too many series.

Paramount+, the provider of »Strange New Worlds«, wants to attract those who have always loved »Star Trek« with the show.

In Germany, however, you will have to wait until autumn when Paramount+ will also start here.

For the streaming service, which, like the film studio it is named after, belongs to the media conglomerate Paramount Global, "Star Trek" is the most important building block for a brand identity, similar to the "Star Wars" series for Disney+.

However, Paramount+ has a much harder time than its competitor: the service only got its name last year after its predecessor, with the much more unglamorous title CBS All Access, languished for years with disappointing subscriber numbers.

Today, Paramount+ is set for global expansion, but as evidenced by Netflix's crisis at the moment, the days of skyrocketing growth are over.

According to recently published figures, Paramount+ now has 62 million subscribers, six million more than at the end of last year, but a far cry from Disney's almost 130 million and certainly from Netflix's over 200 million.

So »Star Trek« has to fix it, for better or for worse.

However, the recent history of the franchise shows just how difficult it can be to capitalize on an already established brand.

The last series from the universe, »Star Trek: Discovery« and »Star Trek: Picard«, also raised eyebrows among fans.

The ambitions to tell complex stories over many episodes, as is done in modern series business, were great.

However, it turned out all too often that the rather simply knitted characters didn't carry the bombast and whole narrative strands didn't work.

Female characters are allowed to be more complex this time

With "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," Alex Kurtzman, the chief designer of the "Star Trek" universe, now seems to finally embrace the nostalgia that the previous series already longed for anyway.

Here, every episode tells an adventure, as in the original, and first voices from the USA are enthusiastic.

The »Rolling Stone« writes: »It is almost frightening how effective the old format is after all this time.«

Alongside Captain Pike, the cast includes the inevitable Spock, this time played by actor Ethan Peck.

Spock has apparently gotten engaged and is once again struggling with understanding human emotions.

Female characters are allowed to be more complex this time, and the »Hollywood Reporter« thinks that the optimism of the sixties that resonates here is extremely good for the series in view of the thin attempts at mythologization of past attempts.

Also and especially in view of the current world situation.

Of course, Star Trek is all set for retro TV, in line with the general trend in Germany too.

The third season of the other spin-off, Picard, reunites the fan-favorite characters from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' from the '90s, Paramount said.

The stream must go on.