It’s Time ‘Strange New Worlds’ Quit Stealing From Original ‘Star Trek’

“Strange New Worlds” is rumored to be bringing back Trelaine from original series

Apr 05, 2025

Editor’s Note: Happy First Contact Day! See y’all outside of Bozeman, Mont, in a short 38 years!

Longtime readers of Subspace Chatter know what a huge fan I’ve been of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

It’s been a captivating return to episodic, adventure-based Star Trek, with a crew led by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and Number One (Rebecca Romijin) characters who I had always wanted more of since seeing their brief introductions in the original series episode “The Menagerie.”

It launched with a nearly perfect first season, and when Hemmer (Bruce Hiram) died at the end of that first year I don’t think I cried so hard since Spock died at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or when the original Enterprise was destroyed in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

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And while I remain a big fan to this day, looking forward to the premiere of the third season this summer, I can’t help but be worried by the third-season teaser that Paramount released this week.

Particularly that’s the speculation that actor Rhys Darby will appear in an episode as Trelaine, the puckish, childlike alien introduced in the original series episode, “The Squire of Gothos,” played brilliantly by the late actor, William Campbell.

You can see the entire teaser here:

My complaint certainly isn’t with Darby, who’s a fine actor.

Rather, it’s the habit that Strange New Worlds writers and producers have developed in essentially stealing bits of lore from other parts of the franchise and repurposing them.

When done well, that kind of borrowing of lore can deepen our appreciation for the franchise. But when done badly, it is done often in ways that damage those bits of lore in the process.

Actually, this trend began before Strange New Worlds, with Star Trek: Discovery’s appropriation of the character of Harry Mudd, from the original series.

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As portrayed by Roger C Carmel in the classic Trek episodes “Mudd’s Women” and “I Mudd,” Harry Mudd was described by Captain Kirk (William Shatner) as a “thief,” a “swindler and a conman,” and a “liar and rogue.”

A scoundrel, certainly, but not at all a violent sort.

But brought back in the Discovery episodes “Choose Your Pain” and “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” and the Short Trek “The Escape Artist” — and portrayed by Rainn Wilson — Mudd is a much more menacing character, almost sociopathic.

A much different take on the character, certainly.

But since the original series and Discovery are both within the prime Star Trek timeline — and the Discovery portrayal of Mudd comes before that of the original series in that timeline — it becomes almost impossible to reconcile the two.

That trend has continued in Strange New Worlds.

At first, the introduction of a younger Jim Kirk (Paul Wesley) seemed like maybe an interesting counterpoint to Pike.

But since then Strange New Worlds writers and producers seem intent on loading up on other legacy characters from the original series, from Scotty to now apparently, Trelaine.

Trelaine is especially egregious since an encounter in Strange New Worlds would predate the original series and, in “Squire of Gothos,” the Enterprise crew had no idea who he was.

It just seems like the writers and producers of Strange New Worlds are trying to strip the original series for creative parts in some misguided attempt to soup up their own series.

It’s disrespectful to the original series, of course.

But even worse is it does a huge disservice to the original premise of Strange New Worlds.

That premise was for Strange New Worlds to be its own series, an adventure with a new and different crew. And, at its heart, to be the story of Captain Christopher Pike: The struggles he faces as he comes to terms with the tragic fate that awaits him in the future, as well as being the origin story of the deep friendship and bond between Pike and Spock (Ethan Peck) that eventually drives Spock in the future to hijack the Enterprise so as to save his former captain.

To me that was an extremely compelling story to tell, strong enough to stand on its own.

But today, the creative team behind the scenes of Strange New Worlds risks pulling the series off course and turning it into nothing more than a “reimagining” of the original series in the same fashion as Ronald D Moore’s series was a reimagining of original Battlestar Galactica.

That’s not the series that we were promised several years, and that would be a shame.

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