Strange New Worlds // Starfleet Archive
NOTE: This article is about the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds entitled… Strange New Worlds. There will be spoilers. You have been warned.
It is an utter delight to see a Star Trek series open and not only have a solid opening episode, but one that would be considered an excellent episode for most shows. It feels like a weird note, but Star Trek is truly infamous for having horrible first seasons. And second seasons. At the very least, this opens with the promise of a crew who seem to know what they’re doing.
To celebrate the start of what we hope will be a great series, we’re going to look at some cool facts about the first episode that you might have missed.
Christopher Pike is a fan of old Science Fiction
It’s nice to know flatscreen TVs will last until the invention of the holodeck.
Christopher Pike seems to have a favorite movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It is an interesting choice. Not only was the 1955 edition directed by Robert Wise, who would go on to direct Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but the film is often noted for being one of the genuinely first films in science fiction to be about hope and dreaming of more for mankind rather than horrifying monsters or nuclear disaster. Seeing how Star Trek was founded on being a better tomorrow, it’s a great choice.
Amusingly, though, it does seem to be a weirdly edited version of the movie. Neither of the few scenes match up quite right with the official aspect ratio of the film in our world. Weird editing, or proof that Star Trek is in an alternate universe? You decide!
The admiral who brings Pike back has shown up before.
Did anyone else get some Metal Gear Solid vibes with Pike hanging out in a winter wonderland with a massive beard and PTSD?
The admiral who drags Chris back to active duty is named Admiral Robert April… though his name is never used in the episode from what I’ve seen. Played by Adrian Holmes, he is the third actor to portray the role despite the character having less than a half hour of screen time! Robert April was first shown in the 1973 animated series episode The Counter-Clock Incident as an old commodore who was about to retire. He was voiced by James Doohan, who was the voice for about 90% of the male guest stars on the show (Nichelle Nichols was the go-to for female voices, though Majel Barret-Roddenberry was also a heavy hitter).
Robert April: Man of at least three faces.
To be honest, The Animated Series isn’t hard to reconcile with the live-action shows. However, Paramount has been unable or unwilling to admit it belongs in the same timeline as their other shows. But that’s for another time.
The other time we’ve seen Robert April isn’t actually canon to Trek currently. As seen above on the right, the second edition of the old Star Trek Encyclopedia used a manipulated photo that combined a promotional shot of William Shatner from his pilot episode with series creator Gene Roddenberry’s face to pay tribute to the creator.
Either way, the character of Robert April derives from the original scripts and pitches of Star Trek before being replaced by Pike and then eventually by Kirk. However, this is the first time we’ve seen him on the small screen in the flesh.
The USS Archer is a familiar design to fans
While it certainly looks new, and has a fresh style like the other ships from the Disco era, the design is almost as old as the franchise itself. The Hermes class ship design comes from 1975’s Star Trek Starfleet Technical Manual, a book that in-universe was written as a compilation of material accidentally left behind in 1969 during Tomorrow is Yesterday.
The Hermes Class design was designed by real-world human Frank Joseph, intended to be a scout ship for Starfleet of the 23rd century. Since the book was not backed by Paramount and came about in the era Star Trek existed in syndication, it was doomed to lurk in the semi-canon world of background images, novels, games, and tabletop games for decades. This is the first time we’ve seen it on screen in person, and it’s fantastic.
Doctor M’Benga has a more complex history than you realize
Played by Babs Olusanmokun in Strange New Worlds, old-school fans remember M’Benga as a minor recurring character on The Original Series. Played by Booker Bradshaw for his few appearances in the 60s, the man was a fantastic Doctor under McCoy, and even a Vulcan specialist. However, his first story was actually never used.
Written by Darlene Hartman, the script was called Shol. The script established him as from Uganda, with the first name of Joseph. Unfortunately, the episode wound up being too similar to The Apple, another script which went into filming first. As such, Shol went unproduced. However, they kept the character of Doctor M’Benga to use for other episodes. An attempted spinoff of Star Trek called Hopeship would have established a brother for M’Benga, named Simon. It would have been a series featuring M’Benga as a series regular, but never made it out of the pitch phase. Thus was the fate of all spin-off attempts made in the 60s and 70s, for better or worse.
The Harry Mudd spin-off could have been amazing, though.
Transporter Chief Kyle seems to have quite the history in the franchise. Maybe.
Introduced in this episode, Kyle is played by André Dae Kim. If you don’t remember him, that’s ok. He is the very put upon transporter Chief who is asked to do the nearly impossible and beam an injection of fluid into Spock’s eye. While Kyle is a normal name for most people, he isn’t the first Kyle to be a transporter Chief on the Enterprise.
This Kyle is played by John Winston, and was a common regular on the original Star Trek series. While he never had any major scenes, Kyle was one of the names redshirts who often helped Scotty out, or manned the transporter console in Scotty’s place. He also appear on the USS Reliant as a member of their crew in The Wrath of Kahn.
And when he was animated (and played by James Doohan), he had a mustache.
Is this the same character? No one at Paramount has confirmed this yet, but this does seem like a weird coincidence. And Star Trek rarely does coincidence.
Unless you’re Diana Muldur, who seems to be playing an immortal across the decades.
Samuel Kirk has appeared before
The episode name dropped a Lieutenant Kirk multiple times, but revealed a Samuel Kirk in the final bit of the episode. It worked as a great joke for fans expecting to see the infamous James T Kirk, but it’s also an in-joke for the fans too! This Samuel Kirk is the older brother of the Captain, and even showed up in an episode of The Original Series!
Played by William Shatner himself, George Samuel Kirk Jr. showed up in the episode Operation: Annihilate! as one of the many victims of the alien parasites that episode. All they really did was slap a mustache on Shatner, as he was only a minor character who was also only onscreen as a corpse. Serious bonus points for remembering his bushy mustache.
Sam Kirk also had a brief appearance in the 2009 Star Trek movie during the young Kirk flashback. Played by Spencer Daniels, pretty much all of his scenes were cut from the movie. However, he is still there! You can see him as Kirk speeds by in his step-father’s ancient roadster with the intent to destroy it.
And we leave you with one last tidbit:
The January 6th riots of 2020 are a direct link to the Third World War.
Wait wha-
When talking with the people of the planet Kiley 279 in order to stop their worldwide war, Pike uses footage from the future history of Earth to show what their future could be like. As Pike goes on, footage from the riots in Washington DC are shown. Pike describes it as a second American Civil War, then an Eugenics War… and finally, World War 3.
Shit.
Star Trek had originally declared the Eugenics War (and the third World War) to happen during the 1990s, in the second season Space Seed. This also introduced the superhuman Kahn, who quickly adapted to future life. The episode was also made in 1967, and was trying to predict the future. What little information we got, and the character of Kahn, made it sound like a scary and unknown conflict, and mankind was barely two decades out from the atrocities the Nazis had committed under the theory of eugenics. It sounded at least plausible, but reality had other plans. When the cast of Star Trek: Voyager visited Los Angeles in the year 1996, no mention was made of the Eugenics Wars, the infamous Kahn, or even a Third World War.
As such, fans made the theory that it was a “secret war” happening in Asia. This change makes the war more immediate and applicable to the conflict in the episode, but it also immediately calls attention to the current… extremely serious threats to democracy in America. This is actually more subtle than Star Trek has been in the past, but it hits close to home.
Stay safe out there, ok?
