Star Trek is riding high right now. After its shaky start with Star Trek: Discovery and two woeful seasons of Star Trek: Picard, the franchise seems to have found its footing, and that’s in no small part to the fantastic first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Hopefully, Strange New Worlds season 2 can keep up that momentum, and if its first teaser trailer is any indication, it looks like it could.
There are two things that stand out in a first look at the teaser. One is that the young version of Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) is going to play an even bigger role in this season, building a love interest with La’An Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and a penchant for still not understanding basic 20th century technology. The other is that the Klingons are back to something closer to their TNG look once again, putting both the TOS look and the redesigned Discovery look away it seems. Both of those looks, of course, have in-universe excuses, but if the production could just stick to one style from here on out, that would be great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjWBj9CGgGI
As for season 2 of Strange New Worlds itself, we see the crew exploring exactly that in the teaser trailer as we’re reminded of the close bond between them all. There are few plot details here and mostly stirring vistas and everyone looking cool. It does seem that Number One (Rebecca Romijn) is back on board the Enterprise after her cliffhanger arrest at the end of season 1 for being a genetically altered human, but she could also be talking from a fancy jail cell somewhere too. We also get our first look at Pelia (Carol Kane), the Enterprise’s new chief engineer who replaces Hemmer (Bruce Orak) after his noble sacrifice to save everyone from the Gorn eggs inside him.
What we definitely don’t get to see is any of the show’s crossover episode with Star Trek: Lower Decks in which Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid will show up playing their characters Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler somehow (time travel, obviously). The show will also be partially animated for that crossover evidently, and we definitely do not get a peek at that.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 will premiere on Paramount+ on June 15, 2023.
