Paramount
The second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, very similar to the primary one, has been enjoyable at the least partly as a result of the present itself isn’t all that new or unusual.
The characters and visuals and particular plot constructs are new, however at its coronary heart the present is a painstaking reconstruction of The Next Generation method from Star Trek‘s 90s-era inventive and business peak: ensemble solid, primarily episodic storytelling with flippantly serialized character growth and recurring arcs, and a willingness to combine high-concept sci-fi with simply the correct amount of silliness. It’s additionally superb at taking previous Star Trek tropes—the transporter accident, the disease-on-the-ship, the talky courtroom thriller concerning the nature of humanity—and making them really feel contemporary once more.
Episode 7, which went up early this weekend to coincide with a Comic-Con screening, exhumes and expertly executes one more shopworn trope, one thing we’ve not seen on Star Trek because the days when Quark would possibly present up on the viewscreen of the Enterprise-D: the crossover episode. And regardless of the vast hole between Strange New Worlds and the animated Lower Decks, the mixing of the 2 exhibits’ disparate kinds comes collectively higher than any gimmicky try at cross-promotion has any proper to.
What is that this, a crossover episode?
Let me be clear about what I imply after I discuss “crossover episodes.” By its strictest definition, a “crossover episode” happens any time any fictional character from one present turns up on one other present. But there are nuances.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (and the final MCU-ification of vast swaths of the tv panorama) implies that broadly outlined “crossover episodes” occur on a regular basis, and you might be anticipated to look at completely separate exhibits that suck however happen in the identical fictional universe to maintain up with essential plot developments on exhibits you need to watch. That’s not fairly the kind of crossover episode I need to talk about, although. Nor am I speaking concerning the instances when a personality on one present exhibits up on one other associated spinoff present (both quickly or completely) after the unique present is canceled, like when Worf jumped over to Deep Space 9, or when Spike moved from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Angel, or when characters from Cheers occasionally popped up on Frasier.
The particular type of crossover episode that Strange New Worlds is executing is an deliberately gimmicky one-time factor that occurs between two established however separate exhibits, typically marketed closely within the hopes of encouraging cross-pollination between two exhibits’ fanbases. They typically require bending of 1 or each exhibits’ actuality to work—to the purpose that they occasionally create paradoxes the place one actor performs totally different characters that exist in the identical actuality, or the place Tony Soprano watches a present the place folks discuss concerning the TV character Tony Soprano, or the place characters from one present exist in one other present each as fictional TV characters and as actual folks. I’m speaking about The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones, I’m speaking about characters from Mad About You displaying up on Friends, I’m speaking about Stewie from Family Guy speaking to David Boreanaz on Bones. That it feels foolish and slightly pressured is a part of the enjoyable.