This season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds began with so many movie homages and gimmick episodes, it sometimes felt like the show was just filling for time. So it’s ironic that as season four comes to a close, I find myself wishing we had more time with the series. There wasn’t a massive leap in quality in the back half of the season, exactly, but there was a new sense of purpose to its overall storytelling. The promise of a return for Joe Morton’s Admiral Simon Reeger, a romance between Kirk and La’An 2.0, and an exploration of Pike’s inner emotional reality are ideas I would have loved to have seen explored over several seasons rather than just the abbreviated fifth and final one slated for next year. The same goes for all the intriguing character work that happens in this lovely finale, which turns the bittersweet nature of the passage of time into its raison d’etre via a kooky time travel story that sees Uhura team up with a version of herself from the near future.
Ironically, however, “Tomorrow’s Enterprise” probably could have made a pretty great series finale too. Though the name evokes The Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” it shares plenty of DNA with that show’s time-hopping series finale—right down to the poker playing that becomes a major throughline of Uhura’s story. It’s possible it was even written with that potential in mind as various Paramount mergers loomed during production of season four. At one point, Paramount actually did consider canceling the show outright until showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers managed to talk them into an abbreviated six-episode final season to formally connect Strange New Worlds to The Original Series. If that hadn’t worked out, this brief time-hop into Captain Kirk’s early days on the Enterprise could have served as a makeshift bridge.
In fact, I actually wonder if getting that six-episode order wound up contributing to the clumsiest thing about “Tomorrow’s Enterprise”—the idea that all of these massive hairdo, personnel, personality, and wardrobe changes are going to happen in just one year. It seems pretty obvious to me that this episode was written to be a three to five-year time jump, but got retconned into just one year to match whatever the writers have planned for their final season. It doesn’t make sense that there would be so many massive crew and career changes so quickly or that Future Uhura would be so fuzzy on things that happened just a year ago. Nor does it really seem believable that Pike could look at Future Uhura and guess, “You’re older. Not by much, but definitely a year or so.” It’s just an odd amount of time for so much to change so drastically.
Still, there’s such charm, verve, and originality to “Tomorrow’s Enterprise” that the timeline shakiness is more of a minor misstep than a major distraction. The most delightful and unexpected addition is a Scotty/Uhura romance that was hinted at in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier but never explored again, probably because the fan reaction to it was pretty mixed. I love that Strange New Worlds is bold enough to just go for it, though. Between Scotty’s friendship with Ortegas and his mentorship from Pelia, Martin Quinn has emerged as an absolute charisma bomb this season and it’s fun to see the show lean into that more and more. Given that Celia Rose Gooding is no slouch in the charisma department either, the actors feel like a natural fit, even if the fact that Scotty and Uhura are a bit of an odd couple is part of what makes them so cute together. After all, he’s a little bit cooler than his nerdy, stressed-out exterior suggests and she’s a little bit nerdier and more stressed out than her polished exterior projects.
That romance helps ground the complexities of a time travel story that requires two Uhuras to work together to save their once and future boyfriend. Scotty first dies in a shuttle accident while exploring a black hole on Future Uhura’s end, which Present Uhura hears in fragments through the white hole on her end. But when Future Uhura winds up back on her ship, it turns out Scotty now died a year ago in Present Uhura’s time. Once the two Uhuras figure out a way to communicate with one another, they’re determined to protect Scotty in both timelines.
Plotwise, there are definitely nits to pick here. I’m not sure why Scotty’s altered death is treated as a big mystery for so long when Future Uhura could literally just ask anyone around her what happened to him and when. (In fact, Present Uhura eventually does just that!) It’s also bizarre that the two Uhuras wind up physically switching places at one point instead of just swapping consciousnesses, which would have made way more sense. It feels like the writers got scared the audience wouldn’t be able to track the two Uhuras without their signature hairstyles, which is a real discredit to how great Gooding’s acting is this week.
When you compare all that to the lows we got with the Vezda last season, though, I’m inclined to grade on a curve. If there are flaws here, they’re flaws of a Star Trek episode, rather than a random attempt to suddenly become an entirely different genre. Writers Henry Alonso Myers and Robbie Thompson dream up some clever uses of their dual timelines, like when Present Uhura asks Spock a question and sets up an experiment Future Uhura can use in her time. And the way this all comes down to the birth of a giant “space baby” (which I’m pretty sure turns out to be The Prophets from Deep Space Nine) is an effective way to create a high-stakes climax that doesn’t just revolve around a big action scene. After two seasons that indulged in a lot of comedy, fantasy, and adventure, this is one of the most sci-fi-y episodes the show has delivered in a while—one rooted in the power of communication, as befits an Uhura story.
Still, more than anything, it’s the character stuff that elevates “Tomorrow’s Enterprise.” Uhura’s growth from overwhelmed cadet to confident crew member has been by far the biggest and most consistent character arc Strange New Worlds has explored over the years. Checking in on how far she’s grown under Pike as well as how far she’s still yet to grow under Kirk is a lovely embodiment of what Strange New Worlds is attempting to do as a prequel series. We’re ultimately just following a brief chapter in these characters’ lives, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful, no matter where they go from here. (Or even if they don’t survive at all.) You can’t just live for tomorrow’s potential assignment or the future of every relationship. You’ve got to learn to appreciate your present.
It’s a hopeful note to take us into the show’s final run. For as up and down as season four has been on a week-by-week basis, it holds together as a whole better than I thought it would—which was my exact opposite experience with season three. I’m not sure Strange New Worlds will ever live up to the potential it had when it first premiered. But at least it feels like there’s a chance for the show to go out on a high now that it knows its future is set.
Stray observations
- • We don’t get any specifics about what Una is up to in the one-year-later future, but we do learn that M’Benga is spending more and more time on Vulcan while sharing sickbay duties with Boyce and an (unseen but mentioned!) McCoy. Meanwhile, Ortegas moves onto a Starfleet teaching gig and something ominous happens with La’An, though we don’t know what yet.
- • Thankfully, we still get a great La’An scene where she gives Present Uhura the official Starfleet line about not changing the future and then gives her an off-the-book recommendation on how to save Scotty.
- • While Gooding can handle Uhura’s ’60s-style wig, I think they should have modified Chapel’s hair to be a little less retro. She looks ridiculous. On the other hand, the way Uhura asks her a vague question and she immediately makes it about her relationship with Spock is true OG Nurse Chapel behavior.
Photo: John Medland/Paramount+
- • We get a shoutout to Original Series character Gary Mitchell and confirmation that he’s the stepbrother of Strange New Worlds operations officer Jenna Mitchell (Rong Fu).
- • I was going to make fun of the idea of Starfleet testing the theory that “white holes are the other side of black holes,” but apparently that’s the actual scientific concept.
- • Thank you so much for following along with this season of reviews and for your insightful discussions in the comments section! (I still feel bad I missed the post-credits scene in the soap opera episode until one of you pointed it out. It’s very funny, go watch it!) I’ll be back next season to round out the show’s run. In the meantime, you can find me over on my newsletter.
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