Jonathan Frakes Knows Why Fans Love Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

In 2017, “Star Trek” returned to the small screen after a 12-year hiatus with the debut of “Star Trek: Discovery,” a big-budget show with slicker production values than the franchise had ever seen. It debuted on Paramount+ (still called CBS All Access in 2017), and it was to be the first of many new “Star Trek” shows that the streaming service would debut over the next few years. It was followed by “Short Treks,” “Star Trek: Picard,” “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” and “Star Trek: Prodigy.” The original U.S.S. Enterprise would also make a guest appearance in the second season of “Discovery,” inspiring an Enterprise-set spinoff called “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” Paramount+ also recently debuted the TV movie “Star Trek: Section 31.”

Despite the glut of “Star Trek,” however, fans weren’t always on board. Some old-school Trekkies didn’t like the new violent tone of “Discovery,” as it didn’t quite match the dry, diplomatic, and technical aspects of the older Trek shows. “Discovery” and “Picard” have been especially lambasted, and they have inspired many heated debates among Trekkies as to what makes good “Star Trek.” As of this writing, however, all of the above shows have been canceled except for “Strange New Worlds.” 

However heated the debates became, it was generally agreed that “Lower Decks” and “Strange New Worlds” were “the good ones” of the streaming era. Both benefited greatly from a traditional story-of-the-week structure, eschewing modern TV’s habits toward season-long story arcs. “Strange New Worlds” was episodic, took place on the familiar U.S.S. Enterprise, and feature a raft of legacy characters, led by Captain Pike (Anson Mount).

Prolific “Star Trek” actor and director Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander Riker on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” seems to know why the series is favored over the other shows of the Paramount+ era. In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, he cited the show’s episodic structure as the primary reason for its success. 

Frakes said: 

“The one I just finished is spectacular. They take big swings on ‘Strange New Worlds.’ I think that the fact that they are stand-alone episodes has made this, arguably, the favorite ‘Star Trek’ since ‘Next Gen,’ probably.”

The “one he just finished” is a reference to “Those Old Scientists,” an episode Frakes directed. “Scientists” was a crossover episode with “Lower Decks,” an animated series set a century later, and it was a thrill for Trekkies to see previously animated characters in live-action. 

But to Frakes central point: “Strange New Worlds” is a retro program in many ways, most notably in its structure. For its first several decades, “Star Trek” abided by traditional syndication-friendly models, tidily concluding its hour-long miniature morality plays every week. They had a status quo to uphold. The post-2017 Trek shows attempted something new, telling season-long stories that wouldn’t conclude until 13 episodes had elapsed. “Strange New Worlds” (and “Lower Decks” for that matter) featured standalone episodes, making them feel more like classical “Star Trek.” 

It certainly didn’t hurt that Trekkies could see new versions of old-school characters. “Worlds” not only features Captain Pike, but Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), and Spock (Ethan Peck). At the end of the show’s second season, we have also spent some time with a young Captain Kirk (Paul Wesley) and a young Scotty (Martin Quinn). 

The episodic structure, Frakes also said, allowed for a lot more creativity.

The makers of “Strange New Worlds” have certainly stretched creatively. It is, after all, a series that not only boasted a crossover with an animated series, but also had a musical episode, a few horror episodes, a body-swap episode, and a few shows that were outright slapstick comedies. Episodic shows allow for a greater variety of stories, rather than being stuck with one for 13 straight hours. Frakes gives credit to the head honchos at “Star Trek” — specifically Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers, and Chris Fisher — for encouraging the variety. He said that:

“They try to assign a director to an episode that they believe will be able to enhance whatever that particular ‘movie of the week’ episode is. And it’s, I think, pretty effective. The one I did last year, ‘Those Old Scientists,’ with the crossover of cartoon characters coming in? That’s a big chance to take, and it worked wonderfully. The musical, again, worked wonderfully. I’m very proud of and impressed with the swings that the producers of ‘Strange New Worlds’ take.”

As mentioned, “Strange New Worlds” is the current survivor of Trek’s streaming era, and its third season is scheduled to debut in 2025. It will eventually be joined by another “Discovery” spinoff called “Starfleet Academy,” set to start up sometime later this year or early next year. Other Trek shows are in development, but their titles or concrete details are not yet known.