At the end of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, in the finale, “Hegemony,” Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and the Enterprise were put in an impossible situation. With half the crew kidnapped by the Gorn, and the enemy Gorn vessels closing in on all sides, Pike was desperately being asked one question from his crew: “Orders, captain?”
Now, we actually know what happens next. Ahead of the Season 3 debut of Strange New Worlds — which will drop sometime in early 2025 — the Star Trek franchise has just officially released what looks to be the first moments of the Season 3 premiere. If you don’t want to be spoiled on what Pike does after “To Be Continued...” from Season 2, then certainly don’t watch this clip! But, if you want to get fired up for Season 3 of Strange New Worlds, read on! Mild spoilers ahead.
As revealed at the 2024 New York Comic-Con, the new clip from Season 3 (watch above) finds the Enterprise crew frantic to figure out what they should do next. The large Gorn ship can overpower the Enterprise easily, and the smaller ships are destroying the shields. Pike has orders to withdraw and cut losses for the Federation, but he needs a way to track the ship that has all the hostages.
After a classic Trekkie technobabble workshop of viable options, Una (Rebecca Romijn) suggests jamming the communications between the Gorn ships, which involves disrupting light patterns. This a callback to the Season 1 episode “Memento Mori,” when the crew figured out the Gorn used light signals to communicate ship-to-ship. Ops Officer Mitchell (Rong Fun), then suggests firing a dud torpedo, but one that’s outfitted with a secret tracking device. To do this, the Enterprise has to get close enough to the Gorn destroyer, which requires ramming the Enterprise into the enemy ship, then warping away.
It all just barely works, and we end with Pike clearly frustrated that he can’t get his people back. Pike hates leaving people behind! Way back in Discovery Season 2, in the episode “Saints of Imperfection,” Pike said: “Starfleet... is a promise. I give my life for you, you give your life for me. And nobody gets left behind!”
Right now, this means that several crewmembers, including Sam Kirk (Dan Jeannotte), La’an (Christina Chong), Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), and Ortegas (Melissa Navia) are still with the Gorn. Presumably, this will all get sorted out later in the season, since some footage has already been revealed that shows La’an and M’Benga alive and well, plus we know that Sam Kirk won’t bite the dust until The Original Series episode, “Operation -- Annihilate!” But still, even though Strange New Worlds is giving us the first bit of the resolution of this cliffhanger, the crew is far from out of the woods.
Strange new casting
The Strange New Worlds clip reveal at New York Comic-Con was something of a surprise, and the panel also included the revelation that popular actor Rhys Darby will also have a guest role in Season 3. No word on what character he’ll play yet, though one decent guess might be Spock’s jovial — and unhinged — half-brother Sybok, originally played by Laurence Luckinbill in the 1989 film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
In the Season 1 episode, “The Serene Squall,” the existence of Sybok at this point in the timeline was teased, but we only saw the back of his head. Could he finally be coming in this season? Could Rhys Darby be playing him? Who knows. But at the start of this season, there’s a Gorn baby growing inside of Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano) and Scotty (Martin Quinn) beaming people up, haphazardly. It would make perfect sense if Spock’s illogical brother showed up this season, too.
