San Diego Comic-Con may not have cast or big casting announcements this year, but Paramount Plus found a way to surprise fans. The next episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be released five days early. The episode is also the highly-anticipated crossover episode featuring the live-action version of some of the cast from Star Trek: Lower Decks. Having already watched this episode, I can attest that this is all just as delightful as it sounds.
Since the players are on strike, SDCC is behaving much more cautiously than in previous years. There aren’t as many star-studded panels and no big casting announcements. That means studios have to rely on something other than the work of the actors to promote their shows, and Paramount Plus has opted for that surprising decrease.
Episode 7, Those Old Scientists, is available now and manages to bring the characters from Lower Decks, a very frenetic animated series, remarkably well into the more traditional Star Trek world of Strange New Worlds. Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome move seamlessly between the two mediums, and much of their sass is easily explained because, as you know, they’re from the future. Things will only get weirder in the future.
The characters from Strange New Worlds struggle to match the energy of the Lower Decks characters, but the actors who play them develop an easy rhythm that really helps to tie the two very different series together well. Even if it’s utterly goofy, it all feels like Strange New Worlds, not some weird and forced crossover.
That surprised me when I turned it on. I’ve been excited for this episode since it was announced last year at SDCC. I was curious to see how they would do it. A show is about a group of extraordinary heroes who travel the stars and save the universe. The other is an often raunchy comedy about the people who keep the ship running while the heroes show off their exploits. Blending those two tones together could have been disastrous, but “Strange New Worlds” has always been good at jumping from genre to genre and navigating small shifts in tone with ease.
Also, it turns out that when you bring some really good, really dedicated actors together on a sound stage, they can do something wonderful.
With episode 7 airing today, the rest of the season will air slightly earlier than expected. Episode 8 of Strange New Worlds airs this Thursday 27th July. Episode 9, the musical episode, airs the following Thursday and Episode 10, the season finale, airs August 10.