The second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wrapped production earlier this year and is set to debut in 2023 on Paramount+. And now series star Anson Mount is giving a preview of what fans should expect.
Strange New Worlds season two goes to 11
Out promoting his new movie MK Ultra, Anson Mount (Captain Pike) teased the upcoming second season of Strange New Worlds in an interview with Collider, drawing a comparison with the 1980s mockumentary Spinal Tap:
It’s like Christopher Guest in Spinal Tap, discovering that these knobs all go up to 11. Akiva [Goldsman] and Henry [Alonso Myers], our two showrunners, are so courageous. I really am not a conservative storyteller, at all. I am all for saying, “Fuck tradition, let’s do it our own way.” But I’ve even found myself going, “Really? Can we really do this?” Their mantra is that Star Trek can be a lot of things. Star Trek isn’t Star Trek because there’s no such thing. Star Trek can be a lot of things because Star Trek, as the best TV does, operates as a metaphorical platform, and when you jump into that wholly, you can really find a lot more elbow room than you think, including playing with not just story, but genre. If you thought we took some big swings in season 1, and we did in a lot of different ways, we’re going for the rafters in season 2.
Mount’s comments match up with what Henry Alonso Myers said about season 2 in a TrekMovie interview last month:
We’re not telling stories without telling stories about character. And that’s really what season 2 is about. But that also means bigger science fiction ideas, bigger stranger worlds, crazier things. We try a couple of things that have never been done on Trek before—personally I believe successfully.
Season 1 already saw Captain Pike trapped in a child’s fantasy as well as meeting his older self from another timeline, so season 2 must really be something else.
Anson Mount as Admiral Pike and Captain Pike in the Strange New Worlds season 1 finale
See Anson Mount in MK Ultra
Anson Mount stars in the new psychological thriller MK Ultra. Written and directed by ex-Intelligence Officer Joseph Sorrentino, the film is based on the true story of the 1960s human experimentation program conducted by the CIA. You can rent or buy it now on Amazon and other digital platforms.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
I’m so hyped about season two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Yet, I don’t judge those who hate that show or any other modern Star Trek show for that matter.
These Hollywood people really do have a talent for saying a lot, yet have absolutely no solid meaning.
Noticed that too?
Hence the drought-like state of contemporary screenwriting.
Agreed. Imagination, creativity and Intelligence seem to be practically outlawed in today’s Hollywood. Secret Hideout for sure seems to follow that edict.
Agreed but to be fair I don’t really want to be spoiled with too much anyways. We have a LONG way to go before SNW S2
Yet, even when they say nothing, they say more relevant things than any of us in our puny everyday lives… They will be remembered, most of us won’t…
Yeah, when you think about it l, all we are is dust in the wind.
It is almost like they’re politicians. :-)
Jealous? Not very talented? Need to tear people down so you feel better? Sad.
You are an incredibly sensitive individual. From such a reaction you have never been criticised in your life.
Yep, that defines Boring One to a ‘T’.
It’s called not giving away spoilers. You’re acting like this is something new, lol
According to you, yes but there are many people-critics and viewers-who would say otherwise (and if you feel that way, then why not try at watch some foreign films-as well as domestic independent ones-that aren’t like that?)
It’s usually a good sign when the people who make a show really want to brag about it…or they are trying to prepare the audience for something they aren’t sure will work. Discovery otoh is a fairly silent production, you don’t get much hype from them.
Haha
I’m trying to remember what the big swings from season 1 were. I’m guessing the fairy tale one, right? What else?
Definitely the fairy tale one, as well as Memento Mori (the one with the acorn attack and Enterprise hides inside of a brown dwarf) which was very much in the vein of military submarine thrillers; I’d include Spock Amok as well which was the closest Star Trek has ever been to a straight up comedy when Spock and T’Pring swap bodies; finally I’d also include All Those Who Wander, the 2nd to last episode, being as close to a horror episode as Star Trek has gotten.
Yes I agree with all of those too. People accused the show of playing it too safe in some ways because it basically followed what a lot of the classic shows did but that’s also the point. They want it to feel like, well, Star Trek and getting back to those type of stories again Picard and Discovery has avoided doing. And I loved stuff like Spock Amok. It’s my favorite of the season.
Thanks.
I didn’t think of the Gorn episodes as big swings, though. Seemed like standard submarine and horror stories, which Trek has done plenty of before. I guess it was something of a big swing making the Gorn mindless monsters… maybe? I don’t know. (I do know I didn’t like it very much.)
The episodes I did like were the pilot, the one with the kid, the light virus episode, and especially the Uhura episode with the comet, which was like a perfect little character-based short story. More of that, please.
Blah, acorn = Gorn
Feels like their “big swings” were more in line with changing up the Chapel character, making everyone aware of T’Pring, making #1 an alien and using the Gorn as a “big bad”.
Very excited about season 2. I really enjoyed season 1 overall and it got back to weird trippy Star Trek again and it sounds like we are going to get even more of it next season. I’m really looking forward to the Lower Decks crossover (it probably doesn’t get weirder than that lol). If it’s successful I hope they do more crossovers with SNW, maybe with Prodigy or whatever the 25th century Picard spin off will be.
And I’m going out on a big limb here and I have a feeling we are getting a SNW musical in season 2! They keep going on about doing something never done in Star Trek before. Obviously prepared to be very wrong but just a gut feeling. But SNW like Lower Decks is a really fun show and doesn’t always take itself too seriously. Can’t wait to see what’s next.
As I’ve said before, SNW is great.
Unfortunately, it’s not the Pike and Una show I’d hoped for since first seeing The Cage in the 90s.
I’m still grieving that missed opportunity a bit to be honest, but I’m happy enough with what it is.
I’d rather have a coherent, well run SNW that’s hobbled itself into being the hero’s journey origin story for every major TOS legacy character, than what damage was done by the wrestling egos in much of Discovery and Picard.
So, I’ll be cautiously enthusiastic look forward to enjoying the ride.
Yeah unfortunately it has turned more into a TOS prequel-lite show than a bonafide Pike show. But I honestly expected that (I predicted we were going to see Kirk in the first season finale way before the show even started or we knew they had cast Wesley as Kirk). Because this group just can’t help themselves and that’s been very obvious at this point. ;)
But definitely agree, I would choose this direction of the show 100 times over the mess we gotten with Discovery and Picard so far. It’s not even close.
I foresee something meta, as in “Far Beyond the Stars” (DS9). Brilliant!
I am so looking forward to season two. It just bums me out that the Gorn are going to continue to be on the show, given how badly they bungled that in season one.
Yeah. To me the fact they used them at all is their biggest and costliest mistake. All the other errors I can live with. They aren’t great but if you squint and ignore some smaller details they kinda sorta can give you the illusion of maybe working. There is just no way to justify the Gorn. And worse, they could have done the exact same thing with some other alien. It was a true act of disgusting hubris on their part.
I don’t care if you take Star Trek across your knee and spank Star Trek silly, I just care that the overall quality of the scripts improves a bit. I mean you’re doing 10 eps, not 26 eps, so maybe shoot for 5 out of 10 decent scripts. Things to avoid: people who turn into ghosts after being hit by lightning; a bottle episode that is little more than the main cast doing silly voices for 45 mins; killing time with bargain basement space pirates; recycling the Alien franchise to little effect.
Rebuttal: Oh c’mon, Star Trek was often cruddy so this one can be be too!
Endbuttal: Again, they’re only doing 10 eps, so mostly schlock doesn’t cut it.
I agree on the 10 episode thing. The short season means there is no excuse to produce mostly sub par episodes. When there were 22+ episodes you kinda expected a few duds. With 10 and pretty much all the time in the world needed between seasons to put things together… No. There really shouldn’t be any bad ones but more than a couple of sub par episodes is unacceptable.
I’m reminded of the X-Files revival. There were a few good ones in those short couple of seasons, but dear lord there were a lot of stinkers. It was like they were written at the last minute or something. I mean, really bad TV, on a basic storytelling level.
Destroyed the notion for me that shorter seasons automatically mean better, or ‘prestige TV.’
As per usual with the X-Files the monster of the week eps were pretty decent but man they took the already convoluted mythology of the show and just flushed it down the toilet.
Definitely. I liked most of the monster of the week eps. “Were Monster” is a new classic. Pretty much anything written by Darin Morgan is gold.
But yes, the ongoing myth/alien invasion was so badly handled it was kind of amazing to watch.
I loved the X-Files so much that after seasons’s 10 and 11 I tried SO HARD to understand and make sense of the mythology I tried to research it on the net for a while one afternoon. No one else seems to get it either. I’m at this point in the same boat as Gillian Anderson, just let the show rest in peace.
I imagine it would take a ton of red string and pushpins to make sense of the mythology at this point.
I loved 8 of Season 1’s episodes — I wasn’t wild about the pirate episode or the Alien homage — and I can’t wait to see Season 2.
The writers and actors have done a great job of making ALL of the characters interesting. Before SNW began, I thought I was going to watch SNW to see Pike, Spock, and Number One, but now that I’ve seen it, I love those three AND Chapel, Uhura, Ortegas, M’Benga, Hemmer, and La’an.
I don’t know how they managed to make me love those characters in only ten episodes, when there are still some Discovery characters that I haven’t warmed up to after four times that many. But whatever you’re doing, SNW, keep doing it!
Once again they’re talking a lot but not saying anything.
Surprised by how much I liked this show. Best since TNG.
Agreed. I like it because it’s taken a lot of elements from TNG too. It’s more TNG than Picard is lol. At least the first two seasons of that show.
There seem to be a few shows that are more TNG than PIC these days lol
The show goes to 11? So I suppose to hear the line ” but the Enterprise goes to Warp 11″? 😉
Great show, hope they can keep it up.
Wish they would all keep their mouths shut though prior to the show being released.
Well, for once in Kurtzman Trek we had something not phenomenal but OK, and they’ll change it for S2.
Ho boy.
All of this sounds good on paper but at the same time it scares me when they say they are going for the fences because to be that means they have no issues possibly throwing out what has come before.
“Possibly”? They have proved they absolutely have no issue with throwing out what has come before if it suits what they want to do. I expect and even applaud such attitude for a reboot. But not for something that is supposed to exist in the same universe of what came before.
I’ll admit they walked a fine like with the Gorn in S1 but other than that I found SNW pretty respectful of canon.
At best I would say they “walk a fine line” with T’Pring. The Gorn was just blatantly ignoring it.
Hmm. Well. Nothing in season 1 was paricularly crazy or out of the box.
Neither the “trapped in a fairy Tale” nor the Road Not taken finale Had been anyhow novel.
So, I am Not sure what they think “pushing the limits of the genre is” in a world where giant kaijus are dancing, bunnys wielding light sabers, summoned childrens toys save the world, the creators of science fiction are characters in science fiction, portals are found in the arse of donkeys… Etc. Etc.
I would be fine with solid instead of crazy.
I’d settle for a show that is well written and is actually Star Trek. After seeing Picard season 2 i have very limited expectations for Star Trek.
I’ll say this much. With the exception of TOS and SNW all live action Trek shows have had growing pains. Only DIS in my book thus far has been given more than enough seasons to “land” and never really has. For PIC this is literally the last season they have to show whether or not they can grow the beard.
Hard to get hyped about streaming shows with seasons soooooo far apart. Not really any point in publicity blitzes this far out, is there? No one will remember any of this next May.
Just obligatory buzzwords here. Please, just write solid stories and the rest will follow. I liked Season 1 just fine – easily the best Kurtzman-Trek has given us by far, imo. Like others have said, my expectations are tempered from past experiences with these showrunners.
The problem is their “big swings” resulted in them swinging so hard they drilled themselves into the ground. So, keeping with the baseball analogy, instead of deciding to choke up and try to make contact they decide to get a heavier bat and risk looking even more incompetent at the plate. Can’t wait.
I am worried they’re making this the same mistake that so many movie sequels make — Let’s have more bad guys, more craziness and make it bigger.
Iron Man 2, guardians of the Galaxy 2, Indiana Jones and the Crystal skull, Wonder woman 2. And in TV, heros season 2 and Jack Ryan s2.
They should simply stick to the original series model and make it as great as possible. We don’t need bigger and crazier.
You mean like going from the death star to starkiller base. Because its more impressive. JJ wanted a weapon that destroyed star systems not just planets. One shot took out the republic, they were blown away.
I enjoyed season 1 but the only episode I loved was the first one. That says something about me. I’m not sure what. Off topic: I hate to say this but I can’t remember hardly anything about Picard seasons 1 & 2, and this is coming from an old fan who has been in love with Trek since 1971.
Sadly you’re not alone about Picard, same here. It just hasn’t been that memorable, and I seriously doubt I’ll be re-watching any of it. *Maybe* an episode here and there, like “Nepenthe,” but that’s it. Sad –
So I guess they threw that “let’s just do Star Trek” concept out the window then :P
Strange New Worlds bought a lot of goodwill with a stellar first season. Dare I say maybe the best first season of any Star Trek series.
However we’re still talking about a franchise under the supervision of Kurtzman and Goldsman. Proceed with caution.
TOS S1 trumps all.
It’s important to remember that Spock served with Captain Pike for 11 years. This was mentioned in the “The Menagerie”. There is plenty of time to tell stories about the Enterprise before Kirk.
I love all of the Star Tek series except the cartoons as I call them, I would like to see each new series or season rotate around the year instead of them coming out at the beginning of the year and early Spring. That way we would have a series to watch year-round. Not having to wait 6 or 8 months for the new ones to come out. Not only would treckies like that better IMO, but It would keep them subscribing to Paramount all year long. Something to think about…
I’ve been a treckie since the 60’s when the TOS came out…