Warning: SPOILERS For Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 has ended as the most divisive season of Paramount+’s flagship Star Trek series. Seasons 1 and 2 were critical darlings and garnered mainstream attention, but among a vocal segment of Star Trek fans, Strange New Worlds season 3 has gone where it hasn’t gone before.
The Rotten Tomatoes score for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 bears out some of the negativity. Although rated Fresh, with a robust 88% among critics (compared to previous seasons’ percentage in the 90s), Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 has amassed a 55% Rotten audience score.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 certainly had high points, like the Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) focused episode 6, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” and season 3’s penultimate episode, “Terrarium,” which finally let Lt. Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) command the spotlight solo.
Among a group of Star Trek fans online, outlets, podcasters, and YouTubers who cover Star Trek, however, the reception for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 grew markedly colder as the season continued. Often, the dissent felt like it drowned out the fans who enjoyed season 3.
To be sure, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 has legions of fans (myself included) who appreciate and soaked in its bold exploration of different genres. The negativity towards Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, however, tends to focus on the following issues.
The 2-Year Wait For Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3
Through no fault of the producers, crew, and cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 3 was delayed for two years. This is a result of the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike pushing back season 3’s production by 7 months, and Paramount+’s decision to hold back premiering season 3 until June 2025.
In the interim two years between Star Trek: Strange New Worlds seasons 2 and 3, Star Trek fans grew increasingly alarmed as Paramount+ canceled Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Discovery, and Star Trek: Lower Decks, while the made-for-streaming movie Star Trek: Section 31 clocked in as a disappointment.
The pressure on Strange New Worlds season 3 to be all things to all Star Trek fans and mainstream audiences was immense. For Star Trek fans who were disappointed, the overall sentiment for season 3 seems to be, “We waited two years for this?”
10 Is Not Enough Episodes Of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
A common complaint about Star Trek in the streaming era is 10 episodes is just not enough, especially considering the months and, often, years-long wait between seasons for new episodes.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ 10 episode count is mandated by Paramount+ – and the forthcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 5 will only be 6 episodes – but longtime Star Trek fans continue to yearn for the ‘old days’ when a season of Star Trek was 22 to 26 hours.
The benefit of much longer seasons of Star Trek, especially for an episodic show like Strange New Worlds, is that it’s easier to forgive an episode you dislike and move on because there are plenty of hours to look forward to.
An episode (or more) of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds fans react negatively to feels even more egregious because there’s considerably less real estate. Ultimately, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ 46 episode total for its five seasons will be just a notch more than just two seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Went Overboard With Comedy
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds garnered praise for its comedic episodes like season 1’s “Spock Amok,” and season 2’s Jonathan Frakes-directed all-time classic crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks, “Those Old Scientists.”
While the appreciation of comedy is subjective, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ humorous outings seemed to miss the mark with many Star Trek fans. Jonathan Frakes was even shocked to learn that the season 3 holodeck murder mystery romp he directed, “A Space Adventure Hour,” was divisive and not beloved.
Three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episodes count as comedies: “Wedding Bell Blues,” “A Space Adventure Hour,” and “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans.” In a 10-episode season, a portion of Star Trek fans seem to feel that 3 comedies are too many, especially if they don’t find them funny as intended.
Too Much Dancing In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 featured a great deal of dancing, which forged and deepened a new romance between Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) and Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong).
Spock and La’an not only danced together, but their intimate sharing of their body language was a focal point of three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episodes, “Wedding Bell Blues,” “A Space Adventure Hour,” and “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans.”
While the chemistry between Spock and La’an, and Ethan Peck and Christina Chong, is palpable and electric, a portion of Star Trek fans simply found all of their dancing excessive and indulgent, perhaps not appreciating how crucial it was to the development of Spock and La’an’s love story.
Other Star Trek fans fumed that Spock and La’an as a couple came out of nowhere and replaced the steamy attraction between La’an and Lt. Commander James T. Kirk that Strange New Worlds built in season 2.
Strange New Worlds Season 3’s Episodes Weren’t “Star Trek Enough”
Longtime Star Trek fans want something specific from their favorite sci-fi franchise: the combination of a moral dilemma, a problem that requires our Starfleet heroes’ science and ingenuity to solve, and a compelling new alien or planet of the week.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds originally set out to deliver the tried-and-true formula of Star Trek: The Original Series, but season 3 fully shifted into exploring different genres, and not necessarily finding new planets and civilizations. (Strange new worlds were still present, but often not the focal point.)
A recurring complaint from Star Trek fans is that Strange New Worlds season 3’s episodes felt ‘light’ and ‘surface-level,’ lacking thorough examinations of complex issues and morality. Strange New Worlds season 3 seemed more interested in being ‘entertainment’ than being ‘Star Trek.’
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Was Uneven & Not As Good As Seasons 1 & 2
What’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is subjective according to the eye of the beholder, but there is a general feeling among Star Trek fans that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 was uneven, and the episodes just weren’t as good as previous seasons.
One explanation may come from the conditions Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 was made in: after its 7-month delay, season 3 charged into production while key behind the scenes personnel left the show after the 2023 strikes. Perhaps this is why season 3’s scripts may not be as polished as they could have been.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has multiple ongoing character arcs, mostly in the form of its many ‘love stories in space,’ but season 3 lacks a connective theme, and its non-stop embrace of genre feels jarring as a result.
Many fans feel that the USS Enterprise crew should be suffering from emotional whiplash from how many bizarre things to them in the course of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ short in-universe time frame of a few months.
“Four-And-A-Half Vulcans”
It’s difficult to think of a more divisive episode of recent Star Trek, and certainly not one coming from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, than season 3’s “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans,” which struck a virulently negative chord among a vocal segment of Star Trek fans.
Complaints range from the way Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and his crew are written as Vulcans, to a misunderstanding of Vulcans overall, to the farcical tone and go-for-broke comedy of “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans” falling flat.
There are also deeper issues raised by some fans that “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans” is insulting to the neurodivergent, to accusations that Vulcan Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) was ‘grooming’ Beto Ortegas (Mynor Luken), to flat-out charges that the episode is racist.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds set out to make a wildly entertaining comedy with “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans,” but perhaps they pushed too far in a direction a number of Star Trek fans were not willing to follow. In hindsight, it seems the same could be said for Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 3 overall.