STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS: Episodes 101-104

These first four episodes are the closest Paramount has come to the original Star Trek series. They recapture its fun and heroic idealism while offering moral, humanist, and sometimes redemptive messages. The fourth episode is especially redemptive and includes biblical allusions.

The content is mostly clean, but the episodes include intense violence and peril, brief foul language, and two implied sexual situations in one episode. The first episode also presents a utopian, politically correct, globalist approach to political conflict that does not seriously consider whether one side might be more right or wrong than the other.

If your family includes older children who can handle those concerns, this is a worthwhile return to classic Star Trek's exploratory spirit. Watch the first four episodes with discernment, remembering that the remaining episodes could contain more of the same—or worse.

This prequel follows Christopher Pike, the second captain of the Enterprise, as he leads the crew into deep space for the United Federation of Planets.

Across four episodes, the crew works to stop a planetary conflict, investigates a planet-destroying comet, searches for a missing colony of genetically modified humans, and faces the ruthless alien Gorn. Each mission tests the Enterprise crew with life-and-death situations among strange and sometimes beautiful beings.

Three stars means this is a good, enjoyable return to the original Star Trek's style, though not a flawless one. The first four episodes capture the original series' fun and heroic idealism more successfully than Paramount's other recent Star Trek productions.

The episodes also offer a mixture of moral, humanist, and sometimes redemptive messages. The fourth episode is the strongest in those terms and includes biblical allusions. The first episode's treatment of social upheaval and political conflict is more limited, presenting an idealistic humanist vision without fully considering the possibility that one faction may be mostly right and the other mostly wrong.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues the franchise's utopian humanist outlook. It presents space exploration, science, technology, and an ideal society as ways to improve human life. It also recognizes that science and advanced computer systems can be used for evil purposes, while emphasizing that wisdom, logic, and moral tradition should guide how people resolve conflicts and fix problems.

This series is less humanist and more redemptive than many later Star Trek programs. Its first four episodes contain strong moral elements and occasional biblical allusions. Captain Pike says, “The best miracles are born from truth.” The series also includes mystical aliens with strong religious beliefs, and the Enterprise crew learns a lesson about bigotry and undue prejudice.

At the same time, the first episode promotes a utopian, politically correct, globalist approach to political conflict. Pike persuades two warring factions to make peace, but the episode does not consider whether one faction might be mostly right and the other mostly wrong. The series' worldview remains more human-centered than biblical, even when its moral instincts point in a constructive direction.

The show's longing for peace connects with Scripture's call to pursue it: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

These first four episodes bring back Star Trek's fun, exploration, and heroic idealism. Their content calls for discernment, especially for younger viewers, but older children and adults can find worthwhile moral and redemptive themes here. Our answer is WORTH WATCHING — OLDER CHILDREN AND UP.