Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1. Throughout Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) has had an invisible guillotine hanging above his head—the knowledge of his horrifying fate 10 years in the future. Pike learned and sealed his destiny when he appeared on Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, and while he accepted his future, Pike has made it obvious that he hasn’t made peace with it. The finale brings this arc to a close while sharing a deeper message about the quality of mercy.
It’s not Star Trek if it doesn’t have some form of temporal hi-jinks in it. After avoiding it for all of Season 1, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds throws time travel into the mix. The Enterprise is sent on a mission to help out a vulnerable outpost on the edge of the Neutral Zone. As Pike, Number One/Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), and Spock (Ethan Peck) inform the commander Hansen Al-Salah (Ali Hassan) of how they’ll help the outpost, Hansen looks relieved. It turns out, he’d been asking for this aid for five years, and finally, he’s getting it. Their meeting is interrupted by Hansen’s son, who is excited to meet Captain Pike. But things go south when the boy reveals his name. Maat Al-Salah (Chris River) is only a child, but, 10 years in the future, he’ll become one of the cadets who die in the training disaster that maims Pike. Pike is understandably distressed and leaves the meeting. Poor Hansen believes it’s because of the boy’s intrusion, but Pike puts the Al-Salahs at ease.
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Back in his quarters, Pike decides to prevent the future he knows will come true. It’s not just his life at stake, two cadets, including Maat, will also die, and it’s time for Pike to take matters into his own hands. He starts dictating a letter (à la Back to the Future) so that the youngster doesn’t attend the training room. And he’s interrupted by… himself? Captain Pike, dressed in the Starfleet uniform circa the late 2200s, is here. This can only mean one thing—Pike survived! This should be a good thing, but it’s not. Future-Pike warns Prime-Pike against writing those letters because the future is so much worse because of this one decision. And, to ensure Prime-Pike gets the message, Future-Pike comes bearing a gift from the Klingon monks of Boreth: a time crystal.
One touch of the crystal and Pike is transported to the future, in the midst of performing a wedding for two of his crew who Prime-Pike has never met, nor does he know their names. The nuptials are cut short, to Pike’s relief, by a red alert alarm. The outposts near the Neutral Zone have been attacked, and Commander Hansen is trying to hold down the fort. His command center is burning up, but thankfully his son escaped. Pike’s joy at securing Maat’s future is short-lived as a mysterious ship uncloaks and blasts a plasma ray that decimates the last outpost. And the Bridge crew has to witness Hansen’s graphic death. Pike discovers that he’s been sent seven years into his future, and the accident that would have deformed him took place six months prior. No one was hurt; hence the future has been altered. But what is Pike’s purpose here? He’ll have to live it to find out.
While Star Trek fans are used to seeing Romulan Birds-of-Prey and cloaking technology, on Strange New Worlds, most Starfleet crews have no idea who this enemy is, or what they look like. That’s about to change. Enter Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) on the USS Farragut. He’s happy to help the Enterprise, and it’s not long before Kirk and Spock hash out a plan to reveal the Romulans’ location. This is, of course, a nod to how closely Kirk and Spock work together in the Prime timeline as colleagues aboard Enterprise; but that’s not the case here.
When Spock finds a way to access a video feed of the Romulan ship, everyone is shocked to see that they look like… Spock. Spock’s comedic eyebrow raise is a welcome change of tone in a tense episode. Kirk and Enterprise pilot Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) are adamant about attacking the Romulans, but Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) refuses to side with war. However, Spock agrees to war as well. Pike, ever the peacekeeper, remains on the fence until Kirk comes up with a maneuver that will force the Romulans to reveal themselves.
In this timeline, Kirk remains aboard the Farragut, which was his first assignment, and has now become his first command as well. Pike takes an instant dislike to Kirk, so much so that he tries to get the lowdown on the man from Kirk’s brother, Sam (Dan Jeannotte). Sam basically reiterates Pike’s fears that Kirk is a loose cannon, but that he’s a good man at heart. This is obviously a throwback to how the OG-Kirk (William Shatner) on Star Trek: The Original Series was a rule-bender who was usually on his own trip. Pike is a by-the-books person, and Kirk is his opposite. Pike is almost certain that he’s been sent to the future to stop Kirk from starting a war with the Romulans. Seeing Sam and Kirk together is a little heartbreaking considering Sam, in the Prime timeline, dies in 2267 before Kirk can save him.
Kirk’s plan is good, but the Romulans are smarter. They sneak up from behind, destroying the Farragut and damaging the Enterprise. Kirk and some of his crew are beamed out in time, including Commander La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong). Kirk immediately confronts Pike for hesitating during the attack, leading to the decimation of his ship, but Pike takes this as an opportunity to try something different. The Farragut’s demise and Kirk’s anger at Pike’s hesitation could also be a reference to the TOS episode, “Obsession,” where viewers learn that the Farragut’s captain and 200 crew members were killed because Kirk felt he hesitated to shoot during an alien attack.
Since both the Romulan ship and the Enterprise are damaged, Pike offers a ceasefire so that they can regroup. Kirk is impressed, but the Romulan Commander (Matthew MacFadzean) doesn’t have it quite as easy. The ship’s Sub-Commander (Mathieu Bourassa) questions his boss’ actions—a ceasefire is a show of weakness, but the Commander thinks endless attacks are unnecessary. This is where the episode’s title, “A Quality of Mercy” comes in, and it appears to both be a nod to the original Shakespearean monologue in The Merchant of Venice, and an homage to The Twilight Zone episode of the same name. What Pike and the Commander believe is that the Federation-Romulan hatred has continued for 100 years, long before either was even alive. What’s the point of prolonging a war that will only end in death and nothing else? This is a very Star Trek way of addressing a tough subject, and it’s handled gently by the writers.
Unfortunately, peace is not won by one Romulan Commander, and when his Sub-Commander goes behind his back and calls the Romulan fleet, the Enterprise is overwhelmed. Despite Kirk’s quick thinking to bring in an armada of drones as placeholder ships, the Romulans are unstoppable. They kill the peace-loving Commander and declare all-out war on the Federation. The Enterprise doesn’t escape undamaged. Several decks are hit, leaving the Sickbay overrun. But worst of all, Spock, who was in Engineering fixing the weapons systems (alongside an unseen but very vocal Scottish-accented Engineer who we can only assume is good old Montgomery Scott) is so badly injured that Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) isn’t certain he’ll survive. Even if he does, he’ll never fully recover.
Pike is devastated by this news and back in his quarters, he’s revisited by his future self. Pike understands that he can’t change his future because he’s swapping his doom for Spock’s. It’s a difficult decision to make, but Pike’s sacrifice isn’t just to save his friend, it’s to save the entire Federation. As Star Trek fans will know, after leaving the Enterprise, Spock dedicated his life to attempting to reunify Vulcans and Romulans. Without Spock, millions die, and the Federation never sees peace again. It’s too high a price to pay, so Pike seals his fate yet again. But not until he has a quick goodbye chat with Kirk. In the Prime timeline, Kirk and Pike never interact, though they do come in contact in “The Menagerie.”
Pike returns to his time, and it becomes obvious to Spock that Pike’s gone through some things and he even thanks him for.. well, he doesn’t quite know yet. Pike struts around his ship, grinning and acknowledging his crew when Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano) transports aboard. Batel was last seen in the show’s premiere, and she reappears in the finale. What exactly Pike and Batel’s relationship is is unclear. They could be casual lovers or friends with benefits, or Pike is a cheating lothario who hasn’t told Batel that he was up to no good with a villainous alien. I hope it’s not the latter; he’s eschewed traits of toxic masculinity, so we don’t want the character falling into those tropes now. Also, if you’ve been wondering where Number One was in the future, we soon find out. Batel arrives to arrest her for violating the genetics code of the Federation. They’ve found out she’s Illyrian, and she’s taken away. But Pike is not going to let Number One go easy. I guess we know the theme for Season 2, “The Search for Una.”
The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds finale encapsulates everything that this show and franchise is about; to uncover the humanity in others, to put the needs of the many before our own, and enjoy the time and the people that we have. The finale isn’t perfect—we could have done with more scenes with the main cast, but the spotlight was very much on special guest star Paul Wesley, alongside concluding Pike’s arc. Pike may have made peace with his future, but it’s not an easy future to live with, so wrapping it up swiftly seems too convenient. What’s also unclear is whether Pike believes the accident leads to his death or he understands that the accident leaves him permanently disabled. There’s a difference between the two scenarios, and the writers should have clarified that.
It’s great that the writers alluded to Pike and Spock’s close relationship as seen in TOS, but I wish they’d had a few more scenes together to build that relationship diegetically as well. Something that the show fails to do, though, is to carry the emotional beats from episode to episode. In the penultimate episode of the show, “All Those Who Wander”, Enterprise’s engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak) sacrificed himself to save his crew from being swarmed by the Gorn. His death impacted his mentee, Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), enough to make her want to stay with her new family aboard the Enterprise. Meanwhile, La'an had chosen to leave the ship to help locate the family of a rescued child. But, like the rest of the season, the finale runs headlong into its storyline, leaving no room for the crew or the viewer to grieve the loss of these characters. Also, Erica being a warmonger doesn’t sit right with the character, but we know nothing of this character since she’s yet to be given a spotlight episode.
There is still room for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to improve. However, the biggest takeaway from this season is the writing team’s dedication to making this new installment in Star Trek a fun throwback to the old episodic adventures of yore, while ensuring the sensibilities are firmly planted in the 21st century.
