011 Star Trek: The Original Series S00E00 The Cage
First aired: October 15, 1988
This installment can be seen on Paramount+ HERE.
It can also be viewed as a bonus feature via a purchase of the TOS third season Blu-Ray set found HERE.
Trek’s original pilot episode (which was famously followed by a very rare second pilot) was very different from the series that came to be known as Star Trek. The Enterprise and a surprisingly emotional Spock were there, but the original story featured a vastly different crew (led by Captain Christopher Pike and his female first officer) in a time before Kirk took command of the ship. The pilot truly feels like it belongs here, as if this was always intended to be the pilot episode of something and having finally found its place in the grander Trek story.
Anyone who saw the original 60s Star Trek series but understandably missed the original episode (which wasn’t aired until the 1980s), is likely familiar with many scenes from “The Cage”. That’s because TOS reused much of the footage from this pilot episode to flesh out Star Trek’s first 2-part story, “The Menagarie”, in which the older Enterprise crew were finally introduced while also revealing the fate of Captain Christopher Pike. But the original is definitely worth revisiting. And this story shapes much of what is to come in this new era of Trek.
I saw this episode when it first aired on television, right around the time I was becoming a more devoted Trek fan and I remember loving Captain Pike and wishing we’d gotten to spend more time with him. I thought he was attractive and that his adventures on the Enterprise were likely very different from Kirk’s. I never thought I’d see those adventures. But we’re about to!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (May 5, 2022 – 2027)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is an American science fiction television series created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet for the streaming service Paramount+. It is the 11th Star Trek series and debuted in 2022 as part of Kurtzman’s expanded Star Trek Universe. The series follows the seemingly doomed Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship Enterprise in the 23rd century, beginning in 2259, 6 years before TOS. Many of The Original Series (TOS) characters, chronologically, appear for the first time in this show with new actors in the roles.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds can be streamed on Paramount+HERE.
012 S01E01 Strange New Worlds (May 5, 2022)
It is revealed that Captain Pike has recently visited a Klingon Monastery on Boreth and was made aware of his future accident (the tragic accident was revealed in Star Trek: The Original Series “The Menagerie”). The Klingon Monastery on Boreth was previously referenced or featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation (S06E23 “Rightful Heir”) and DS9 (S04E01 “Way of the Warrior, Part I”, S04E21 “The Muse”).
It is also revealed in flashbacks and dialogue that the crew of the Enterprise and the crew of an unusual looking Starship called Discovery (seen briefly in a flashback, Short Treks S01E01 “Runaway” and the opening credits of each installment of Short Treks) opened a wormhole to the future amidst a huge space battle that featured Kelpian and Klingon ships. Spock shows a map highlighting several planets with warp-capable civilizations who have joined the Federation or are in the process of being inducted. Among those planets is Xahea! Discovery, Kelpians & Xahea: we’re already getting massive callbacks to the Short Treks.
Spock mentions the loss of a sister and Pike says he misses her too. She’s never been mentioned before. Who is this sister? Why have we never heard of her? And how does Captain Pike know her?
Now, the fact that Spock may have a family member we don’t know about isn’t altogether new or out of character for the half-human / half-Vulcan. Spock is not prone to speaking of his family members, even to his closest friends – as demonstrated in TOS “Journey to Babel”, in which he introduces Kirk and McCoy to Sarek and Amanda, but fails to mention that they are his parents. And in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, we meet Spock’s half-brother Sybok, whom he had also never mentioned before. Still, referencing another unknown member of Spock’s family at this late stage in Trek lore seems odd. Maybe it was just a mistake.
013 S01E02 Children of the Comet (May 12, 2022)
014 S01E03 Ghosts of Illyria (May 19, 2022)
015 S01E04 Memento Mori (May 26, 2022)
During a mindmeld between Spock and new SNW character La’An Noonien-Singh, we get another mention of Spock’s previously unknown sister. That would seem to preclude the reference being a mistake. Why does no one speak about her?
016 S01E05 Spock Amok (June 2, 2022)
017 S01E06 Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach (June 9, 2022)
018 S01E07 The Serene Squall (June 16, 2022)
019 S01E08 The Elysian Kingdom (June 23, 2022)
020 S01E09 All Those Who Wander (June 30, 2022)
021 S01E10 A Quality of Mercy (July 7, 2022)
We’ve seen these events before but from a different perspective. This episode retells the future events of the TOS episode “Balance of Terror”, which originally introduced the Romulans. This alternate timeline tale explains what would have happened if Pike had been in command of Enterprise, rather than Kirk.
022 S02E01 The Broken Circle (June 15, 2023)
A cabal of former Federation and Klingon soldiers, attempt to reignite a previously unheard of but seemingly recent conflict, now known as the Federation-Klingon War, or sometimes just the Klingon War. Some of the main characters (Dr. Joseph M’Benga, Nurse Christine Chapel & Lieutenant Erica Ortegas, the ship’s pilot) are deeply haunted by this unseen conflict, while other longstanding officers like Pike, Spock & Una seem less affected. I wonder why?
023 S02E02 Ad Astra Per Aspera (June 22, 2023)
Easily my favorite episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
The events of Short Treks S02E01 “Q&A” are referenced here.
024 S02E03 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (June 29, 2023)
025 S02E04 Among the Lotus Eaters (July 6, 2023)
026 S02E05 Charades (July 13, 2023)
Mia Kirshner appears as a young Amanda Grayson, Spock’s human mother. She was previously played by Jane Wyatt in Star Trek TOS episode “Journey to Babel” and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”. Majel Barrett voiced the character in TAS episode “Yesteryear” while Cynthia Blaise had a cameo as the character in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”.
027 S02E06 Lost in Translation (July 20, 2023)
028 S02E07 Those Old Scientists (July 22, 2023)
This episode introduces the animated crew of the USS Cerritos from 120 years in the future (giving us our first post-Voyager / post-Nemesis adventure in decades). Specifically, we meet Jack Quaid as Brad Boimler, Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner + the voices of Noël Wells as D’Vana Tendi, Eugene Cordero as Sam Rutherford & Jerry O’Connell as Jack Ransom. These characters and their ship will be the basis for the next spin-off, where you can revisit this episode, but from when the story takes place, from their perspective. It works so well that I’m counting the episode twice!
029 S02E08 Under the Cloak of War (July 27, 2023)
More fallout from the Federation-Klingon War is explored here.
030 S02E09 Subspace Rhapsody (August 3, 2023)
031 S02E10 Hegemony (August 10, 2023)
032 S03E01 Hegemony, Part II (July 17, 2025)
033 S03E02 Wedding Bell Blues (July 17, 2025)
034 S03E03 Shuttle to Kenfori (July 24, 2025)
Events relating to the Federation-Klingon War and SNW S03E08 “Under the Cloak of War” are further explored here.
035 S03E04 A Space Adventure Hour (July 31, 2025)
036 S03E05 Through the Lens of Time (August 7, 2025)
037 S03E06 The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tale (August 14, 2025)
038 S03E07 What is Starfleet? (August 21, 2025)
039 S03E08 Four-and-a-Half Vulcans (August 28, 2025)
040 S03E09 Terrarium (September 4, 2025)
041 S03E10 New Life and New Civilizations (September 11, 2025)
Season 4 is set to stream from July – September of 2026, with Season 5 comprising the final 6 episodes, likely airing in 2027.
042 S04E01 Valles Marineris (July 23, 2026)
043 S04E02 Griffin Incident (July 30, 2026)
044 S04E03 (August 6, 2026)
045 S04E04 (August 13, 2026)
046 S04E05 (August 20, 2026)
047 S04E06 (August 27, 2026)
048 S04E07 (September 3, 2026)
049 S04E08 (September 10, 2026)
050 S04E09 (September 17, 2026)
051 S04E10 (September 24, 2026)
052 S05E01 (2027)
053 S05E02 (2027)
054 S05E03 (2027)
055 S05E04 (2027)
056 S05E05 (2027)
057 S05E06 [Series Finale] (2027)
058 Star Trek: Section 31 (January 24, 2025)
This streaming Star Wars movie can be purchased on 4K Blu-Ray via Amazon HERE.
It can also be streamed on Paramount+ HERE.
We know from Star Trek: Enterprise that Section 31 existed before that series, and we know from Deep Space Nine that it exists long after. This film, a streaming movie that seems to be universally hated, centers on this secret Trek organization. The film seems to be set around the year 2324, 65 years after the point where Strange New World began. The story features an eclectic group of characters, though Oscar Winner Michelle Yeoh seems to be the main focus, playing Philippa Georgiou, who seems to have originated from the Mirror Universe, which was previously depicted in Enterprise, The Original Series and Deep Space Nine. Michelle Yeoh previously played a version of this character in Short Treks S01E03 “The Brightest Star”, but that seemed to be her Prime Timeline counterpart? I could be wrong. We get other Trek tie-ins as well, including various familiar Trek species, a nod to Turkana IV, the birthplace of Natasha & Ishara Yar from TNG + Kacey Rohl playing a younger version of future Enterprise-C captain, Rachel Garrett (from TNG S03E15 “Yesterday’s Enterprise”). Section 31 is seemingly run by something called Control, which may be a nod to the tie-in novels.
This “movie” is essentially a failed pilot for a TV series. More accurately, a Section 31 series was in development for years when many, many things in the real world shifted the project, some of it totally understandable, and other bits, less so. But instead of scrapping all of the work they’d put into it, and with a newly award winning star in the lead, they put this confusing mess out into the world. I do think that the original series idea had potential – and even this installment might have led to a better TV series, but that wasn’t going to (and never will) happen, so I’m not sure what the point of this actually was – which seems to be the reaction of most who watch it.
I do wonder if any of this will come up later and if we’ll ever get a larger context for this bizarre story?