Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 4, Ep. 10 - Finally Closing the TOS Circle, Starting with Uhura's Hair

By John Kirk

Rating: A-

Kicking things off with a visit to a stellar phenomenon – in this case, a “white hole’” – is a traditional and time-honoured way of introducing a Star Trek episode. Not only is this welcomed but feels so familiar.

I’ve been griping about how Strange New Worlds has yet to identify its purpose. And in this episode, I think it’s finally realized what it is: the preamble to the classic Star Trek that started it all.
It’s about time. Ha! A time joke!

Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and the new/old-look Uhura (Celia Rose-Gooding)

This is a cleverly written episode, dealing with time travel (as hinted by the title – “Tomorrow’s Enterprise” - so I’m not giving anything away). The approach is always rife with paradox, conundrums, attempts to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies and all that chroniton full-circle jazz. It has a paired structural nature to it and it also manages to keep the audience engaged.

The story: when Uhura (Celia Rose-Gooding) is monitoring her communications board during the examination of the white hole, she hears Scotty (Martin Quinn) cry out in alarm. Clearly there’s a disaster to happen and combined with the mystery of the anomaly within the white hole, we are set up for an engaging episode that brings us back to a standard of Star Trek this half of the season has been lacking.

For fear of giving anything way in this episode, suffice it to say that while this may be seen at first as a chance for Uhura development (which is what we already saw in a previous episode with her promotion to Lieutenant), it’s also a Scotty one. We also see other characters who one would expect to find in tomorrow’s Enterprise.

Also, the title is reminiscent of some of the greatest episodes in Star Trek history. I’m thinking of “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” “Tomorrow is Yesterday” and one of my favourite novels, “Yesteryear.” Tapping into those similar titles adds a welcomed bit of legitimacy to this episode.  

But the interplay between all the characters – Kirk, Chapel, Pike and the rest of the medical staff - is filled with a balance of witty, scientific and in-character dialogue. We get the sense that these are the officers they will be in the future. Visually, they also bring the characters closer to that time. It’s all very comforting.

But managing a story within the context of flipping back and forth in time is a challenge. Yet, the localized nature of the phenomenon assigns limits to the story, keeps the conceit in check and allows for the story to unfold. I give the writers credit for a simple and understandable story that doesn’t get bogged down in the techno-speak of space-time.

Special kudos to Celia Rose-Gooding who does a damn fine job of growing into the Uhura we all know and love. This is an Uhura that nobody could doubt. Rose-Gooding has captured her essence. Her walk, her attitude – I think Nichelle Nichols’ family would definitely approve of this performance.

I especially enjoyed that the writers paid attention to the relationship between Scotty and Uhura. It wasn’t something that was evident in TOS, but described in Star Trek novels and of course, hinted at in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Details like this, used in proper context, are touchstones fans can enjoy.

But my question after appreciating this episode is: why can’t this be the standard? Why did fans have to wait until the last episode of the fourth season to get to this level of quality?

Lovers of this franchise have one more season to enjoy before it’s all done. Heck, the set is already struck and the props have already been auctioned off.

I know – I bought some.

The stories for the next season are already done and in the can. Hopefully though, this final episode of Season Four will give fans hope that Season Five will be of the same quality.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 4, Ep. 10. Directed by Chris Fisher. Written by Henry Alonso Myers and Robbie Thompson. Cast: Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Babs Olusanmokun, Celia Rose-Gooding, Melissa Navia, Rebecca Romijn, Martin Quinn, Paul Wesley

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Paramount Plus and can be seen on CTV’s Sci-Fi channel every Thursday.