Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has always been forced into cautious storytelling, given its inherent connection to The Original Series. The modern-era prequel has certainly taken some big swings when fleshing out the lives of beloved classic characters like Spock and Uhura, but the immense effort to ramp up the lore for more obscure figures like Captain Pike and Una Chin-Riley has allowed for far greater storytelling freedom. Before Anson Mount took over the role of Captain Pike in Star Trek: Discovery season 2, the franchise hadn't really shared much about his life.
"The Cage," the rejected Original Series pilot episode, told us the most about Pike, but the 1966 two-parter called "The Menagerie" that repurposed that footage was also informative. So, it's been very enlightening watching Star Trek's modern era take that backstory and fate into account while pushing the envelope as far as it can reasonably go. The Strange New Worlds season 3 finale was a great example of this goal to enhance Captain Pike, but it's taken until now for the fallout of the episode's biggest twist to be fully known.
FULL SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, Episode 7, "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass."
Strange New Worlds season 4's soap opera episode highlights what Captain Pike really lost in the season 3 finale
After just one week off from Strange New Worlds' increased passion for gimmick-heavy adventures, "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass" returns the show to business as usual. At first, I was a little worried that the pure quality put on display during "Off-Hour" wouldn't be present this week. The gimmicks, after all, have been a little up and down in terms of how necessary they've felt. Thankfully, the intentionally melodramatic tone of "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass" was the perfect blend of fun and poignancy.
With Captain Pike the only member of the crew not caught in the cosmic spell cast by Trelane (Rhys Darby), Mount's character is able to see through the nonsense twist of Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) being revealed as his secret daughter. Although it's a glaringly obvious ploy for Trelane to foster an emotionally charged plotline for his TV show back in the Q Continuum, the fake Uhura reveal also turns out to represent something that Pike is still processing — the loss of his daughter Juliet (Anna Mirodin).
Because Trelane's enforced scenarios do turn out to draw on the actual emotional turmoil of the figures caught up in them, this allows Strange New Worlds to bring back Juliet for a mind-bending reunion with her father. For those who don't remember, Juliet was Pike and Marie's (Melanie Scrofano) daughter in an alternate reality that Marie created at the end of season 3. Marie's newfound powers as the Beholder allowed her to show Pike what their future together could be like if their respective fates hadn't been so vital and unchangeable.
So, although Marie is technically still "alive" as the Beholder, she's essentially dead as Pike knew and loved her. Strange New Worlds has shown flashes of mourning from Mount's character about Marie's fate, but the loss of Juliet once the vision of their potential future ended has largely been painted as unimportant. It felt like Pike didn't really care. However, "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass" reveals Pike deeply misses Juliet and has been burying that pain, regardless of how real she may or may not have been. As far as he's concerned, he raised her, walked her down the aisle, and enjoyed a bunch of other milestones with his daughter.
Pike's grief over Juliet also allows a much-needed Original Series retcon
Strange New Worlds introduces the USS Enterprise's on-board counsellor. Dr. Chivers, played by Days of Our Lives star Diedre Hall, never appeared in The Original Series. You would be forgiven for thinking that Dr. Chivers is a recast legacy character, given Strange New Worlds' track record, but she isn't. In fact, the very idea of a dedicated ship's counsellor didn't exist until Deanna Troi's (Marina Sirtis) debut in The Next Generation. Considering The Original Series was written in the 1960s, it's not surprising that there's no mental health specialist as part of the show's cast, even if the rigors of space travel have since been canonized.
There just wasn't the same level of awareness surrounding things like mental trauma in the '60s. So, when Dr. Chivers showed up in Strange New Worlds, I figured she was just part of Trelane's soap-opera-themed illusion. When she was still there after Trelane lifted the spell, Dr. Chivers' continued existence presented a deceptively big retcon. Her earlier comments about Pike canceling so many appointments with her are now safe to assume as real, and the implication is that there was indeed a ship's counsellor aboard the Enterprise during Captain Kirk's time in charge — even though we never actually see them. It may even be Chivers herself.
Now, while Pike has likely made some of his emotional struggles known to close friends like Una (Rebecca Romijn), he has likely not let the full extent of his grief be known. The decision to finally have him sit down and talk to Dr. Chivers about what he experienced at the end of season 3 is not only a great way to demonstrate how far Star Trek has come when telling stories involving mental health, but it also removes any doubt that the loss of Juliet (and Marie) did, in fact, shake the seemingly invulnerable Captain to his core. Until now, Strange New Worlds felt like it had largely just forgotten about that season 3 finale.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 is streaming now on Paramount+
Add us as a preferred source on Google