Late-night comedy’s five biggest hosts are starting a podcast. Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver and Jimmy Fallon will host Strike Force Five, a weekly chat about “the complexities behind the ongoing Hollywood strikes.” All proceeds will go to out-of-work staff from the hosts’ five talk shows.

“The hosts bring their unique insights, opinions, and humor to the show as they navigate the Hollywood strikes and beyond,” a Spotify blog post reads. The five comedians will take turns moderating the episodes. Spotify’s Megaphone is producing the series, and the streaming service is the podcast’s sole sales partner — but the series isn’t exclusive to the platform. “[It’s available on] Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts,” Meyers said in a video Kimmel posted to X (formerly Twitter). “But Spotify, you fucks,” Oliver aggressively deadpanned.

The series launches on August 30th (day 120 of the strike, as noted byTVLine). It will run for at least 12 episodes.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have been at odds without much discernible progress since the WGA began striking on May 2nd. The WGA described the sides’ latest meeting last week as more of a “lecture” than a negotiation. “We were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was,” the WGA negotiating committee wrote to members. “But this wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not 20 minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals. This was the companies’ plan from the beginning — not to bargain, but to jam us. It is their only strategy — to bet that we will turn on each other.”

Max, formerly known as HBO Max, will give subscribers access to several AMC shows, at least for a limited time. The streaming service has struck a deal with AMC to feature some of its more recent programming from September 1st to October 31st. According to CNBC and Variety, their deal encompasses over 200 episodes from titles that include Fear the Walking Dead, Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire and Killing Eve. AMC will even make more of its shows available through Max this fall. 

While the network has its own streaming service called AMC+, it's been struggling to make money off it and to keep up with rival providers. When company chairman James Dolan sent a memo to staff members in the midst of layoffs last year, he wrote: "It was our belief that cord cutting losses would be offset by gains in streaming. This has not been the case."

AMC's programs will be marked as such on the Max app and will be listed in a tab labeled as "AMC+ Picks on Max." They will be available to both ad-free and ad-supported Max subscribers, though the AMC+ titles will reportedly not include commercials and ads. HBO EVP Meredith Gertler said "[t]he AMC+ collection pop up is an excellent example of how [the company] can use innovative strategies to add value to [its] content offering." 

The parties have yet to announce the other titles arriving on Max this fall, but CNBC says they will not include AMC's biggest shows, such as Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, which also won't be making their way to Max, are already licensed to Netflix. 

CNN+ lasted barely over a month before Warner Bros. Discovery pulled the plug last year amid reports of abysmally lower viewer numbers. But the company still thinks there’s room for live news from CNN on a streaming service.

It’s bringing CNN Max to all Max tiers in the US at no extra cost on September 27th. The new round-the-clock service will “be part of an open beta for news that will enable experimentation with product features, content offerings and original storytelling, all with the input and feedback from the Max community," WBD said in a press release.

CNN Max will feature original programming, as well as live programs from CNN US and CNN International. New shows include CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta, Rahel Solomon, Amara Walker and Fredricka Whitfield and CNN Newsroom with Jim Sciutto. The streaming channel will feature several CNN tentpoles as well, like Amanpour, Anderson Cooper 360, The Lead with Jake Tapper and The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

Meanwhile, WBD will rename Max’s CNN Originals hub to CNN Max. Non-news CNN programming like Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy will be available through this hub, along with the new 24/7 channel and more than 900 episodes of new and classic programming.

CNN Max is perhaps a less-risky bet for WBD than CNN+. CNN sank hundreds of millions of dollars into that endeavor. CNN+ was more personality-centric, while it seems CNN Max will be aligned with CNN proper’s approach to news. Having a blend of CNN and original programming should help keep costs down too.

208 episodes of The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Three Tales of the Jedi shorts. Two episodes of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. One movie. That's everything you'll need to see to truly understand everything going on in the new Ahsoka series on Disney+. For Star Wars diehards, especially those raised on the animated shows spearheaded by Ahsoka creator Dave Filoni, it's everything they've hoped for. Everyone else, though, may find themselves adrift.

Ahsoka deftly brings animated characters to live action — Rosario Dawson remains a beguiling Ahsoka, and she's joined by Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla, and Natasha Liu Bordezzo as the impulsive Sabine Wren — and it wastes no time introducing intriguing villains (especially Baylan Skoll, a former Jedi portrayed by the late Ray Stevenson). The series is a direct sequel to Rebels in almost every way. But while that's great news for fans, the downside is that newcomers to the wider Rebels verse, even those who've seen Ahsoka in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, will have a hard time finding any emotional stakes.

Photo by Lucasfilm

With the previous live action Star Wars TV shows (including the enjoyable-yet-unneccessary Obi-Wan Kenobi series), Filoni and co-producer Jon Favreau tried to ease general audiences into deeper aspects of Star Wars lore. That was most successful in the first season of The Mandalorian, which was filled with new characters and simple emotional stakes. (Protect Baby Yoda, no matter what it takes!) But Filoni eventually managed to bring in some characters from his animated shows, including the nefarious bounty hunter Cad Bane.

For better or worse, Ahsoka feels like a riskier project than any of those other live action shows. Almost everyone refers to events and major characters from Rebels, without explaining much about who they are. We know that Grand Admiral Thrawn seems like a major new antagonist, but the show never says why. We later learn that Ahsoka is driven to find him because that may reveal the location of Ezra Bridger, the main character of Rebels who disappeared at the end of that series. Sabine and Ahsoka share some pensive moments reflecting on their lost friend, but we don't get much about their shared relationship beyond that.

Photo by Lucasfilm

At times watching Ahsoka is like being invited to a party where everyone else are old friends, and who refuse to explain their in-jokes or shared history. It's not their problem if you're not having as much fun as them. Deal with it. I had similar issues with The Mandalorian's third season relying too much on The Book of Boba Fett, but at least those were shows airing in close proximity. Ahsoka hinges on direct continuity from an animated series that began in 2014 and ran for four years.

Of course, the series may get better down the line. Ahsoka is Filoni's baby, after all, and he's too talented of a storyteller to have her tread water for a season. And I'll admit, even the excellent Andor took a few episodes to really rev things up. I just hope this show weaves character motivations into its plot more effectively moving forward.

In the first two episodes, Ahsoka is basically sent on a fetch quest when a new trio of villains pops up. There’s some investigative work that sheds light on the post-Empire world (would former members of the Empire really want to support the New Republic?), but much of the time I felt like I was waiting for something, anything to happen. At least the handful of action scenes spice up the proceedings – Dawson’s months of training really show in her lightsaber duels. And there are hints of interesting character dynamics moving forward. 

In the years since Rebels ended, it turns out Ahsoka started training Sabine as a Jedi, but then abandoned her. It’s a reflection of Ahsoka’s own story, where she started as Anakin Skywalker’s padawan before a (very complicated) series of events pushed her out of the Jedi Order. Can Ahsoka make up for her mistakes, or is she doomed to fail her student like her master failed her?

At the very least, Ahsokai’s first two episodes are far more intriguing than the Book of Boba Fett or Obi-Wan’s intros. Both of those shows felt superfluous – did we really need Boba Fett’s backstory and redemption tale? Did seeing another Obi-Wan and Darth Vader duel really accomplish anything? At least Ahsoka is trying to push Star Wars into new territory. It’s just too bad that everyone isn’t invited for that journey.

Fans of shows like Andor and The Last of Us who are looking forward to finding out whether their faves will triumph at the Emmy Awards will have to remain patient for an extra few months. The Television Academy and Fox have announced that the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony will now take place on January 15th — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — rather than September 18th.

That marks a delay of four months and it means the ceremony will air one week after the Golden Globes. The Television Academy and its broadcast partner have pushed back the Creative Arts Emmy Awards to the same weekend as the Golden Globes as well (an edited version of that two-night ceremony will air on January 13th).

The delay isn't unexpected. Rumors have been swirling for weeks that the Academy and Fox would have to postpone the Emmy Awards amid writers and actors strikes that have ground Hollywood productions to a halt. With no Writers Guild of America members available to write jokes for the Emmys host and actors in SAG-AFTRA unable to attend awards ceremonies due to union rules about promoting struck work, a rescheduling seemed inevitable at this point.

Actors and writers are on strike in an attempt to secure fair contracts with Hollywood studios that protect the future of their professions. One of the major points of contention is that both unions want to safeguard their members against advancements in artificial intelligence that could harm their employment prospects. For instance, SAG-AFTRA claims the studios wanted to scan actors and have the right to use their digital likenesses in perpetuity in exchange for a single day of pay.

As has been the case for several years now, shows and television movies from streaming services are competing with those from broadcast networks for Emmy glory. HBO and Max racked up a combined 127 nominations thanks to the likes of The Last of Us and Succession. Netflix has 103 and Apple (with a big helping hand from reigning Emmys champ Ted Lasso) has 52. Thanks in large part to its various Star Wars shows, Disney+ has 40 Emmy nominations this year.

The following article discusses spoilers for “Hegemony” and Star Trek more generally.

1. Bloody hell. I’ve repeatedly said that Strange New Worlds exudes a special sort of confidence this season. The cast and crew are working as a seamless whole, knowing that the conviction at which you sell is just as important as the quality of what’s being sold. The team has raised their floor and ceiling in equal measure, and even the worst episode was bad because of what it said, not because of how it said it. “Hegemony,” is a finale that, aided by the early commission of season three, acts as one part victory lap and one part set up for what follows.

2. The powers that be at Paramount didn’t signal ahead of time that this episode would end on a cliffhanger. In fact, Henry Alonso Myers’ screenplay is a brilliant feint, suggesting the episode will wrap up on a satisfactory, if brisk, ending before the rug pull in its final moment. You’d be forgiven for not noticing the different transporter energy when the survivors were beamed away on your first watch. Myers’ script and Maja Vrvilo’s direction is permeated with a low-level feeling of dread that suits the needs of both the Alien-esque horror and the raised-stakes of a finale.

3.Strange New Worlds has been smarter about setting up and paying off its threads than you might expect. “Among the Lotus Eaters” saw Ortegas feeling sidelined after getting bumped from an away team which forced her to accept her role as the ship’s pilot. Here, she finally gets her wish to go on a mission, but her initial enthusiasm is sapped when she realizes she’s more or less out of her depth. Her scene with Dr. M'Benga, where she admits she’s leaving the role of action hero to the captain, underscores this. The fact she’s one of the crewmembers taken by the Gorn at the end adds a darker weight to her finally getting her wish granted.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

4. Montgomery Scott’s voice-only cameo in last season’s finale was a neat hat-tip to fans with a basic fluency for Star Trek. I guess it was just too tempting not to follow up on that this time, with Martin Quinn as the young engineer. It’s gratifying to see an actual, Paisley-born Scot playing the role, and an amusing fact that he’s the second actor – after Simon Pegg – who has paid their dues playing roles in various British comedy shows. If Quinn hangs around, I can’t wait for Trek completionists to watch Limmy’s Show and Derry Girls to watch his early work, much like when I watched Brent Spiner on Cheers and Night Court.

5. I don’t want to harp on about the limitations a prequel imposes, because we all know the score now. It may bend the edges of Trek’s established narrative but Strange New Worlds can never escape its eventual destination. Young Kirk, Young Spock, Young Uhura, Young Chapel, Young Scotty and Young Dr. M’Benga will all be here, around and alive, to turn into their 1966 counterparts. You can’t put any of those characters in jeopardy, or base your episode around asking that question, because we already know who is safe.

That’s why the emotional beats of Spock’s dramatic rescue of Chapel worked perfectly, but asking the question of her survival did not. The show was smart enough to only leave the issue lingering for the first act before we saw Chapel working to stay alive. (Notice she also gets to do an EVA in a proper spacesuit after her emergency leap in “The Broken Circle.”) But I can only speak as a “fan” so maybe it worked better for those mainstream viewers who have made Strange New Worlds one of the biggest shows on streaming TV.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

6. Back in the ‘60s, Pike and Kirk were the same character with the serial numbers filed off, both drawn from the same template of rugged mid ‘60s masculinity. Two-fisted thinking men of action as comfortable on the back of a horse as they were quoting poetry or discussing naval history. This lack of distinction wasn’t really an issue back then, or even now, until Strange New Worlds made the conscious decision to let Kirk lurk on the periphery of Pike’s narrative.

It meant the production team needed to retrofit Pike as different from his successor, helped by Anson Mount’s gravitas and easy charm. And the first season finale made it clear that Pike’s reluctance to shoot first and ask questions later was his tragic flaw. One that Kirk didn’t have, which made him a better leader to take the Enterprise on its next set of missions. But Anson Mount’s paternity leave and reduced shooting schedule meant there wasn’t time to examine the fallout from “A Quality of Mercy” in any detail.

After all, he now knows his desire to find a peaceful solution single-handedly started a war that wiped out the Federation. He also knows he has to remain true to his principles or else he could pollute the timeline and not be in the right place to save future Spock’s life. The fact he’s unable to make a decision in the cliffhanger is entirely congruent with the journey Pike has been on, but it’s clear the steps leading to this moment would have been explored far more had Mount been available.

“Hegemony,” then, is the show’s first real chance to look at how Pike has tried to grow into Kirk’s mold, despite how ill-fitting he finds it. In his first talk with Admiral April, he advocates a policy of shooting first, but not long after he’s thinking about trying to find a peaceful solution. It’s those two competing urges that paralyze Pike in the finale, knowing there are lives on the line whatever he does. But, again, you have to praise the production team for trusting the audience will keep up with what happened in the previous season.

7. It’s not great that Strange New Worlds can only do so much to put clear water between Pike and Kirk. You can’t make Pike look too old-fashioned or useless without alienating him from the audience, especially given his forthcoming ultimate sacrifice. But go too far the other way and you make Pike a dove in comparison with the more hawkish Kirk which, to me, feels like the wrong message to be sending.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

8. It’s hard to know how long Strange New Worlds will run for, or what the plans are for its future. You could easily argue it never needs to end so much as just swap out characters until you’ve rebuilt the 1966 ensemble. Every generation of Paramount executives harbors a desire to get a do-over on Kirk and Spock in the hope their name recognition alone will carry a series.

But I’m curious if that’s something people would actually want? I’m not sure I do, but then my dream would be an original series set in Trek’s present with no legacy characters at all. And I know that’s something of a minority opinion compared to all those folks who want yet another run on the nostalgia treadmill set in the safety of Trek’s past. (If nothing else, at least Strange New Worlds has kept its fan service to a minimum and tried, as best as it can, to set out on its own path.)

9. At the end of my season one finale review, I wrote “Whisper it, friends, but Strange New Worlds might actually be good?” That was a fair line at the time, since the show took a while before clicking into a high gear. Since then, however, more or less every episode has improved upon the last to produce a second season with barely any weak notes. We don’t need to whisper anything now, Strange New Worlds is the best live-action Trek of the streaming era.

The following article contains spoilers for “Subspace Rhapsody.”

At some point in the ‘90s, it became law that all genre shows with a certain flexibility in their premise must do a musical episode. Xena, Ally McBeal, Buffy, Psych, Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs have all done one, as has Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, 7th Heaven, Supergirl and The Flash. Now, it’s Strange New Worlds’ turn to make its characters spontaneously burst into song as it drops “Subspace Rhapsody” as the penultimate episode of its second season.

It’s clear from the start that Strange New Worlds was well-suited to do a musical given how broad its range is. In the last four weeks alone, we’ve had goofy comedy served up back to back with serious meditations on empathy and redemption. This is the first live action Trek of the streaming era to remember the franchise gets better when it allows itself to be goofy. The only surprise is that this is coming so early on its run; this is just the nineteenth episode of the series overall.

Musical episodes serve several purposes: It allows the cast to show off their hidden talents and lets the production crew indulge their latent musical theater nerd. They’re also, in many cases, a useful narrative crucible, forcing characters to reveal secrets they’d otherwise never let out. It’s an old trick to use the primary colors of a rousing number to drop something deep and dark on an audience. This comes in handy given the number of running storylines in the back of each episode, which get resolved more or less all in one go.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

Uhura’s opening narration informs us the Enterprise has discovered a large subspace fissure. Spock believes it could be used to speed up communication over long distances, but despite several tries, he and Uhura can’t make it work. Not until Pelia suggests they test the system using music, so Uhura fires up Anything Goes and sends it into the ether. Before you can say that’s-a-good-macguffin, a large subspace wave hits the ship and sends everyone singing.

As this is happening, Pike and Batel – who I can’t believe Pike didn’t dump after arresting and prosecuting his first officer – argue about holiday destinations. Chapel has received word she’s been accepted for a prestigious fellowship with a high-profile academic. She’ll be away for a while but declines to share her news with Spock after the fraying of their relationship last week. And, to further complicate matters, James T. Kirk is back on board to shadow Una in preparation for his own promotion. But when they start spouting technobabble as lyrics and feeling the urge to dance, we’re straight into an acapella rendition of the theme tune.

I’ve pointed out, too frequently this year, the confidence Strange New Worlds has in its own execution. This is the second time in three weeks that it’s not just screwed with its format but also its packaging in the form of its opening credits. It’s evidence of a show that knows it has the patience from its audience to play around with its formatting.

Urged on by Pike, stuck firmly in his eyebrow-raising sick-of-this-malarkey mode, the team find they’re trapped in a state of quantum uncertainty. They’re in a universe that follows the rules of a musical, so when emotions are high, people are likely to burst into song. That’s bad for La’an, who is struggling to contain her feelings with her alternate-history beau on board, especially since she’s prohibited from talking about it. Pike, too, starts to confess his misgivings about the holiday he and Captain Batel have been planning. La’an gets a solo about being emotionally shut off from the rest of the crew, followed soon after with a duet with Una talking about why it’s good to open up.

The improbability field starts to expand, encompassing more starships in the area and reaching Klingon territory. They soon dispatch a cruiser to shut it down, but the Enterprise crew discover that shooting the fissure will release enough energy to wipe out the quadrant. Uhura posits that, if they’re in a musical, their behavior might have to follow the tropes of the genre. Armed with a tricorder, she drags Spock to the bar where he bumps into Chapel, who then dumps him with a full-cast song-and-dance number about the importance of her career. He responds by singing his own solo in engineering in which he talks about his abandonment of logic and reason for love, a mistake he won’t make again.

La’an, who has spent more and more time with Kirk, decides to open up a little bit only to find her advances rebuffed. Not because he doesn’t feel similarly, but because he’s in an on-again, off-again relationship with a scientist called Carol. And that Carol is currently pregnant with Kirk’s child, who we might not get to see again until Kirk looks a lot more like William Shatner. (This episode has more than a few moments where it’s consciously drawing attention to its “evolution” into The Original Series.)

Spock’s judgment may be clouded but Uhura, whose awareness of musical tropes has been key all episode, spots the solution. In order to pop the uncertainty field, the whole crew needs to do a big full-cast finale, but not before Uhura gets her own solo. At Pike’s urging, Uhura gets on the ship’s PA and inspires the whole crew – complete with dancing redshirts and balletic starship dances to produce a showstopper climax. We even get a blast of the Original Series’ theme to underpin their victory, while Spock goes off to smooth things over with the Klingons and get over his split with another round of heavy drinking.

Much as the ending is ostensibly happy, with everyone learning the lesson to be more honest and authentic with each other, there’s trouble on the horizon. Batel has to cancel her holiday with Pike, she’s being sent on a top secret mission which, I’m sure, is our lead in to the finale. Spock’s nursing his grief, and the rest of his supersized emotions, while La’an has to deal with the ramifications of her not-quite-requited love.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

It’s almost pointless to try and judge a musical episode by the standards of its peers given how different it is from the norm. The script, credited to Dana Horgan and Bill Wolkoff, efficiently and effectively works in the musical universe concept without a lot of setup. Demott Downs’ direction blends the closed nature of Strange New Worlds’ standing sets with the necessary scope a musical demands. And the songs, from Letters to Cleo’s Kay Hanley and Tom Polce, are perfectly fine. Musical lovers will have a greater appetite for enjoying each track on a loop, but as a casual enjoyer of the artform, I’m not sure how many would enter my regular Spotify rotation.

Obviously, much of the dramatic weight of the episode hangs on the shoulders of the cast members who can sing. Christina Chong, Jess Bush, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck and Celia Rose Gooding all get showpiece numbers and boy, can they all sing. But that’s not to shade the names not on that list, especially those who are getting by with the help of autotune. It’s hard enough to sing and dance even if you’ve got years of experience behind you, let alone if you’re dropped into the deep end in an acting job. Now, onward to the finale!

The Primetime Emmys won’t take place on September 18th, according toVariety. The publication reported on Thursday that vendors scheduled to work the event have been told the ceremony is delayed because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have shut down all Hollywood productions and promotions. The TV Academy hasn’t yet announced a replacement date, but Variety previously reported that broadcast partner Fox tentatively wants to shoot for January 2024. HBO’s Successionleads this year’s field with 27 nominations, while The Last of Us made history with an impressive 24 nods for the video game adaptation.

Hollywood writers began striking in early May, while actors joined them earlier this month. Artificial intelligence figures prominently in both cases: Scribes and performers fear producers will increasingly use AI-generated content to diminish humans’ ability to make a living in the already-brutal show business industry. Perhaps the most startling revelation was the report that studios offered a “groundbreaking AI proposal” to pay performers for one day of work to use their digital likeness for eternity. As generative AI advances quicker than most people could have imagined, it now threatens to annihilate content creators’ careers inside and outside of Hollywood.

Disney / Lucasfilm

Although The Last of Us marked a milestone for gaming adaptations (including acting nominations for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey), season three of Disney’s The Mandalorian received an impressive nine nominations. At the same time, Andor picked up eight nods — including Outstanding Drama Series. It recounts the journey of spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), one of the fallen heroes of 2016’s Rogue One, in the period building up to the Rebel Alliance’s rise against the Galactic Empire. Obi-Wan Kenobi, also on Disney+, received five more nominations, including Best Limited or Anthology Series.

In addition to The Last of Us and Andor, Outstanding Drama Series nominees include Better Call Saul, House of the Dragon, Succession, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets.

Apple

Apple TV+ also fared well in nominations, with 52. Ted Lasso is up for Best Comedy Series among its 21 nominations, which also include Best Actor in a Comedy Series for lead Jason Sudeikis, Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Hannah Waddingham and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for Phil Dunster. Apple’s mesmerizing sci-fi adaptationSilo debuted too late for consideration this year, but don’t be shocked if it features prominently in the 2024 list.

Elsewhere, Amazon’s colossally ambitious The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power received six nods (mostly in technical categories). Netflix’s Stranger Things picked up six, Peacock’s Poker Face nabbed four and Star Trek: Picard got two makeup nominations. HBO led all platforms with 127 nods, while Netflix led streaming-only networks with 103, followed by Apple (52) and Amazon (46).

The following contains spoilers for “Under the Cloak of War.”

“Some things break in a way that can never be repaired, only managed.” It’s the final line in a powerhouse episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. “Under the Cloak of War” lays out a host of questions about memory, grief and redemption – reiterating the key obsessions of this season – none of which it could possibly answer. For some shows, this would be a bad thing, but Strange New Worlds is becoming increasingly comfortable living with ambiguity. Much as I may be flush with recency bias, I already feel it may be the standout of the season.

The Enterprise has been asked to carry Dak'Rah (An unrecognizable Robert Wisdom), a successful, but deeply controversial, Federation ambassador to the Prospero system. Controversial because he’s a Klingon who defected during the recent war, who is also known as the “Butcher of J’Gal.” Not just because of the orders he gave, including massacring his own civilians, but because he killed all of his generals just before he defected. Dak'Rah is embraced by Pike, Una and Uhura as a beacon of hope for a more peaceful future. But Ortegas, who fought in the war, and M’Benga and Chapel, who actually served in a field hospital on J’Gal, can’t get over the past, or their own pain. 

We flash back to Chapel’s arrival on J’Gal, where she’s greeted by Trek good luck charm Clint Howard’s commanding officer. Her orientation lasts for all of a minute before she’s picking up casualties from the transporter pad and trying to save them without key medical tech. One soldier gets loaded into the pattern buffer to keep him alive until rescue arrives, while others get operated on the old-fashioned way. M’Benga and Chapel quickly bond over their rough time in the medical trenches, and develop a shorthand to help each other along.

Paramount+

In the present, Pike asks all three to quell their objections and come to dinner with Dak'Rah, who is trying to hold court over the captain’s table. None of them are able to make nice for too long, and Ortegas quickly leaves, with Chapel following behind. Pike notices that while M’Benga remains, he’s gripping the arms of his seat so tightly that he’s about to rip them off, and asks him to go look after the absent pair. But not before Ra, knowing that M’Benga loves martial arts, asks to set up a session between the two with an arm grip that’s a little too aggressive.

Back on J’Gal, M’Benga treats a wounded soldier who wonders what the point of this battle really is. The doctor gives a rousing speech, bringing to mind the “you want me on that wall” speech from Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men. He says the risk of Klingon expansionism is too great, and that Starfleet fights so that others can live their lives in peace. But while the speech is effective, it’s delivered a little too convincingly, especially given we soon learn that M’Benga used to be the guy wielding the knife rather than the scalpel.

Soon after, a special forces commander asks M’Benga for some Protocol 12, the green steroids M’Benga and Chapel used in “The Broken Circle.” As annoyed as I was that M’Benga himself created it – I’m never a fan of secret origin stories where the same five characters are at the center of literally everything in the universe – I was pleased we didn’t get an over-explanation of its genesis. The doctor refuses, so the commander asks if M’Benga himself, under his old guise of “The Ghost” will join the team on its daring mission given how effective his murder skills are, or were.

The military is planning to send a small unit to try and wipe out J’Gal’s leaders once and for all, while committing the bulk of its forces to a grand frontal assault as a distraction. The soldier M’Benga previously patched up is going back out there to get chopped up, everyone knowing ahead of time they’re being sent to the meat grinder. But the Klingons are ready for them, disabling the field hospital’s power generators, preventing them from saving the casualties as they pile up. Chapel gets a transporter online, but can’t activate it without wiping the soldier who was kept in the pattern buffer earlier, something M’Benga does with little hesitation.

Back on the ship, M’Benga and Dak'Rah start their sparring session, with Dak'Rah doing his best to try and make nice with the doctor. He talks about how good the symbolism of two former enemies, quite literally on the opposite sides of the same battle, standing side-by-side would be. But M’Benga can’t bring himself to be friends, just allies, and soon starts to ask Dak'Rah which of his generals fought the hardest during his final day on J’Gal. Dak'Rah can’t answer, because it wasn’t Dak'Rah that killed them, but M’Benga, hopped up on his own fury steroids and looking for revenge.

The Enterprise takes a shortcut to get their unwanted Klingon off the ship before someone gets hurt, but not before Dak'Rah once again goes to M’Benga. The Doctor is looking at his little personal effects case, which includes a D’k tahg he kept as a reminder from J’Gal. They discuss the fallout from their prior discussion, with M’Benga angry that Dak'Rah has used the deaths M’Benga caused to launder his own reputation. We cut, then, to the other side of the doctor’s office, through partially-opaque glass, as the pair scuffle, before cutting back to Dak'Rahdead on the floor with a dagger in his chest.

Chapel provides cover for M’Benga, saying Dak'Rah caused the fight, which M’Benga agrees to, despite Pike pressing him for an off-the-record admission of guilt. He tells his captain he’s not responsible, but he’s glad his old enemy is he kept as a reminder from J’Gal. They discuss the fallout from their prior discussion, with M’Benga angry that Dak'Rah has used the deaths M’Benga caused to launder his own reputation. We cut, then, to the other side of the doctor’s office, through partially-opaque glass, as the pair scuffle, before cutting back to Dak'Rah dead on the floor with a dagger in his chest.

Michael Gibson/Paramount+

If there’s one thing that Star Trek (both back in the day and now) can sometimes forget, it’s that history doesn’t just happen to other people. As much as it focuses on the great people of history making soliloquies on the bridge of their starships, that’s the start of things, not the end. Despite its apparent progressivism, it rarely engages with the material concerns of the ordinary people living and serving in Starfleet on that sort of level. That’s why the fact we got to see the Klingon war from something approaching the ground is a refreshing change.

And at the start of the season, I talked about how confident Strange New Worlds’ storytelling had become. Bursting out of the gate, even its weaker episodes were elevated by a production team pulling their hardest in the same direction. With a strong script, credited to writer/producer Davy Perez and directed by Jeff W. Boyd, there’s not much that can go wrong. It helps, too, that Strange New Worlds this year has restrained its urge to explain, and over-explain, every facet of what’s going on. But what really makes this episode is the towering, blockbuster performance by Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga who, once again, demonstrates he’s this series secret weapon.

It’s Olusanmokun who holds the broad tangle of ideas in this script together, including the key issues around memory, grief and forgiveness. There’s a clear dichotomy between those in the crew who are motivated for revenge and those who are looking toward a better future. I’m sure that particular conflict can be mapped over several real-world fault lines, for better or worse. The episode, wisely, doesn’t necessarily take one side over the other, although the fact M’Benga and Chapel are our POV characters this week means we’re already on side.

It’s a shame that there’s less emphasis on making Dak'Rah as fully rounded-out a character as he could, or should be. He’s not given space to justify Pike’s faith in him, and it’s clear pretty much as soon as he arrives that he’s ever so slightly phony. Much of this can be attributed to our old enemy running time, and the fact that Strange New Worlds’ storytelling is that much more ambitious this time out. But I’m never going to criticize a series for having too many ideas and not enough time to explore all of them in enough detail.

Oh, and I wanted to draw attention to Strange New Worlds’ excellent use of virtual stages both here and for much of the season. The world of J’Gal feels pretty believable, rendered as a living backdrop behind the field hospital in the flashback sequences. Given the cost and logistical demands of trying to set up a series of night shoots on rough terrain, I can understand why the team opted to shoot the scene in the studio. But while keen-eyed fans will be looking for the edges of the stage, the atmosphere feels a lot more real than if they were acting in front of a green screen.

It’s clear now that each season of Strange New Worlds conforms to a similar shape across its run. After a mission-setting premiere, you get three episodes exploring standard Trek tropes, with a focus on Una and La’an. Episode five is a Spock-heavy romantic comedy romp, followed by a heavy episode that emphasizes the season’s overall theme. Seven is a lighter episode, while eight is primarily focused on Dr. M’Benga, while nine is one of two big showcase episodes to cap the season. And I’m hoping I get some credit for clocking – last year – that we were going to see a musical episode, which is what we’re getting next week.

Star Trek musical parodies have been a thing since the Shatner days, but no official Star Trek musical has ever been released officially. That's about to change, though, as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 will feature the first ever Star Trek musical episode, Paramount announced. Called Subspace Rhapsody, it will be the ninth episode of the season and debut on Paramount Plus on August 3rd at 7PM ET.  

The news dropped at San Diego Comic-Con during the Star Trek Universe panel, along with a video (below, US only). It features 10 new songs composed by Kay Hanley and Tom Polce of the rock band Letters to Cleo.

Strange New Worlds has been a success with both critics (including Engadget's Daniel Cooper) and audiences since its debut, thanks in large part to the cast led by Anson Mount (Captain Pike), Rebecca Romjin (Number 1) and Ethan Peck (Spock). It also brought a lighter touch to the Star Trek universe following darker shows like Picard. As we detailed yesterday, the show dropped its Lower Decks crossover episode earlier than expected, and it's now available to stream. 

Musical TV episodes are nothing new, with some of the more noteworthy ones coming out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scrubs and Xena, Warrior Princess (yep). Sometimes these are, well, unmotivated, with everyone suddenly breaking into song (Scrubs), or the musical is built as a bottle episode outside the reality of the main show (Xena). 

Subspace Rhapsody seems to be set in motion by plot events, though, with some kind of (insert your favorite Trek MacGuffin here) event bringing out the characters' inner theater kids. As shown in the trailer and retro-style poster, it's staged and performed as a full-blown musical, and looks like some silly fun.