Strange New Worlds season 4 ticks all the old school science fiction boxes with opener Valles Marineris

There may be only two more seasons left, but we could still have plenty to enjoy.

Valles Marineris — What it’s about and why it works

Some time has passed since the end of season 3, and it seems like we’ve waited a long time for the show’s return. The crew is all back and there’s even a new Vulcan on the bridge — we suspect more of them in a later episode. Captain Pike (Anson Mount) is still in reflective mood and he gets what should be a simple mission to allow time for him to consider a promotion. Whenever did a science mission end up being simple?!

Of course the “previously unknown space storm” grabs the Enterprise sending it millions of years into the past. As a bonus, it ends up near Earth! And yes, there are dinosaurs.

We said old school. Readers of Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder may remember the idea — time travellers get to hunt dinosaurs, but only ones moments from death by natural causes. A technician steps off the platform by mistake, killing a butterfly. Cue altered human history. Yes, this is the Butterfly Effect story.

The Enterprises needs a special element to reboot its systems, so a party heads to Earth. Meantime the Enterprise is taken for salvage by a ship of Martians, desperate for resources to fight their insect enemies. The insects destroyed part of Mars, leaving a scar we know to this day as the Valles Marineris. Yes, the title is a bit of a clue.

We then get a whistle stop tour of Prime Directive, morality, a fifth planet, destruction of said planet to form the asteroid belt, insect visitors to earth in prehistory (a little Quatermass), some bootstrap paradoxes, extinction of dinosaurs… it’s a veritable shopping list of well-loved tripes from another era, and it all feels very Star Trek Original Series. Did we mention Pike also has a copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs Princess of Mars?

Add decent effects, some of the crew in the limelight (see picture at top) and a new commitment to adventure from Captain Pike and we can’t help but be optimistic for the rest of the series. Now, if only someone would update the official website!