Strange New Worlds Episode 3 Continues An Old Star Trek Tradition
Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 3 — «Ghosts of Illyria»
Along with returning to Star Trek's classic episodic style, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 3, «Ghosts of Illyria,» continues another tradition as well. The USS Enterprise commanded by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) launched a new five-year mission of galactic exploration in Strange New Worlds. In «Ghosts of Illyria,» not only does the backstory of Number One AKA Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) come to light, but the crew of the Enterprise is infected by a mysterious virus that causes Strange New Worlds' first horror episode.
Although Star Trek is science fiction, it incorporated many horror elements from the very start of The Orginal Series. The transformation of Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood) into a fearsome superpowered being in Star Trek's second pilot, «Where No Man Has Gone Before,» incorporated horror tropes, as did «The Man Trap,» which was about an alien salt vampire. In Star Trek: TOS, characters were often brutally killed by the alien threat of the week. Another early example of Star Trek horror was the episode «The Naked Time,» when the Psi 2000 virus infected the crew, lowered their inhibitions, and nearly lead to the Enterprise being destroyed. Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1 remade «The Naked Time» into «The Naked Now» when the crew of the USS Enterprise-D was also afflicted by the Psi 2000 virus. Every other Star Trek series has delved into the horror genre as well, includingStar Trek: Picard season 2, where Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) dreamed he was chased through the tunnels beneath Chateau Picard by «a monster» when he was a boy.
Related: Strange New Worlds' Comet Is The Opposite
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