Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 10 “New Life and New Civilizations”
The bittersweet season three finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “New Life and New Civilizations,” ambitiously tackles themes of fate and destiny in a complicated plot that suggests a rewrite of certain Star Trek history is in the cards.
A Fateful Return
This episode sees Roger Korby (Cillian O’Sullivan) on a planet, Skygowan, that is linked to the Vezda, the ancient species that was a source of pure evil seen in “Through the Lens of Time.” The people of this planet consider the Vezha gods, and built their society around that belief – and you can imagine Korby is up to his eyes researching the Vezda in this sacred place.
After escaping its prison in that previous episode and inhabiting the body of eyeless Ensign Gamble (Chris Meyers), the Vezda makes a seemingly impossible journey. Using ley lines, which serve as super convenient galactic highways for interdimensional beings, it travels from its entrapment in the Enterprise’s transporter buffer to Skygowan. Once there, it reclaims Gamble’s form, traps Roger Korby, and bends the local population to its will, planning to unleash its brethren across the galaxy.
On the Enterprise, Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) is a week into her new job as director of Starfleet’s Judge Advocate General’s Office, and it’s already wearing on her – which is strange, considering that’s a job she really wanted, as expressed in “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans.” She’s back on the Enterprise so she can be transported to her promotion ceremony, but – surprise – that’s not what ends up happening when word makes it to Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) that Korby is under siege by a revived Gamble and the Vezda are about to make their galactic debut. To Pike’s chagrin, Batel is determined to go with his crew to stop the threat posed by the freed Gamble, as she feels it is her destiny to stop the evil soon to be unleashed by the Vezda.
“Do you really think our futures are written in stone?”
“These last few years… they’ve changed what I thought life could be.”
– Batel and Pike after setting off to Skygowan.
Why does she think it’s her destiny? After a sudden, minor physical transformation that corresponds with damage done to the Warden statue in the Vezda prison, she makes an important realization. The various ways the Enterprise crew has treated her since the season premiere – Una’s blood from “Hegemony, Part II” and the Chimera Blossom and Gorn DNA from “Shuttle to Kenfori” – have all contributed to her being someone biologically augmented to know intrinsically how to fight evil.
Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) confirms the bizarre theory, discovering identical bio-signatures between Batel and the Warden statue. For Batel, this biological link, combined with the universal existence of good and evil – and thus a myriad of ways species evolve to fight that evil – is proof of her destiny. This transformation into a living embodiment of justice feels more like a superhero origin story than a typical Star Trek plot, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s a truly intriguing and unexpected development for this series and Batel specifically.
“Everything that happened to me was so I could do this. So I could be this.”
– Batel, upon realizing she was born to fight evil.
As the away team in “Through the Lens of Time” experienced, cause and effect don’t follow the same order when dealing with multi-dimensional beings like the Vezda, and this is vital to understand as you watch the rest of this episode. This means it is indeed possible for Batel to be the ornate Warden statue we see in the Vezda prison before she has done anything to fulfill that role. Pike, for his part, is not happy about this fate for his girlfriend, but soon enough the pair are down on the planet trying to get their way to Gamble.
Before Pike and Batel land on Skygowan, a scouting team does indeed find Gamble, his followers, and the threat posed by the Vezda. The team, which includes Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), and Doctor Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), encounters a complication when Gamble pushes himself and M’Benga through a portal that leads to the Vezda prison.
M’Benga, for his part, feels like he’s in the right place at the right moment by being on Skygowan – that it’s his destiny. He thinks he is destined to confront Gamble, a belief reinforced by markings on the Vezda pillar that allude to this eventuality. But this destiny isn’t a pleasant one, as Gamble asserts he is going to use M’Benga to unleash the other Vezda onto Skygowan.
Pike and Batel discover they can’t open the portal to the Vezda prison on their own. The doorway requires the combined phaser energy of two starships to open. Conveniently, First Officer James Kirk of the U.S.S. Farragut arrives to assist, but there’s a significant complication: the Enterprise’s safety protocols mean the two ships can’t link together to fire the simultaneous phaser beams; this just seems like an asinine barrier to us. To overcome this obstacle, Spock uses a mind-meld – which, at this point, just seems like a crutch for this show – to link his mind with Kirk’s, allowing the two officers to coordinate with a precision that no computer could match.
Clearly, this show’s writers wanted Kirk and Spock to form a bond of some kind early in their relationship, but we aren’t convinced this was the best way to do it. The mind-meld plan itself seems far-fetched, and presents a bunch of questions about the pair’s familiarity with each other moving forward. How does this mind-meld, which suggests Kirk and Spock know each other’s minds incredibly intricately, align with their friendship in the rest of Star Trek‘s established canon? Although, once you watch the rest of this episode, you’ll realize established canon may not matter too much.
“I have learned, despite your reticence, that you are willing to do things others are not.”
“You seem to understand me, Spock.”
– Kirk and Spock as they hash out the mindmeld plan.
This plan works, and it’s a neat visual as the Enterprise and the Farragut ballet in orbit to line themselves up to take the shot. Although we were a bit frustrated when this episode cut away from this space maneuver to show reaction shots on the Enterprise bridge. Let us admire the beautiful starships!
Dodging Fate
Now through the portal, Batel confronts Gamble, representatives of good and evil meeting for the fate of the galaxy. Batel, initially, doesn’t have the power to win this fight, until she summons the strength to defeat Gamble by living out her and Pike’s future, where they stand the test of time, live together, raise a family, and, notably, avoid Pike’s accident that we know will permanently disfigure him, even though Pike follows the same path that he knows will lead to his disability.
The scenes from Batel and Pike’s life – “a life worth risking everything for,” as Batel describes it – are touching. They celebrate joyous occasions, like raising a child and seeing that child grow up, find a remarkable job, and get engaged. Despite how happy Batel and Pike are, a persistent knocking at their door reminds Batel that Gamble is awaiting them.
Importantly, when Pike returns home from his training mission just the way he left, Batel tries to explain how she thinks he avoided his fate. When she was fighting Gamble, she was apparently able to “open up the fabric of space and time,” leading us to see this life – the effect before the cause. Batel ruminates if doing this somehow “reset everything,” which we think is a wacky sci-fi explanation for Pike avoiding the fate Star Trek canon has waiting for him. To drive this point home further, Pike admits he “doesn’t know what’s next anymore,” to which Batel responds, “Isn’t that the gift?”
In effect, Strange New Worlds just gave Pike a potential out to avoid his disfigurement which we see in The Original Series. Since the show’s premiere, we figured Strange New Worlds’ writers would work out a way for Chris Pike to avoid his accident, and “New Worlds and New Civilizations” may have just done that.
The life Batel experiences with Pike gives her the wholesome strength, an unvanquishable inner light (wink wink), needed to defeat Gamble and shut down the Vezda threat. At the end of the fight, Batel morphs into the beautiful statue that stands guard in the prison, leaving Pike alone on this mortal coil. What he just witnessed was love overcoming darkness, a decent Star Trek theme if we ever saw one.
Not all is gloomy though, as this experience has given Pike the chance to ruminate on fate, destiny, and the power one has in living a life. The amount of time this show spends on pondering the nature of fate, combined with the remarkable reality-altering powers Batel exhibited in this episode, makes it seem like they’ll give Anson Mount’s Pike a happy ending when all is said and done.
In the end, it’s a happy resolution for the entire crew. Data from Roger Korby’s study of Skygowan provides the Enterprise with a wealth of new star systems to explore. Pike, ever the optimist, declares that he and his crew can now embark on a “new future.” The episode concludes with the ship warping away, ready for their next adventure.
Heading Off to New Worlds
Some might see Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘s willingness to alter established canon as a betrayal of its foundational lore, yet this perspective misses the larger point of the franchise. Star Trek has always been more than a rigid set of rules and plot points; it is a philosophy of hope, exploration, and the human condition. By introducing new narrative possibilities – such as a different fate for Captain Pike and a tighter, more intimate bond between Kirk and Spock – Strange New Worlds isn’t disrespecting the past. Instead, it’s embracing the franchise’s core spirit of bold imagination and evolution, proving that a story’s heart and message are far more important than the minute details of its history.
Ultimately, “New Life and New Civilizations” serves as a profound and ambitious finale, not only resolving the immediate threat of the Vezda but also fundamentally re-evaluating the nature of destiny within the franchise. Through Batel’s startling transformation and her vision of a new life with Pike, the episode challenges the idea that a character’s path is set in stone. By giving Captain Pike a potential way to avoid his tragic fate from The Original Series, the show makes a bold statement: the spirit of hope and exploration is more important than rigid adherence to lore.
The nice thing about Batel’s actions in this episode is that history as we know it could change, not that it absolutely will. This provides Strange New Worlds and future Star Trek productions (like the Kirk-based show we would bet money is coming) with an exciting narrative sandbox, a universe where the destination isn’t predetermined, and the crew’s journey truly is an open-ended adventure to be savored. As this episode’s title alludes to, it’s time for new elements in this franchise.
Stray Thoughts:
- Why doesn’t Captain Pike press Dr. M’Benga when the doctor asserts he must go to Skygowan? Having M’Benga there would be a risk to the mission, considering how M’Benga felt about Gamble.
- When Pike calls the Farragut to request its help, why doesn’t he talk to the captain instead of First Officer Kirk?
- Soon after voicing the realization that she is the Warden statue, Batel explains how she has felt for a while now that she can’t quite find a place where she feels comfortable. But we didn’t hear her voice this concern before and therefore this explanation took us by surprise. Didn’t she want to captain a starship again? Barring that, didn’t she want to serve in Starfleet’s justice department?
- Pike and Batel seem to stand awfully close to the combined phasers emanating from the Enterprise and Farragut, no?
- Why doesn’t Gamble just all-out attack the statue, and thus Batel, when the pair initially confront? Why does he give her the time to realize she needs to be stronger to defeat him?
- Man, how could you not feel for Pike when he is sitting on the couch watching the family he knows he’ll be seeing for the last time before his training accident? Anson Mount sells this moment perfectly.
- Kirk and Spock at the end of this episode are playing three-dimensional chess, which is what we see the pair play in their first appearance in The Original Series.
- The Farragut has a Vulcan captain, but yet no mention was made of using her for the phaser plan instead of the Farragut’s human first officer. Yes, Kirk is down to do things others wouldn’t, but did Spock even ask Captain V’Rel?
The fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is expected to be released in 2026. The series will conclude with the upcoming fifth season.
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