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Tom's Guide Verdict: “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 4Rating: 3.5/5 StarsVerdict: The fourth season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” remains creative, entertaining and emotionally engaging as it explores the early adventures of the crew of the starship Enterprise. Although the goofiness of the previous season has been slightly scaled back, there’s still an enjoyable variety of genres and styles.Premiere date/time: New episodes premiere Thursdays starting July 23Where to watch: Stream on Paramount Plus“No hijinks” is the only request that the Vulcan T’Pring (Gia Sandhu) makes of her fiancé Spock (Ethan Peck) when she agrees to visit him on the U.S.S. Enterprise. She could be echoing the concerns of many viewers of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” which may have gone a little too hard on the hijinks in its third season. The new fourth season dials them back slightly, although T’Pring’s request comes at the beginning of the most ridiculous episode, in which nearly all of the characters are transformed into puppets.I didn’t necessarily mind the prevalence of goofy episodes in the previous season of “Strange New Worlds,” although I found the puppet episode to be the weakest of the six available for review (out of 10 total) in the new season. The episodic structure of “Strange New Worlds” is one of its greatest strengths, and the ability to switch genres, tones and styles from episode to episode — while remaining grounded in the traditional sci-fi of “Star Trek” — is a major part of what makes the show so entertaining.That’s still the case in the fourth season, which mixes ongoing character development with creative, engaging individual adventures. It still represents some of the best storytelling of the modern era of “Star Trek” TV.‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ sticks to what worksAlthough they may have toned down the wackiness a bit, overall the creators of “Strange New Worlds” haven’t made any major changes for the fourth season, which continues to follow the Enterprise on its five-year exploratory mission in the years before the events of the original 1960s “Star Trek” series.At this point, the ensemble cast has become as cohesive and endearing as any crew in the history of “Star Trek,” and seeing them again is like spending time with old friends. That means getting emotionally invested when they find themselves in danger, and also finding amusement in their more ridiculous predicaments.
