If an intersection between the modern fandoms of Star Trek and Star Wars exist, it must be the shared lament that the current caretakers are running these beloved franchises into the ground. Star Wars fans may grind their teeth over the direction of the films, but Star Trek fans have their own burden in showrunner Alex Kurtzman’s mismanagement of the recent Trek revival. Discovery was a grimdark misfire of epic proportions, while Picard’s first two seasons served to demean a beloved character and infuriate fans. I can’t wait for him to get booted from the captain’s chair.

Yet as much as I loathe a whole lot of what Kurtzman and company have done to Trek, it’s not all been a waste. In fact, there have been some gems from this era. I think Mike McMahan’s Lower Decks is one of the best Star Trek things, ever, and it’s good to hear that Picard’s third season had fun pulling out all of the fanservice that should’ve been in that series from the start. And now I can add Strange New Worlds to the win column.

Born in the dark crucible of Discovery’s second season where the Enterprise loaned a few of its officers to help out for a while, Strange New Worlds became the Star Trek revival show that we needed all along. Set about six or seven years before the Jim Kirk original series era, Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) is captaining the Enterprise on its continuing mission of exploration, diplomacy, and space entity confrontation.

Joining Pike on this journey is his first officer, Number One (X-Men’s Rebecca Romijn); security officer La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong); science officer Spock (Ethan Peck); communications cadet Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding); Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun); chief engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak); Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush); and pilot Ortegas (Melissa Navia). Some of these names are familiar to original series devotees, while others aren’t. I like the mix, especially in that it gives some additional insight into those TOS secondary characters (plus Uhura’s coming-of-age story).

While not perfect, Strange New World may be one of the best first seasons of a live action Trek series. It corrects a lot of the mistakes of the other modern live actions shows, returning to episodic format, optimistic outlook, a genuine sense of exploration, and character work over cheap virtue signaling. Like the cast, the Enterprise itself is a bit of the old and new meshed together. It’s a much better design than the J.J. Abrams movie sets, giving us sleek retro-futuristic interiors that are recognizable to TOS fans while still being acceptable to modern audiences as a starship made a couple centuries from now. My only complaint here is that the exterior ship shots are sometimes too dim and not that exciting.

But it’s not the technology or setting that is this show’s strongest point; it’s the cast. My goodness, did they hit the ball out of the park with this assembly. Every cast member is likable and distinct in their own ways. There’s a lot of great comradery and teamwork that happens over these 10 episodes, and you can truly believe that this is a crew that believes in the mission and has each other’s backs.

I do want to give special props to three of the cast, however. Mount’s Pike effortlessly takes the captain’s chair with his own style (and amazing hairdo), being more of a team diplomat and a father figure who is often happiest making everyone a meal. Pike struggles with the knowledge that one day he’ll become disfigured and severely disabled, wondering if there’s a way to accept or change this future. Also facing an uncertain future is Peck’s Spock, who’s younger version of this character is grappling with his dual heritage and emotions-vs-logic tug-o-war. He’s really good at what had to be an incredibly difficult role due to how iconic Spock is in Trek.

However the real breakout star is Bush’s Chapel, and that’s not something I expected to say at the onset of the series. She’s absolutely mesmerizing in her interactions with the crew or thinking quickly on the spot to deal with a situation. Her well-known crush on Spock provides amazing chemistry between the characters, and I loved that often she has a little half-smile like she’s finding humor in pretty much every situation that happens.

Ten episodes was almost not enough for how good of a season this was. But I’m not complaining about the variety! The showrunners gave us a sample platter of pretty much every type of classic Trek story, from a holodeck-like episode to an Alien homage to moving character portraits to a run-in with space pirates. It was a smart decision to return to stand-alone tales, because there’s something comforting and satisfying in having a full and complete story before the end credits roll. It’s not trying to set up a massive, galaxy-changing storyline — it’s simply telling the continuing adventures of a bunch of humans and aliens on a ship that’s pushing into the final frontier.

Other points I wanted to quickly praise include the generally excellent soundtrack (and main theme), the plentitude of Original Series nods without being too annoying about it, the gut punch endings of some of the episodes, and actually making the Gorn scary.

I really thought I was fully done with Trek, but let me tell you, Strange New Worlds yanked me back into the fold. I have some reservations and concerns about all of the ways its sophomore season could go wrong, but maybe I should take a cue from Pike and company that it’ll turn out for the best.