Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Trailer Teases Season 2's Musical Episode
"Star Trek" is all about exploring the unknown, a spirit that "Strange New Worlds" honors with its episodic, socially-conscious storytelling. The penultimate episode of season 2, "Subspace Rhapsody," will take "Star Trek" where it has never gone before — to its first musical episode.
Trekkies got plenty of treats at 2023's San Diego Comic-Con, including a surprise early premiere of "Those Old Scientists" — Strange New Worlds" season 2, episode 7. That episode, a crossover with the animated series "Star Trek: Lower Decks," defied both time and medium. As a cherry on top, the trailer for "Subspace Rhapsody" also premiered, showing how "Strange New Worlds" will continue to make "Trek" history. To underscore the premise of "Subspace Rhapsody," the trailer is scored with an acapella version of the series' theme while the title cards are right out of an old Hollywood musical.
"Subspace Rhapsody" is certainly titled after the classic Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody." Based on the trailer, the Enterprise stumbles upon cosmic radiation that compels them to break into song and dance. The main cast all stumble as a burst of radiation pulses through the ship before Red Shirts run through the Enterprise halls in choreographed dance moves.
"Phenomena affect the crew's behavior" is as common a "Star Trek" plot as can be. See the classic episode "The Naked Time," where the Enterprise crew lose their inhibitions, or this season's own "Among The Lotus Eaters," which saw the crew suffer memory loss during a trip to Rigel VII. We've never seen something affect the Enterprise crew like this before.
Once more with feeling
We get only a brief sample of a single song that the Enterprise crew will be singing, but several different numbers can be gleaned from the trailer. It looks like they'll be group performances on the Enterprise Bridge and bar. The former is led by Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and the latter by Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), who table dances and crowd surfs.
Paul Wesley will also again guest star as future-Captain James T. Kirk; he's shown slow dancing with Una (Rebecca Romijn) as the Red Shirts perform around them. La'an (Christina Chong) is still in love with Kirk after their time-traveling in "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," but only she remembers this trip. There's a shot of her singing alone in her quarters, perhaps a ballad about her feelings for Kirk? Chong has a second career as a singer, so giving her a solo makes sense.
However, it seems that "Subspace Rhapsody" might be foremost an Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) episode. She has all the narration in the trailer ("People celebrate with the song" and "Do you know the odds of all of us being here at this time?"), and it seems she gets a solo in the Enterprise engine room too. Music is a form of communication, so focusing on Uhura would make sense. It doesn't hurt that Gooding is a Broadway veteran, either.
"Strange New Worlds" is unafraid to be goofy: see "Charades," where Spock (Ethan Peck) temporarily became fully human. Now, the series goes further than ever, joining "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," and other musical episodes in television history.
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is streaming on Paramount+. "Subspace Rhapsody" premieres on August 3, 2023.