‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Co-Creator Akiva Goldsman On Season 1 Throwback Finale, Crossovers & Where It All Could End

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SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of the Season 1 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds that dropped today on Paramount+.“You and I are of a kind,” proclaims a doomed Romulan commander to USS Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) in the reflective Season 1 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. “In a different reality, I could have called you friend,” he adds in words that resonate through the decades for any fan of the Gene Roddenberry-created franchise.That line in the Henry Alonso Myers & Akiva Goldsman-penned episode “A Quality of Mercy” is, of course, directly taken from 1966’s “Balance of Terror,” the acclaimed 14th episode of the first season of the original Star Trek series.

Poignant in its repurposing of sorts, the callback flows as a lean forward for the renewed Paramount+ offering.“We want you to like it for sure, even if you know nothing, but if you know a bunch, then we want you to love it,” says SNW co-creator Goldsman from NYC on the Chris Fisher-helmed finale. “The more you know, the more we want you to love it,” the Oscar winner adds of the multi-level narrative that also saw Mount’s Pike face his own fate and the introduction of Paul Wesley as the latest incarnation of James T.

Kirk. “That was particularly true of this finale, because if you know the original episode, then you should be giddy. If you don’t, it should still be cool because it’s talking about contemporary things.”Juggling such contemporary things in the form of the last-minute arrest of Rebecca Romijn’s Una/Number One, Kirk’s debut, the war to end all wars, a maimed Spock (Ethan Peck) and the different reality that Pike rejects thanks to a chat with his future self and some green Klingon time crystals, the 10th