Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Hits An Amazing Record
We already knew it was a great show and this just proves it.
At this point it’s no surprise to hear Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is performing well. Along with Paramount+ showing so much confidence in the series that they renewed it for a second season before the inaugural season had premiered, critics have been raving about the prequel show. But today comes the news that Strange New Worlds is breaking records, including that its series debut was the most watched series premiere of any of Paramount+’s original Trek shows.
As Collider and others are reporting, on Wednesday Paramount announced the record-breaking news about Strange New Worlds, adding that the show had become the most watched Paramount+ original Trek series on the streamer during its first 90 days of streaming. It’s a particularly impressive accomplishment when you consider one of the Trek series Strange New Worlds is competing against for the records is Star Trek: Picard, which brought back Patrick Stewart as one of the most beloved characters in the franchise. Paramount also reported that in the UK, Strange New Worlds has proven to be one its top two most streamed original series overall.
Assuming Paramount+’s measurements look back far enough to when the streamer was called CBS All Access, the news means Strange New Worlds has made the record while competing with Discovery, Lower Decks, Picard, and Prodigy. In all fairness to those other series, some reminders should be made. First, it would’ve been impossible for the oldest of all five series, Discovery, to compete since its series premiered not on the streamer, but on CBS. The streamer used Discovery‘s premiere to help promote its new platform by putting the first episode out on the network, and delivering the rest on the streaming platform. Second, one might also make the argument if earlier series like Discovery and Picard hadn’t succeeded in attracting new subscribers, there would be no one to watch the Strange New Worlds debut; regardless, it’s an impressive feat.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds chronicles the largely unexplored time between the original unaired Star Trek pilot “The Cage” and “The Man Trap” when, rather than James T. Kirk, it was Captain Christopher Pike who commanded the Enterprise. Anson Mount debuted as the character in season 2 of Discovery, and soon he was joined by Ethan Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Number One (whose real name, we eventually learn, is Una Chin-Riley).
Strange New Worlds doesn’t just turn the clocks back chronologically, but does so in format. It’s the first live-action Trek series of recent years to adopt a more episodic storytelling style. The result is that in its first ten episodes, the prequel series gets to play in a greater variety of genres and tones than its contemporaries. “Memento Mori” is a classic starship duel episode that feels like Wrath of Khan, “Spock Amok” is a fun Freaky Friday-esque body-switching episode, while “The Elysian Kingdom” isn’t technically a Holodeck episode it sure feels like one, and “All Those Who Wander” is a bloody horrorshow with equal parts Alien and Predator. All of season 1 is streaming on Paramount+, and season 2 is on the way.
