Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 3 - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Strange New Worlds continues to be a pleasant show reminiscent of the Star Trek of old with at times light hearted takes on modern day issues and character exploration.

Summary and recap

This episode opens with La'an walking through the ship and suddenly a guy appears out of nowhere with an apparent bullet shot, tells her time is changing, to get to the bridge and hands her a device before dying. Suddenly everything around her changes as her timeline changes. Confused, she hurries to the bridge and to her surprise sees a Captain Kirk in charge of the United Earth Federation Enterprise rather than Captain Pike. After a private discussion with Captain Kirk, she and him have a small tussel over her device and press a button on it sending them both back to present day Toronto. In a great tip of the hat to the charmingly sometimes ignorant Captain Kirk of old, he proclaims that he is in New York City and is corrected by La'an. They have comedic exchanges with the local population and while investigating a bridge explosion, meet an undercover Romulan time-traveling assassin from the future who does an excellent job of acting like a local. She later reveals she has been there at least 30 years and her people have been tasked with slowing down humanity's progress so that they can not space travel and stay stuck on earth (and hence not a future thorn in the Romulan Empire's side). She claims to be responsible for the Tunguska event (1908), JFK's assassination (1964 and Chernobyl (1986). Successfully passing herself off as a local who is offcenter, the romulan assassin disappears while La'an and Kirk track down the likely source of the next event which is responsible for the timeline alteration. 

After obtaining a watch from Pelia at her Vermont bunker, they are able to track where a cold fusion reactor is in Toronto, but after arriving they discover that this is in the Noonien-Singh institute. The Romulan assassin resurfaces at this point with the intent to kill Khan Noonien-Singh which would alter the timeline and prevent the Federation from ever forming hence matching what would have happened in Captain Kirk's timeline. In a brief struggle, La'an wins and returns home. 

Major Characters of focus in this week's episode

Lt. La'an Noonien-singh, chief of security - She really transforms from a tough as nails war weathered veteran with sort of some instability to show her human side as well as her desire for doing good in the universe. She reveals that being the distant progeny of one of history's worst dictators and tyrants takes a psychological toll on her and that she leads a pretty lonely existence. She and alternative timeline Captain Kirk end up becoming a short lived couple. The show ending and showing her crying in desperation and loneliness was powerful.
Captain Kirk (alternate timeline) - Still a stand up person and representative of what we'd expect in the normal timeline. It is interesting to note that so far, we've only met Captain Kirk in alternate timelines. It is also interesting that Captain James (Jim) Tiberius Kirk has such a strange middle name as compared to his brother. While back from The Original Series days, it made sense as we assumed it fit into the character and times, that his brother has a more "normal" middle name does raise questions on why the dichotomy.
George Sam Kirk - dead in the alternate timeline, though unclear why and goes by the name of George rather than Sam, his middle name.
Sera, Time-traveling Romulan assassin - We dont know  much about her other than she was stuck in current modern day Earth and has been on a mission to slow humanity's progress as part of a greater mission to aid the Romulan Empire of future day Star Trek.
Pelia - quite the colorful character. Seemingly a wandering past, she perhaps became more on the moral road in the past couple of hundred years.

Timeline changes as story line

For the second time, the show has entertained the notion of a timeline changing and Captain Kirk being a potential soldier in a war (the first in episode 10, the season one finale), rather than being the Explorer and Diplomat we all Know from Canon.  I like these time traveling episodes because of the light nature the show takes, especially with tying together future culture with current day culture (reminiscent of Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home which by now is quite dated). I also like when they have alternative explanations for events that we are all familiar with in the past (the Tunguska event , JFK's assassination and Chernobyl. Though these are sort of older references it would have really cool if they added and had an alternative explanation for modern day events like 9/11 or the spread of Covid-19. I think there would have to be care and sensitivity as many know and have had relatives pass from these but it would really have added to the show. That they did have this in no way takes away from the show and they do a lot to dive in and develop La'an's character. 

Captain Kirk takes risks

We already know this but it's been emphasized a few times in the show. In this latest example, Captain Kirk blows his own and La'an's cover to the Romulan assassin haphazardly speaking about photon bombs, recognizing romulan bird of prey ships from photos and asking if she knows anything about it. Of course, this is a quick way to advance the investigation (and the plot). It does have consequences as we see him lose his life later in the episode. The show does a good job of showing how masterful Sera is at obtaining information by casually showing and telling things to Captain Kirk and La'an to gauge their reactions without making it too obvious. I enjoyed this subtle aspect of the show.

Lingering Plot Lines

• The Gorn attack ship as shown in episode 1
• What about Spock's relationship with T'Pring?

Links to other episodes

Season 2 Episode 1 - The Broken Circle
Season 2 Episode 2 - Ad Astra Per Astera
Season 2 Episode 3 - Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Season 2 Episode 4 - Among the Lotus Eaters
Season 2 Episode 5 - Charades
Season 2 Episode 6 - Lost in Translation
Season 2 Episode 7 - Those Old Scientists
Season 2 Episode 8 - Under the Cloak of War