Draft:Strange New Worlds (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds)

"Strange New Worlds" is the series premiere of the American television series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is set roughly 6 years before the events of the original Star Trek series. It was written by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet, and it was directed by Akiva Goldsman. Anson Mount stars as Christopher Pike, the Captain of the USS Enterprise. The episode was released on the streaming service Paramount+.

Plot
Inside a control center or bunker, alarms ring as an alien finds themselves looking upon a Federation starship.

Captain Pike is called back into action onboard the USS Enterprise, recently restored in spacedock following the events of Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, by Admiral Robert April in order to mount a rescue mission for Commander Una Chin-Riley, Pike's first officer, who went missing during a first contact mission.

The crew onboard, the Enterprise warps to Kiley 279, where the first contact party disappeared. Disguising themselves as Kiley inhabitants, Pike and his away team beam down to the surface, where they discover a war occuring between two different factions of the planet. After stealing some medical uniforms, the away team is able to sneak into the facility where Una is being held, and get her out. She is beamed up along with the rest of the away team, leaving Pike and Spock on the surface.

Pike convinces the government to cease hostilities with the other faction of the war and to begin negotiations, warning both sides that their condition is very similar to that of his own Earth in the 21st century, where hostilities resulted in World War III.

Reception
The episode was praised by reviewers as a return to form for the franchise, and for its positive tone in contrast to the previous Star Trek: Discovery. The episode received 8.2 stars on IMDB, and has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 8 reviews by critics. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the episode a score of 64 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Critics praised the character of Pike (Anson Mount), who Den of Geek described as "note-perfect" and IGN described the casting of Mount as "being able to power the Enterprise by charisma alone".

Critics also praised the return to tradtional, episodic Trek storytelling debuted by this episode.

However, others stated that the episode was "too preachy" in that Pike simply lectures the Kileans about his own home planet and leaves.