Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Brings Back One Of Starfleet's Most Mysterious Organizations
This post contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 2, episode 3.
In "Star Trek," the phrase "strange new worlds" can refer as much to places in time as in space. So it was only a matter of time before the show that puts that phrase in its very title, "Strange New Worlds," ventured off on a time-traveling adventure. The "Strange New Worlds" season 1 finale already had Captain Pike (Anson Mount) interacting with an older version of himself, who showed him the future. Yet despite hammering home the idea of the future in its Shakespearean title, this week's episode, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," sends La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) on a time-traveling date to Earth's past.
They're on the trail of an assassin who has altered La'an's present with an attack in mid-21st-century Toronto. Kirk is only there because the temporal change sent La'an into an alternate timeline where the Federation and Starfleet don't exist. Kirk, not Pike, is the captain "of the United Earth Fleet ship, Enterprise," while Spock (Ethan Peck) is the captain of a Vulcan ship at war with the "Romulan Star Empire."
At the beginning of the episode, on her version of the Enterprise, La'an encounters an intruder with a handheld time-travel device (the next generation of iPhone). He's dressed in an anachronistic suit and tie and has been shot with an old-fashioned bullet instead of a phaser. The episode's ending gives a bit more context for who this guy was, revealing that he worked for the Department of Temporal Investigations, an organization we've seen before in the "Star Trek" mythos. The organization has appeared in various novels, but perhaps its best-known appearance is in one of the most acclaimed episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."
Trek does Timecop (and Baby Khan)
As its name implies, the Department of Temporal Investigations (DTI) is out to solve time crimes. The agent who appears in La'an's quarters at the end of "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" identifies the organization as "a division of the Federation that investigates and repairs damage to the timeline." For the sake of simplification, you might call them time cops. There's no shame in it — there are some very fine, acrobatic time cops who have been known to jump and do splits across the kitchen counter while looking an awful lot like Jean-Claude Van Damme with a mullet.
The time crime we see La'an foil in "Strange New Worlds" this week, on behalf of that dying DTI agent, merely puts a "Star Trek" twist on the old hypothetical about whether it would be ethical to go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby. (It's something a 42% majority of New York Times Magazine readers said they would do in 2015.) In this case, the future mass murderer that the DTI maneuvers La'an into protecting just happens to be her own ancestor, Khan Noonien Singh.
Along the way, La'an falls for Kirk, who doesn't quite cut the mustard yet, compared to the charismatic Chris Pine or William Shatner (though he does order her to eat a hot dog). At least now we know why La'an was so smitten with Kirk when he stepped off the transporter in the season 2 teaser trailer.
The animated series "Lower Decks" — which is set to have a comedic live-action crossover with "Strange New Worlds" this season — may have been alluding to the DTI when it referred offhand to "the time travel police" in its first season. However, it's "Deep Space Nine" where they really come into focus.
Trials and Tribble-ations
In "Deep Space Nine" season 5, episode 6 "Trials and Tribble-ations," two DTI agents, inspired by Sgt. Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon in the police procedural "Dragnet," show up to interview Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) about his misadventures in time. The no-nonsense agents appear in the frame story, though the bulk of the episode unfolds in flashbacks as Sisko relates how he and other members of the USS Defiant crew found themselves transported over 100 years back in time, to the 23rd-century era of "Star Trek: The Original Series."
Blame it on the Bajoran Orb of Time and a guy named Barry (not Bill Hader, but rather a Klingon surgically altered to look human, as also seen in "Star Trek: Discovery"). When one of the agents hears that Sisko visited the first Enterprise, he notes that the original James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has "17 separate temporal violations, the biggest file on record." Later, we hear this same agent citing regulations to Sisko about how "Starfleet Officers shall take all necessary precautions to minimize any participation in historical events."
The comparatively nicer DTI agent in "Strange New Worlds" tells La'an, "You haven't heard of us because we don't exist yet." However, sometime between then and the 24th century, when "Deep Space Nine" is set, the DTI has begun exerting authority. Even when they're offscreen in "Trials and Tribble-ations," their presence can be felt, as Sisko tells his crew to be careful about "raising suspicion or altering the timeline," since the last thing he wants is a "visit from Temporal Investigations when we get home."
Really, the plot is just an excuse to insert Sisko and company in the classic "Star Trek" episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles," courtesy of the same digital techniques used in "Forrest Gump."
Call the DTI (on Hollywood)
"Trials and Tribble-ations" first aired in 1996, and apart from the episode's connection to the DTI, it's an interesting artifact that predicted the shape of much nostalgia-driven entertainment to come in the new millennium. Here, we see Sisko and friends cosplaying in classic '60s "Trek" uniforms and even explaining to the audience why the color scheme changed.
The episode is more evasive about why the Klingons look different, with Worf (Michael Dorn) only commenting, "It is a long story. We do not discuss it with outsiders." Meanwhile, Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) flirts with the possibility of a "predestination paradox" whereby he might be his own great-grandfather, à la the Netflix series "Dark." For her part, Dax (Terry Farrell) acts as the fan surrogate, geeking out over how handsome Spock is. (In real life, Farrell went on to marry Leonard Nimoy's son.)
Scenes that Trekkies know by heart play out again in "Trials and Tribble-ations," with "DS9" characters hanging over the shoulder of "Original Series" characters, participating in the barroom brawl from "The Trouble with Tribbles," and exchanging dialogue with their forebears on the Enterprise bridge. Witness how Bashir channels Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), winking at the viewer with the line, "I'm a doctor, not a historian." Many other franchises have gone down the same self-referential road since then. One recent example is when "The Flash" recycles Michael Keaton's old "Batman" line, "You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts."
In a lot of ways, pop culture continues to undergo trials and Tribble-lations, mucking with the past digitally and being overrun by fan service instead of furry space critters. If only the Department of Temporal Investigations could put a stop to it, because what was once novel on "DS9" now almost feels like an ongoing time crime in Hollywood.