Strange New Worlds Season 3 Explains Why One Star Trek Villain Vanished For Years

Warning: this article contains mild spoilers for the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode "Hegemony, Part II." 

At the start of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3, the Enterprise has found itself in a desperate scrape with the Gorn, a species of malevolent reptiles. The tangle began in "Hegemony, Part I" at the end of the show's previous season, and the Enterprise's crew has been either captured, or faces certain doom at the hands of marauding Gorn vessels. Captain Pike (Anson Mount) has to conceive of a way to pilot the Enterprise to safety, but not before rescuing his kidnapped crew members. He is worried, however, because his girlfriend, Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano), is infected with Gorn embryos. The Gorn reproduce in the same way as the xenomorphs in "Alien" — that is, they implant their eggs inside the bodies of living hosts.

The Gorn, of course, were first seen on "Star Trek" in the original series episode "Arena." The Gorn soldier in that episode was played by several stunt performers, and voiced by Ted Cassidy. Many non-Trekkies remember the Gorn because of how silly it looked. It was slow-moving, and the lizard mask was almost completely unarticulated. On a practical level, the Gorn didn't come back to "Star Trek" a lot, just because the mask looked like something from a Halloween store. 

It was said in "Arena" that Captain Kirk (William Shatner) was the first Starfleet officer to meet a Gorn face-to-face. "Strange New Worlds," however, fouled up that continuity a little bit, as it has now featured several stories with the Gorn, and it takes place in the five-year period before the original "Star Trek." Oops. Some may worry about this continuity gaffe, but others are willing to let the facts be fudged a little.

"Hegemony, Part II," at the very least, tried to explain why the Gorn weren't active antagonists on "Star Trek" until the events of "Arena." In effect, they put them all to sleep. 

In "Hegemony," the Gorn attack a remote Federation outpost on a distant planet, operating under the auspices that it belongs to them and they have every right to exterminate any interlopers. This, too, was the story of "Arena." Given the explosive fracas that the Gorn gets into with the Enterprise on "Strange New Worlds," one might think that their ire would be inflamed, and they would continue to attack and attack until they could take over more Federation space. But "Hegemony, Part II" provides a very simple explanation for their absence in future "Star Trek" episodes: they were hibernating. 

During the climax of "Hegemony, Part II" Pike and the crew realize that Gorn activities have moved in cycles over the years the Federation has known about them. Pike finds that this is because of an elaborate and prolonged hibernation cycle that the Gorn go through. They also discover that the hibernation cycle has something to do with the movement of the Gorn sun, which gives Pike a plan of attack: if he can somehow manipulate the sunlight of the Gorn homeworld, he can force them into hibernation. He is successful, natch. 

The hibernation solution not only wraps up part of the story of "Hegemony, Part II," but goes a long way to explain why the Gorn weren't seen again until the days of Captain Kirk several years later. It may also offer an in-universe reason as to why the Gorn weren't seen much on "Star Trek" after "Arena." They never showed up on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or the other '90s Trek shows because, well, they were hibernating. The Gorn wouldn't appear on Trek again until a 2005 episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise."

It's possible that the writers of "Strange New Worlds" were making a deliberate reference to another "Star Trek" story — indeed, another "Part II" episode that opened a new season — wherein the villains-du-jour were defeated by being forced into hibernation. In the "Next Generation" episode "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II," Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) had been kidnapped by the Borg and transformed into one of them. His body was implanted with machines and tubes, and his mind was absorbed into the Borg's collective consciousness. The crew of the Enterprise-D managed to kidnap the Borgified Picard, hoping to cure him, but also to gain insight as to how they may defeat the marauding Borg. 

The Borg charge their way to Earth and kill over 11,000 people before the Enterprise can help. Data (Brent Spiner), working with Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis), manages to find a solution. Data discovers that the Borg, because they are cyborgs, have a "reboot" mode deep in their computer brains. If he activates it, he'll be able to shut them all down while they update their software. In effect, he puts them to sleep. Because the Borg were forced to "sleep" against their will, however, they cannot find the problem they were shut down in order to detect. They self-destruct instead, and Picard is rescued. 

The makers of "Hegemony" may have had that plot lingering in the backs of their minds when they made their episode. It's possible they were paying homage to "Best of Both Worlds, Part II" in "Hegemony, Part II." Or it could just be a coincidence. But I assure you that old-school Trekkies will recognize the parallels. Heck, we already did that at /Film.