Here's How Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Resolves Season 2's Giant Cliffhanger

Spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" follow.

When we last left the crew of the Starship Enterprise in "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 2 finale, "Hegemony," things weren't going too well. The vicious alien Gorn had abducted half of the bridge crew. War between Starfleet and the Gorn risked going hot. Captain Pike's (Anson Mount) lover Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) was infected with Gorn hatchlings. Pike himself was paralyzed by indecision as the Gorn ships bore down on the Enterprise; Admiral April (Adrian Holmes) called the Enterprise back to the fleet, not leaving them time to rescue their shipmates. The ship's second in command, Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), called for orders from the helm, but Pike didn't give them.

As chilling a place as that was to leave "Strange New Worlds" season 2, we should've known the Enterprise crew would rise to the job. Pike's silent freeze up was just a pause, not a breakdown. Pike pulls a classic Starfleet trick: Obey orders, but not to the letter. Since April didn't order them back immediately, the Enterprise stays long enough to plant a tracking beacon on the Gorn ship (disguised with a dud torpedo) and then flies off. From there, the episode's multiple threads tie together into a pretty clean victory for the good guys.

Newcomer Scotty (Martin Quinn) and his old engineering professor Pelia (Carol Kane) whip up a pseudo-cloaking device to make the Enterprise appear as a Gorn vessel on the Gorn's own sensors, allowing Pike and company to pursue the Gorn ship they tagged.

Una and Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) track data of Gorn activity and conclude that they have aggression/hibernation behavior patterns respondent to solar flare activity. So the Enterprise flies between two binary stars that mark the path to the Gorn homeworld. With the engineering magic, they induce a specific radiation flare to induce the Gorn fleet to return home and hibernate. This trick does the job just before the radiation would've seared the Enterprise and her crew beyond repair.

On said Gorn ship, La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) breaks free and leads the other lead character captives — Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), Ortegas (Melissa Navia), and Sam Kirk (Dan Jeannotte) — to escape. Even wounded, Ortegas manages to pilot a Gorn fighter. They arrive at the Enterprise just as the solar flare gambit has paid off and get transported back to the ship.

Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) and Spock (Ethan Peck) put aside their relationship drama to tend to Batel. Their treatment options are limited and on a tight deadline, because she's (in)conveniently allergic to cryosleep medication. They ultimately settle on a treatment that essentially tricks the Gorn hatchlings to not emerge, Xenomorph chestburster in "Alien"-style; this is an echo of the larger strategy of sending the Gorn fleet to sleep.

The cliffhanger ending of "Strange New Worlds" season 2 was a homage to one of the most important "Trek" episodes ever: "The Best of Both Worlds," the season 3 finale/season 4 premiere of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." That episode ends with Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) being assimilated by the alien hive mind, the Borg. As "Locutus," Picard will act to help facilitate the assimilation of the Federation into the Borg.

Command of the Enterprise-D falls to Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), who must rescue Picard and prevent the unstoppable Borg from overrunning the Federation. They succeed; android crew member Data (Brent Spiner) interfaces with Locutus (allowing Picard to overcome the reprogramming) and thus the whole Borg Collective. Picard gives Data the answer: "Sleep," which Data understands means to induce the Borg to power down. Their cube ship self-destructs in orbit of Earth and disaster is narrowly averted. 

"The Best of Both Worlds" is an excellent episode, but part of what made it so memorable was how fans had to wait months to see the story resolved. You can't repeat that experience now, but "Star Trek" has repeatedly tried. Every subsequent "Next Generation" finale ended on a cliffhanger that would be resolved in the following season premiere. Future "Star Trek" shows "Voyager" and "Enterprise" also largely structured their season finales and premieres in this way. 

I understand "Hegemony" was leaning hard on "Best of Both Worlds," but in "Part II," it feels like it may have leaned too hard. The resolution is exactly the same as "Best of Both Worlds," i.e. the Enterprise sending the enemy to sleep. "Trek" canon means a Gorn war couldn't break out, but this tidy ending only proves that 35 years on, "Star Trek" is still trying to recapture the magic of "The Best of Both Worlds."

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" streams on Paramount+. New episodes of season 3 release on Thursdays.