Movies - TV
A Classic Star Trek Episode Inspired Strange New Worlds’ Season 2 Finale
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Spoiler Warning!
This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 10 of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.”
The cliffhanger at the end of “Hegemony,” the Season 2 finale of “Strange New Worlds,” was inspired by the cliffhanger in “The Next Generation” episode “The Best of Both Worlds.”
“The Best of Both Worlds,” which is perhaps the most famous episode of “The Next Generation,” saw the invasion of a race of unthinking cyborgs called the Borg.
Picard (Patrick Stewart) is kidnapped and assimilated by the Borg. He’s implanted with Borg machinery and renamed Locutus, a talker from the otherwise mentally united cyber-beings.
Picard announces that the Borg are about to destroy the Enterprise. Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) orders to fire all weapons, then it cuts to black, “To be continued.”
“Hegemony” takes place at a remote human colony on a contested planet where the Enterprise is in a violent border dispute with the genocidal Gorn that want to kill the colonists.
The episode ends with Captain Pike (Anson Mount) having received orders from Starfleet Command to leave the colony behind after the Gorn have kidnapped hundreds of colonists.
Pike can obey orders and flee with his crew, or disobey orders, attack the Gorn, and rescue the colonists. The episode then cuts to black, “To be continued.”
“Strange New Worlds” showrunner Henry Alonso Myers told Vulture, “The entire intent of doing [“Hegemony”] that way was that we were thinking about [...] ‘The Best of Both Worlds.’”
He said, “It’s a fantastic end of the season, and it shocks the hell out of you [...] ‘I have to wait until the next season to see the next part!’ That’s all we were trying to do.”