Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ second season delivers a thrilling time travel adventure in its third episode, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” However, it also raises questions about a major Romulan revelation from Star Trek: Picard season 1.
The episode follows Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), who teams up with an alternate Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), to stop a temporal attack that threatens to erase her timeline.
The episode’s villain is a Romulan time agent named Sera (Adelaide Kane), who tries to kill a young Khan Noonien-Singh (Desmond Sivan) and alter the course of human history. La’an manages to foil Sera’s scheme and save Khan, but not without losing Kirk in the process.
Before dying, Sera reveals how the Romulans use time travel, which contradicts a key aspect of Romulan lore that was established in Star Trek: Picard season 1.
La’an learns from Sera, a dying Romulan, that her people have a secret weapon: computer simulations that can predict and alter the course of history in their favor.
This sounds like artificial intelligence, something that the Romulans hated and outlawed in Star Trek: Picard season 1, making it one of the many inconsistencies that plague the Romulan backstory in Strange New Worlds.
The episode “Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow” shows a Romulan Bird-of-Prey from the same time period as La’an.
However, Star Trek: Picard season 1 established that the Romulans of that era were deeply opposed to artificial intelligence.
Star Trek: Picard’s first season had its highs and lows, but it was worth watching for Patrick Stewart’s brilliant portrayal of an older Jean-Luc Picard and his new crew of friends.
However, the season also made some questionable choices, especially regarding the Romulans. The show turned them into a fanatical, anti-tech cult that didn’t match their previous appearances on Star Trek: The Original Series or Star Trek: The Next Generation, where they were cunning and ruthless adversaries.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, on the other hand, is more respectful of Star Trek’s history, even if it makes some minor changes. The show has proved that it can honor the classic look of the Klingons in the season 2 opener, “The Broken Circle.”
Strange New Worlds may be ignoring Star Trek: Picard’s version of the Romulans, but that’s probably for the best since that version never really fits in with the rest of the franchise.
About Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a spin-off series based on Star Trek: Discovery and is the eleventh installment in the larger Star Trek Universe.
The series will follow Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise as they navigate and explore new worlds throughout the galaxy.
The series premiered on Paramount+ on May 5, 2022, and its first season will have ten episodes. Season 2’s production is underway, with an expected release in 2023. It has also been renewed for a third season.
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