Indiewire has a less positive review - “Brings the Fun — and Zombies — but Misses Chances to Go Deeper”
https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-3-review-1235132207/
As I share this reviewer’s opinion on Tomorrow-cubed, I think I’m at the point of wanting to stop myself from reading more reviews now…
I’ve been wondering how much of the decision to wrap SNW with a short sixth season might have to do with Goldsman’s contract with Paramount coming to an end and his new one with another franchise and major studio.
SNW really was his project, regardless of Alonso Myers being the co-showrunner.
There’s a possibility that this is also about a change in leadership as the show transitions to a true TOS show, perhaps hopping to a time post-TAS but before the movies, and even shifting somewhat in tone.
All of this would make sense of casting an older actor as Jim Kirk.
Ryan Britt had a good review for Inverse, and an interesting take on the show overall.
It’s tempting to say that SNW succeeds because, of all the newer Trek shows, it's the one that feels the most like fan fiction. Or perhaps, to put it another way, it’s Star Trek version of Marvel’s What If? In this case, the “What If?” scenario that is floated in nearly every episode is “What if the 60s Star Trek show were made today?”
Given how much of a OG fan Akiva Goldsman is, this seems a fair assessment - even if other, mostly younger fans, have different ideas about where the show should link up with the original.
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-3-review
Losing a spouse and choosing to focus on raising your kids when you have the financial resources seems a value-based choice.
Martin Short, another Canadian comedian of the same generation, also stopped working for many years when his wife died in 2010.
His return to work in Only Murders in the Building has been enormously successful - and has reportedly led to a romantic attachment with Meryl Streep who also lost a spouse to cancer and had a hiatus in work.
One has to wish Moranis similar professional and personal success.
I was hoping that SNW would focus on Pike and his crew and less on the legacy characters.
But it seems Goldsman has had his ideas about it since the early 1970s and he’s fulfilling his fan dreams, as an EP and writer, of filling in the backstories of the characters he and we love. I can’t naysay that and it certainly sold the suits on 5 seasons of an excellent show.
We have to keep in mind that we’ve only seen 20 of 46 episodes, less than half the full run.
I believe that the new benchmark for selling a licence for reruns on other streamers and linear has dropped from over 70 episodes to a bit over 40 based on various industry reports. So this definitely puts SNW above that threshold.
This does raise the question though whether there is a plan to morph this into some kind of TOS continuation past year 5 and TAS.
So a half season + a one-hour series finale?
Having only 5 seasons seems the new normal since they haven’t been able to actually produce one season per calendar year and actors’ contracts run 7 years.
But having a short season seems weird, like some kind of negotiated compromise.
This is just going to feed the ‘Kurtzman is done when his contract expires …’ speculation.
TAS is the 4th season of TOS - with some of the scripts adapted from the prep for a live-action TOS season 4 that never happened. (Yes, TAS IS canon!)
Now, we know that Arex and M’Ress are difficult to bring to live action, but who’s to say that their rotations on Enterprise aren’t done, and Chekov isn’t back, as year 5 begins?