"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" has beamed onto Paramount+ Ships named after famous characters?
Star charts filled with familiar places?
How about references to the Gorn?
These are all the Easter eggs you missed in "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode one.
The premiere episode of "Strange New Worlds" opens with a dramatic scene on an alien world
not unlike our own in the early 21st century, as scientists and military leaders make a
startling discovery: an advanced starship has been spotted above the planet.
We later learn that the ship traveled to this world under the command of Una Chin-Riley,
Captain Pike's Number One – but it's the name of the starship that offers up our first
Easter egg.
Designated the USS Archer, it's a clear reference to one of Starfleet's greatest captains and
the star of the 2001 series "Enterprise."
Played by Scott Bakula, Archer was captain of the NX-01 Enterprise before the founding
of the Federation and helped shape the creation of the interplanetary organization.
At the helm of Enterprise starting in 2150, Jonathan Archer made first contact with any
number of alien worlds during his time in the captain's chair, many of which we saw
on the four-season series.
As such, it makes sense that a ship assigned to first contact missions would bear his name
in the 23rd century.
It's also not the first USS Archer we've seen, as another ship with the same name was mentioned
in the tenth feature film, "Star Trek: Nemesis," released just a year after "Enterprise" launched
on television.
Interestingly, the 23rd-century version's single nacelle set-up bears a resemblance
to the USS Kelvin, the starship seen at the opening of the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot directed
by J.J. Abrams.
Called back into service by Admiral "Bob," Christopher Pike finds himself in a Starfleet
uniform once again and being ferried to a space dock where the Enterprise is waiting
for him.
He is taken by a young Starfleet officer aboard a shuttlecraft that bears a striking resemblance
to the shuttles seen on "Star Trek: The Original Series," reimagined and redesigned for the
new series.
The name of that shuttle provides our next Easter egg.
Calling station control, the officer announces her arrival aboard the Shuttle Stamets.
It doesn't take a diehard Trekkie to know the shuttle is a reference to "Star Trek:
Discovery" star Anthony Rapp and his character Paul Stamets, the Federation's leading astromycologist.
But why would Starfleet canonize him by naming a shuttle after an active Starfleet scientist?
Well, because technically Stamets is no longer active in this era.
At the conclusion of Season 2 of "Star Trek: Discovery," the USS Discovery must travel
into the far future to save billions of lives from a galactic threat.
Due to the nature of the threat, the mission was classified, and Starfleet considered the
vessel lost with all hands.
"All officers remaining with knowledge of these events must be ordered never to speak
of Discovery, its spore drive or her crew, again."
As far as anyone on "Strange New Worlds" is concerned, the entire crew is dead, including
Stamets.
It would seem that not long after the ship's "destruction," Starfleet commemorated the
officer by naming one of Enterprise's shuttles after him.
This is an appropriate honor, as it fits the Enterprise's theme of naming its shuttlecraft
after famous scientists, with The Original Series featuring shuttles named for historic
thinkers like Galileo and Einstein.
During the Enterprise's mission to Kiley 279, a landing party is assembled consisting of
Captain Pike, acting first officer La'an Noonien Singh, and science officer Spock.
In addition to feeling like a classic TOS-era away mission, they are beamed down by their
transporter chief, who Pike refers to as Chief Kyle.
"Just don't lose my socks, Mr. Kyle."
He later plays a crucial role in the success of the mission, using an ingenious and inventive
technique to beam down a serum into Spock's eyes to allow him to pass through a retinal
scanner on the planet's surface.
Eagle-eared fans will recognize that Chief Kyle is not a new character created for this
series but one whose origins date back to the original "Star Trek" series.
Appearing in nearly a dozen episodes, the chief went unnamed for several stories until
Spock addressed him as Kyle in "Who Mourns For Adonais?"
He later appears in a small role in "Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan" and even pops
up briefly in the 2009 big-budget reboot from J.J. Abrams.
The original role was played by English actor John Winston, while the rebooted version was
played by Chris Doohan, son of original Scotty actor James Doohan.
Here, Chief Kyle is played by actor André Dae Kim.
As Spock briefs the captain he pulls up a star chart of the region, providing perhaps
the episode's best Easter egg moment, worthy of a long pause.
The star chart is filled with so many references to past episodes we could write an entire
article on just this shot alone.
Clearly visible are Cardassia Prime and Bajor, the two key worlds at the center of "Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine."
The chart is also littered with other familiar worlds, including Vulcan, Andoria, and Trill.
The Klaestron system is not far from Trill, which makes sense as it was the home planet
of one of Dax's former lovers.
We also see Mizar, the system that was the home of Tholl, and Cor Caroli, which is where
Captain Picard cured a plague, both of which are featured in "The Next Generation."
From "TOS" and "Enterprise," we see places such as Sigma Draconis, Talos, Coridan, and
Sherman's Planet.
In addition, Azati Prime and Denobula, from "Enterprise," are depicted appropriately as
not far from Earth.
One particularly important location is the star Wolf 359.
It's here where the Borg, under the command of Locutus, decimated the Federation fleet
on its way to Earth, and where Benjamin Sisko's life was changed forever.
Back aboard the Enterprise after their away mission to Kiley 279, Pike, Spock, and Noonien
Singh speak again in a briefing room.
There, they discuss how to proceed with a pre-warp culture that is attempting to use
advanced technology, copied from scans of a Federation starship, as a weapon.
At this moment, we learn about Noonien Singh's past and the traumatic childhood incident
that shaped her into the woman she has become.
"You know the Gorn captured my family's colony ship and deposited us on one of their planetary nurseries."
As we saw earlier on a PADD, the incident involved the Gorn, a species we've seen in
live-action "Star Trek" only twice before.
In the classic TOS episode "Arena," Starfleet makes first contact with the Gorn, who have
attacked a Federation colony on Cestus III.
The Enterprise's captain, James Kirk, finds himself in a life-or-death battle with a Gorn
soldier in one of that series' most iconic moments.
Years later, on "Enterprise," we'd see the Gorn again, though this time it would be in
the Mirror Universe, where a Gorn slave master named Slar is in charge of prisoners held
aboard a futuristic starship from a parallel reality, the Defiant.
The premiere of "Strange New Worlds" explains that the Gorn have nurseries and keep human
captives as food and breeding sacks, adding a gruesome new background to the lizard-like
alien race.
As the Gorn figure into La'an's backstory heavily, it's possible we might finally see
them again in later episodes of "Strange New Worlds."
The first episode of "Strange New Worlds" is appropriately centered on a first contact
mission to a world we've never seen before, Kiley 279.
In the best "Star Trek" tradition, the story revolves around a classic dilemma of whether
or not to get involved in the affairs of a more primitive culture and society that has
not yet achieved interstellar travel.
To do so would potentially violate the Prime Directive.
Though discussed heavily in the episode, some fans may find it curious that Pike and his
crew refer to the directive, however, as "General Order 1."
That's because in the original "Star Trek," that's what the prime directive is called,
up until about midway through the series when the writers reshaped the lexicon.
That shift is referenced by the Starfleet Admiral that meets with Pike, Spock, and Number
One at the end of the episode, who notes that the order might need a new name.
Thanks to Pike's reckless disregard of Order 1, he says that Starfleet is renaming it the
"Prime Directive."
Pike rolls his eyes and responds,
"Well, that'll never stick."
This is both an in-universe explanation for the back-and-forth naming of Starfleet's highest
order in "The Original Series" and a meta-reference to the inconsistencies throughout early
"Star Trek" history.
Early in the premiere episode of "Strange New Worlds," we're teased with a surprising
name drop when Captain Pike mentions a Starfleet officer named Lieutenant Kirk.
It's an eye-popping moment.
Could the future Enterprise captain appear in the first episode?
With Pike re-assembling his staff and personally selecting several new officers for the latest
crew rotation, it seems he's asked for Kirk specifically, as Spock notes while they walk
through the Enterprise's corridors.
Near the end of the episode, First Officer Una Chin-Riley tells Pike that Lieutenant
Kirk has finally arrived on the Enterprise and is on his way to the bridge as requested.
But when the officer walks through the doorway, we see it is not a yellow-shirted James T.
Kirk but a blue-shirted science officer — with a surprisingly thick mustache.
Pike greets the lieutenant, shaking his hand and addressing him as Samuel Kirk.
However, this is more than just a clever gag to bait-and-switch the audience, as Samuel
Kirk is a character briefly seen in an episode of "Star Trek" in 1967 titled "Operation:
Annihilate!"
In the episode, deadly parasites attack an Earth colony on Deneva, causing mass insanity
and taking many lives, including that of Captain Kirk's brother, Sam.
We never see the brother of James Kirk in action, but we do get a look at his body after
his death, and he's played by none other than William Shatner, who sports a thick Hollywood mustache.
It's already been revealed that James Kirk himself is set to appear in Season 2, so it
will be interesting to see if his brother Sam figures into any future stories.
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