7 Oct 2026
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Review | Has Star Trek Lost Its Way? | Making It So E57
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 is officially in the books. So was it a great season of Star Trek — or did Strange New Worlds lose its way?Craig and Steve are back together for Making It So Episode 57 to wrap up the entire fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.We go through all ten episodes in order, give our scores, revisit what worked and what absolutely didn’t, and then step back to discuss the much bigger questions surrounding one of the most experimental seasons of modern Star Trek.Season 4 gave us everything from dinosaurs and cosmic horror to Hangover-style comedy, black-and-white noir, puppets, soap opera, real-time disaster storytelling, Crimson Tide-style command drama and another visit to the Elysian Kingdom.For Craig and Steve, that produced some genuinely brilliant Star Trek — but also some of the weakest episodes either of us has seen from the franchise.We discuss the outstanding opening episode “Valles Marineris,” the unsettling “The Griffin Incident,” the disappointing “Human Best Friend,” the controversial puppet episode “Level-Five Transporter Accident,” the excellent “Off-Hour,” the strange but surprisingly effective “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass,” the brilliant “Orders of Magnitude,” the much less successful “Once La’an a Time,” and the TOS-heavy finale “Tomorrow’s Enterprise.”Then we move beyond individual episodes.Did Strange New Worlds rely too heavily on gimmicks?Is genre experimentation the problem — or only when the gimmick becomes more important than the Star Trek story?Can a ten-episode season afford this many experiments?Is Pike still the central character of his own series?Has Kirk appeared too often?What happened to Pelia?What do we want from McCoy and Sulu?And what does Season 5 need to do to bring Pike’s era to a satisfying conclusion?We also talk about the broader state of Star Trek, Starfleet Academy, the franchise’s recent direction, why weekly releases still matter, and why discussing these episodes together has sometimes completely changed the way we look at them.Most importantly, we want to hear from you.What was your favourite episode?What was your least favourite?Did you enjoy the genre experiments?And what do you need to see from Season 5?
CONTENTS
00:00 Strange New Worlds Season 4 Wrap-Up
01:30 Valles Marineris – An Incredible Start
03:27 The Griffin Incident – Better on Rewatch?
05:31 Human Best Friend – Star Trek Does The Hangover
06:13 A Case of Chiaroscuro
07:48 Level-Five Transporter Accident – The Puppet Episode
08:27 Off-Hour – One of the Season’s Best
09:56 Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass
13:13 Orders of Magnitude – Star Trek Does Crimson Tide
14:00 Once La’an a Time – Our Season Low
17:23 Tomorrow’s Enterprise – Kirk’s Enterprise
21:38 Our Favourite Episodes
23:36 Has Star Trek Lost Its Way?
27:40 Pike, Kirk & The Problem With Gimmick Episodes
30:26 What We Want From Season 5
31:32 Our Overall Season 4 Verdict
34:33 The Future of Star Trek
36:17 Your Season 4 Questions
39:00 Talking Trek as Fans
43:02 What’s Next for Making It So
A huge thank you to everyone who has watched, listened, commented and followed us throughout Season 4 — and particularly to our Patreon supporters who directly help support Geek In Camo.
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