With Star Trek turning 60 this year, it feels like an apt time to look back on the beloved sci-fi franchise and what it’s achieved over the decades – and Strange New Worlds writer Bill Wolkoff has been doing just that.
The writer and executive producer opened up about how the franchise has tackled climate issues since its inception, after appearing on a panel at Hollywood Climate Summit.
He told TrekMovie.com: “As you know, the aspirational future that Gene Roddenberry set in motion is as a post-scarcity world — some would say post-capitalist world. It’s a world where after things went awry, our better angels prevailed, and we were able to all unite for the for the better good.
“And that’s that is something that we’ve been writing to in the Strange New Worlds room for five seasons. It’s something that we’ve been talking about as it’s developed through from The Original Series, in Next Generation, and into the episodes that that we write.
“I’ll specifically cite The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail which I wrote with David Reed. We very specifically wrote it about what would happen to a very small subset of humans who are from the world before we learned how to be post-scarcity, and they were in the bad times. And they wound up in a part of space that was really dark and lonely. So that’s how we’ve been writing it.”
He went on to say: “I am here today because I am a firm believer that that reality is possible for us here. And I think it starts with changing our mindset and shifting our minds to embrace a world where we can have a good world for everybody, not just the individual.”
The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail sees the USS Farragut – and a huge amount of its crew – grievously harmed in an attack from a mysterious foe (which is later revealed to be a gigantic Scavenger ship that all but swallows other starships to mine them for parts), with the crew of the Enterprise being required to step in.
And, with the Farragut’s Captain V’Rel incapacitated by the attack, there’s only one person to take over from her and take his place in command – step forward, for the first time, Captain Kirk.
Rather than the confident captain we know and love, Kirk is reckless and naive when it comes to his leadership – to the point that Spock (Ethan Peck), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Scotty (Martin Quinn) and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) start to consider measures to remove him from command.
Thankfully, after a few costly mistakes and a talking-to from Spock, Kirk’s leadership takes a turn for the better and the Scavenger ship is destroyed.
However, in a bleak twist at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that there were 7,000 humans on board the Scavenger ship – bearing the monstrous legacy of what was once an optimistic mission led by 21st-century scientists looking for an answer to climate change.
Strange New Worlds season 4 is set to premiere in July, with the show being confirmed to end with its fifth season.
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