See Star Trek’s Redesign Of The Iconic Romulan Ship For Strange New Worlds
The season one finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is now streaming on Paramount Plus. By any measure, the show delivered one if its best episodes of the season as a finale, and it did it by delving into established Star Trek canon.
The season one finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is now streaming on Paramount Plus. By any measure, the show delivered one if its best episodes of the season as a finale, and it did it by delving into established Star Trek canon.
Warning: Spoilers For Strange New Worlds Episode 1 Follow
Strange New Worlds episode ten propelled Captain Pike ten years into the future, into the world we saw play out in Star Trek’s original series. Pike was dropped smack dab into one of Star Trek’s most iconic episodes, “Balance of Terror”. In that episode, Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise do battle with a Romulan ship armed with a new weapon. In the end the Enterprise is victorious, but not without cost.
In the tangent timeline created by Pike’s time travel, it ends up being Pike in command of the Enterprise when they face down with the Romulan Bird of Prey vessel. That means Strange New Worlds had to recreate the classic ship from the original series, while making sure it fit with the visual style of the current series. Here’s what they came up with…
For comparison, here’s how the ship appeared in “Balance of Terror” when it aired way back in 1966…
They’ve made a few changes, but they’ve stuck to the core of the aesthetic. The biggest difference to me is the color of the ship’s Bussard collectors. They’ve changed the color from orange to green, likely to tie it in with the green colored aesthetic developed for the Romulans during the course of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They’ve also given the hull more of a grayish hue, which is in keeping with Strange New Worlds’ tendency to stay away from the whiter hull colors used by the original series.
After suffering through the callous disregard for what Star Trek actually is heaped upon us by shows like Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery, I think it’s fair to call this good enough. A faithful recreation that works in an episode which is itself, a faithful enough homage to Star Trek past.
