Jonathan Frakes Gets Why Star Trek Fans Love Strange New Worlds

While highlighting the series’ perks, Jonathan Frakes referenced his own upcoming episode of Strange New Worlds, which is on pace to premiere as part of the third season in 2025.

This will be the second Frakes-directed episode in this iteration of the series, following the 2023 episode “Those Old Scientists.”

When prompted to comment on the fan reaction to the series and asked why it was performing so well, Frakes simply stated, “They take big swings on Strange New Worlds. I think that the fact that they are stand-alone episodes has made this, arguably, the favorite Star Trek since Next Gen, probably.”

Star Trek has been around long enough to throw a lot of different kinds of shows and structures at the wall.

In some instances, the serialized narratives stick well, especially when fans become personally attached to the characters and their growth and relationships over time.

For Jonathan Frakes however, the ‘movie of the week’ structure of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a refreshing change of pace that makes the series fun and exciting, both as a fan and as a creative partner.

Jonathan Frakes went on to say that he enjoys taking big swings in his projects, including the crossover of live-action performers and cartoon characters in his previous Strange New Worlds episode.

Clearly, the fans seem to be responding, as Strange New Worlds has already been renewed for a fourth season, despite the fact that the third season isn’t slated to arrive until next year.

The series has also been nominated for a wide array of Critic’s Choice and Saturn awards, with one win for Best Guest Star in a Television Series.

While other Star Trek series such as Discovery and Picard, has also made major waves with many fans, neither have been regarded in quite so high a status as Strange New Worlds.

For Jonathan Frakes, the credit goes to a number of names associated with bringing Strange New Worlds to life, including co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers, as well as executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who fast-tracked Strange New Worlds to production while working as the showrunner for the second season of Discovery.

Jonathan Frakes also named series co-executive producer Chris Fisher as one of the key figureheads in making Star Trek: Strange New Worlds a massive success. Frakes argues that each of the creative hands had a say in bringing the series to life had their own special inclusion.

For some shows, the many overlapping notes could be a problem, but for Strange New Worlds, the writers and producers seem to have found a way to work in perfect harmony.

This is exemplified by the show’s ability to make changes to the overall Star Trek canon. Choices such as adjusting the timeline on World War 3 or re-tooling the date of Khan Noonien Singh’s birth may have otherwise been considered missteps by fans of the franchise.

Though artists such as Jonathan Frakes and company have ensured that Strange New Worlds‘s episodes are so spectacularly written and directed that these things fall by the wayside.

Source: Cinema Blend