Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Musical Episode Looks Amazing
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds quickly became a fan-favorite show and effectively replaced Discovery as the flagship programming for Paramount Plus. For a while now, the narrative has been that this show is popular because it plays it safe, sticking with many characters and designs from The Original Series and returning us to one-off episodes rather than season-long arcs. But it looks like Paramount is tired of playing things safe: an official trailer just dropped confirming that Strange New Worlds will be getting a musical episode (a first for the franchise) on August 3.
The trailer for this very special episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is short on details but long on charm. All we really know is that the USS Enterprise gets zapped by some wave of cosmic energy, and it’s enough to make everyone on the ship frequently begin singing and dancing. The catchy music in the trailer also gives us an idea of what some of the songs may sound like, and everything is summed up nicely by the title of the episode: “Subspace Rhapsody.”
If you didn’t enjoy the music in this Star Trek trailer, don’t worry…the actual Strange New Worlds episode is going to have plenty of musical variety. In addition to a musical version of the show’s title theme that we heard in the trailer, there will be 10 original songs to look forward to.
The USS Enterprise gets zapped by some wave of cosmic energy, and it’s enough to make everyone on the ship frequently begin singing and dancing.
In addition to the potential for musical and lyrical variety, it’s also a safe bet that most of our major characters are going to get their own songs to help flesh out individual storylines and tell us more about what makes them tick.
While other major shows have dabbled in musical episodes, it’s basically impossible to look at this trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and not have flashbacks to the famous musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
That earlier show used a magic item as a convenient MacGuffin that made all of Sunnydale break out into song, often against the character’s will. The final result was an episode that fired on all cylinders, moving character story arcs forward while providing some catchy tunes.
In addition to a musical version of the show’s title theme that we heard in the trailer, there will be 10 original songs to look forward to.
We don’t yet know what this musical episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will do in terms of explicit character arcs, but we feel confident that the music is going to be good.
That’s because it is being composed by Kay Hanley and Tom Polce, better known as members of the rock band Letters to Cleo. Hanley also provided the vocals for Rachel Leigh Cook’s character in the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats, so she has plenty of experience in blending song and storytelling.
“Subspace Rhapsody,” a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode, airs on Paramount+ on August 3.
If you hold a phaser to our heads (and that thing better be on stun, mister!), we’re not sure if Star Trek is the right franchise for a musical, but if any show could pull it off, it’s Strange New Worlds. The characters are charming, their relationships are complex, and everybody is there for each other. In other words, the crew already has the quality of a good band, but we won’t know how well everyone can sing until the episode drops on August 3.
