Stardate: 3165.2
Original Air Date: September 11, 2025
Writer: Dana Horgan & Davy Perez
Director: Maja Vrvilo
“I am filled with light you cannot vanquish.”
After an exhaustive evaluation, Captain Pike’s girlfriend, Captain Batel, has been cleared to return to active duty as the new director of the Starfleet Judge Advocate General’s Office (following her Gorn impregnation in the two-part “Hegemony” episode). She joins Pike for a party in his cabin on the Enterprise. Here, we learn from Nurse Chapel that her boyfriend, Dr. Roger Korby, is on an expedition in the Ba-Dates system in the city of Skygowan (which features unique upside-down triangular floating temple edifices) where the people believe the Vezda were gods (the Vezda were previously featured on Vadia Nine in the episode “Through the Lens of Time”).
However, after finally being invited into the high chambers of the temple, Dr. Korby comes face-to-face with Ensign Gamble who was previously blinded and possessed by a Vezda. As it turns out, the malevolent spirit the crew captured and trapped inside the Enterprise transporter buffer, picked up Ensign Gamble’s likeness and fled the ship to Skygowan. This has to be one of the least surprising plot twists in all of Star Trek. Why didn’t the crew immediately bring the entrapped Vezda back to Starfleet for immediate investigation and imprisonment? How is this at all believable?
The Enterprise travels to Skygowan and a landing party quickly finds the doorway to Dr. Korby’s location (somehow La’an is able to disable two guards using a double Vulcan nerve pinch she has learned). The Vezda entity in Gamble’s body takes over the city and rules over the people like a god (even commanding them to violently blind themselves). The crew fears the Vezda inside Gamble is hoping to release his fellow imprisoned malevolent beings. He kidnaps Dr. M’Benga and takes him through a Vezda portal where they activate something that transforms Captain Batel into a statue/warden on Vadia Nine.
In order to rescue Dr. M’Benga, the crew devises a ludricously farfetched plan involving the phaser power of two starships (the Enterprise and the Farragut), Spock performing a mind-meld on Kirk, and Pike and Batel traveling through the interdimensional portal to save M’Benga and confront the Vezda occupying Ensign Gamble’s body. Here, Pike and Batel have a vision of their happy future together in which they are married with a daughter, as Pike faces a three-month observation exercise on the Lucas, a Class-J ship. Over time, their daughter Juliet grows and falls in love with Admiral April’s son Elijah “Eli” and the visions continue as Pike and Batel grow old together, but there is a constant sound of knocking on the door throughout these visions. When Pike finally answers the door, the Vezda/Gamble appears.
By some strange magic, Batel is able to defeat the Vezda, sending it back into an interdimensional prison, while she is inexplicably transformed into the statue of the warden/beholder. Is she gone forever? The episode ends with Pike alone as captain once more (Batel sacrificed herself to defeat the Vezda), and Nurse Chapel and Dr. Korby have apparently separated. There is a head-shaking bit of fan service as Spock and Kirk play a game of three-dimensional chess together and we learn that Dr. Korby’s research on Skygowan has charted numerous new planets, enough for a five-year mission.
My Thoughts on “New Life and New Civilizations”
I’m sorry to say that “New Life and New Civilizations” struck me as a mediocre finale to a feeble season. This episode sets up a potential universe-ending dilemma, an epic confrontation between good and evil, but it felt more o me like a cheap Marvel movie. Plus, whatever happened to Batel is not really explained. In my view, Star Trek is at its best when the crew is forced to use its intellect and empathy to explore complex problems, not ancient malevolent otherworldly powers that are more akin to “magic.”
Why was Dr. M’Benga’s information written in Swahili over the ancient Vezda portal doorway? When did La’an learn to perform a double Vulcan nerve pinch? Why were there only two guards protecting this critical portal? Why didn’t anyone notice the landing party disabling guards and using the portal? Do we really believe that Batel would have the “core knowledge” of how to defeat the Vezda? Where did her vision of the future come from? Was it created by the Vezda? And are we really supposed to buy the idea that the Vezda are the ancient embodiment of evil itself? And that Batel’s love is what actually defeats them? But above all: Why in the world did the crew simply leave a captured ancient malevolent entity inside the ship’s transporter buffer? After capturing the Vezda, wouldn’t they immediately transport it to Starfleet for investigation? How does this make any sense at all? Perhaps it’s best not to think too deeply about this show.
Even with the declining quality of the episodes in Season 3, “New Life and New Civilizations” stands out as one of the worst in my view. This whole season has been a whole lot of unchallenging lightweight fluff. Perhaps Strange New Worlds has simply run out of interesting to things to say so it has retreated into re-hashes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, supernatural Marvel plots, and seemingly endless eye-rolling romantic subplots. This whole season was mostly a sad disappointment.
Star Trek Trivia:
- Scotty wearing a traditional Scottish kilt.
- Pelia says she once knew a time-traveling doctor.
- Dr. Korby is on an expedition in the Ba-Dates system.
- “Cali-Katchna” the phrase the Vezda spoke is phonetically nearly identical to the name of the city on Skygowan
- Apparently, La’an has learned how to perform a Vulcan nerve pinch?
- Swahili is the first language of both Dr. M’Benga and Uhura.
- Spock performs a mind-meld on Jim Kirk in this episode (Kirk asks him not to judge “that one time on Orion’s second moon”).
- In Batel’s vision of the future, she and Pike have a daughter named Juliet who becomes engaged to Admiral April’s son Elijah “Eli.”
- The song played at the conclusion of this episode is “Wait” by M83.