Since the embargo came off early Monday, many reviews are out based on the first six episode screeners.
Many are unequivocally positive to hyper enthusiastic. Some have a few quibbles in otherwise positive reviews.
In the absence of a dedicated SNW subgroup (yet…), I thought I’d drop some links to the reviews so far to get the conversation going.
Additional links can be added in comments.
Inverse https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-review
Slash Film https://www.slashfilm.com/1300328/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-review/
Radio Times https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-review/
Paste Magazine https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/paramount-plus/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-review
Original Cin https://www.original-cin.ca/posts/2023/6/13/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-s2-the-underrated-power-of-the-short-story
The Movie Blog https://www.themovieblog.com/2023/06/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-builds-on-its-excellent-approach-to-trek/
CBR https://www.cbr.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-review/
Games Radar https://www.gamesradar.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-two-review/
A note on third-party reviews:
Historically, we have not allowed external reviews of individual episodes on the Old Site, as we felt they didn’t really contribute anything that wasn’t covered by our own discussion threads.
Now that we’ve migrated and have a smaller community, we might be more flexible on this for a little while.
(Advance review round-up posts like this one have always been okay, I’m just taking advantage of the opportunity to mention this.)
I can’t trust most reviews after Picard. It’s a symptom of the larger problem with reviews these days that I just don’t trust most names anymore.
I generally tend to less rely on reviewer’s ultimate judgement on something, but instead go more on more of what they liked and disliked, and what they thought of certain elements. Some things that don’t bother them might bother me, and vice versa. It’s also why I tend to like game review sites that have abandoned putting a number value after their reviews.
Critics usually only get to see the first half of a season for their reviews, which can be a problem when the season is heavily serialized and they have to essentially review half a story without knowing whether they’ll land the ending. The reviews should be more useful for Strange New Worlds where it’s mostly episodic and they can at least review the episodes they saw.
Loved season 1. Best first season of any star Trek series. Looks like this season is more of the same.
I don’t get reviews for movies/show. Makes no sense to me. If I’ve not watched the movie/show, I don’t wanna get spoiled and/or influenced by some random stranger who thinks the movie is either bad or good.
I want to see the movie/show on my own and then decide if its good or not. And after that, why do I need to read reviews? I already saw the movie/show and I know if I liked it or not. No reason to read a review of it.
For me it feels more like, many people need others to tell them if they should like a movie/show or not.
I totally get video game reviews because they are expensive and usually a much higher time investment compared to a movie or “tv” show.
Fair enough.
I too felt Picard season three was heavily overhyped, especially by many of the Star Trek specialty sites.
In general though, I welcome nonspoilery general early reviews, especially from less specialized professional reviewers.
In this case, I am noticing that the more mainstream reviews are the most positive and the specialized genre or franchise reviews are working for a more measured tone than with Picard.
Is it because the genre reviewers have felt the disappointment with of some of fandom with Picard, or is it because they are at heart TNG era fans? Makes one wonder.
In my own case, I can forgive much of the overly positive reviews of Picard because I really found the early episodes the strongest, with the writers doubling down on everything that most concerned me in the back half of the season. It was episode 6 where the wheels of plot and character began to come off and nostalgia was given the work of heavy lifting TNG fans through to the end.
With SNW being episodic, six episodes would seem to be enough to know if the shows continuing strongly or hitting a sophomore slump. No one yet has called slump. So it seems that those who liked season one should expect to be satisfied with season two.
Season 1 was a case of absolutely zero expectations given my lukewarm reaction to much of recent Trek series, so SNW smashed it for me. I hope I’m not going into Season 2 over hyped…!
Alan Sepinwall, generally regarded as the dean of modern-era television critics, has his review up: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-review-anson-mount-ethan-peck-1234766233/
He likes it a lot, but says that he still misses the days of the long seasons and also notes that Wesley’s guest performances as Kirk still haven’t quite settled yet.
I’m so hyped for season 2! Season 1 was outstanding so I’m cool with more of that.
Great! I’m not going to read any of these, but an excited for the new season.
The person from TV guide called it a “miracle”. Several times. https://www.tvguide.com/news/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-review/?fbclid=IwAR1rfi-VsGS4mYjT9nJJGaSKcuYirDdlJp37qZDSTzkkhUWbwqUnJcCjuPo
