Will ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Have a Musical Episode?
In the lead-up to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season two, there’s a lot of chatter about episode nine. Is it a musical? Yes. Maybe.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds likes to take a big swing. In its first season alone it goes after January 6 insurrectionists. And it has a song with a singing comet (more on that later). The writers take us to storybook fantasy worlds, recreate classic episodes, and even kill a main character.
However, in most cases, this is not new ground. Uhura sings in Star Trek: The Original Series. The Enterprise visits all sorts of fantastical settings (television sets for other series). And Tasha Yar bites it in season one of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Season two of SNW already promises at least one first–a crossover between an animated series (Star Trek: Lower Decks) and a live-action one. But that’s shaping up to be only one of several firsts this season.
Courtesy of CBS Television
The (Maybe Musical) Story So Far
In January 2023 Anson Mount appears during TREK*Talks 2 to discuss the upcoming second season of Strange New Worlds. During the interview, he talks about the Lower Decks crossover but notes that it’s not the biggest swing the show will take this season.
“That’s not even the craziest thing that we did” says Mount. “There’s one episode I’m thinking of towards the end of the season, and you’ll know when you see it, where it required us to work many weekends. But we were so excited about it, it was not laborious. We were excited to show up for Sunday rehearsals and all the things we’re having to do to pull together this one episode.”
Then, in two recent Collider interviews, episode nine comes up again. Mount talks about “maybe things that Star Trek has never done before” with regard to episode nine. And, in a separate interview, Celia Rose Gooding says that episode nine is her favorite.
But, even more interesting, when asked about rehearsing on weekends, Gooding says of Mount, “Listen, he’s more devoted than me, my goodness. For reference, Gooding is an established musical stage performer.
Courtesy of Paramount Plus
What’s in a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Name?
Episode titles are important. In fact, to quote Jack Crusher in the finale of Star Trek: Picard, “names mean everything”. And, indeed, people are already talking about the episode titles for SNW season two.
For example, episode seven’s title is “Those Old Scientists” which is a reference to how the crew of Lower Decks refers to the Starfleet officers from The Original Series era. Not to overexplain the joke but “The Original Series” and “Those Old Scientists” both have the initial “TOS”. Likewise, the second season finale episode “Hegemony” likely refers to the Gorn because that’s what the hierarchy of the Gorn is called–the Gorn Hegemony.
What is episode nine’s title? “Subspace Rhapsody.” And to pull directly from Wikipedia, in music, a rhapsody is “a one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, color, and tonality.”
Or, put another way, it’s a one-off musical episode of a typically non-musical TV show.
Courtesy of Paramount Plus
What Does a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Musical Look Like?
Simply put: we have no idea what a musical Star Trek episode may look like. However, we do know that Spock plays the Vulcan lute. And we know Uhura sings. Just putting it out there, M’Benga has a space daughter who exists with a sentient god that can turn the Enterprise into a storybook fantasy. So a musical scenario is anything but out of the realm of possibility.
In the end, all we can say for certain is this: there are not a lot of things Star Trek has never done before, but a musical is one of them. And, furthermore, a musical episode is certainly something that requires weekend rehearsals.
Don’t bet the house on it, but the likelihood of a musical episode is getting stronger and stronger with each new interview. Regardless, expect an announcement one way or the other soon.
