‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Showrunners Talk Season 3 Premiere And “Retconning” The Gorn
One of the more hotly discussed elements of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was the introduction of the Gorn as a recurring adversary years before their first appearance in the original Star Trek episode “Arena.” Moving away from that original Gorn and his famed rubber-suited fight with Captain Kirk, Strange New Worlds has added much to the backstory of these aggressive space-faring reptiles, culminating in the season 2 cliffhanger finale “Hegemony.” The story picks up with the season 3 premiere (“Hegemony, Part II”), and at last weekend’s Tribeca Film Festival panel, both showrunners talked about the season premiere and ow they are handling the Gorn.
… and now the conclusion
It’s been almost two years since the season 2 finale, which is a long time to wait for a cliffhanger. Speaking to the Tribeca crowd [who had the chance to see “Hegemony, Part II”], executive producer Akiva Goldsman offered a sort of apology for the extended hiatus:
“We had a writers’ strike. We didn’t anticipate that it was going to be quite as long. But we have faith in our audience. Thank you for waiting and thank you for liking.”
Executive producer and co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers explained why, even though Strange New Worlds is made to be episodic, he wanted to create this two-parter:
“Having grown up loving Trek, nothing made me happier than something like the ‘Best of Both Worlds’ parts 1 and 2. It’s the part 1 and 2 part that I love. Where you see part 1 and only then at the end discover, ‘Oh, there’s going to be another part.’ The part I was really, really excited to do–because it was always my favorite thing to watch, was when they show the second part and they start with the ‘Previously on…’ and they say, ‘And now the conclusion…’ As a Star Trek fan, there’s nothing I like more. Because we were not going to be doing a bunch of episodes where you have to watch all of them to follow. This is one where we set up the story and we finish the story.”
From “Hegemony, Part II” (season 3, episode 1) of Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Marni Grossman Paramount+
Finding new ground for the Gorn
Akiva Goldsman readily took credit for making the Gorn part of the show, noting he’s had an “obsession with the Gorn” since he was a boy. He went on to talk about how they have handled the Gorn, in addition to indicating where the story could be headed:
“What I loved about the Gorn was it was an opportunity to retcon something into a real monster. What we do in Star Trek—and you’ll see we’ll even do it with the Gorn—is we start by seeing the other and often we end by engaging our empathy and understanding common ground. And that’s great, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t real evil in the world. And so what we wanted to do with the Gorn was to give you a monster, and a monster that at least at first, seemed irredeemable.”
To date, the Gorn on Strange New Worlds have only shown their monster side, but it sounds like he’s saying there could be more to their story to come with this talk of “common ground.” Of course, Star Trek history is full of examples of this kind of thing from the Klingons to the Borg to Species 8472 and beyond, and the Gorn themselves had a full arc in “Arena,” in which there were initially seen as monsters and predators and then, in the end, as species fighting for their own survival. It remains to be seen what spin Strange New Worlds might have and how it will differ, but it seems Goldsman has something in mind.
Gorn seen in season3 teaser trailer
