As of last night, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has run the fifth of its ten episodes for its third season. It’s bittersweet; I’m loving every moment, but I know I only get five episodes from here, and only two more ten-episode seasons after that. I’m holding out hope for a continuation series starring Paul Wesley as Kirk, but either way, with next week’s episode we’ll be closer to the end of the series than the beginning. As Q famously said, “All good things must come to an end.”

But then again, that’s just the “bitter” part of bittersweet. On the other hand, this season is proving to be just as delightful as the last two. And the most recent episode was the perfect season climax: a pulse-pounding mystery that likely sets up the action for the second half. With that said, I’ll offer my thoughts on the season thus far, and my predictions for the final five episodes.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

I’ll start with the fifth, and most recent, episode: “Through the Lens of Time”. In the latest episode, the Enterprise is assigned to assist Roger Korby, the new boyfriend of nurse Christine Chapel, on an expedition to Vadia IX (established by dialogue from Trelane as the original home planet of the Q). The episode delivered the kind of wacky space-time mystery Star Trek has always been known for, but the series continued its genre-bending; this episode was classic body-snatching sci-fi horror.

The interdimensional beings the away team encounters on the planet’s surface (called “hitchhikers” by the planet’s original inhabitants) look poised to become the major threat for the remainder of this season, and possibly beyond. They’ve already claimed a life: Dana Gamble, the nurse who’d replaced Chapel aboard the Enterprise. He’d only been around for a handful of episodes, but once again the Strange New Worlds writer’s room pulled off a triumph: making a replacement character distinctive and likeable enough for his sudden death to be impactful. With Chapel playing doctor…or nurse at least…with Korby, I’d really hoped Gamble would become a fixture with the crew. I was surprised at how his death affected me as a viewer.

The episode raised unsettling questions. Where did these “hitchhikers” come from? Why did the Q imprison then and then just…leave them there, in a place that could be found, no less? And what is Batel’s (and the Gorn’s, for that matter) connection to them?

No doubt the answers to these questions will drive the subsequent episodes. But for now, the first half of the season has left me with these thoughts:

Forget the original series; Strange New Worlds is dancing around The Next Generation now

Like most fans, I’d expected this new season to draw the series even closer to the original series’s lore. And with the arrival of Roger Korby, and Scotty becoming a series regular, it sure looked like it. But so far, one of the themes of this season has been stopping just short of stepping on The Next Generation‘s toes.

Since the artfully-orchestrated cameo by Q in “Wedding Bell Blues” paid off a long-standing fan theory, Strange New Worlds has also depicted the genesis of TNG’s infamous holodeck. They’ve looked more deeply into elements of Klingon culture first shown to viewers in the early seasons of The Next Generation. And now Starfleet away teams are poking around the ruins on the Q Continuum’s ancestral homeworld.

In every case, yet again the writers have done a great job of staying just on the right side of established Trek canon: making quality changes without angering a notoriously knit-picky fanbase. They managed to tie off a loose end from Discovery, which had seemed to depict a holodeck on a starship long before TNG’s time period (determining that current Starfleet computers and power systems were insufficient to maintain a holographic environment). But the fact is, TNG has tied their hands in one major respect: unfortunately, it probably means we won’t get more background on the pre-omnipotent Q.

Spock keeps getting tied up in love triangles with human crewmates

It says a lot about the writing on Strange New Worlds that, after absolutely hating the character of La’an during the first season, I was actually happy when she and Spock became a thing in the previous episode. The two seem like a good match, as La’an has just enough stoicism to almost pass for Vulcan at times. But while every modern Trek series has loved its love triangles (Riker-Troi-Worf, Worf-Ezri-Bashir, and the ever-cringy Paris-Kes-Neelix), the addition of Roger Korby has turned this one into an awkward love trapezoid.

What’s sad is that I just started liking La’an as a character, but the moment she hooked up with Spock I was certain she was doomed. Longtime fans know that by the time the original series begins, Spock is as joyless and logical as Vulcans get. The death of a lover, however canned or out-of-touch it is as a plot device, makes too much sense. La’an wasn’t shown in the original series. Seems to spell doom.

However, this also leaves me wondering about what lies ahead for Chapel and Korby. The original series identified Korby as Chapel’s ex-fiancé, and he hasn’t proposed to her yet. But the latest episode seemed to plant the seeds for future strife between the two. I honestly have no idea what the writers have planned for all this. But based on everything they’ve done so far, damned if I can’t wait to see.

How much progress will this season make toward the original series?

So far, we’ve got Scotty (and that’s awesome, don’t get me wrong). The unfortunate death of Gamble paves the way for Chapel to return to her original role. Uhura has been there from the start. But where’s everybody else? Heck…where’s Kirk? The inevitable next commander of the Enterprise has so far made a cameo appearance (and a delightful one) as a parody of his character in “A Space Adventure Hour”. But beyond that, nothing.

Since I made my last post about this season, showrunners have publicly confirmed that Strange New Worlds will end with Kirk’s first day in command of the Enterprise. And I love that. But I’m still hoping we’ll see some appearances, even if only cameos, of the missing members of his eventual bridge crew. Either way, it’s been a hell of a ride so far. And I can’t wait to see how this season plays out.

New episodes of season three of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiere each Thursday on Paramount+. All episodes of seasons one and two are currently available.