Strange New Worlds Season 3 Copies Star Trek: Voyager’s Fan Favorite Sci-Fi Spoof

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 is set to copy a fan-favorite sci-fi spoof from Star Trek: Voyager. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3's teaser trailer includes clips from the upcoming season's genre-bending "10 new adventures," with title cards promising "romance", "mystery", and "a touch of analog". In that analog spirit, we get glimpses of Lieutenant James Kirk (Paul Wesley), Lieutenant Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), and Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) playing in a 1960s space opera—in other words, Star Trek: The Original Series, the way it's seared into collective memory.

Star Trek has paid homage to its forerunners before, in the form of Star Trek: Voyager's The Adventures of Captain Proton, Lieutenant Tom Paris' (Robert Duncan McNeill) favorite holodeck program. Though it has its roots in earlier sci-fi serials of the 1930s, like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, most of Captain Proton's aesthetic is inspired by 1950s B-movies and classic pulp sci-fi. Tom Paris takes on the role of the titular hero, with Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) joining in as trusty sidekick Buster Kincaid. The holodeck projectors even apply a filter that renders everything in period-appropriate black-and-white.

Strange New Worlds Season 3 Spoofs Star Trek: Voyager’s Captain Proton

Strange New Worlds' 20th-Century Sci-Fi Also References Star Trek: The Original Series

The nod to Star Trek: The Original Series in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3's teaser trailer spoofs The Adventures of Captain Proton from Star Trek: Voyager. Like Captain Proton shifting everything to black-and-white, Strange New Worlds' sci-fi tribute will play out in punchy technicolor with a film-grain filter. The oversized levers and painted consoles in Strange New Worlds' made-for-television starship set reference the analog buttons and dials of Captain Proton's rocket ship. Both homages use theatrical, but budget-friendly, retro-futuristic costumes that place them squarely in the 20th century, albeit in different decades.

Star Trek: Voyager's Captain Proton respects the serials that inspired Star Trek: The Original Series, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds seems to be doing the same for The Original Series itself. The colored lights on the flat gray walls, and that particular shade of red-orange, look just like TOS' vision of the 23rd century. References to Star Trek: The Original Series are hidden in the costumes and hairstyling, too: glittering patches sewn on as insignia, Jess Bush's Nurse Chapel evoking Majel Barrett-Roddenberry with a creative space-age beehive, and a yellow-green velour on Kirk's jacket that nearly matches William Shatner's original tunic.

Star Trek: Voyager’s Captain Proton Explained

Captain Proton Plays With Old Sci-Fi Tropes

The Adventures of Captain Proton is a Star Trek story-within-a-story, like Captain Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) film noir detective Dixon Hill holodeck program in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Captain Proton and Buster Kincaid regularly defeat the villainous Doctor Chaotica (Martin Rayner) with robots, ray guns, and rocket ships in episodes of a sci-fi serial with names like "Invaders from the Ninth Dimension". Star Trek: Voyager's Captain Proton episodes also invite other USS Voyager crew members to play along, like Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) as Arachnia, the Spider Queen; or Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) as Constance Goodheart.

It may seem weird for Star Trek characters to play at being adventurous space heroes when they're already that in their real lives, but as Tom Paris points out, the authentic, intentional campiness is what makes Captain Proton fun. The retro space adventures aren't supposed to be realistic; they're supposed to be a chance for Paris—and now Kirk, Chapel, and Ortegas—to see how their present-day was imagined by the people of the past. With all the different genres that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has explored so far, it's only natural that a Captain Proton spoof is on the way.