The Season 4 premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Valles Marineris”, is praised as a refreshing return to a self-contained adventure after the show’s recent high-concept episodes. Its most striking premise sends part of the Enterprise crew to prehistoric Earth, raising the extraordinary suggestion that they may be connected to humanity’s origins, while Captain Pike confronts grief, exhaustion and an offer of promotion.

The review considers the dinosaur storyline entertaining but visually and dramatically uneven, particularly in its comic handling of Una facing a T. rex. It finds the stronger plot aboard the disabled Enterprise, where Pike clashes philosophically with the warlike Martian commander Cassel over cooperation versus violence; La’an’s increasingly aggressive behaviour and concerns about her genetic heritage also provide an ongoing character thread.