Does Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Feel Weird So Far? Here’s Why

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 4 - "A Case Of Chiaroscuro"Attentive viewers may have noticed that the first four episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 feel a little off. This is not because of the season's inventive genre shifts, but because of changes in the series' production that have affected the rhythms of Strange New Worlds season 4's serialized character arcs.

Directed by Meera Menon and written by Skylar Ojeda and Dana Horgan, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 4, "A Case of Chiaroscuro" is a film noir homage to Casablanca. It's the fourth of as many genre changes for season 4, which began with a time-traveling premiere before Strange New Worlds shifted gears into horror and madcap comedy.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's odes to popular movies are also impossible to miss. Season 4's premiere nodded to Jurassic Park and John Carter, while episode 2 learned hard into Event Horizon and The Shining, and the third adventure was The Hangover and Dude, Where's My Car? filtered through a Star Trek lens.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4’s First 4 Episodes Are Airing In A Different Order From How They Were Produced

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is episodic, like Star Trek: The Original Series, but the prequel's character arcs are serialized. Thus, it's easy to track the growth and evolution of the USS Enterprise's crew. Fans attuned to Strange New Worlds' character shifts can feel how season 4's first four episodes have aired in a different order from how they were produced.

ScreenRant and other outlets and critics received screeners, which included title cards that detailed the production and airing order of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4' first four episodes:

After Strange New Worlds season 4's time travel premiere, the comedic "Human Best Friend" was originally planned as episode 2, followed by the noirish "A Case of Chiaroscuro." The scare fest of "The Griffin Incident" was supposed to come fourth, but instead, was released as the second episode.

The shift can be felt most strongly when observing Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh's (Christina Chong). In "Valles Marineris," La'an punches a dinosaur, confirming her fears that being turned into a Vulcan (or a Romulan) in Strange New Worlds season 3 activated her recessive augment DNA and is changing her.

If Strange New Worlds season 4 had aired in production order, then La'an's psychotic behavior while intoxicated in "Human Best Friend" would have led her to seek out Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) to monitor and counsel her mood swings and paranoia in "A Case of Chiaroscuro." Then, La'an would've been possessed by the evil entity in "The Griffin Incident."

Now, La'an's character arc in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 has her being infected by the Griffin's evil in episode 2, but waiting until episode 4 before confessing to Spock (Ethan Peck) that her augment DNA is changing her.

Had "The Griffin Incident" been episode 4, it would have been a more natural and alarming escalation of La'an's troubles, instead of something she seems to have shrugged off. It still works as is, but the shift is noticeable to attuned viewers.

"The Griffin Incident" becoming episode 2 affects Lt. Commander James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) even more. James endures the horrors of seeing a vision of his brother, Lt. Sam Kirk's (Dan Jeannotte), gruesome death, and then being stabbed and nearly killed by La'an.

However, Kirk shows no ill effects of his ordeal in "Human Best Friend," which would make sense if "The Griffin Incident" had happened after it, as the production originally intended.

Finally, "A Case of Chaioscuro" was Una Chin-Riley's (Rebecca Romijn) first away mission since her promotion to Commander, and Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) congratulates her, despite weeks having passed. It gives the sense that the events of this episode were supposed to happen sooner.

Strange New Worlds Season 4’s Airing Order Makes It Like Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's episode airing switcheroo echoes what happened with Star Trek: The Original Series season 1. A TV series as ambitious as Star Trek had never been done before, and NBC was uncertain about how to air it, while the complicated (for its era) production and visual effects delayed the delivery of certain episodes.

NBC chose "The Man Trap," the fifth episode produced, to be the series premiere of Star Trek seen by viewers on September 8, 1966. This meant that the actual pilot episode (the second produced after NBC rejected "The Cage"), "Where No Man Has Gone Before," became the third episode to air. This remains jarring six decades later as the USS Enterprise's Starfleet uniforms are different and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) wasn't in the episode.

Most episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series season 1 aired out of production order. "The Corbomite Maneuver," for example, was the third episode produced but became the 10th Star Trek episode aired on NBC. The jumbled airing makes for occasionally strange viewing, since many Star Trek characters and concepts were still being developed as season 1 was produced, and some episodes would contradict others.

Unlike Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, however, the original 1966 Star Trek was truly episodic and did not have the same kind of character arc and growth as Paramount+'s modern streaming series. Star Trek: The Original Series episodes can be viewed in any order and, indeed, watching certain episodes in a different order than how they aired can improve the experience.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's new episodes premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.