“We wanted to do a classic holiday episode…”
One of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ most controversial installments was originally intended to be “a holiday episode.” However, as it eventually turned out, the installment in question, season 3’s “A Space Adventure Hour,” transformed into a genre-jumping murder mystery, which was met with heavy criticism from some of the fandom.
Strange New Worlds executive producer and co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers explained why things eventually leaned into a holodeck episode instead, during an interview with Awards Radar, by saying: “Trying to dig in my mind and being like, ‘Well, how did we start with it?’ Because I feel like we started as one thing and then ultimately, it kind of came down to this, we wanted to do a classic holiday episode.”
Myers continued by saying in the same sit-down:
“But we knew that because of what time we were in, we couldn’t do it exactly. Meaning, we would not have the same technology that they have The Next Gen. And then this was all the science elements of it. Then another part of it was that La’An had gone through some really intense emotional things in the previous season.”
Ultimately, a holiday special seemed too out of character to be centered around the USS Enterprise’s security chief, La’An Nooien Singh (Christina Chong). Nevertheless, Chong wanted a romance to happen for her character on screen. Plus, Myers and fellow showrunner Akiva Goldsman longed to “tell a light and fun episode,” which still felt true to La’An.
Long story short: That’s how Myers and Goldsman came up with the idea for Strange New Worlds’ holodeck murder mystery episode out of what began as a holiday special. Unfortunately, many Star Trek fans tore “A Space Adventure Hour” apart online, but the critics who did review the season 3 installment on Rotten Tomatoes all enjoyed director Jonathan Frakes’ genre-jumping efforts.
Personally, I’ve enjoyed Star Trek’s holiday-themed jaunts over the years like The Original Series’ “Catspaw,” which is clearly a Halloween special set among the stars. And while it’s merely a footnote in The Next Generation season 4 episode “Devil’s Due,” I loved watching Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) briefly portray Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.
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Live long and prosper, Trekkies!
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