“Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach” is probably going to upset a lot of people, as it’s about uncomfortable truths — and the sacrifices that societies are happy to make to continue. It is also exactly the kind of story that Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon, and D.C. Fontana would have written for the Original Series.

Enterprise is on a star-mapping survey in the Majalan system, just beyond the edge of Federation space. While Captain Pike (Anson Mount) reflects on his previous visit to the region a decade ago, Cadet Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) is in the middle of her rotation under Lieutenant Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) in security, who is being a rather predictable hardass – though it’s mainly played for laughs more than anything else.

Even Pike’s imitation of La’an seems to reflect a general good humour about the security chief, rather than any real concern for Uhura. It’s nice — what is less nice, however, is the fact that an alien shuttle is under attack within the system. Enterprise comes their rescue, shrugging off several attacks from the cruiser, which does virtually no damage to the Starfleet vessel before a glancing phaser hit knocks it down.

The shuttle’s three passengers soon escape to the Enterprise: a child, an older man and a young woman, who recognizes the captain as the man she met when he was still a lieutenant.

Minister Alora (Lindy Booth) was rescued by Pike from a shuttle accident a decade earlier, where it appears they had some… chemistry. Compared with Kirk’s constant smooth-talking, Pike’s awkwardness is a little stilted – even forced – but it makes a nice alternative to the stereotypical man of action.

It turns out the kid is the First Servant of Majalus (Ian Ho), the soon-to-be leader of the planet. Alora and the other caretaker — his father, Gamal (Huse Madhavji) — had been caring for him on the moon, where he studied and prepared for ‘ascension.’ (We’ll get to that later.) Alora is evasive about the origin of their attacker, pointing to a nearby alien colony as potential kidnappers, and opposing any investigation. Starfleet regulations overrule her, however, and Pike orders the cruiser searched for clues.

Meanwhile, Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) is spending some more alone time with his daughter Rukiya (Sage Arrindell), only to be interrupted by the need to check up on the First Servant. I didn’t expect them to come back to Kiya so quickly, or to have so much focus on her this episode. Good stuff, really.

It was also nice (and a little cliché) to see elder Gamal scorn the sickbay as an “abattoir,” refusing to let M’Benga or Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) heal the First Servant’s wounds. Instead, he heals the child at a quantum level, a procedure that fascinates the CMO greatly — and sets M’Benga’s sights on a possible path to cure his daughter’s sickness.

Planetside, Uhura and La’an clear the crash site ahead of Spock (Ethan Peck) and Alora’s arrival, who quickly discover two strange things: a strange medical device, and an oath coin, which the Majalun recognises as belonging to one of the First Servant’s guards. While the child remains on the Enterprise, Pike joins Alora on Majalus itself, a fantastical floating world reminiscent of TOS’s Stratos, complete with flying shuttles and holographic diaries.

Upon checking all the guards, however, Alora finds the traitor, who attempts an escape through the palace gardens — before they are stopped by Pike and minister, who kills the rebellious guard by accident. Alora is a little distraught afterwards, but not enough that she needs to be alone that night, as Captain Pike joins the Captain Kirk Alien Sex Club.

Even Pike is unable to enjoy an evening without dark reflection, however, as he tells Alora about his own destiny and the future accident, which is being treated less as death here (like it was in the first two episodes) and more as a severe injury. The minister suggests that Pike come and join them on Majalus, where he could be healed by their medicine.

It would mean accepting their way of life, which, at this point at least, he seems open to considering.

Shipside, Uhura’s lunch is interrupted by La’an, who requests that she translate a collection of data slates that the security chief ‘liberated’ from the crash site. La’an being a rulebreaker of sorts is another security chief cliché, but it does give her a little more depth – she understands that the rules aren’t everything, even if that understanding is making Uhura’s life a little harder.

M’Benga’s own life is a little more complicated too, especially when he returns from the mess hall to find his daughter and the First Servant playing hopscotch. It’s a bittersweet scene, and the child actors do their best to sell the innocence of it all. I even got the sense that the First Servant did understand the reasoning for keeping Kiya in the transporter.

But Uhura has managed to decipher the alien data tapes, learning that they’re encoded in a sister language of the Majaluns, meaning that the attacking ship who took down the First Servant’s shuttle isn’t from an alien world at all: Prospect VII is a Majalun colony.

Before Pike can deal with this revelation, however, Gamal and the First Servant decide to leave of their own accord. Before they can be stopped, however, an alien cruiser kidnaps the First Servant, destroying itself in an attempt to escape the Enterprise’s tractor beam at warp. This is a somewhat-obvious fake-out, but it does give us a great inkling of the deeper meanings behind the First Servant’s sacrifice, as Alora begins to panic about how the death of the child will mean the floating city will fall to the planets’ surface.

Pike seems confused, but it’s brushed over quickly when Uhura presents evidence that Gamal of helping the colonists kidnap his own son. Before Gamal can explain himself, Spock whisks Pike down to the lower decks, where they find the First Servant hiding in a cargo crate.

At the child’s urging, they whisk him down to the surface for his jubilant coronation. Pike and Una (Rebecca Romijn) still have suspicions, questioning Alora and Gamal respectively about their motives. Alora remains evasive, however, while whatever Gamal told Una cannot be relayed to the captain due to planetary shielding.

Pike finds out soon enough, however, when he is invited underneath the city to the planet’s ascension chamber, where the First Servant undergoes the ritual to perform his duty – forming the neural network at the core of the computer that maintains Majalus’ paradise. It’s a gruesome twist, especially as we’re shown the remains of the previous First Servant.

Strange New Worlds doesn’t pull its punches in this scene, and frankly it shouldn’t. This is a brutal recognition of how certain societies are willing to sacrifice their youth to maintain their principles. I think it’s probably a good thing this episode didn’t come out last week, considering the tragic events in Texas — but it’s topical, whether the writers meant it to be or not.

Watching a child willing go to his brain death, with no reservations right up until the very last moment is horrifying. There is nothing Pike can do about it, and he has no choice by the watch with us as the First Servant is bonded forever to the machine. The captain, knocked out by the guards, wakes up in Alora’s bedroom, but there’s no affection between them now. Pike – who knows that in a decade, he will put his life on the line for children – is horrified by someone who openly sacrifices a child for their society.

Alora tries to explain that they have no choice, that their founders – for whatever reason – designed the system as such, which is about as heavy handed an allegory for the 2nd Amendment debate as is possible, I think. Even Alora isn’t a fan of it but sees it as the only way to keep their society alive. Pike is still horrified but has no reply to the minister’s counterpoint about suffering in the Federation.

Unlike the Next Generation era, where the Federation is expressly considered a utopian paradise, Pike can’t quite say that about life in the 23rd century — it doesn’t make it okay, though. Majalus will, at the very least, be a state that Starfleet will avoid for now.

CAMP NONSENSE OF THE WEEK

This weeks’ honoree has to be Captain Pike’s terrible impression of La’an. Who doesn’t love a dodgy British accent?

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• The Enterprise transporter room is located on Deck 6.
   
• Similar to the tricombadges seen in Star Trek: Discovery’s new era, Alora’s secretary has a holographic planner.
   
• The cruisers from Prospect VII appear to be fitted with weapons turrets and long-barreled lasers, a first for a franchise which has generally avoided ‘space battleship’ turrets for most of its history.

• One of the Majalun guards is played by Star Trek: Discovery’s Avaah Blackwell, a stunt actor who has who has appeared as multiple alien roles and occasionally as Lieutenant Ina on that series.
   
• The framework for the story may be inspired by Urula K. Le Guin’s tale The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
   
• Pike’s first visit to Majalus was in the late 2240s, as a lieutenant; this was presumably before his assignment as Robert April’s first officer aboard the Enterprise.

“Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach” leaves me feeling deeply uncomfortable. That’s excellent! It should! I think no-win ending is perfect. It’s going make a fair few people unhappy — perhaps seeing it as “too dark” or something — but this is what Star Trek is meant to do.

This week’s episode is a proper and extremely relevant morality tale in Trek tradition, and even if it is clunky at times, it’s no more clunky than, say, “The Cloud Minders” or “A Taste of Armageddon.” A lot of the plot is squeezed into the last act, which could have been rectified, but doing so might have meant losing out on the development we got for M’Benga and Uhura, who both got some great time in the limelight this week.

This episode of Strange New Worlds will probably be talked about for a while, as it should.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns with “The Serene Squall” on Thursday, June 16 on Paramount+ in the United States, Australia, Latin America, and the Nordics, as well as on CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada.

The first three episodes of the series will arrive to the UK and Ireland on Paramount+ on June 22 (with weekly releases following); additional international distribution has not yet been announced.