After last week’s long, involved discussion about Amanda Grayson, I figured it was time for something short and light, and frankly, the Star Trek Powers That Be could not have graced us all with the trailer for season two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds at a better time. The new season begins airing on June 15th via the usual channels, so we are in the home stretch as far as waiting goes.

So, let’s talk about the trailer.

Old Friends

We see some familiar faces in the trailer, specifically La’an Noonien-Singh and one James T. Kirk. As you likely remember, La’an took a leave of absence to try and find the family for the girl who lost everything to the Gorn, and the trailer puts paid to speculation that she might not be returning to Starfleet in the first sequence. We also see that she meets up with Kirk at some point to do some terrestrial activities. I have to admit, I do wonder how that duo will do together. La’an is a very controlled person, owing to her trauma, but this Kirk is young, brash, and self-assured. They’ll either get along like a house on fire, or they’ll set everything on fire. I say this not because I think La’an will serve as a stand-in for the Spock with whom Kirk will have such a friendship in TOS but because La’an’s control is holding in check a very different emotional swirl. However, she may have had some time to process more of that during her leave of absence.

We also get a glimpse of Number One’s return, which implies an answer to the big question remaining after last season’s finale. We get her back, even if we don’t know how quite yet.

New Faces

We also get our first look at Carol Kane’s chief engineer. I’ve got to confess, I’m excited to see what the showrunners have in store for us with her character. Kane has a long history of bringing to life quirky characters, and after Hemmer, it might be nice to see something a bit different.

The trailer wraps up with a look at Boimler and Mariner in the flesh, so to speak, teasing the Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks crossover episode. There have been crossovers in Trek before; “Trials and Tribble-ations” comes to mind first. However, this will be the first crossover between two Trek shows airing concurrently, meaning that we’ll hopefully get the opportunity to see the fallout from the events in the episode in both shows.

The Questionable

The other really big moment in the trailer is the kiss between Chapel and Spock. Chapel’s crush on Spock comes to us from TOS, most evidently in “Amok Time.” That crush has been present throughout Strange New Worlds, and while the show definitely demonstrates the rocky foundations of the Spock/T’Pring relationship that will so brutally crumble, I am really hoping that the show doesn’t opt for an infidelity storyline. I doubt it will given the overall tenor of the show and the importance of Spock as a character to the franchise, but this sequence feels as though it was included as titillation. Chapel’s unrequited love for Spock has never been one of my favorite plotlines, so I have to admit I’m not wild about it continuing if, in fact, that’s what they’re doing. I suspect that this is a bit of a misdirection. In any case, my fingers are crossed that it is.

At least some of our questions will be answered a few weeks from today with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season two’s premiere on June 15.