Has 'Strange New Worlds' just unleashed 'Star Trek's scariest aliens since the Borg?

Sometimes you just know. As soon as the Borg showed up in the second season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", it was clear they were a foe unlike anything else we'd encountered on the final frontier. Sure, they dressed like they'd just stepped out of a PG-friendly fetish club, but their utilitarian cubic ships, all-for-one hive mind, and awesome arsenal ensured that — within the space of a single episode ("Q Who") — they'd catapulted themselves into the A-list of Trek's rogues' gallery. They didn't even have to say or do very much to get there.

A year later, they assimilated Jean-Luc Picard in "The Best of Both Worlds" and more than justified the hype to become the Enterprise's most powerful and chilling enemy. It was a status they retained until they were downgraded into villains-for-hire in "Voyager".

"Trek" has produced some memorable antagonists since, of course — the Dominion were worthy adversaries for the Federation throughout "Deep Space Nine", Annorax's timeline tinkering made "Year of Hell" one of "Voyager"'s best ever stories, and evil Mirror Universe doppelganger Captain Lorca brought unlikely levels of villainy to "Discovery"'s bridge. But has anyone — or thing — had the potential to chill the blood (red, green or otherwise) quite like the so-called "Vezda lifeform" in "Through the Lens of Time", the latest episode of "Strange New Worlds"?

Pike's Enterprise has already had some memorable skirmishes with the "Gorn", who'd been "Strange New Worlds"' most formidable bad guys so far. But, despite their impressive computer-generated makeover — including prehensile tails and a gory, "Alien"-inspired reproductive cycle — they have certain limitations.

It's not their fault, just the fact that existing canon means they're destined to cross paths with Captain Kirk in the Original Series episode "Arena". There, the Enterprise crew will be strangely ignorant of an enemy that had caused Starfleet no end of bother just a few years earlier. This is presumably why season 3 opener "Hegemony, Part 2" put the troublesome reptiles into indefinite hibernation, side-stepping any subsequent fan-bothering contradictions.

There'll be no such problem with "Strange New Worlds"' latest antagonists, however. This extra-terrestrial creature fulfills the bit of the Starfleet mission brief about seeking out new life, and they're a radical departure from the Federation's traditional "humans with something stuck to their forehead" foes. In fact, we don't yet know what they really look like, beyond amorphous, non-corporeal gas. Nonetheless, it's clear that they're dangerous enough for an ancient alien race to construct a prison of such devious complexity that it's piqued the interest of interstellar archaeology nerd Roger Korby.

The as-yet-nameless Vezda lifeform wouldn't be much cop as baddies if their prison — where dimensions cross over, and normal concepts of cause and effect are turned upside down — was enough to hold them. Their escape plan is based around that old cliché of targeting the rookie on his first away mission. So when enthusiastic Ensign Gamble inadvertently opens the sentient Poké Ball of Doom (our description), a powerful burst of energy burns out his eyes, leaving him with gruesome empty sockets, and an unwanted guest in his brain.

This demon, for want of a better word, seems to relish tormenting people. Dr M'Benga's efforts to regenerate Gamble's eyes prove fruitless, as he's left to guess how much of his protégé's personality remains. There are early hints that the young officer's subconscious may be fighting back, but when Captain Batel — supercharged with feral Gorn DNA — battles the Gamble entity, it's clear that the interloper in his mind is winning.

And by the time M'Benga confirms that Gamble's brain is dead, it's clear any echoes of the man he was are merely an illusion, that his "favorite ensign"'s body is just the puppet of a malign force — albeit a puppet that's developed a penchant for reading minds, murder, and walking through forcefields.

Chief engineer Pelia ultimately has little option but to blast Gamble with a phaser, knowing that Scotty is poised to recapture the escaping entity in the aforementioned Poké Ball, before imprisoning it in the transporter pattern buffer. They're well aware that their unwanted guest is hellbent on taking over the Enterprise to free its brethren from the planet below.

The monsters are undeniably derivative, from the "Cube"-meets-"Hellraiser" nature of their prison to the lifeform tormenting M'Benga as if it was Pazuzu toying with a priest in "The Exorcist". An even clearer influence is "Doctor Who"'s "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit" two-parter, in which an imprisoned facsimile of the devil attempted to use mind control to break itself out of jail.

"Star Trek" doesn't traditionally dabble in the supernatural, however, and the newcomers in "Through the Lens of Time" offer a rare opportunity to explore the nature of good and evil. As the centuries-old Pelia puts it, "This thing is older than anything I've ever seen. I've no scientific way of putting this, but whatever it is, it gives me the heebie-jeebies." [Cue scary music.]

The Vezda lifeform is a fantastical supernatural creature built on solid sci-fi foundations, and this creepy crossover with dark "magic" has the power to scare in a way alien spacecraft firing phasers generally can't. Indeed, the Borg's legendary status has always owed as much to their zombie-like hunger to rob the assimilated of their individuality as their awesome technological might. It's horror in sci-fi clothing.

The good news for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" — if not so much the crew — is that Gamble's death is unlikely to mean the end for this new threat. Just as Picard's realization that the Borg "will be coming" left a lingering sense of unease at the end of "Q Who", a final shot of a flickering Enterprise computer panel suggests a ghost remains in the machine.

That said, if this truly is unfinished business, Pike and co are running out of time to deal with "Star Trek"'s latest boogeymen — with no record of the lifeform's existence in any of the franchise's previous mission logs, the "Strange New Worlds" crew will have to get this file closed before they make their final voyage at the end of season 5.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays. "The Next Generation" episodes "Q Who" and "The Best of Both Worlds" are available on Paramount+ in the US, and Paramount+ and Netflix in the UK.