Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ fondness for exploring old ideas and structures doesn’t just rely on an affection for the original Star Trek. It’s willing to take on tones, ideas, and experiments from across the franchise’s history—and even its most recent past, as is the case this week, as the show takes on Discovery’s largest unexplored aftermath. But it might be coming to its own limits on just how dark a path it can take some of its heroes down.