Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues to rank on Nielsen’s top streaming chart, with the penultimate episode of season 2 jumping up the chart.
Ranking “Rhapsody”
The Nielsen top 10 original streaming program chart for the week of July 31-August 6 includes Star Trek: Strange New Worlds—the week of the musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody.” SNW moved up from #9 for the previous week to #7, with 362 million minutes viewed. The series continues to compete and even beat original programming from streaming services with significantly more subscribers like Prime Video and Hulu.
This is the sixth time Strange New Worlds has ranked on the Nielsen chart in the first eight weeks of its season 2 run (which includes one week when two episodes premiered). Earlier in the year, Star Trek: Picard ranked on the same chart three times during its 10-episode run. Since Nielsen started measuring Paramount+ data earlier this year, only the two Star Trek shows and the Yellowstone prequel 1923 have appeared on the original top 10 chart.
From “Subspace Rhapsody” (Paramount+)
#1 Album
The soundtrack of original music from “Subspace Rhapsody” was released on the same day as the episode and quickly rose to #1 on the Apple iTunes album chart. It remained on the top 100 chart all through August.
You can listen to the full Album on YouTube via Lakeshore Records.
Bonus: Sing along video
Paramount+ has been posting videos for the various songs in “Subspace Rhapsody” including a singalong lyric video for the first song of the episode. Check it out in the playlist below.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Sucks to be the individuals who took a piss on episode 9 because it upset their delicate canon sensibilities. Season 2 is great Trek.
You’re welcome.
Sucks to be someone who’s entire posting personality is based on deriving pleasure from other poster’s discontent. What a life!
Only if that personality mirrors their *actual* personality.
Being a hater provides amusement, if not necessarily rewards.
How does someone present their “actual” personality in a comments section and how would that reasonably be distinguishable from their posting personality?
I know quite a few of people who are sh*tposters online and absolutely lovely people IRL.
The sh*tposter-lovely IRL is a distinction without a difference if we’re just looking at posts, which is what I was doing (“entire posting personality”). The “What a life!” part that you might be keying in on doesn’t have to translate to, “Well, they have a pretty fulfilling life away from the keyboard, too! They’re not just aroused by the chance of seeing Trek fans be miserable” — it can also mean, “Wow, they’re losers” just like pretty much all of us here are since we’re posting on a Star Trek message board.
Look who’s repeating their same ole shit now and getting hammered for it.
Can you say, “hypocrite”. ;-) Lol
Misery loves company!
True :-)
Here’s TrekMovie’s dumbest poster, licking the closest boot he can find.
Lol, that dude even agreed with me, Einstein
Also me saying there’s value in hating is the *opposite* of hypocrisy. It’s amazing that you can post without accidentally hanging yourself.
It’s so cool to have a groupie here. I feel like a rock star.
Thanks, groupie
Didn’t you get warned about trolling?
Nah, we’re talking about different things. Which is fine!
“…whose…”
Not Dukat
S2E9 was my favorite as it was so different and unexpected. Come on people it was fun and if you don’ like it then don’t watch it, SIMPLE!
But but according to our resident internet **experts**, it was supposed to be a terrible episode and not Star Trek at all!
I’m here laughing at the sidelines :D
Well some people loved it, others thought it was terrible. It’s not really a huge consensus one way or the other from what I can tell. On IMDB, it’s rated the lowest episode of the season with a 6.9, which isn’t bad but average. For comparison sake the highest rated episode of the season is the crossover episode with a 9.0.
So I don’t think it’s considered awful but not amazing either.
Someone not being into musicals, or willing to extend the benefit of the doubt is a fair critique. The vitriol was off the charts for several posters here, however, prior to the episode airing. The ratings strongly suggest that viewership was much more driven by another quality outing, as opposed to the curiosity factor.
Sorry man, I disagree. It’s the first Star Trek musical in history and they were hyping this episode for months, of course there was a curiosity factor. How could there not be?
But I’m not suggesting that’s why it got high ratings alone since every episode has had high ratings, correct. So people watched for a number of reasons, those curious about a musical, those who was truly excited about it and those who just normally watch it either way out of habit. We been hearing for years now people who supposedly hate everything about shows like Discovery, Lower Decks, etc, but still watch them every week for years including people on this very board too, right?
Again, I have to emphasize this is the lowest rated episode of the season on IMDB and the only other episode that has landed in the 6s in two seasons. But I know, someone is to come along and tell you can’t trust IMDB. But then where you are getting the idea that this episode is considered ‘loved’ then? Because the irony is the episode before and after it ranged in the 8 column. Certainly there are no real SNW haters on that site from I can tell just not in love with this specific episode.
Sorry I meant to say the only two other episodes to land in the 6s. The other was Elysian Kingdom with a 6.1.
That episode has 100% on the Tomatometer from professional critics.
I went and looked. You’re 100% correct, the professional critics did love it. But there were also only 9 reviews.
I want to make this absolutely clear. I’m not trying to say people overwhelmingly thought it was bad. I think most people liked it, I include myself in that. But it would be disingenuous to claim it was a huge hit in the fanbase. That doesn’t seem to bare out at all. I think the people who loved it really loved it, but the people who hated it also really hated it, but I will concede there are more who loved it more than they hated it. Fair?
Totally fair!
And I wasn’t saying you were wrong, just giving you an additional data point.
Great, no worries then!
It’s pretty clear that anyone who doesn’t like it is in a very small minority and might only exist in the comments section of this site and a few obvious YouTube channels. Since I’m one of them, given the people who feel the same as I do, I can only assume it’s brain damage and that we were maybe never Star Trek fans to begin with.
I will only talk about myself here, although I was really skeptical of a musical episode, I stayed open minded obviously but I was waiting for it to be a dumpster fire lol. The fact that it wasn’t IMO made me like it overall, but still not in love with it. I haven’t rewatched it or listen to any of the songs again minus the Klingon boy band segment. That’s probably still my favorite lol. But I still have no desire to rewatch it yet.
And no you’re not in a small minority, but I will say I think most people were surprised they liked it, even a little compared to the ones who just outright hated it.
Once we got past the Measure of a Man homage I started to dread every episode, especially the LD crossover and musical. I felt about the LD how you did about the musical, though, so that was a nice relief, but by the time we got to episode 9 it had become clear to me that the people making the show feel more comfortable parodying Star Trek than, like, telling stories. The musical feels like something that was made for the Star Trek Cruise to just have on in the background or for karaoke. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, but I didn’t like feeling reminded that as a Star Trek fan I’m much closer to being a Disney Adult than a mature person.
“had become clear to me that the people making the show feel more comfortable parodying Star Trek than, like, telling stories.”
You nailed it.
I personally couldn’t get through it. Musicals just aren’t my thing. Like any musical. Its cool that they did it and I like that they are trying new things, I’m just not the target audience.
My view: as a musical, I really enjoyed it. The numbers have held up well after a couple of weeks, especially the “I’m the X/I’m Ready” song and “How Would That Feel?”
As an episode of Star Trek, it makes zero sense. I consider it a fun alternative take on the franchise outside of canon.
If you must shoehorn it into canon: perhaps a 24th century Lin-Manuel Miranda decided to write a holodeck musical set aboard the famous starship and mined Pike’s logs for inspiration very loosely based on actual events, kind of like TITANIC (or what we saw in TATV).
I agree that much of this repeated genre hopping suggests a franchise out of ideas on how to tell its core story.
A lot of weird brain thinking in order to justify likeing something
Hence “I consider it a fun alternative take on the franchise outside of canon.”
Very impressive.
Although it is also quite a feat for new Apple and Peacock shows to do so well, they are at even more of a disadvantage for number of active subscribers, and have only the one season.
Great news but I don’t think it’s a surprise. Most fans were going to at least watch some of it out of curiosity alone. But overall SNW has been on fire ratings wise. To reach the top ten nearly every week is very impressive.
Thought it was probably the best episode of the season, though I don’t think the views are an indicator of that.
Still, can’t imagine this coming as a surprise.
You’re simply the best
Better than all the rest
Better than any Trek
Any Trek we’ve ever met
We’re stuck on your heart
We hang on every word you say
Tear us apart
Baby, I would rather be dead
Lyricist opening? Don’t quit your day job.
aww, not a Tina Turner fan?
On a related subject, does anyone have any insight into how respected this streaming chart is? It is by Nielsen, so I assume that it has credibility in the entertainment industry?
There has been lots of commentary about how hard it is to measure streaming ratings, especially since most of the companies keep their data secret.
On a related note, I’m wondering how well the soundtrack has been selling. I know I bought it — are those numbers publicly available anywhere?
Glad I watched it FIVE TIMES, then. :-)
I’ve also watched the songs on YouTube a zillion times and bought the soundtrack and play it while I do chores; the crew of the Enterprise is basically singing in my head nonstop these days.
Glad this episode has gotten good ratings, since that’s what the companies care about!
You are not alone.
My obsession with this episode has made me feel a little bit crazy, so I’m really glad I’m not the only one!
I listen to the soundtrack on Spotify a lot. According to my “on repeat” playlist, I’m the X is currently my most played songs.
That’s one of my favorites, for sure!
Spock has been my favorite TOS character since the very beginning. But although I think Ethan Peck does a nice job with what they give him to play, I haven’t been that wild about SNW’s Spock, UNTIL “I’m the X.” I thought about it and realized that Spock doesn’t really feel like Spock to me unless he has that undercurrent of hidden pain. Once “I’m the X” happened, Peck!Spock was suddenly Spock for me.
That makes sense. I also listened to it and thought “wow this song is very Spock, it sounds like him, it sounds like something he would sing.” So I guess it flipped the switch there for me too.
I haven’t been a fan of the way that SNW has been writing him too. The whole plot thread for him in the last half of season 2 was making me go “oh no are they about to treat him like ENT did T’Pol because it was bad then and would be bad now.” It’s like him trying to connect to and understand how his mother feels makes sense but when it became about a relationship I just kinda went oh no here we go again. It ended up feeling like a rehash of ENT. If that makes any sense.
I liked hearing Ethan Peck sing. I don’t watch SNW anymore, but I will admit to liking this episode. I tried to dislike it but laughed really hard when the Klingons went all boy band.
How do you not watch SNW anymore, but you’ve seen the second to last episode? The second to last episode any of us have seen. You liked this episode but chose not to return for the season finale. There must be some temporal anomaly playing with you or my understanding of this post.
I think it’s honestly fair and good that they’re choosing to no longer watch SNW unless the particular episode is of interest. It’s fair to them and to us because they’re not just sitting there watching it still and stewing in their hatred of it and then spewing it here in ways that make reading the comments not very fun for everyone else. Unlike other people that comment on this site.
So in short, it’s not weird at all and tbh a non issue.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I finished the season but have decided not to continue to watch the show. It’s not my Star Trek. It doesn’t work for me.
It’s for a new generation znd I’m not the target audience. However, the musical was cool. I did like it.
Me too. I keep waking up to a different song from the episode running through my head.
I was thinking this type of episode should be one-off but since it has been such a success I’m now hoping this was an affect from a species who live in subspace and they have to go back to make Second Contact…. hmm if only there were protocols and specialists for that…
Utterly delightful episode.
This is just awesome. I love it when Trek finally gets the recognition it deserves.
Wow, this is going to end up having more than triple the number of Top 10 finishes that Picard had — the viewership levels are leaving Picard in the dust.
It’s entirely possible Picard’s success is what has launched SNW to better numbers. It’s been a good year for Star Trek, to be sure.
Mmh. Futurama is a sci-fi-spoof. Though I love Futurama, I’m surprised it’s ranked higher than SNW. Why is that? Because it has more episodes? Because more people watched it in that week? Because it’s more popular than Trek? What do you think?
More people have Hulu than Paramount
I LOVE this show! Thank you to all the amazingly talented people who bring this show to life. I still can’t believe that I am living in a time where Thursdays bring so much joy because of new Star Trek!
Thank you to Lori and Tony, too! I always look forward to Fridays because of ALL ACCESS. The SHUTTLE POD team is also incredible!
Well, that just makes me want to watch it all over again! I’m not a musical lover, but you could combine almost any format with Star Trek and–assuming it’s actually well done for what it’s supposed to be–I’m a happy camper. This episode does EXACTLY what it is supposed to do.
I didn’t want to like it, but my frown melted to smiles and laughter as the episode went on. Especially Peck and Bush, they were terrific. I have the album on Amazon Music. I’m a convert to musical episodes.
Very cool! I loved Peck’s song. I was luke warm on it until La’an’s song, at which point I was like, “OH! They know exactly what they’re doing.” And what a singer! The episode really took off after that. Bush’s song was wonderful although it’s hard to watch with Spock standing like a statue in the background absorbing all of it.
I get P+ through my Amazon account and SNW was the most show solidly until the release of Lioness bumped it down to #2. Even now, weeks after the finale it’s still #3. The show clearly has legs and is reaching a sizeable audience. I might not be it’s biggest fan, but I’m thrilled to see it doing so well!
Has anyone mentioned if the faux-musical poster would ever be made available for purchase? Might look good in my office/media room.
Find a hi-res version and have one made on Vistaprint. Simple.
Well deserved. I loved the musical and will re-watch it more than any other episode of SNW.
I’m considering purchasing S1 on disc. Not S2. The musical episode was fun, but not something I would watch again, as well as the crossover episode. Fun at the time, but not continued times.