10 Utterly Devastating Star Trek Endings That Came Out Of Nowhere

Strange New Worlds threw the audience for a loop when it introduced La'an Noonian-Singh, a new character with an old legacy. She is burdened by everyone knowing her family name and only experiences freedom when transported into the past.

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow pairs her with James T. Kirk - though an alternate version, hailing from a timeline created by temporal shenanigans. Watching La'an thaw to his genuine charm is a treat, even if in the back of the viewer's mind, they know the two must part. 

It is how they part - Kirk's death at the hands of a Romulan temporal agent - that truly takes the wind out from under us. They would have to part for the timeline to be restored, but to have the one person whom La'an felt comfortable enough to open up to die in her arms - it was almost too much to bear. 

The ending is particularly cold - another temporal agent casually visits La'an, and warns her not to speak about what happened, and that's it. La'an does speak to the Prime version of Kirk briefly, though it is a reminder of what she has just lost. 

Time travel episodes can play with the form and kill off characters who are fine the next week - but watching La'an go through that genuine loss was something that, only three episodes into the second season, really came out of nowhere.