Producer: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will connect to a famous wrathful villain

[Karlston]

 

The Star Trek franchise continues to expand on Paramount+ with the upcoming prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which debuts in May. The show's executive producers and key cast members were on hand this week for a virtual panel discussion as part of the 2022 Winter Television Critics Association (TCA) meeting. In addition to unveiling the poster art, the panel revealed that one of the characters will have an (as yet unspecified) connection to one of the franchise's most famous wrathful villains.

 

As we've written previously, one of the highlights of Star Trek: Discovery's second season was the appearance of classic Original Series (TOS) characters Capt. Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), and Spock (Ethan Peck). The actors reprise their roles in the new spinoff series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, created by Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and Jenny Lumet. It's a prequel to TOS, as Pike and his crew navigate the USS Enterprise through the galaxy, exploring new worlds along the way.

 

Paramount+ hasn't let many details leak about the new series. We didn't even get an official teaser during Star Trek Day last year, although there was a video introducing all the main cast members. In addition to Mount, Romijn, and Peck, Babs Olusanmokun plays Dr. M'Benga; Celia Rose Gooding has the unenviable task of filling Nichelle Nichols' shoes as Cadet Nyota Uhura; Jess Bush plays Nurse Christine Chapel; Melissa Navai plays Lieutenant Erica Ortegas; Bruce Orak plays an Aenar named Hemmer; and Christina Chong plays La'An Noonien-Singh. The latter character is apparently related to the classic revenge-obsessed Star Trek villain Khan, according to Goldsman, although he didn't offer any specifics about what that connection might be.

 

Executive producers Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Henry Alonso Myers joined several cast members to discuss Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a new prequel series coming to Paramount+ in May.

Screenshot/Paramount+

Goldsman, Kurtzman, Mount, Peck, Romijn, and Gooding participated in the press panel, along with executive producer Henry Alonso Myers. There's still no teaser, but Kurtzman did unveil the key art for the series: a panoramic view of a Western-style desert landscape with a cowboy figure on horseback gazing toward the USS Enterprise as it dominates the horizon.

 

"Our show speaks to the final frontier when it was really at its infancy, when it was just the beginning and the maiden voyages of the Enterprise were just starting," said Kurtzman. "Anybody who knows Capt. Pike knows that he used to ride his horse around Mojave. We liked the idea that we were taking something very terrestrial and bringing that feeling and flavor to something that's typically associated with science fiction. I think it speaks to the sense of nostalgia that very much, for me, is the show—the sense of hope, the sense of optimism, the sense of exploration and the spirit of adventure."

 

Anson Mount (center) as Capt. Pike, flanked by Ethan Peck (left) as Spock and Rebecca Romijn (right) as Number One.

Paramount+

According to Goldsman, Strange New Worlds will return to the episodic structure of classic Star Trek, making it a rare beast in this era of serialized storytelling and streaming platforms. "I am a big fan of serialized storytelling," he said. "The original Star Trek was episodic at a time where one could tell closed-ended stories. [Reviving that structure] allowed us to do a few things that we haven't been able to do in serialized storytelling. One is to move gently through genre as the original series did, to have episodes that are more tonally specific. Also, episodic or closed-ended stories allow you to have reversals, like the best Twilight Zone episodes, where we reframe the story we've just seen and learn to see from a different perspective."

 

Both Goldsman and Myers emphasized that Strange New Worlds would respect existing canon. "We take canon very seriously on the show because we love it and we don't want to break it," said Myers. "But we also want to have fun with it and explore the little hidden areas that haven't been touched."

 

"I think that we are, by nature, people who like coloring books," Goldsman added. "We like staying within the lines as much as we can. We're Star Trek fans, so canon is almost always delightfully challenging, except when it's really a pain in the ass. But within reason, we still try to hew as closely to it as possible."

 

Celia Rose Gooding plays Cadet Nyota Uhura.

Paramount+

And while legacy characters like Pike, Number One, Spock, Uhura, Dr. M'Benga, and Nurse Chapel are a big part of the new series, there are no plans right now to add other pre-existing characters to the roster. "We don't want to bring folks into the show just for a flashy headline," said Goldsman. "We want to be able to actually dig deeply into the characters that are part of our ensemble. We're open to widening our arms, but right now, in the best possible way, what you see is what you get."

 

Gooding spoke warmly of the influence that Nichelle Nichols' portrayal of Uhura had on her younger self and the challenge of embodying a younger, not quite fully developed version of the character. "She was one of the first black women in television to not play a role of service or servitude, and she was just effortlessly brilliant and capable and powerful," said Gooding. "I'm excited to introduce a side of uncertainty, especially for the first season. Part of her humanity is that other side of that coin. Having an opportunity to represent such an iconic character in a more multifaceted way is an honor for me as an actor."

 

Mount, too, felt the weight of Star Trek's legacy during filming. "Every day—every single day I'm on that set—is both disbelief and a feeling of tremendous gratitude," he said. "It's one of my little secret parallels to the character of Capt. Pike. Let's face it, if you're going to stare into the face of God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, every single day, you have to have a healthy dose of humility and appreciation and gratitude. If I can live up to him at all, it's through my appreciation of being a part of this universe."

 

Mount recalled working on one of the episodes remotely during post-production in October and asking the team to take a second to really process the fact that they were working on the latest series in an iconic franchise. "We are always going to remember this moment. We're never going to forget this," Mount recalled saying. Then he waited a beat and added, "Of course, Shatner's in orbit right now, so there's that."

 

The moral? "Don't ever try to outdo Shatner," Mount said. "I'm just trying to be my own captain."

 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuts on Paramount+ on May 5, 2022.

 

 

 

Producer: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will connect to a famous wrathful villain