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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show follows the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show follows the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show follows the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike.

• Akiva Goldsman
• Alex Kurtzman
• Jenny Lumet
• Anson Mount
• Christina Chong
• 1K User reviews
• 38 Critic reviews
• 9 wins & 32 nominations total

Episodes 31

• Captain Christopher Pike …

• La'an Noonien-Singh …

• Lt. Erica Ortegas …

• Una Chin-Riley …

• Nurse Christine Chapel

• Nyota Uhura …

• Dr. M'Benga

• USS Enterprise Computer …

• Lieutenant George Samuel 'Sam' Kirk

• Jenna Mitchell

• Captain Batel …

• Admiral Robert April

• Captain James T. Kirk …

• T'Pring
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Bruce Horak , the actor who plays Hemmer, is legally blind, just like his character's species, the Aenar, who are also blind.
• Goofs There are some rank insignia mistakes. Number One is introduced as "Lieutenant Commander Una Chin-Riley" yet she is wearing the rank insignia of a full commander: two full stripes. A Lieutenant Commander's rank insignia is a full stripe under a thin stripe (in TOS it is a full stripe and a staggered stripe). It is not uncommon for a ship's first officer to be a Lt. Commander if they have not been in the position long. Spock at this point is a Lieutenant but he is wearing Lieutenant Commander's stripes; a Lieutenant just has one stripe. La'an is the ship's chief of security and the ship's second officer. She is also wearing Lt. Commander stripes but is addressed as a Lieutenant, but it would make more sense for her to be a Lieutenant Commander. Either way both of their rank insignia are not matching the rank they are addressed by. Ortegas is addressed as a Lieutenant but is wearing Lieutenant Commander's strips. A Lieutenant Commander may be addressed as a Commander or Lieutenant Commander but never as just a Lieutenant, so either her rank insignia or the manner she is addressed by the rest of the crew is in error.

[opening narration]

Captain Christopher Pike : Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

• Connections Featured in Nerdrotic: Woke Hollywood is FAILING, and That's a Good Thing (2022)

Technical specs

• Runtime 52 minutes
• D-Cinema 48kHz 5.1
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos

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Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Christina Chong discuss Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

March 17, 2024 by Ricky Church

Yesterday at the Toronto Comicon,  Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  stars Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Christina Chong held a panel where they discussed the impact of the new  Star Trek  series that serves as a prequel to  The Original Series , where the trio’s Captain Christopher Pike, Spock and La’an Noonien Singh explore the galaxy aboard the USS Enterprise in the year before James Kirk became its captain.

Star Trek , of course, is a franchise that has been running for nearly 58 years with several different television series and feature films, not to mention the amount of expanded material through novels, comics and video games.  Strange New Worlds  itself is something of a spin-off of  Star Trek: Discovery  as Mount’s Pike and Peck’s Spock were integral characters in its second season. Mount spoke about how  Strange New Worlds  can attract new viewers who may be nervous by its spin-off factor, much less thinking they need to catch up on close to six decades of media in order to understand the series.

“We’re blessed with two showrunners who have two incredibly large sets of brass cojones and believe Star Trek is established enough as an institution that it can be a lot of different things,” he told the audience. “It has become strong enough that it is malleable to an extent that maybe we’ve never realized before. We do want to be the show that’s pushing that way.”

Peck also agreed, especially in how Strange New Worlds largely returns to Star Trek ‘s episodic format where there is a new adventure every week instead of the longform serialized storytelling both Discovery and Star Trek: Picard have taken. “You can hit tones, places, adventures that would be so difficult to reach if you were in a serialized form of storytelling. To be able to jump around gives us a lot of creative freedom on every level of production, from set design, writing, acting, costume. I really think it’s unbridled creatively in that way.”

“ Star Trek needs to have room for the big idea of the week to be the star,” Mount further emphasized. “When you’re working in a serialized fashion, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I think Discovery wanted to do that and did very well with it, but if you want to have these big idea episodes you have to clear the palette every week in order to have room for that. Another thing I think the writers have done really well is balance that with having longer arcs.”

Strange New Worlds  does put a lot of significance on its character development. We know, for instance, where legacy characters like Pike, Spock, Nurse Chapel and Kirk end up, but we don’t know how exactly they got there. Then of course there’s big question marks hovering over the characters who are not in  TOS , namely Chong’s La’an Noonien-Singh, a descendant of one of the franchise’s most popular villains, Khan.

“Listen, I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say ‘We’re really worried your character is going to die’ and I’m like ‘Really? Do you know something I don’t?'” Chong said, with her dog in attendance who had a cameo in the episode ‘The Elysian Kingdom’. She also ‘joked’ about where she would like to see La’an end up, especially with her family’s backstory. “I think I would love somehow for La’an to have some kind of superpower that turns her evil and that becomes her downfall and then she dies… but not until the very last episode of the very last season!”

It would certainly fit a classic  Star Trek  trope played out through many of the series where a crew member gains some type of powerful ability that corrupts them before returning to the status quo in some way.

As for Peck, though, he had incredibly big shoes to fill as Spock, played throughout the  TOS  series and films – including the rebooted Kevlin Timeline films from J.J. Abrams – by the late Leonard Nimoy. Due in no small part to Nimoy, Spock is arguably the face of Star Trek  with his Vulcan motto ‘Live long and prosper’ and hand gesture being one of the most well-known pieces of pop culture around the world. To date, Spock has only been played by Nimoy and Zachary Quinto. So what was Peck’s initial reaction to gaining this iconic role?

“Not [to] screw it up,” Peck simply stated. “Really from the beginning, I was trying to do the best Spock that I can. That sounds really obvious, but it’s going to be impossible to separate the actor from the performance, especially with this sort of role, because I have to paint by numbers in many ways. When I prepare my scenes I always have Nimoy’s voice resounding in my head and check in with how he might say it.”

Chong, however, never watched much  Star Trek and her role as La’an is pretty much her entry into the larger franchise. An enormous part of  Star Trek ‘s appeal is because of the bright future it envisions for humanity as it moved past our current day conflicts and differences, embracing a unity by giving prominent roles and positions to people of other ethnicities. Chong is half-Asian and half-British and was asked by a fan, who is also half-Asian, about embracing her mixed-race identity and being an inspiration for a new generation of fans.

Chong gave a particularly poignant answer, saying “For me, growing up I was always bullied as a kid for being part Chinese. That brought a lot of shame to me because I felt embarrassed. My dad would come to pick me up at school and I knew the bullying would be really bad the next day. It was always something until I came into my late teens I would try to push away and shun because it hurt. Going into the acting industry at the beginning people didn’t know where to put me. There were like ‘Is she white? Is she Asian? She doesn’t look Asian enough.’ They weren’t casting diverse, especially in the UK. A lot of my roles came from America to begin my career because they’re much more forward thinking when it comes to diversity.”

Chong credited one of her agents for helping her break out of this trend. “For a long while I struggled and when I met an agent he said ‘No, you’re just you. We’re selling you, parading you, as you and your energy. It doesn’t matter what the role is and what the name of the role is.’ He would force casting directors to rethink. Once he started doing that he believed in me, I started to believe in myself more and that’s how my career started. Being able to be that in  Strange New Worlds  for other people to look up to… those moments are so special and make this job even more incredible.”

In its two season run  Strange New Worlds  has also boldly gone to places previous  Star Trek  series have not, such as season two’s crossover with the animated  Star Trek: Lower Decks and finally bringing the franchise into a genre-type it has never done before: the musical.

Strange New Worlds ‘ ‘Subspace Rhapsody’ saw the Enterprise come into contact with an anomaly that made everyone sing out their feelings in grand Broadway-like musical numbers. The only way to stop it was to play along, resulting in the crew and even those in other parts of the galaxy engaging in song and dance. On his reaction to the musical episode, Peck had only one word: “Shock.”

‘Subspace Rhapsody’ proved to be pretty popular among fans, a fact Mount credited to the show’s production crew and support from CBS. “We’re supported by an incredible production team in Toronto. They are very good at what they do. I never sensed a bottleneck, crunch time, high pressure situation because we started so early. Tom Polce, who is the music supervisor for all of CBS, came in and started working with us quite early and we were doing vocal coaching quite early and we recorded the whole album before we started shooting because you have to. In fact, there was a lot of pressure alleviated on the day because some scenes didn’t have to have sound at all. They had already been done.”

Chong – who is a trained singer and revealed during the panel a dream role of hers is to play Roxy in the musical Chicago – was excited at the prospect of a Star Trek musical and its possibilities. “I did this whole jazz number and this dance thing with glitter, this whole sequin shebang. I got my song and it was a ballad, I wanted something more dancey, but it was great!”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  is currently filming its third season in Toronto. There is no word on when it will premiere.

Ricky Church – Follow me on  Twitter  for more movie news and nerd talk.

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‘star trek: strange new worlds’ star ethan peck discusses initial “nearly unbearable” weight of playing spock and profound fan appreciation.

His journey to become the iconic sci-fi character first brought to life by the legendary Leonard Nimoy has been intense, but thoroughly enjoyable and fulfilling, he tells THR.

By Ryan Parker

Ryan Parker

Former Senior Reporter

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[Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Ghosts of Illyria.”] 

For Ethan Peck, each episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a journey into a character whom he has come to know well — and yet remains a mystery. The actor, who debuted as Spock on Star Trek: Discovery , finds great beauty in that notion.

His journey to becoming the iconic sci-fi character first brought to life by the legendary Leonard Nimoy has been intense, but thoroughly enjoyable and fulfilling, he tells The Hollywood Reporter .

And while it was his guest work on Discovery that led throngs of fans to demand he, along with Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn , be given a spinoff, it is the format and writing of Strange New Worlds that has allowed Peck to truly embody and understand the half-Vulcan, half-human character.

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The new series on Paramount+ is only three episodes in, and yet, no time was wasted in exploring Spock’s internal trials and tribulations, including his love life struggles with T’Pring (Gia Sandhu), who was bonded to Spock as a child. Peck is reveling in the exploration of his character’s dueling identities, crediting the writers for Spock’s nuance and complexities.

The Original Series nostalgia comes through so well. How does it feel to make this series compared to your time on Discovery ? 

It’s obvious we are in an episodic format, so each episode is its own adventure, its own world, its own conflict to be overcome by the bridge crew of the Enterprise. The challenges are new every single time, and that’s exciting for me as an actor because I don’t know what’s coming up. Oftentimes, at the beginning of the season of a serialized show, you kind of get an idea of what your character will be going through. And in this case, it’s kind of a surprise where Spock is going. That’s really thrilling.

You, Anson and Rebecca struck such a chord with fans in these characters, they demanded via petitions there be a spinoff. Has the level of that love, respect and trust set in yet? 

It’s still crazy to wrap my head around that. Fans are such a big part of why we’re here now, and I’m so grateful to the fans. It’s also been really inspiring for us because we’ve just poured our hearts and souls into this series, and I think it shows. You can feel it. But yes, I’m still kind of grasping the reality of my situation — that I’m playing this character and on this show. It fills me with wonder and honor.

I so appreciate that, right off the bat, the series deals with Spock’s exploration of his inner turmoil and conflict — trying to find his true self, as opposed to who he thinks others want him to be. You’re really pulling double duty at times in that battle.

Absolutely. I’ve been really fortunate with the level of nuance they’ve given to me in the writing. It’s also been very scary. This is such a precious character, not just to the fans, but to me. And like I said, one of the gifts of the episodic format is that every episode’s a new adventure, not knowing what Spock is going to be doing. So I feel like I’m constantly kind of searching for the character and understanding the inner details, which again is a gift.

Spock wants to be accepted by Vulcan, by his people whom he’s grown up with, but he has never been accepted because he’s half human. This is a struggle that exists on our planet, and I may not be the best representative of that, but we have amazing writers who do experience that today. I know that they contribute quite heavily to Spock’s life in that way. His human side is undeniable. He must explore it. And I think eventually his understanding of his humanness is what makes him who he will become later in the Original Series . His emotional side draws in valuable information that he can use in his problem-solving. He’s a beautiful person to be portraying and to be discovered.

I am also enjoying the exploration of his love life with T’Pring, which was only briefly touched on in the Original Series . Can you talk about that additional, mostly unexplored layer of Spock? 

It’s really complicated, and we really handle it with a lot of thought and caution because we don’t want to put anything down that doesn’t ring true for these characters and for these cultures. It’s so interesting playing against Gia because she is expressive in an even more quiet way, in my opinion, than Spock can be. And when I’m working with her on-camera, I feel he needs to be more Vulcan to be accepted because I want her to like me. I want to be accepted by her. So that’s always kind of on the back burner of Spock’s mind, that he just doesn’t belong there, he belongs with Starfleet. So it’s interesting to explore those moments with her.

There is a wild away mission for Capt. Pike and Spock in “Ghosts of Illyria.” Safe to assume away missions are more fun to shoot, especially when it is just you and Anson getting to play in the sandbox? 

Away missions can be more fun. Oftentimes, though, they’re logistically more complicated, so we might have to wake up even earlier to travel someplace to film. This particular episode we actually filmed in Ontario Place in Toronto. So in that way, they can be a little more complicated. There are more unknowns, but it’s always really fun to be in a new environment with these characters because our team just does such an amazing job with set design and decoration, and it really brings life to my work. But this specific episode is such a classic Spock and captain episode.

And Anson and I get along great. We share a lot of science fiction books with each other, both being big sci-fi fans. So, we’re often both reading on-set. I think we both approach our work with the same amount of intensity and consistency, and that’s just really special. Everyone on our show works hard, and I think Anson really sets the bar for the level of work that exists in our show, and that is something I’ve admired.

How did you build that bond between you two? Did you spend extra time paling around when the cameras weren’t rolling? 

When I was doing Discovery , I saw Pike as an uncle figure to Spock or an older brother. On Discovery , Spock became close with his adopted sister Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ), but I think Pike was the human role model for him. And so with that in mind, we went into our off time between Discovery and Strange New Worlds and did as many conventions together as we could. We just had a blast and got to know each other better, discovered that we just have great chemistry on- and off-camera. And of course, working together now on Strange New Worlds , you become family. You see each other in your highs and your lows, and you learn to accept each person for who they are in every moment. And that’s a rare opportunity because we must be united and be coordinated with one another and work together. So that’s really special.

You and Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura are doing an extraordinary job with your incarnations of these beloved classic characters. I assume there was extra pressure initially. Do you still feel it now? 

That’s a question that I can answer in so many different ways as time goes on because it changes. In the beginning, yes, the weight was nearly unbearable, and I wondered if I would be kind of broken by, “I’m not sure that I quite feel worthy.” I’m still growing into Spock in many ways. And you know, now the pressure isn’t quite as great as it was during Discovery .

I’m trying to have an experience as Spock. I’m not thinking of what the final product will be or how it will look. But I definitely did a bunch of research, and I’m constantly checking in with the voice of Spock in my head. Leonard Nimoy made such an impression on me and that’s with me always. I’m constantly checking in with that.

Celia and I maybe have added pressure because of the characters we’re playing, but at the same time, I think Star Trek is such a beautiful burden for all of us and a heavy one, too. It represents something so special to so many people. It’s hopeful and aspirational and inspiring and curious and accepting. And I think it’s always anecdotal to all of the important things that are happening in the world.

Interview edited for length and clarity. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is streaming now on Paramount+.

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'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' will warp us all into Captain Pike's backstory

Patient " Star Trek " fans have waited 55 years for Captain Christopher Pike to have his own series — and that series will finally launch in just a few months.

Pike was portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter in the original "Star Trek" pilot, "The Cage," shown to NBC in 1965. But NBC executives rejected the pilot and both the captain and Hunter left the show. 

"Star Trek: The Original Series" (TOS) went on to kick off in 1966 with a new captain at the helm, Captain James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner). Pike only had cameo appearances in TOS and throughout the franchise. But finally, Pike's untold story will finally see the light in the new series "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," which will premiere soon (at a time to be announced). The new series will star Anson Mount, who portrayed Pike in season two of "Star Trek: Discovery" last year.

On "Star Trek Day," which ran online Sept. 8 from CBS All Access , cast and creators of the new show talked about what to expect.

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"My favorite thing I've read about this show has been that if you think of 'The Cage,' the original pilot, as being the actual pilot, that this is the longest pilot series," joked co-executive producer Henry Alonso Myers during the panel.

Co-executive producer Akiva Goldsman added that while he couldn't take credit for pioneering the expression that this is the longest pilot series, he still loves it. "I'll say it anyway," he said in the same panel. 

Series participants in the panel shared that they are excited to bring a fresh take to the classic plotlines of "Star Trek." Long-time fans will recognize the character Spock, this time played by Ethan Peck. A new addition to the starring cast will be the ship's Number One (second in command), played by Rebecca Romijn.

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Related: 7 Lessons 'Star Trek' Taught Us About Life, Leadership and Diversity

Goldsman said the aim of the new series is to tell "Star Trek" stories in what he termed a "classic mode," that would be a mostly episodic approach of traveling to "strange new worlds", as the series introduction used to say, and having adventures on different planets. (Most later “Star Trek” series have used different show formats.)

But, unlike the approach of TOS that showed little character development between episodes, "Strange New Worlds" will show changes from episode to episode. To be fair to TOS, however, most shows of the 1960s were focused on only weekly plots, as this was well before cable and streaming allowed fans to better follow their favorite characters and see how they change over the years.

"We have room to meet new aliens, see new ships, visit cultures while maintaining [that] audiences are sophisticated," Goldsman said of the new show. "So if Kirk falls in love and the lover dies one week, the next week, he's going to still feel it. That's the thing that we really want to kind of carry over. Bring a modern character sensibility to the kind of classic episodic storytelling."

Those involved in the new show had to stay quiet about its development for close to a year while "Star Trek" showrunner Alex Kurtzman confirmed CBS' interest in another new "Star Trek" series — "Strange New Worlds." There have been a flood of new "Star Trek" shows in recent years for fans to enjoy, including "Discovery," which premiered in 2017 with the third season airing in October and "Picard," which premiered in 2020 with a second season in production. 

Fans of TOS often talk about the dynamics and personality differences between the three main characters: the bold Kirk, the rational Spock and the always-worrying Leonard McCoy (played by DeForest Kelley). This new series will show some similar spirit, writer Akela Cooper said during the panel.

"The fun thing in the room has been coming up with cool and unique situations and scenarios to put them [the characters] in. That will bring out certain aspects of their personalities that we can play with, and see how they would bounce off of each other, complement each other but also contrast against each other — and just see how those puzzle pieces fit. That's been the most fun for us," Cooper said. 

In the series, Peck will be portraying a younger, less mature Spock, who's just left training at Starfleet Academy. His portrayal will follow the iconic performances of the character by Leonard Nimoy in TOS and Hollywood's Zachary Quinto. Because of Spock's popularity, Peck said he was in shock when "Strange New Worlds" was confirmed to him a few months ago. 

"I got a phone call … from Alex, very nonchalant," he recalled. "I got a bunch of questions like, what are you doing? What you've been up to? [Alex added], 'Your show's going.' And I was like, 'Are you serious?' Asking the most serious man in the world, right?" Peck said during the panel with a laugh. 

"He was like, 'Uh huh,'" Peck added. "I went for a walk in shock, and went to the grocery store and stared at cold beverages for like, 20 minutes."

Number One has been in the canon since "The Cage," said Romijn, but since the character has never been written into a script there is fresh ground for the series to tread upon, she added. 

"She's never been written, so I can't wait to find out [about her]," she said. "How vast her skill set is, you know, what are the arrows in our quiver. My number one question is, what's her backstory? I had a delightful meeting with the writers' room a couple months ago, and they floated an idea for Number One's backstory that I'm not going to share right now, because it blew my mind," Romijn said.

As the team prepares to show their stories to the world, they've been taking inspiration from all the "Star Trek" series, especially watching and rewatching TOS, several writers and actors said during the panel. They added that "Strange New Worlds" will stay true to the long devotion to diversity that "Star Trek" engendered, starting with TOS premiering a Black actor (Nichelle Nichols), Japanese-American actor (George Takei) and the Russian character (Walter Koenig) on American television in the more conservative era of the 1960s.

"It's inspired me, certainly, and it makes me want to be a better person," Peck said of the legacy of "Star Trek." "I think it's all about graduating ourselves to sort of greater unity and acceptance and curiosity."

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

Correction: A gender reference was corrected in this story.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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• Ed Stauffer This I am definitely looking forward to watching. I have been into sci-fi since elementary school and TOS was an excellent example of how working together for the common good could succeed. It was as much the interpersonal understanding as it was the science that made it ahead of its time. Reply
• FrostyWinnipeg "Co-executive producer Akiva Goldsman added that while she couldn't take credit for pioneering the expression that this is the longest pilot series, she still loves it. "I'll say it anyway," she said in the same panel. " Akiva's a guy 🤦‍♂️ Reply

FrostyWinnipeg said: "Co-executive producer Akiva Goldsman added that while she couldn't take credit for pioneering the expression that this is the longest pilot series, she still loves it. "I'll say it anyway," she said in the same panel. " Akiva's a guy 🤦‍♂️

• SpaceShuttleer That moment you realize that the Federation is communist. "Money doesn't exist in the Federation. We work for the mutual benefit of mankind" Reply

SpaceShuttleer said: That moment you realize that the Federation is communist. "Money doesn't exist in the Federation. We work for the mutual benefit of mankind"

• JimFolks I'm just hoping they write good stories with good characters. Discovery has to many pushed agendas. Be diverse but be realistic as well. Please get rid of the constant pausing for effect moments and all the crying in space. I dont think the crew of the Discovery could defend against 10 Klingon toddlers let alone save the galaxy. Reply
• Singing I’ve been following Star Trek for 57 years and never have I ever had to pay extra for a single series. Of course I want like hell to see Strange New Worlds the backstory of my hero Captain Pike. But I refuse to pay an extra $5.99US/month (I’m from Canada so it’ll be more) for what should automatically be included in the series. Never paid it for Discovery, never paid it for Picard or any other Star Trek series. My cable bill is already high enough. This is just utter greed playing off the hearts of Star Trek fans knowing we’ll all want to see it. The network should be ashamed! SMH, Singing Reply
• View All 7 Comments

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“ Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ” breaks new ground among the more recent “Trek” shows by going back to the old ways — that is to say that the show is much more episodic as compared to the heavily serialized “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Star Trek: Picard.”

In an interview with  Variety , series star Anson Mount said that the idea of the show following that format was always the intention of its creators and allowed the cast to “get ourselves out of the way a little bit.”

“I like to think that Pike is not the star of the show,” said Mount, who plays Captain Christopher Pike. “The star of the show is the Enterprise. I wanted our show to serve as more of a metaphorical platform for not things to preach about, but things to think about. And I think it has that sense of adventure like the original series, where you wouldn’t even know where you were going to be at the beginning of the episode, much less the end. We wanted to reinvigorate that sense of excitement.”

That is not to say, however, that things from one episode will not carry over into others. “The show is episodic but the characters have memory,” as Mount puts it.

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That is clearly demonstrated in multiple points of “Strange New Worlds,” in particular in Pike’s grappling with the knowledge of his impending paralysis. In “Discovery,” Pike got a glimpse of his own future that was first seen in the original series, with Pike confined to a brainwave-operated wheelchair and only being able to communicate via a blinking light. At multiple points in “Strange New Worlds,” that knowledge causes him considerable stress.

“My take on it was it would have been boring to look at it as a question of identity and fear for what it meant for myself,” Mount said. “The more interesting question is if Pike is more concerned with how it’s going to affect his ability to be a captain. And that, in a strange backdoor way, is tied up in his identity.”

Another story that carries on through multiple episodes is Spock’s relationship with the Vulcan T’Pring. Spock, played admirably by Ethan Peck , is in a “very fragile and delicate place in his development.”

“He’s more vulnerable than he’s ever been in his life — human vulnerable,” Peck said. “So I think there’s a lot of experimentation ahead of him. How much is too human? What is too Vulcan? How should this problem be approached? I think it’s a really exciting time in his life where you see him explore these extreme sides of himself.”

Interestingly, both Peck and Mount have been living with these characters since 2019 when they first appeared on “Discovery” Season 2. That means that they have been connected to the “Star Trek” universe as long as the cast of the original series was at first, considering the original show only aired for three years.

“It’s a crazy thing,” Peck said. “When a character reaches the level of cultural importance that Spock has… to be associated with that is kind of confusing and strange, but at the same time, it’s been the most incredible journey. I’m so grateful to be a part of it even though it has come with all of these strange effects of being scared to screw it up and not to meet fans’ expectations.”

“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” debuts on Paramount+ on May 5. 

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Ethan Peck is Ready to Beam Up

Star Trek 's newest Spock has been on a journey to become "worthy" of the iconic role. Now, he's a changed man.

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When Ethan Peck was cast as Spock, Star Trek ’s legendary science officer, two extraordinary things happened. First, he nearly blacked out. Then, he embarked on a journey of “profound evolution” to become someone worthy of wearing those iconic pointy ears. The pursuit of living up to Spock changed him—made him more confident, more deliberate, more considered. Four years after his fateful debut, the imposter syndrome has worn off, but the journey of becoming remains ongoing. “I’m still trying to grab the Vulcanism in myself,” he tells Esquire .

Peck is the third actor to shave his eyebrows and suit up as everyone’s favorite Vulcan; the late Leonard Nimoy originated the role in Star Trek: The Original Series , then passed the baton to Zachary Quinto for J.J. Abrams’ three Star Trek films. Peck joined Paramount’s ever-expanding Star Trek universe in 2018, when Spock figured into season two of Star Trek: Discovery as the estranged brother of protagonist Michael Burnham. Spock and his reimagined Enterprise colleagues made such a splash on Discovery that fans clamored for a spin-off—and got their way, luckily for the rest of us. This spring, that long-awaited series arrived in the form of Strange New Worlds , a back-to-basics return to the episodic storytelling of The Original Series , set during the captaincy of Christopher Pike (Captain Kirk’s predecessor). Strange New Worlds is the best Trek outing in years: uplifting, optimistic, and gloriously retro, it’s a character-driven series where each episode pairs a top notch sociocultural story with some good, clean, spacefaring fun.

Part of the secret sauce behind Strange New Worlds is, of course, Spock. Peck has nailed everything fans know and love about this legendary character, from his arch formality to his bone-dry humor, while also boldly going where no one has gone before. For the first time ever, viewers get a peek into Spock’s sex life; in one standout episode, a soul-sharing ritual gone wrong sees Spock and his fiancée swap bodies, leading them to profound insights about duty and sacrifice (and, of course, some funny hijinks). But Peck doesn’t want too much credit for his rendition of the role. “I don’t feel like I have any ownership over Spock,” he tells Esquire. “I’m just a custodian.”

A lifelong science fiction fan and a deep, scholarly thinker, Peck has been thrown into the deep end of a multi-decade phenomenon—and come out the other side grateful and changed. He Zoomed with Esquire to discuss all things Star Trek , from what it’s like wearing the Vulcan eyebrows to how he ended up on an ocean cruise full of Trek fans. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Esquire: What was your relationship to Star Trek before you joined the franchise?

Ethan Peck: I'm a big science fiction fan, but in my younger years, I somehow avoided or overlooked Star Trek . Then I became a big fan of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies. I remember the very first time I saw the posters. Each character looked so developed and thrilling. I thought, “I wish I could do something like that.” Now I'm on Star Trek. It's crazy, but it’s exactly where I want to be in terms of genre.

ESQ: What are some other meaningful science fiction touchpoints for you?

EP: It started with Golden Age science fiction books. I recall reading Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity when I was around twelve years old—that was really seminal in terms of how I perceive the universe, and the bigger philosophical quest it sent me on. From a young age, Akira was huge for me, too. It asks so many big questions. It’s an allegory for the threat of nuclear war and the mass destruction we can wreak on ourselves, but it also asks: what is consciousness? That was the first time I'd been exposed to those ideas in a way that I could begin to understand. Of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey made a huge impact, too. Oftentimes a book comes out before a movie, but with 2001: A Space Odyssey , Kubrick reached out to Arthur C. Clarke and said, "I want to create the quintessential science fiction film. Will you help me?" The script was actually completed before the book. I remember reading the book and thinking, “I wish hadn't seen the movie so I could create my own imagery for this,” only to discover that it came out after. I love that book.

ESQ: When you first auditioned for Discovery , how did you feel about stepping into the iconic role of Spock?

EP: When I first auditioned, I didn’t even know what I was auditioning for. The project had a code name, so I was blissfully unaware. We knew that it was code for Star Trek , but I had no idea what the role was. I assumed it was something small. By the time I learned what the role was after two auditions, I was quite frankly terrified. I was terrified of the audition, but also of the need to live up to this mythical icon, as Spock has become. I blacked out the very last audition—I barely remember what I did. After getting the part, I was still terrified. I felt unworthy of it. I felt I had so much personal growth to undergo in order to fulfill the needs of this character. Spock is such a vast-minded person—he’s otherworldly, hyper-intelligent, and has great integrity. I’m constantly working to live up to him.

ESQ: What’s been your experience of joining and navigating this robust fandom?

EP: The conventions are surreal. You have a big group of people who love the concepts, the ideals, and the openness that Star Trek is a vessel for. They’re sometimes marginalized for different reasons, and they find a lot of commonality among one another. That’s a beautiful and incredible thing. I've been plugged into something much bigger than me. I don't feel like I have any ownership over Spock; I'm just a custodian. People come to me at these conventions, and it's almost like they want confirmation of some sort—to be seen by this character and this universe. They're not there to see Ethan. They're there to see Spock, and I just happen to be a representative of this character at this one point in time. These people are so thrilled and excited and moved by the world that we are a part of as actors, and they come with such vulnerability—that’s very special and unique. In the year after Discovery ’s second season, I did thirteen conventions that culminated in Star Trek: The Cruise , which was wild. I kept thinking, “Wow, I get to have this experience. I get to see these people in this light and in under these circumstances.”

ESQ: I need to hear more about Star Trek: The Cruise .

EP: It's everything I've just described, but hyper-condensed and intensified, because you're on this floating skyscraper. I think there were around 2500 to 3000 guests on the ship, with about 30 "talents," as they refer to us. I would walk out of my little suite, which is basically a room with two double beds, and people would say, "Ethan Peck?" You're there with everybody. It’s mostly a celebration of the community that Star Trek has created, which is infused with the show's ideals and vision and optimism.

ESQ: Now that you've played Spock across multiple television shows, what keeps you coming back to him?

EP: I'm still trying to grab the Vulcanism in myself. I felt that I was called to undergo profound evolution to serve the needs of this character, because he’s just so extraordinary. I've been pushed to develop in ways that maybe I wouldn't have if I hadn't been cast in this role. I was cast in 2018, but I'm only just starting to feel like, “I’m here, and I’m doing this, and I'm capable of it.” I still have doubts about that sometimes because there's so much nuance to the character. That challenge is what brings me back. I don't see that it ever would get old or stale or known to me, because the writers keep presenting me with new challenges for this character, and I'm on my toes constantly.

ESQ: What are some of these ways that Spock has driven you to develop?

EP: He challenges me to be more confident. To have more useful thoughts. I found that I spent a lot of time thinking about ways in which I wasn't worthy or good enough, and that wasn’t useful. Spock would never have these thoughts—he would never think about something that doesn't have great utility. That rubbed off on me in the best way, though I’m still on that journey of weeding out toxic and circuitous thinking. I see Spock as a monument in motion, because he’s so pure and pristine in his decision-making, his actions, and his philosophy. As an artist and a person, that feels like a very worthy pursuit, to be in search of Spock.

ESQ: I feel like there’s a book here: The Spock Guide to Self-Help .

EP: It would be a bestseller. CBS should probably think about that.

ESQ: How did you approach making your Spock distinct from the previous iterations of the character?

.css-f6drgc:before{margin:-0.99rem auto 0 -1.33rem;left:50%;width:2.1875rem;border:0.3125rem solid #FF3A30;height:2.1875rem;content:'';display:block;position:absolute;border-radius:100%;} .css-1aglugu{font-family:Lausanne,Lausanne-fallback,Lausanne-roboto,Lausanne-local,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-1aglugu{font-size:1.75rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1aglugu{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1.2;}}.css-1aglugu b,.css-1aglugu strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-1aglugu em,.css-1aglugu i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;}.css-1aglugu:before{content:'＂';display:block;padding:0.3125rem 0.875rem 0 0;font-size:3.5rem;line-height:0.8;font-style:italic;font-family:Lausanne,Lausanne-fallback,Lausanne-styleitalic-roboto,Lausanne-styleitalic-local,Arial,sans-serif;} I'm still trying to grab the Vulcanism in myself.

EP: I’m still figuring that out. I'm so fundamentally different from Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto, so I don't think I have to do too much work to differentiate myself, because I’m inseparable from my work. Another one of the reasons I knew I had to develop personally was because I needed to become greater and more myself to distinguish the character. Leonard Nimoy is inimitable; he brought certain qualities that I can observe and attempt to internalize, but I can't impersonate him, because that would be such a misstep. I had to understand the character and what he meant to me personally. What I bring to Spock is the impression that I have of him, which is unique to me, I think. I hope, anyway.

ESQ: Strange New Worlds finds a lot of new shades in Spock. Within the first fifteen minutes of Episode One, he's falling into bed his fiancée, T’Pring. Spock has had romances, but now, for the first time ever, he has a sex life. What was that like, to be the actor who gets to take him there?

EP: It was really scary, because there's no blueprint for that. Unfortunately, Leonard Nimoy is not alive to offer me any guidance or advice. Those moments are quite terrifying, because I'm treading into the unknown, and I'm captaining whatever ship is taking me there—albeit with a huge amount of support from the people that I work with. During my preparation for that scene, I thought, “What's too human? What's too sexual? What's too Vulcan? What's weird enough? What's so weird that it doesn't feel relatable to viewers?” That discussion was ongoing with Akiva Goldsman, who directed the episode, and Gia Sandhu, who plays T'Pring. It was a very careful and cautious process.

ESQ: Another shade you bring out in Spock is his capacity for humor. How do you make this guy who has no sense of irony or sarcasm so funny?

EP: A lot of that has to do with the writing. It’s always funny to see Spock in a situation where you think, “Oh no, this is going to be bad for Spock. He's going to do something awkward and goofy and strange.” When he comes into conflict with his own social constructs, that presents a lot of possibilities. For example, there’s a moment where Captain Pike smacks Spock on the shoulder, and he's mystified by the idea of someone touching him. The writers do such a great job of putting him in humorous situations and allowing him to be jocular.

ESQ: How has your grandfather Gregory Peck's legacy figured into how you approach your own work as an actor?

EP: I didn’t know him very well. Ten or fifteen years ago, I wanted to reject the part of me that comes from him, because I felt so undeserving of that pedigree. There’s nothing I did to earn a position in my family tree—I could have been born anywhere. That’s something I ruminate on quite a lot, and now, I feel extremely lucky to be a part of this family, because it does come with perquisites. I think the greatest gift from my grandfather is the possibility of huge success. A lot of people are born into families that don't have this level of recognition, so to attain that seems like an impossible, otherworldly thing. For me, that level of respect and public appreciation felt achievable. In terms of success, it’s given me an openness to the strange or the weird. I’m so proud of being on this show. I can't believe it. I feel so lucky to be a part of Star Trek and to be Spock; that feels like a really big achievement. I can trace that sensation of success back to being born into this family.

ESQ: In the series premiere of Strange New Worlds , we learn about World War III on Earth. Humanity tore itself apart in its own hubris, with thousands of species and hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Star Trek has provided half a century’s worth of commentary on human society, but what does Strange New Worlds have to say about our current moment?

EP: There's a useful scientific analogy called the Great Filter. I'm probably not going to speak very knowledgeably about it because I'm not a scientist. Essentially, civilization will obtain a level of technological development that enables us to destroy ourselves, and that point in time becomes a filter. Will we destroy ourselves, or will we evolve beyond that primal warring state? I think that’s where we’re at. When you look at the news, it's just people killing people because of ideas. People are so afraid of other people's ideas. Strange New Worlds reminds us, “Be careful about your fear, and about the violence that your fear inspires.” That’s a message we can never hear often enough.

One of my buddies always says, "We're just monkeys, man." There's a hopelessness about where we're at, because the behavior of destroying ourselves and killing one another has become so redundant. Strange New Worlds is trying to highlight the tragedy of that, and it's begging us to move beyond it—to move forward, to unite and combine our energies, to be curious about what more is out there.

ESQ: I’ve got just one last question for you—the question every actor playing Spock has to answer. What’s it like walking around with these eyebrows?

EP: I honestly don't even think about it. My friends will say, "Oh man, your eyebrows are so fucked up.” I'm sure other people are thinking, "What's going on with your face?" But I don’t even care. It’s all so worth it.

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Published Jul 28, 2023

WARP FIVE: Ethan Peck Details Spock Shenanigans, Sam Kirk, and His Mother

The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actor gives us further insight into ‘Charades’!

Getty Images / StarTrek.com

SPOILER WARNING: Discussion for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 5 "Charades" to follow!

Welcome to Warp Five, StarTrek.com's five question post-mortem with your favorite featured talent from the latest Star Trek episodes.

[ Ed. note : This post contains material from an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike against the AMPTP went into effect .]

According to the Kherkovians, remediations had been made. However, their good deed forces our Vulcan first officer into an episode full of human hijinks in the most inopportune moment.

StarTrek.com

In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ’ “ Charades ,” Spock , altered to be fully human, following a shuttle accident is left wholly unprepared to face his fiancée T’Pring ’s family during the crucial V’Shal ceremonial engagement dinner. While Spock tries to get a handle on his overwhelmingly human emotions and body odor, he thankfully finds support from his crew, his captain, and his mother.

StarTrek.com had the opportunity to speak with Ethan Peck about Spock’s shenanigans, the return of Mia Kirschner as his mother Amanda Grayson , tolerating Sam Kirk , and more!

On Spock Shenanigans

Ahead of the Season 2 premiere, Ethan Peck reminded fans that the Spock we meet , at this moment in time, is “wildly uncertain of himself and is really doing his best to discover how he is most effective in Starfleet,” before teasing that this season will challenge him greatly.

The fully human Spock, as head security officer La’An Noonien-Singh points out, the medley of symptoms he’s experiencing — anger, fear, sexual attraction, hunger, etc. — as reminiscent of human adolescence.

Speaking on the episode and the opportunities presented this season, Peck details, “It’s so insane and delightful. It's such a privilege too to be able to play this character in these different situations. And this one especially, when I read the script, my jaw was on the floor. I was like, ‘I can't believe I get to do this. I can't believe I'm going to have to do this.’ It was really intimidating from the perspective of an actor, because how do we make this unhinged, teenage version of Spock still be Spock?’”

“Jordan Canning, our director for that episode, was an amazing collaborator, so inspiring,” continues Peck. “She made me feel so safe to take the risks that I took and really helped find what is the limit, how far outside the bounds of Spock can we take this version of him while still being connected to who he is. It was insane and delightful. Of course, the scene in the bathroom where he's totally flipping out was such a blast and so crazy.”

Shedding light on this iteration of Spock, Peck reveals, “There's a scene where he's walking down a corridor. And I thought, ‘Can I actually start further back?’ Right when we block, we have a start mark and end mark. And I said, ‘Can I actually start further back? Can you get me looking around and just being in awe of the ship and all of the cool lights and instrumentation on the walls?’ Finding moments like that where he's filled with wonder and curiosity, it just made me so happy, because it's a lesson for all of us to just be more in the moment and to appreciate the little things. Because life is a series of little things. It's not a series of big events. I think he was such an embodiment of that philosophy.”

Peck recalls not being ready to part with this iteration of Spock, “At the end of the episode, when we were finished filming, I was really heartbroken to say goodbye to this version of him because I learned so much from him. He brought a lot of joy to the people around him both on camera and off, and it was so liberating. It was really sad to say goodbye to it. Thinking about it now makes me emotional. I wonder if we'll ever see him again, you know?”

On Which Kirk Holds the Number One Spot in His Heart

Before there was James T. Kirk, there was George Samuel Kirk aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise . Spock's relationship with the xenoanthropologist Sam is quite different than his future relationship with the future captain.

“They have great rapport because Sam Kirk doesn’t fully understand Spock,” shares Peck with amusement. “Sam Kirk is mystified by him. You'd have to ask Dan [Jeannotte] about that though. Sam's an amazing teammate and a great officer. And so, in Spock's eyes, he has a lot of value. It's so funny to see him get under his skin and for Spock to be annoyed by the ways in which he's not ‘perfect.’”

As for the scene with Jeannotte from both the perspective of his normal self and human self, Peck divulges, “The scene with Sam Kirk in the Ready Room where he's making a mess and Spock's just freaking out, that was so much fun. And Dan was so wonderful, he and I get along super well, we had so much fun doing that. I think we're both surprised with where it went. That was earlier on in the filming schedule for that episode. And so, I was still understanding what it was, who this version of Spock was.”

“Dan's great, and I joke with him,” continues Peck. “It's funny. We have cast chairs that have our names on the back. They were both next to each other, both the Kirk chairs. I took a photo of the two of them, of Paul [Wesley] and Dan sitting together, and I would joke with Dan like, ‘You're the real Kirk. You're the first Kirk to me.’ I mean, I love Paul. But that’s Dan and I's joke.”

On Having His Mother Aboard the Enterprise

“Charades” sees Peck reuniting with Mia Kirshner, who portrayed his and Michael Burnham’s mother Amanda Grayson on Star Trek: Discovery .

On sharing scenes with Kirshner, Peck praises all parties involved, “It was so moving. Mia Kirschner is so talented and brings so much to that role and really to any production that's lucky enough to have her, because she's so generous and willing to take risks and daring and fearless. To have that in a scene partner is really spectacular. She and I also just get along really well. There's really not anyone on set— I tip my hat to Orly Sitowitz and Margery Simkin, the casting directors of the show, because they've put together an amazing cast, not just of actors but of people. And so, Mia and I get along super well.”

“And it was also new,” Peck notes on Spock finally relating and seeing her mother as who she is. “It wasn't Spock as we've known him. It was this uncorked version of Spock that is full of emotions. To really engage with her more openly was very new, and for both of us yielded very surprising results and emotions. The scene in which they're saying goodbye to each other in the transporter room was so hard to get through, because she and I had been through so much in that episode and had shared so much as both fully humans. He could really learn from her for the first time as a human, as a full human. I'm sure that that was really special for her. And so, to say goodbye and have to hide those emotions that he becomes so used to feeling fully was really tragic. There's something tragic about it.”

On Spock’s Revelation at the End

Despite everything Spock endures throughout “Charades,” we arrive at the classic Friends’ Ross and Rachel moment by the end of it. Following all the hijinks, T’Pring asks for some time apart, while Spock makes his (confusing) feelings known to Nurse Christine Chapel .

On the conundrum, Peck reflects, “I don’t think Spock knows where to put it. There’s so much going on for him in this episode. It's so overwhelming that he's just overwhelmed. He discovers that he needs to be selfish at this point in time and do what he needs to do, because he's spent so much of his life being this or that for these people or this organization or this planet, to be Vulcan for Vulcan.”

“At this point in time, he discovers that he's got a lot of resentment for what T'Pring represents, because she represents that which has, I guess, squashed this important part of him or hindered him in this very fundamental way, which it's his humanness, and she can't really understand that in him,” adds Peck. “She's trying, which is really wonderful, but I don't think he knows what to do with it at this point in time. I don't think he knows what a break means. I don't know that she does. I don't know that any of us do. What is a Vulcan break?”

On Spock’s Two Halves

Throughout the Star Trek franchise, the character Spock has always carried a chip on his shoulder for being of both Vulcan and Earth. And in “Charades,” the Kerkhovians are so perplexed of his genealogy, they viewed him as damaged with “mixed instructions.” However, we see in the episode, that to the women in Spock’s lives — his mom Amanda Grayson, T’Pring, and Christine Chapel — his two halves are essential to who he is and what they love about him.

Upon being asked about how Spock views his whole self by the end of the episode, Peck muses, “Oh, that's a great question. I have no idea. Again, that he's just doing his best to stay in the moment and stay afloat and not be totally overwhelmed by these incredible things that are happening to him.”

“Can you imagine waking up one day and being, I don't know, half butterfly or being mixed with some other creature? The opposite's happened with him, but he’s waking up as a different entity, a completely different entity,” Peck concludes. “He misses that fully human experience. I know I was really sad to say goodbye to it, but I think he'll learn that both of these are really essential to his eventual actualization and the final version of him.”

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Christine Dinh (she/her) is the managing editor for StarTrek.com. She’s traded the Multiverse for helming this Federation Starship.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In addition, the series airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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Sam raimi teams with ‘10 cloverfield lane’ scribes campbell & stuecken on ‘i’m the grim reaper’ series, spock is back as ‘star trek: strange new worlds’ gets cbs all access series order; rebecca romijn & anson mount co-star.

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In its ever-expanding goal to be Star Trek all year round, CBS All Access has picked up the Spock, Captain Pike and Number One starrer Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to series.

With a title lifted in part from James T. Kirk’s beloved introduction to the original series, the third full live-action show in the Alex Kurtzman-pioneered Trekverse after Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard will feature Ethan Peck , Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn reprising their respective roles from Season 2 of the Sonequa Martin-Green -led Discovery.

The new series will take the trio of Spock, Pike and Number One and the U.S.S. Enterprise almost right up to the reign of Captain Kirk.

Official confirmation of the long-rumored show normally would be perfect for either a network upfront or San Diego Comic-Con, but neither of those is happening this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Then again, that didn’t stop the trio of leads from sending fans greetings of the new show today via video:

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Produced by CBS Television Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment, SNW launches with a premiere penned by Picard EP by Akiva Goldsman from a story the Oscar winner wrote with Kurtzman and fellow EP Jenny Lumet. Henry Alonso Myers, Heather Kadin, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth also executive produce, with Aaron Baiers, Akela Cooper and Davy Perez as co-EPs.

“This is a dream come true, literally,” Picard finale director Goldsman said today of Strange New Worlds , which seems to pick up not long after the Season 2 finale of Discovery. “I have imagined myself on the bridge of the Enterprise since the early 1970s. I’m honored to be a part of this continuing journey along with Alex, Henry and the fine folks at CBS.”

With Trek reboots snagging big subscription numbers for their streaming arm, those fine folks at CBS also clearly are happy about the prospects of more.

2020 CBS All Access Pilots & Series Orders

“Fans fell in love with Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck’s portrayals of these iconic characters when they were first introduced on Star Trek Discovery last season,” EVP and CBS All Access’ Head of Programming Julie McNamara said Friday. “This new series will be a perfect complement to the franchise, bringing a whole new perspective and series of adventures to Star Trek .”

It’s totally logical, when you think about it for just a bit longer than it takes to re-polarize the Enterprise’s warp coils. Take one of the most popular characters in Star Trek history — the half-Vulcan Spock — add two key players from the Gene Roddenberry-created franchise’s canon, and give them their own adventures. In fact, after Science Officer Spock, Captain Christopher Pike and Number One/Una’s pivotal turns in Discovery, all three were featured in episodes of the Star Trek: Short Treks series in what now seem almost like rehearsals for Strange New Worlds.

“When we said we heard the fans’ outpouring of love for Pike, Number One and Spock when they boarded Star Trek: Discovery last season, we meant it,” asserts Kurtzman, who also is steering the Silence of the Lambs -based Clarice and a Man Who Fell to Earth series for CBS and CBS All Access. “These iconic characters have a deep history in Star Trek canon, yet so much of their stories have yet to be told,” the EP noted. “With Akiva and Henry at the helm, the Enterprise, its crew and its fans are in for an extraordinary journey to new frontiers in the Star Trek universe.”

No word when Strange New Worlds will debut as most of Hollywood is still in COVID-19 lockdown. However, we do know that Discovery is expected back for its third season later this year and the second season of the Patrick Stewart-fronted Picard is penciled in for early 2021, as of right now. There’s also that Michelle Yeoh series focused on the powerful and mysterious Section 31 to come down the line, the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks and an CG-animated Nickelodeon-set Star Trek for the considerably younger crowd.

Which is a long-ish way of saying, there is a hell of a lot of new Trek to come.

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‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Paul Wesley & Ethan Peck on Season 2 and ‘TOS’ Homages

They also talk favorite episodes, what's in store for Spock, Captain Kirk on the streets of Toronto, and more.

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Str ange New Worlds Season 2

The Big Picture

• Paul Wesley is excited to return to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 and bring out some of the Kirk qualities that fans know and love.
• Ethan Peck found playing Spock as a full human to be incredibly challenging but also a blast, exploring Spock's new sensory perception.
• Both Wesley and Peck have favorite episodes from the season, with Wesley loving Episode 3 and Peck finding Episode 5 to be a joy to experience as an actor.

If you loved seeing that “alternate version” of Captain James Kirk in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, you're going to be just as excited as Paul Wesley was to return to the set, but this time in an all-new way for Season 2. In an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub ahead of the season premiere, we spoke with Wesley and Ethan Peck , who plays a younger Spock on Captain Christopher Pike’s ( Anson Mount ) USS Enterprise, about what they’re most looking forward to fans seeing and all the cool stuff they got to do.

Strange New Worlds takes Trek fans back nearly a decade before Star Trek: The Original Series , in episodic adventures that are a callback to what fans first fell in love with. Taking place in the not-so-distant past, the series still allows for many familiar faces, including Peck’s Spock, who’s attempting to navigate the line between his half-Vulcan logistics and half-human emotions, and even Captain Kirk. The series, which will explore even more new worlds, aliens, and some crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks this season, also stars Jess Bush , Christina Chon g, Celia Rose Gooding , Melissa Navia , and Babs Olusanmokun .

While talking with Collider, Wesley teases that in Season 2, he was able to “ bring out some of the Kirk qualities that we all know ,” and that he’ll get to pay homage to his favorite episode from the original series. Peck shares what aspect of his character was “incredibly challenging” for him this season, and how even after that tricky episode, “ Spock Amok ” in Season 1, the writers still managed to throw him “a lot of screwballs.” For their favorite episodes and more, check out the full interview in the video or transcript below.

This interview was conducted prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

COLLIDER: So I've seen the first six episodes of Season 2, and my big complaint is I have not seen seven through 10, so I need you guys to work on that. You both get to do cool stuff this season, what are you allowed to say?

ETHAN PECK: Oh, I guess not much, but since you've seen episodes one through six, I mean, playing Spock as a full human was really a blast and incredibly challenging, and that was a really great moment for me.

PAUL WESLEY: And I'll say that, you know, I'm just glad we got to see Kirk sort of in the timeline that we all know as canon. We sort of met him in this alternate version in Season 1, and I felt that in Season 2 I was able to sort of bring out some of the Kirk qualities that we all know.

Paul, I know that you guys are always trapped on set, and you can't wear costumes when you leave, so what was it like being in downtown Toronto, being able to fully walk around in costume, and you could walk into Starbucks and you can't get in any trouble?

WESLEY: I loved it, and it was a real homage to “The City on the Edge of Forever,” which is my favorite Trek episode. Although, if I recall, they did change clothes fairly quickly, but then again, so did Kirk… Kirk changed fairly quickly as well. I loved it. I love those kind of isolated, one-location-type episodes where we're on Earth, and it was our playground. I loved it and it was sort of a singular episode, and it was so much fun. I had such a good time filming it.

I've been to Toronto many times, I would have loved to have seen you guys filming. I knew exactly where you were, and for people that are fans, they must have been like, “Wow!” Because it's right there.

WESLEY: Yeah, absolutely.

Ethan, I definitely want to talk about you playing Spock as human because on the weekends obviously you're getting ready for the following week, and you have Spock down, but now all of a sudden they're throwing on, “Okay, Spock as a full human.” So, what was it like for you prepping for those scenes because it definitely is more rehearsal, more, “How am I gonna do this?”

PECK: Yeah, the writers definitely throw me a lot of screwballs, which is really fun. You know, what comes to mind for me in Season 1 is “Spock Amok” when I have to play Spock playing T’Pring playing Spock. In this season, yeah, he wakes up all screwed up, human only, but with the life experience and an inner world of Spock. And I imagined that it was sort of like being on some sort of drug trip, right? He's, like, in an altered state of mind and just trying to adapt to his new ability to perceive, his new sensory perception, right? Because suddenly you don't have that hyper-logical half of you sort of clamping down on your emotions, and I saw it as a great opportunity to be sort of childlike, like Spock as a human child, kind of discovering what it is like to be human fully.

For both of you, the season is obviously 10 episodes, do you have a favorite of the 10 episodes?

WESLEY: I mean, I'm biased; the ones I was in. [To Peck] You're in all of them [laughs]. No, all jokes aside, I did truly love working– Look, I love moments from all the episodes that I've done, but if I had to pick one I did really love Episode 3. Just driving fast cars and sort of giving Kirk this sort of, you know… he was like a kid in a candy store just running around Earth figuring it out for the first time. Again, this is an alternate timeline, so it was just a blast.

PECK: Yeah, for me, Episode 5 was just truly a joy to experience as an actor.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 is now streaming on Paramount+. Check out Collider's interview with Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn below.

7 Biggest Star Trek Secrets Spock Kept

• Spock kept many secrets to maintain continuity with Star Trek TOS, only revealing what was relevant or life-threatening.
• Lt. Spock's tight-lipped nature and trustworthiness were evident in keeping Number One's love for musicals a secret.
• Spock's knowledge of Pike's tragic future and encounters with Lower Decks ensigns were also secret-keeping priorities.

Star Trek 's Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) kept a surprising number of secrets over the course of his long life. In Star Trek: The Original Series , Spock volunteered very few details about his own life, and the crew of the Starship Enterprise rarely pried into the Vulcan's private affairs. Those who did ask generally received sideways answers or a raised eyebrow that said enough. Instead, Spock only disclosed personal information if it was relevant to the Enterprise's current missions , if people from Spock's past came back into his life as a plot point, if it was a matter of life and death -- or, in at least one case, all three.

The inclusion of Ethan Peck's younger Lieutenant Spock in the streaming era of Star Trek , starting in Star Trek: Discovery season 2, and continuing in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , all but assured that more new stories featuring Spock would translate into more secrets for Spock to keep in order to maintain continuity with Star Trek: The Original Series. Obviously, the things that were invented for new shows couldn't be referenced in Star Trek: The Original Series, so there had to be reasons that Spock never spoke again about meetings with new characters, insights into the future, and even some of Spock's own relationships. Fortunately, Mr. Spock has always been relatively tight-lipped.

Star Treks Ethan Peck: Strange New Worlds Spock Actor Explained

Commander una chin-riley is a fan of gilbert & sullivan, spock kept number one's love of old musicals a secret until her hearing..

Admittedly, it's not one of Star Trek 's biggest secrets, but by keeping Number One's secret love of theater to himself, Lt. Spock proves his trustworthiness to Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) and Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). Spock keeps this tidbit of personal information about Number One locked tight until Una's hearing in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 2, "Ad Astra Per Aspera" , when Spock is asked if he ever believed that Una was hiding something. Lieutenant Spock is beholden to the truth, so he must answer in the affirmative: Commander Chin-Riley is hiding the fact that she loves old musicals.

In Star Trek: Short Treks season 2, episode 1, "Q&A", Commander Una Chin-Riley encourages a fresh-faced young Ensign Spock to ask questions to the point of being obnoxious. Spock takes that advice to heart when he finds himself trapped in a turbolift with Number One shortly thereafter. While Spock's questions steer clear of digging for personal information about Una herself, the time in the turbolift drags on, and Number One willingly confesses her love for Gilbert & Sullivan musicals with a rendition of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General", which Spock is ordered to forget.

Number One's penchant for Gilbert & Sullivan is referenced in Una's duet with Lieutenant James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 9, "Subspace Rhapsody", in the style of the song itself and also a lyric.

Captain Pike Will Suffer A Tragic Accident

Spock kept his knowledge of pikes future in a wheelchair a secret..

In Star Trek: Discovery season 2, episode 8, "If Memory Serves", Captain Christopher Pike encounters a Klingon time crystal in the temple on the planet Boreth, and learns of the horrifying future that awaits him after Pike saves Starfleet Cadets during a terrible accident. Pike's knowledge of his future becomes a major theme in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, as Chris ruminates on whether his fate is actually sealed or if it can be changed.

Captain Pike met his future self in Star Trek: Strange New World s season 1 finale and learned that if he tries to change his destiny, it will be Spock who would be horribly disfigured instead.

Rather than bear the burden of this knowledge alone, Captain Pike decides to tell Commander Una Chin-Riley and Lieutenant Spock about the vision of Pike's future in a wheelchair that the time crystal revealed in the Klingon Temple. It's a risk, but Pike trusts both Spock and Number One to keep the secret of Pike's future, so they can help Pike navigate the present.

Spock Met Star Trek: Lower Decks Ensigns Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler

Spock kept meeting the 24th-century ensigns from star trek: lower decks a secret..

In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2's crossover episode, "Those Old Scientists", the USS Enterprise crew under Captain Pike come face to face with Star Trek: Lower Decks ' 24th-century Ensigns Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome). After Mariner and Boimler accidentally activate a time portal that takes them into the 23rd century, both Starfleet Officers end up on the 23rd-century Starship Enterprise. What could have been a temporal catastrophe is, thankfully, avoided.

Boimler telling Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) that none of the books he read about Spock in the future mention her leads to Chapel breaking off her romance with the Vulcan.

Of course, Boimler can't help being excited about working with Spock, one of his personal heroes, and Mariner says young Spock is hot with a certain amount of surprise, implying that Spock's legacy lasts well into the future. Although the Temporal Prime Directive hasn't been invented yet, Spock knows that he'll have to keep anything that Mariner and Boimler say about the future a secret, and won't even be able to speak of the meeting after they return to their own time.

Mariner and Boimler prove they can keep a secret too, when Mariner reminds Boimler about "the Pike thing we're not supposed to talk about" in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 1, "Twovix".

Spock Knows About Talos IV

Spock risks his career to give captain pike peace on talos iv..

In Star Trek: The Original Series , season 1, episodes 10 & 11, "The Menagerie", Spock comes under fire for violating Starfleet's General Order 7, which states, " No vessel under any condition, emergency or otherwise, is to visit Talos IV. " Spock is one of the few officers to have actually been to Talos IV before its very existence was classified as Top Secret, and the ban on landing there was established, having previously visited Talos IV with Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) and the USS Enterprise. In keeping with the spirit of General Order 7, and to disavow anyone but himself from coming under scrutiny for violating it, Spock remains tight-lipped about what is actually on Talos IV, and why Spock must take Captain Pike there after Pike's disfiguring accident.

Spock's motive for committing mutiny by taking Fleet Captain Pike (Sean Kenney) to Talos IV is sound, however. The Talosians' are powerful psychics who would allow Christopher Pike to live the rest of his days peacefully in an illusion instead of in agony after his accident. Because Spock also knew that Captain Pike's accident would happen, it's likely Spock had the return trip to Talos IV already planned well before the accident actually occurred.

Leonard Nimoy Always In Ethan Peck's Head Is Why Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Spock Is So Good

Star trek: discovery's michael burnham is spock's adopted sister, spock kept the uss discovery's fate a secret after star trek: discovery season 2..

Star Trek: Discovery reveals that Spock's adoptive sister, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) , comes to live with Spock's family on Vulcan after Michael's scientist parents were killed by Klingons. Although Spock is originally skeptical of Michael's presence in his family's home, Spock and Michael eventually come to regard each other as siblings, thanks in part to the intervention of Spock's human mother, Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner).

Spock's visions of a lifeless future play a crucial role in Star Trek: Discovery season 2's Red Angel mystery, which reunites Spock with Michael after years apart. In the final battle against Section 31's threat assessment AI, Control, the USS Discovery leaps forward in time, so Discovery's crew, including Michael Burnham, are officially declared dead. All information about Discovery is classified by Starfleet , ensuring that Spock would have to keep Michael Burnham a secret after Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

Spock Has A Vulcan Fiance, T'Pring

Spock kept tpring a secret from kirks enterprise until amok time..

One of Spock's closely-guarded secrets is revealed early in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2, episode 1, "Amok Time", when Spock's mysterious illness turns out to be pon farr , the onset of the 7-year Vulcan mating cycle. The existence of pon farr isn't widely known at this point, which is how Spock would prefer it, but Spock also knows that he must redirect the Enterprise to Vulcan in order to cure this ailment, so Spock has to come clean about another secret: Spock has a wife, T'Pring (Arlene Martel), who lives on Vulcan.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds explores Lieutenant Spock's doomed relationship with T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) before TOS. Thus far, Strange New Worlds takes care to preserve the fact that most of the officers serving on Captain James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) USS Enterprise, including Kirk himself, don't know that T'Pring exists in Star Trek: The Original Series.

Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) serves with Lt. Spock on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' USS Enterprise but, conveniently, Uhura has not seen T'Pring, preserving Lt. Uhura's (Nichelle Nichols) surprise in Star Trek: The Original Series' "Amok Time."

Spock Has A Rogue Half-Brother, Sybok

Spock kept sybok a secret until star trek v: the final frontier..

In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , the USS Enterprise is pulled out of drydock to pursue a renegade Vulcan who has kidnapped ambassadors on Nimbus III, and the target of the chase turns out to be Spock's half-brother, Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill). With Sybok's existence now relevant to the current mission, Spock is a little more forthcoming with information about his previously unmentioned sibling, who rejects the traditional, logical teachings of Surak in favor of unbridled emotion. Spock's half-brother Sybok was disowned by their father, Sarek, for his dangerous philosophy, and Spock was instructed to do the same. Because Sybok had no place in Spock's family due to his beliefs, it makes perfect sense for Spock to keep the secret that he even had a brother in the first place.

Sybok makes a brief cameo in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 7, "The Serene Squall", but doesn't appear in Strange New Worlds season 2.

As a private person by nature, Spock is predisposed towards keeping his personal life secret to focus on the matters at hand, from missions to cultivating more current friendships. Spock's exemplary record as a Starfleet officer also demonstrates that Spock will abide by orders from superior officers to keep their personal secrets, as well as secrets that are necessary to ensure the safety of the timeline. Between Star Trek: The Original Series , Star Trek: Discovery , and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , Mr. Spock shows that he can be trusted with Star Trek 's important secrets, regardless of the reason for keeping them.

Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are streaming on Paramount+.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is streaming on Max.

Cast Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, George Takei, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan

Network NBC

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Gene Roddenberry

Showrunner Gene Roddenberry

Where To Watch Paramount+

Cast Bruce Horak, Celia Rose Gooding, Jess Bush, Melissa Navia, Ethan Peck, Babs Olusanmokun, Rebecca Romijn, Paul Wesley, Christina Chong, Anson Mount

Writers Bill Wolkoff, Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers

Directors Amanda Row, Valerie Weiss, Jonathan Frakes, Chris Fisher

Showrunner Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers

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TREKNEWS.NET | Your daily dose of Star Trek news and opinion

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Ethan Peck Really Wants That ‘Captain Pike’ Star Trek Series, Too

Star Trek: Discovery star Ethan Peck appears at Trekonderoga

Ethan Peck appeared at the fifth annual Trekonderoga convention in Ticonderoga, New York over the weekend and discussed a myriad of topics related to Star Trek: Discovery and his portrayal of Spock in the series. The 33-year old actor revealed his initial reaction to being cast as Spock, the online controversy around Spock’s beard and his hopes for an Anson Mount-led “Captain Pike” series, during his hour-long solo panel in the Ticonderoga High School auditorium.

Peck joined the cast of Discovery for the series’ second season to play the iconic role of Spock, made famous by Leonard Nimoy in The Original Series , and later portrayed by Zachary Quinto in the “Kelvin Timeline” trilogy of films.

Spock’s makeup, and that Captain Pike series

During the Q&A, Peck was asked if his Spock makeup is comfortable, he answered with a smile, saying:

“No. Well, parts of it are. The ears actually the most comfortable part of it all.”

He went on to describe how the makeup department on Discovery uses thin prosthetic “eyebrow blockers,” as opposed to actually shaving his eyebrows in the Vulcan style:

“They had to completely block out my eyebrows because of a contractual situation for me. I’m not sure they thought I was going to work. So they were like ‘probably five episodes,’ and I took that to mean that they were rolling the dice with me a little bit. This is a such a special character that is special to so many people… and I totally could have cracked and crumbled under pressure — and I thought I might, too. So they had me episode-by-episode and to do this (shaving his eyebrows) would really take me out of other work opportunities. So, hopefully… Anson (Mount), Rebecca (Romijn) and I are all hoping to have a spinoff of our own and we can do all this proper.”

Peck hopes for a ‘Captain Pike’ spinoff series

Because of the layers of makeup that need to be applied and the amount of detail, Peck revealed just how time-consuming it can be:

“It’s quite the laborious and detailed-oriented process. It actually takes longer than (Doug Jones) Saru’s makeup… by like an hour.”

Peck was asked if was a Star Trek fan prior to joining the cast of Discovery. He disclosed that he grew up as a big science-fiction fan — especially the work of Isaac Asimov, including The End of Eternity .

“I’m becoming more of a Trekkie — I just started watching DS9. I actually have a buddy of mine who is a diehard Trekkie and I always text him every shirt I get made for these conventions.”

Ethan Peck as Spock, with Anson Mount as Captain Pike, on Star Trek: Discovery (CBS)

Being cast as Spock and how he mentally prepares to play the character

Peck was later asked what informs his performance as Spock and described how he prepares to take on the role, prior to filming:

“I took it deadly seriously, obviously. It meant so much to me to be chosen for the role. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I first auditioned for it—I knew it was for Star Trek. By the end of the process, it was revealed to me which character it was and I was so flooded with fear because of the expectations of this character, of the role and the actor that would play him. It was a very meticulous process. When I’m sitting in prosthetics, I’m beginning to have ‘Spock thoughts,’ is what I would call them. Just sort of thinking about… What does it feel like to be on the ship? What does it sound like? What does it smell like? What is it like to be away from your whole planet?”

When Peck was revealed as a bearded Spock in the second season trailer for Discovery , it spurred quite the controversy online. The actor discussed his character’s facial hair and his initial reaction to it.

“The beard was my own. About a month before I went out (to start filming), Alex Kurtzman, the showrunner—who became the showrunner as I joined the show—he was like ‘don’t shave.’ When he told me that Spock was going to have a beard, I was like ‘Oh, shoot. I’m going to be Spock with a beard, people are going to absolutely smash me online. And of course a lot of people did—which is is fine, it’s to be expected. People are going to think what they’re going to think, and  can’t control that. So I just do my best. And I thought it’d be gone in an episode or two. I think Alex liked it so much, and   I think they were still developing the end of the season in the writer’s room, when I joined. It stayed… and I’m so glad it did. I remember we were at dinner in New York for New York Comic Con—it was the first time I had appeared since I had been cast and I sat next to him, when he told me about Michael (Burnham) leaving and putting a nice little bow on her non-existence for cannon, and he told me I would walk out shaven and we would be on our way (aboard the Enterprise).”

Ethan Peck discusses Spock’s beard

Peck went on to discuss his life and career thus far:

“I’m really lucky. I’m insanely lucky. I come from this incredible acting family. My grandfather was an actor (Gregory Peck)… I survived a crazy motorcycle crash about ten years ago, and then I got cast as Spock after I almost quit acting. That’s just layer upon layer of unusual living. The older I get the more I’m feeling like I’m living in a dream. I feel very very grateful.”

On what he’d like to explore with the Spock character, Peck said:

“I would like to enjoy his impulsiveness and his danger. You have this being that’s hyper strong, hyper intelligent, hyper emotional, I think. And to have him be a little more impulsive and to have him wield his formidable powers—I don’t know what that looks like but maybe a little more action.”

More from Trekonderoga

The TrekNews.net team was in Ticonderoga over the weekend, so check back soon as we’ll have more articles and photos from the event.

Stay tuned to TrekNews.net for all the latest news on Star Trek: Discovery , Star Trek: Picard , Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Short Treks . Connect with us at  @TrekNewsNet on Twitter , @TrekNews on Facebook , and @TrekNews on Instagram .

Founded TrekNews.net in 2011. UX, visual designer, and published photographer based in the Boston area. Connoisseur of Star Trek, sci-fi, '80s horror, synthwave sounds, and tacos. You can follow Brian on Twitter @brianwilkins .

August 27, 2019 at 3:23 am

Peck sounds like a truly decent man. If you haven’t heard the interviews Anson Mount did with him in his podcast, check them out.

August 27, 2019 at 11:56 am

Every time I read one of his interviews, Ethan Peck says all the right things. Leonard Nimoy was such a wonderful human being in addition to being a wonderful actor, and it looks as if the tradition continues with Ethan Peck.

Tom Sinclair

August 27, 2019 at 12:44 pm

i was tired of looking back into star treks past but with discovery moving far ahead and picard being “current” i really now am hoping they do this pike spinoff… it’s a concept and gap in trek i never thought i needed but now i do lol… the cast was fantastic

Gerald Hoptowit

August 27, 2019 at 2:09 pm

The first season was fine, and if it was a baseball game. Out of the park, second season! I always been a fan. Even in the hard times. I use to read the old magizine, Starlog. Well back in the seventies. It took a fresh look at the Original Series. It was kind of in the wish list, back of my mind type of hope. The would do something with the Enterprise. And Discovery did more than that. Thank you everyone involved. I mean it… From my credit card company, to the guy that mops the floors back stage. Kudos…

Bina Walburn

August 27, 2019 at 2:28 pm

Us Gregory Peck (Ethan’s grandfather)fans want a Pike/Spock/Number One series too!

Savagetiger

September 16, 2019 at 9:02 am

I loved Gregory Peck in the movie Twelve O’Clock High, and I loved Ethan Peck in Discovery.

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Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Reflects On Its Choices In “Mirrors”

| April 25, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 72 comments so far

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 – Debuted Thursday, April 25, 2024 Written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco Directed by Jen McGowan

A solid episode with plenty of lore and character development gets weighed down with a bit too much exposition.

No, I didn’t kiss you in the past last week, what makes you say that?

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“Maybe we’re not so different.”

As the crew regroups following the time bug incident that lost them 6 hours, they try to trace the trail of their main rivals in the search for the Progenitor tech. Book takes this time to reflect on the choices he has made in life and how it isn’t too late for Moll; perhaps he can redeem the daughter of his mentor and namesake Cleveland Booker. Stamets and Tilly figure out the trail didn’t disappear into nowhere: Moll and L’ak went through a wormhole. The aperture isn’t big enough for the Disco, so the captain assigns herself to shuttle duty—over the objections of her new XO, who is still struggling a bit. After a little bonding over old Kellerun poetry, she leaves him with “I know you can lead this crew” and heads off with her ex. Returning to their old banter, including some teasing about what happened during her time tour last episode, Book and Michael head through the wormhole. Things get really choppy as they fly through exotic matter “deaf and blind,” losing comms with the Disco, and dodging debris. Skilled piloting and good ol’ Starfleet engineering saves them, but things aren’t so hot for Moll and L’ak, whose ship is spotted cut in half. Their only hope for survival is another relatively intact ship that looks familiar. A 24 th -century scientist hiding a clue in this pocket dimension on a shipwreck from another universe makes as much sense as anything.  It’s the ISS Enterprise—and that’s no typo. If the “Mirrors” title wasn’t clue enough, the ISS does it: Things are about to get Terran, again.

After docking, Michael and Book make their way through the mess of a ship to the bridge with more playful banter. The warp drive has been bricked and all shuttles and escape pods are gone, very out of character for ruthless Terrans. They track three quantum signatures in sickbay, but start with a trace in the transporter room, which looks more like a makeshift refugee camp. A chronicle reveals the crew mutinied after the Terran High Chancellor (aka Mirror Spock) was killed for making reforms. A certain Kelpien rebel leader (aka Mirror Action Saru) led refugees to the Prime Universe, where they abandoned ship. While Book expositions, Michael puts a piece of her badge (and its important Prime Universe quantum signature) in a locket she finds. Pay attention BTW, or you will be confused later. In sickbay, they find Moll and L’ak, Moll and L’ak, and Moll and L’ak—until they take out the holo-emitters so the four former couriers can face off for real. Book tries the “I knew your father” gambit and is immediately rebuffed by Moll’s serious daddy issues. The baddies figure they have the clue so they have all the leverage, but Michael uses that locket as a bluff, claiming she has the real clue. Still, no deal with the Federation is good enough because they need the Progenitor tech to get rid of an Erigah… a Breen blood bounty. That’s right, L’ak is Breen. Holy refrigeration helmet , Batman.

Mirror McCoy was a bit of an evil pack rat.

“You both still have choices .”

Cut to a series of Burn-era flashbacks when Moll was delivering dilithium to the Breen Imperium. The “bucket heads”  are not amused by the wisecracking courier who gets into a fight with one of them, but she turns the tables, revealing she knows he’s a disgraced member of the royal family—and she even knows his name. It’s L’ak, of course. He is intrigued by her plan to skim more latinum, getting payback for being humiliated for this cargo duty demotion. Soon enough, this unlikely pair is hooking up between cargo containers and he even takes off his helmet to show her his face, as well as his “other face.” It turns out the Breen have two: the one we have been seeing with L’ak and a glowing eyed translucent one.  Later, the star-crossed romance is threatened when Moll is drawn to the lure of even more latinum by delivering to the Emerald Chain. Before they can sort out if he should join her, Uncle A-hole shows up, not happy about his nephew’s little interspecies exchange program. He’s also not cool with L’ak using that old face and not the “evolved” glowy face. L’ak is given one chance at redemption: Kill Moll. He picks door number 2, killing some guards but sparing Primarch Ruhn, who declares the Erigah. L’ak knows this means they will never stop hunting him, but Moll is all-in on being a fugitive, so they escape together. Ah, true love.

Back on Mirror Enterprise, the standoff devolves into another quick firefight as the Breen/Human duo chooses not to take the offered off-ramp before going too far down the bad guy road. Moll and Book end up outside force fields that pop up around sickbay, so she reluctantly agrees to a ceasefire. The current Cleveland Booker tries again to connect, but Moll only has bad memories of a brutal childhood of abandonment after her Cleveland left her on her own at age 14. L’ak is all she has. L’ak feels the same about Moll, telling Michael that he would die before being separated, but seems open to the idea of them sharing a cell in the Federation pen. On the bridge, Book pivots to use his relationship with Michael to connect, but Moll’s need to get back to L’ak means no waiting for computer hacking, so she starts yanking out wires. The resulting short does lower the forcefield, but now the ship is out of control. Their shuttle is flung off with the jolt and there’s only eight minutes until the Big E is squished in the little wormhole. Book takes his final shot, handing over his phaser and telling Moll she is the only family he has left. She finally relents and they head to sickbay, where Michael and L’ak have resumed fighting. The captain gets the upper hand and ends up with the clue L’ak was holding and the Breen is left with a knife in his side, but impressed by the locket bluff. Moll arrives and is super pissed, so the Disco duo makes a quick exit before things escalate into yet another phaser fight. This former courier couple’s double date is over.

Uh, can you go back to the other face now?

“Maybe we can shape our own futures too.”

As Moll tries to patch up her boyfriend, Michael and Book work through the problem on the bridge, deciding that the tractor beam as their only hope. Over on the Disco, they detect an oscillating pattern, 3-4-1-4, which means something to Rayner. He now wants the nerds to figure out how to open the wormhole aperture big enough for a ship, offering kegs of Kellerun booze for the best idea. Adira sparks a team effort and Rayner rallies around the crowdsourced solution involving a hexagon of photon torpedoes. “We are only going to get one shot at this. I trust you will all make it count, red alert.” That’s the stuff. With what may be the last seconds of her life, Michael lets Book know she shared a “happy” moment with his past self during the whole time bug incident. Discovery fires the torpedoes and the crew is surprised to see the ISS Enterprise emerge at the last minute from the permanently collapsing wormhole. Everyone releases their tension as the captain informs her crew they saved her… but why is the Enterprise about to fire? A warp pod is launched! It’s Moll and L’ak. Before you can say “plot armor,” they escape to another episode. The captain returns to the Disco to tell Rayner she’s impressed with how he handled the crew during her time away, and he tells her how impressed he was with her subtle “3-4-1-4” message using the Kellerun “Ballad of Krull.” Alien poetry FTW!

In the background of the episode, Tilly has been noticing that Dr. Culber seems out of sorts. Everyone else leans on him, so she offers to be a friendly ear. As things wrap, Hugh takes her up on her offer over drinks at Red’s, admitting that ever since he was possessed by a Trill a few episodes back, he has been feeling a bit off, and he’s beening having some trouble coming to grips with the quest they are on with questions “so big and impossible to grasp.” He is not sure his matter-of-fact husband will understand what Tilly points out is a sort of spiritual awakening. This thread is left unresolved, unlike Adira’s mini-crisis of confidence: They were losing their science mojo due to guilt over the time bug, but got it back through Rayner’s tough love and being the one to come up with the hexagon of torpedoes solution. Things wrap up with Michael and Book looking over their prize, the latest piece of the map and a mysterious vial of liquid hidden inside, ready to set up the next episode once Stamets unlocks its secret. Burnham is starting to see a pattern with these clues and how the scientists who left them were trying to teach lessons along the way to the successful questers. The clue hidden in the ISS Enterprise came from Dr. Cho, a former Terran junior officer who later became a Starfleet Admiral. This happy ending for her and the others from Saru’s band of Mirror refugees fills them with hope as they can’t wait to find out what they will learn when they put the map together. There are just 2 more map pieces and 5 more episodes to go.

I think I have a thing for being possessed—no judgment.

Love stories

This halfway point episode is a bit of a mixed bag. Strong performances were a highlight, bringing extra life to welcome character development for both heroes and villains. But valiant attempts to expand upon franchise lore got weighed down in overly complicated exposition. And for an episode with a strong (and yes, often repeated) theme about choices, some of the directorial choices just didn’t work, potentially leaving some audience members confused or requiring a second viewing to follow the narrative. On the other hand, the episode carried on the season’s reflection on Discovery’s own lore and the evolution of its characters. David Ajala stands out as the episode MVP as he shows Book’s struggle to navigate the emotional complexities of his own choices and those of Moll while desperately trying to forge a new family connection. While some of the action scenes in this episode felt a bit perfunctory, the show is still getting better (for the most part) in finding moments for those character sidebars to talk about their emotional journeys and relationships. That was especially important in this episode, which took a closer look at how the events of the season are impacting some of the key romantic pairings of Book and Michael, Paul and Hugh, and Moll and L’ak.

Eve Harlow—and especially Elias Toufexis—stepped up to add layers and nuance to Moll and L’ak, with Discovery finally embracing how fleshing out adversaries and their motivations goes a long way towards making your plot hold together. The nicely drawn-out reflection of their love story with the rekindling one between Michael and Book adds another layer to the more obvious meaning behind the episode title “Mirrors.” Moll’s single-minded anger and L’ak’s desire for safety now all make sense, as does their unshakable bond. The episode also did a good job weaving in a handful of substories, including Rayner’s growing connection with the crew, with a nice sprinkling of Kellerun lore-building — adding some color to his character. Callum Keith Rennie continues to be a stand-out addition for the season, although Doug Jones is sorely missed, presumably not appearing in two episodes in a row for some scheduling reasons. Culber’s spiritual journey also gets just enough time, as it and these other substories all feel like they are heading somewhere without distracting or spinning their wheels, something that often weighed down mid-season Discovery episodes in past seasons.

Okay, let’s just agree we both have daddy issues.

Under the mask

The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise, but also nicely teased through the previous episodes. Fans of Deep Space Nine should relish finally getting some answers about this enigmatic race and finally having a first look under those helmets. “Mirrors” picked up on many elements from DS9, including the Breen language, refrigeration suits, neural truncheons, and the position of Thot , while adding lots to the lore, including some worldbuilding behind this new Breen Imperium and its “faction wars.”

Setting the Breen up as what appears to be the real big bads for the season involved a lot of data dump exposition here, surely keeping the editors of Memory Alpha busy for the next week. The notion that Breen have two forms with their signature suits and helmets allowing them to hold the more “evolved” form and face makes sense. If one were to get nitpicky, the Breen aren’t supposed to bleed, but perhaps that was a function of his suit; fill in your own headcanon. L’ak’s desire to hold the other, less evolved form making him a pariah in Breen society has echoes of allegorical episodes such as TNG’s “The Outcast.” That being said, the nuances are still not entirely clear, and fans who like the lore shouldn’t have to rewatch scenes to pick up the details. It feels like some details were cut, perhaps because this episode was already trying to cram in too much exposition with the Breen, Kelleruns (they boil cakes?), and the Mirror Universe.

Like the previous time travel adventure, this was a mid-season bottle show, this time using the conveniently located Strange New Worlds sets. Bringing back the ISS Enterprise was clever and fun, with the twist of how this time the Mirror Universe came to us. If you follow closely, “Mirrors” did a nice job of filling in some lore gaps and tying together the MU storylines from the first visit in “Mirror, Mirror” to follow-ups in Deep Space Nine , Enterprise , and Discovery . There is now a nice throughline from Emperor Georgiou saving Mirror Saru through to Mirror Spock, killed for the reforms he instituted after being inspired by Kirk. However, the redress of the Enterprise sets was not very inspired, with only a smattering of Terran wall sconces and some repainting, instead of demonstrating the brutality of the Empire with elements like agony booths. But what was even more missed was the promise of any character crossovers. There was a lot of talk about Mirror characters like Spock, Saru, Dr. Cho, and others, but we don’t get to see any, one of the many examples of how this episode broke the golden rule to show not tell. There were plenty of opportunities for a flashback or holo recording. Burnham longingly gazing at her brother’s science station is no substitute for Ethan Peck with a goatee.

We’re back!

Final thoughts

“Mirrors” is a decent episode, but it could have been much better with a few tweaks here and there. While not falling into the pointless plate-spinning trap of past mid-season Disco outings, it still dragged a bit for something so jam-packed with lore and revelations. Still, it provided a nice hour of entertainment, and possibly more with rewatches to catch up on the little details. The episode also continues the season’s welcome trend of weaving in the show’s own past, which makes it work better as a final season, even if they didn’t know that when they crafted it. Season 5 hits the halfway mark, and it’s still the best season yet, and hopefully the second half of the season will nail the landing.

Wait, we’re in this episode too? Anyone remember their lines?

• Like the previous episode, “Mirrors” began with a warning for flashing images.
• The episode is dedicated “to the loving memory of our friend Allan ‘Red’ Marceta ,” the lead set dresser who died in a motorcycle accident in 2022.  Presumably the USS Discovery bar “Red’s” was named in his honor.
• This is the first episode where Book’s personal log starts it off.
• Stardate: 866280.9
• Booker examined wanted notices for Moll from the Federation, Orion/Emerald Chain (who have a new logo), and the Andorian Empire.
• Tilly was able to reveal the wormhole by compensating for the “Lorentzian Coefficient,” referencing the real Lorentz Factor used in special relativity equations.
• A new ensign on the Discovery keeps a Cardassian vole as a pet.
• The ISS Enterprise was built at Tartarus Base, possibly referencing Tartarus Prime , from the TOS novel The Rings of Time .
• Moll refers to Breens as “bucketheads” (just as Reno did to Emerald Chain Regulators last episode). This could be a nod to the use of “ bucketheads ” in Star Wars as a derogatory term for stormtroopers.
• Moll’s mother died on Callor V in a mine for Rubindium , a substance first mentioned in TOS “Patterns of Force.”
• Linus can play the piano.
• Breen Primarchs may be a nod to the genetically engineered Primarchs from Warhammer 40,000 .
• How does Book know that Pike’s catchphrase is “Hit it”?
• This is the third (of five) season 5 episodes in which Oyin Oladejo and Emily Coutts do not appear, but their characters, Detmer and Owosekun, are mentioned when they get the honor of escorting the ISS Enterprise back to Starfleet HQ.
• Even though we didn’t see it warp away, presumably the missing intermix chamber was replaced, otherwise Owo and Detmer’s trip is going to take a very long time.
• Tilly says her long day makes her feel like she has been through a Gormangander’s digestive tract.

Remember when Mudd hid inside a Gormagander? Gross.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast  covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery  will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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waste of ISS Enterprise

While I enjoyed the episode overall, the ISS Enterprise was a huge letdown and not even worth being an easter egg with what little they did with it. They should have just made it a generic constitution class ship from the mirror universe.

It felt like it was nothing more than a budget saver. Use existing sets from the other show. Which is weird because one of the arguments in favor of mini seasons is it allows more money to be spent.

That’s exactly what it felt like. Along with the missing, yet again, Detmer and Owosekun.

There must have been some deep budget cuts for the season.

Detmer and Owosekun were replaced by other characters so I don’t think they are missing for budget reasons. It’s more likely that the actresses were unavailable.

I get the budget issues considering what’s going on with the studio. But the end result was it showed that there isn’t much difference at all in the 900 years between the SNW Enterprise and the aesthetic of Star Trek Discovery. They both look as if they were set in the exact same era.

And there really shouldn’t be much. Discovery is from the same era, as the Enterprise. While the ship gets a technological upgrade, why would it get an interior design makeover?

Since it was deemed important (Stamets certainly makes since) that the crew stay on the Discovery, I would certainly think that psychologically having its design aesthetics stay similar to what it was would help give the crew a little bit of their past to hold on to, versus having all physical interactions be with a timeline that they aren’t native to.

Now where we should see it is in native places in this time. And we have seen some differences in design from standard Starfleet settings, versus Starfleet settings on this time (I actually wish we got more).

I did wish for a little more of self reflection from Burnham’s point of view as the ISS Enterprise should of course remind her of Spock (the Enterprise tie in), but also Georgiou (the ISS tie in). We get a small brief nod to Spock, but nothing to Georgiou (and while I still question the use of the character, there is no question that Burnham did have a connection with her, even if its primarily transference from her former Captain, not the mirror Universe Empress.

Agreed. The last two episodes just felt very budgeted and basically bottle episodes. And this just felt like a twofer, a way to use an existing set and add a little fan service but that’s all it was. I thought the Enterprise itself was going to be a viral part of not just the episode but the story overall.

Instead it was just a backdrop. And yeah it’s obvious they cut the budget for this season but all the live action shows have felt this way starting with Picard season 3 and SNW season 2. That all felt pretty bare a lot of the times. I guess this was all during Paramount+ belt tightening and probably not a shock why the show was cancelled.

And maybe the I.S.S. Enterprise should have been the refit or maybe the Phase II Enterprise? That would have been a lot of fun but combine a lack of vision with a reduced budget and this is what you get.

Looking back on “In a Mirror: Darkly”, season 4 of Enterprise was dealing with a reduced budget but managed to recreate sets from TOS, introduced a few new set pieces and did a lot of great effects work.

This was a missed opportunity.

Which was added by stretching that story over two episodes, so that they had the budget to recreate the sets they used. Having half the episode count, doesn’t really help avail yourself to planning out a two parter for a way to save costs.

I don’t get that. I never assumed that the Enterprise (or its mIrror Universe history) was going to feature in significant manner (certainly the producers and promotional department didn’t make a significant deal about it). Perhaps it’s the time difference. But I literally assumed it would be as significant as the Defiant going in and out of phase like TOS “Tholian Web” the time difference. And that was primarily set dressing. That’s not a bad thing. I mean Tholian Web is considered one of the better third season episodes.

And the only reason I assumed it was the Enterprise versus another Connie, is simple to give Burnham a moment to reflect on Spock. Now I do freely admit that I wish this was a slightly larger moment. But I never expected it to be anything but a small moment. Roughly my preconceived notion would be something like Spock’s Mind Meld scene with La’an in SNW where she is able to get a peak into Spock thinking about his sister and the emotion that comes with it. It’s a very brief scene, but I thought SNW did a good job in conveying the emotional aspect, especially from a half Vulcan/ Half Human.

When you feel like the Mirror Universe has been nothing but a let down after the initial TOS episode, It’s really not a surprise. There’s really nowhere to go with it, but I did find that the fulfilling of the promise that Prime Kirk spoke to Mirror Spock about from the original TOS episode quite satisfying. The ship’s inhabitants embraced the benevolence of the prime universe, and I thought that was great.

I felt the idea that the MU people just easily adapted was pretty ridiculous. But then, they admitted SNW was an alternate timeline. It’s not a stretch that alternate extends to all the Secret Hideout productions.

That’s my only complaint about this episode. Seeing the tantalus field show up would have been really cool. When Michael talked about how she was sure that Mirror Spock was a savage just like the other Terrans, I was sure that we would see a recording or something of Ethan Peck in a goatee to prove her wrong. Or flashbacks with Ethan Peck and Paul Wesley as their mirror counterparts would have also been cool.

All the stuff with the Breen and Mol and Lak was really cool though.

They ate Mirror Saru in season one…

Was that Saru or another Kelpian? It’s been a while since I watched Season 1, but I recall Mirror Saru saving Burnham from Tyler just as Voq’s personality re-emerged. I know Mirror Georgiou served Burnham some Kelpian, I just didn’t remember it being Mirror Saru.

Mirror Saru saved Michael from Tyler in The Wolf Inside, which was the episode that preceded the one in which they ate the food made from a Kelpien (Vaulting Ambition).

Looking at Memory Alpha now, it says that the chosen Kelpien ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQSipQlJR8 ) was played by someone other than Doug Jones, but they look so much alike that I thought for sure she had chosen Mirror Saru.

As per Memory Alpha, we never saw him again after The Wolf Inside until season three, but that was in the alternate timeline Carl sent Georgiu to, so it wasn’t the same Mirror Saru.

Nope, that was another Kelpien.

“They ate Mirror Saru in season one…”

They didn’t.

Wasn’t Mirror Saru established as having survived in Season 3 (can’t remember the episode name).

Loved this episode. I liked seeing the I.S.S Enterprise though i would of loved to of seen maybe a video log of Mirror Spock.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

I enjoyed seeing Book/Burnham trying to get through to Moll/L’ak and i hope they can eventually get through to them. With this season about connections and 2nd chances i can see Book and Burnham talking both of them down before they do something that they can’t come back from.

The shot of the I.S.S Enterprise coming out of the ‘wormhole’ is probably one of my favorite CGI scene in all of Trek.

I’m glad they didn’t. I think the conceit of using the I.S.S. Enterprise was not much more than a budgetary decision to be able to use the sets. Could have made it a different constitution class, but then they don’t get to tell the story of the crew’s transformation into our society. Just don’t think about it too much.. because that universe is just pushing out its own doppelgängers into our universe.. which seems problematic. lol.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

Any kind of big reveal was bound to be disappointing, I suppose. Still, the idea that they were just another latex alien was a letdown. I had always hoped that the Breen were gaseous or plasma creatures.

“This is the way.” 😉

But seriously that was a pretty good episode. I’d like to see a 31st century restored Terran empire that never went through “the burn.”

“ The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise ”

It really wasn’t, though. That was many viewers’ guess since the beginning of the season, and it’s been a common discussion on many websites. The surprise would have been if he HADN’T been a Breen.

I am on a lot of other sites and I haven’t heard anyone thinking he was Breen. And I don’t believe anyone voiced that in Trekmovie either.

LOL. It’s been a common theory.

Obviously not THAT common. LOL

I’ve seen the theory mentioned in the comments here on TrekMovie.

Yes, quite common from what I’ve been reading. I just commented on this very site a couple weeks back that I liked the idea, when somebody else theorized it (forget who it was)!

I guess it’s just where you go for these discussions but yeah the first YouTube review of episode one I saw theorized Lak was a Breen in the first scene he was in when he took off his helmet. And this was obviously before the species was mentioned on the show.

So yeah some people caught on the first episode the way others theorized Tyler was Voq the first time he showed up. Others needed more convincing.

I never saw it but I certainly don’t read the majority of comments. And almost never watch video reviews. Now Voq, was something I remember seeing in many places. Though in fairness, the amount of conjecture done about any Trek series for its Pilot and early couple episodes has been in my experience far more than what you see for most regular episodes. So that shouldn’t;t surprise me.

It was a surprise to me.

The Breen being so ordinary looking was a bit of a surprise.

Well, one of their forms are. It explains the frozen wasteland/tropical paradise. Their “evovled” form needs cryo suits, their “normal form” doesn’t

This season started out so well. What happened? It’s falling apart.

I hate to a agree. But its once again a long slow burn (pardon the bun) that I fear is going to lead to another whimper of a conclusion. I feel like the season could have been a movie instead. Where is Chapel?!

Wrong show. Chapel is on SNW. The ending was rewritten and new scenes were shot to make it a series finale. They had already started shooting when they got the word that it was ending after season 5.

presumably on Her show, SNW?

“pardon the bun” …🍔⁉️

What’d that poor bun do for it to be in need of a pardon? 😋

This is what happens in every single season of Discovery. Two lovers who want to destroy the galaxy so they can get to paradise was the plot of season four, and now they are recycling the exact same plot for this season.

Did you watch the show. In no seasons has two lovers wanted to destroy the galaxy….Period. L’ak and Moll want to pay off their bounty. Nothing about what they are doing is about wanting to destroy the galaxy.

Outside of the destruction caused by the aliens referred to as 10-C, did any character want to destroy the galaxy let alone a couple. The only couple we had, was one person wanting peaceful means of communication to prevent destruction, while the other wanted to use force to ensure the destruction doesn’t occur. In no case does that equal people wanting to destroy a galaxy.

I can understand not liking the show, but to have such a misconstrued concept of the plot of the seasons shows a shocking lack of basic understanding of what the plot and motivations of the characters are.

I mean the show has plenty that one can find legitimate issues with. Thats not one of them.

This episode was disappointing and fell flat. The return of the ISS Enterprise from the mirror universe was of no interest. I had hoped to possibility see a video log from Kirk, Spock, or another familiar character. Why not explore other Constitution Class Starships like the ISS Lexington, Hood, or Potemkin? Enterprise, Enterprise, Enterprise. (Sigh)

Maybe cause the enterprise is the trek ship pretty much everyone knows even if they are a new trek fan or a casual trek fan or not even a trek fan it is so engrained and intertwined with the name Star Trek that is why they chose to make it the iss enterprise instead of one of the others you mentioned

Because exploring a random ship isn’t the plot of the episode. It’s basically set dressing. Having it be the Enterprise versus a different Connie, gives it a tie to the lead character and part of her family she left behind. That it sorry wise. Another ship wouldn’t have any emotion aspect to the characters. Now production wise its to save a ton of money, as creating a random ship with multiple settings to take use of takes money (if your trying to give it the same level of production that you see for the primary ship). Now of course they could have just created a redress of an existing set to be random alien ship of the week. Those usually aren’t done to the same level of using the existing bridge set of another show. So it serves a small story purpose (ie a setting), it serves a small character purpose *reflection for Burnham, and it serves a production purpose (having high quality set pieces without having to build or do a serious redress and thus saving some money).

Seems rather obvious, to me.

I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. I assume that the actors are absent because Paramount wanted to pay them less, and that’s poor treatment for characters who have been around since practically the beginning of the series.

“ I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. ”

…as opposed to the previous four seasons, when all they did was sit in chairs and look meaningfully at each other?

Which is all Sulu and Chekov do in the average TOS episode. So yes, it’s aggravating for them to be replaced by other actors who are doing the same thing.

I doubt they are paid exorbitantly as recurring guests. It could be similar to what happened in season 4 and Bryce Ronnie Rowe Jr’s absences – he had another gig.

I have a theory that before it was decided that Disco would be cancelled, they were going to replace some of the characters. I think Owosekun and Detmer were going to be replaced, and also that Rayner would become captain and Burnham would go away to do something else. But then that didn’t work out, and so to us it just makes no sense why those two main characters are suddenly missing.

You might be right — I hadn’t considered that revamps due to cancellation might be involved.

Well… It is what it is . This was easily the worst episode of the 5. Tropes galore and really bad plot contrivances.

It feels like the reshoots for when they got the cancelation news are getting dropped in throughout the season. A lot of scenes appear grossly out of place. It feels like they just aren’t even trying anymore to be honest. As flawed as the show has been one thing that never came across among the other problems was a lack of trying.

I am loving the addition of Rayner and the professional Starfleet officer energy he is bringing to the ship. I also liked when he told Burnham the mission was too dangerous for the captain to go on. He is turning out to be a nice counterbalance to the unusual way Discovery has been run as a Starfleet ship after season 2.

I hope he doesn’t get killed off.

Sorry but this was another big fat ‘meh’ for me. This was very very disappointing. Nothing of consequence happened. We learn Mol and Lak backstory basically and it is cool we learn that Lak is a Breen which has been the leading theory since he showed up but it just felt sooo bare overall. Like another Discovery infamous spinning wheel episode where they do the bare minimum to move the plot along but just through a lot of action scenes and inconsequential dialogue to feel like we were getting any real development.

And the biggest elephant in the room (or dimensional wormhole) was the ISS Enterprise. Such a let down. It almost felt like a gimmick or just shoehorned fan service. There was no real reason it needed to be there other than HEY THE ENTERPRISE IS BACK!

Again one of the problems with this show, no real development just there for another connection. Think about what they did with In a Mirror Darkly on Enterprise. They brought in the Defiant as obvious fan service from TOS but the ship had a very vital part to the story. It helped changed the dynamics of the MU. It wasn’t there just for show like this was. And Anthony made a great point the redress felt like a joke. It just felt like an excuse to use the set but little else.

Here it was nothing more than just a backdrop and a really forced one at that. And the whole Saru thing just felt very contrived.

I did like all the Breen stuff though and hopefully they will be the big bad the rest of the season. I still think they should’ve used the Breen as the main villain for SNW instead of the Gorn but I digress.

But yeah this is probably the weakest one for me which is disappointing since last week is my favorite so far. I’m getting a little nervous now. It’s usually the second half of the season this show begins to falls apart but still open minded. Still enjoying it overall but please don’t end up a tedious bore like last season felt once it got to its mid season.

You have one last chance Discovery, make it count!

I never considered the Breen in SNW before, but that’s a cool idea. Yeah, I would’ve liked that much more than the Gorn.

For me it was literally the first Gorn episode I thought the Breen would’ve been a better idea. You get the same type of stories and it doesn’t feel like it’s breaking any canon like the Gorn obviously does. I ranted enough about it but nothing about their appearance on SNW feels remotely canon anymore.

But the Breen could’ve been a great substitute if they wanted a known species not named Klingons and zero canon issues.

Agreed. I always enjoyed the mysterious quality of the Breen. Seems ripe for exploration.

This season is largely working for me. Not as good as last week, but the chase is enjoyable. I have a little trouble buying that Mol and L’ak fell in love so fast. I would have liked to have seen that handled better.. but the slow burn of the plot works because of what they do to sustain individual episodes. Only episode I thought was kind of wasteful was the one on Trill.

That is a big part of the problem, yes. The characters have little chemistry.

The flashbacks took [place over an extended period of time, it wasnt THAT fast

“ it’s still the best season yet ”

Well, it was for the first two episodes, but the three since then have been a downward spiral. Seasons one and two were much better than this week’s episode and last week’s.

I’ve enjoyed it all except for the Trill episode. I think it’s been fun with a faster pace.. which has helped with a lot of issues that haven’t gone away. Raynor has been a very welcome addition to the cast.

Overall, very entertaining!

For complaints: any other constitution ship would be cool – but I also feel like we don’t know what happens next – there could be some Prime Mirror Universe people out there. & the “hit it!” joke felt like Dad was in the writer’s room.

Otherwise, I the pairings felt very TOS. Rayner is a little bit Serious Scotty when performing a captain’s role. And he took pride in rescuing her – which is feels good.

For me, this season has been 5/5.

Personal Log. Stardate: Today.

Week 4 of not-watching Discovery continues without incident. Opinions gleaned from critics on the latest episode seem to confirm that ‘mid-season malaise’ has been reached right on schedule.

Based on the collective opinion of commentators, there have been a grand total of one episode out of five that qualifies as “actually good”.

In conclusion, it appears the decision to not-watch until the penultimate episode has been vindicated. The plot points I am privy to following the one episode I watched are:

– There is a chase (or ‘The Chase 2.0’) for the Holy Grail / the technological marvel Salmone Jens left behind.

– The Cylon is now the First Officer.

– The Trill and the Robot are no longer together.

All in all, I remain confident that the recap at the beginning of the penultimate episode should be sufficient to fill in all the key points required.

Again, my thanks go out to the resolute souls who manage to endure what I could not.

these threads are for people to talk about the episodes they have seen. CLOSED.

Am I wrong or did the DS9 episode Through the Looking Glass make a reference to the Mirror Spock being on Romulus? Also given all the DS9 cross overs with the Mirror Universe you would think Burnham would have known something more about her brother’s counterpart.

Wow! The Breen. From CGI to burn victim.

Does anybody think the Commander Rainer is gonna become the Commandant of Starfleet Academy?

Everything involving Book is incredibly tedious. They brought back the ISS Enterprise as a way to resurrect the OG Enterprise in continuity. Perhaps it ends up as the Enterprise Q or whatever, if Saru is in command then ok. Burnham insisting on going on the away mission is diametrically opposed to how TNG dealt with this – e.g., when Riker as captain insisted on boarding the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds, and his senior officers reminded him his place was on the bridge. I guess everyone got much dumber in the 32nd century, but “dumber” is Discovery’s whole concept.

This post missed an important Easter egg towards the end: Morn was at the bar “Red’s” just like he did on Quark’s on DS9.

We don’t call out or find every little egg, but when the bar was introduced last season we noted the Lurian (Morn’s species), who has been there ever since. We don’t usually do repeated easter egg bits for each episode

Yay! Good seeing the Breen again and their evolved design in the 32nd Century is great.

Boo! Pretty much everything else except Rayner who is the best character in the show.

Imagine they used the Star Trek: Tour set in Trekonderoga for the ISS Enterprise? What a cool surprise that would have been. But nope, we got the generic canon-breaking Discoprise. Not surprised.

I swear if they make the new Enterprise in the 3190s a refitted Constitution, I will facepalm. Just a stupid idea, when you have far superior tech and designs in the future time period. Please don’t, Disco-writers. Bad enough they did it with the Ent-G (one of my few criticisms of the great PIC S3).

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 Review: The Crew Solves Two of the Series’ Biggest Mysteries

While on the hunt for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5's powerful alien technology, Captain Michael Burnham solves two decades-old franchise mysteries.

The following contains spoilers from Star Trek: Discovery, Season 5, Episode 5, "Mirrors."

One thing about Star Trek: Discovery fans is they are very observant. The big surprise in Season 5, Episode 5, "Mirrors," was slightly spoiled by the trailers, particularly when these eagle-eyed fans captured and examined screenshots. While the return of the ISS Enterprise after 58 years is a big deal, there is more that happens in the episode than solving an old mystery from Star Trek: The Original Series . However, the answer that Captain Michael Burnham and Cleveland Booker uncover is a great one, and fans finally get a long-awaited first look at a mysterious alien species.

After dealing with the Time-Bug in the previous episode , the crew of the USS Discovery tries to figure out where Moll and L'ak disappeared to. While the space criminals have been very capable villains (almost too capable), they're not doing very well in the race. "Mirrors" marks the first time that Moll and L'ak put their hands onto one of the pieces of the Progenitors' puzzle before the Discovery crew. Of course, they aren't able to hold onto it for long after L'ak suffered a serious injury. Still, for the first time, both Burnham and Booker talk to their rivals, approaching them with the kind of compassion that Starfleet is known for. However, they still have to accomplish their mission, and L'ak's determination to be there for Moll gets in the way of any common ground they could've found. Thanks to flashbacks, viewers finally learn why the two are so eager to find this treasure, and where L'ak is coming from.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Continues To Put the USS Discovery in Classic Star Trek Situations

“mirrors” shows the crew rising to meet the challenge in classic star trek fashion, star trek: discovery's callum keith rennie shows a new side of starfleet.

From the lack of galaxy-ending stakes and major interpersonal drama among the crew, Season 5 is Stark Trek: Discovery at its most fun. This episode, in particular, is full of classic Star Trek moments, from forcing enemies to work together to sci-fi technobabble that provides a dramatic resolution to a major problem. The impetus for this race for the Progenitors' technology stems from Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Chase (Season 6, Episode 20)," but there are major connections to all eras of Gene Roddenberry's universe throughout the season.

While they don't get a lot of screentime, the USS Discovery's crew under Commander Rayner's authority is an equally interesting part of the episode. The recently-demoted captain is hesitant to take full command of the ship in a crisis. In "Jinaal (Season 5, Episode 3)," he took command while Burnham and the away team were down on the surface of Trill. Yet, as far as he knew, their lives and that of the crew weren't in serious danger. His focus was on finding Moll and L'ak, and personally connecting with the crew in 20 words or less. That's not to say that the stoic commander was above some of the series' most emotional beats.

An early scene in the episode, where Captain Burnham tells her new Number One that she believes in him, was subtle but touching . After Rayner showed that he studied Earth customs and sayings, such as "breaking the ice," Burnham returns the favor and cites a historical epic from the Kellerun people. This comes into play when she's able to reference that story later on as a distress call for herself and Book. Instead of badgering the crew, Rayner uses his newfound personal connections (and a friendly offer of Kellerun Citrus Mash) to inspire the crew to solve the problem. This was as classic a Star Trek moment as any, and one longtime franchise fans will surely love.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Reveals the Face of the Breen Imperium Through Moll and L'ak

Star trek fans have wondered what the breen looked like under their armor for decades, star trek: discovery's mary wiseman, wilson cruz and blu del barrio hype finale.

First introduced in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , the Breen Imperium was a galactic seat of power outside of Federation space who allied with the Dominion. The armored aliens look like something out of Star Wars , particularly their helmets, which were reminiscent of Princess Leia's Boussh disguise in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi . The Breen's appearance and who they really were was one of the most enduring mysteries in Star Trek canon. Even the Dominion didn't know what their Breen allies looked like under the armor. Star Trek: Discovery finally reveals the armor keeps their bodies in a translucent, almost liquid-like state. L'ak, as viewers have seen them, are what the Breen call their "other face."

Moll originally teamed up with L'ak to cheat the Imperium out of some faulty dilithium, a commodity that became scarce because of the Burn . They soon fell in love and when L'ak's uncle, the Primarch of the Sixth Fleet, found out, he ordered L'ak to kill Moll. He instead killed his uncle's guards, but spared the Primarch because, as L'ak said, "he raised me." This defiance earned him an "Erigah," a Breen bounty that is impossible to lift. He now hopes that bringing the Progenitors' technology to the Primarch will lift this death sentence.

Moll also bonded with her quasi-brother Cleveland Booker, though he's the fourth to use that name. Her father was the third Booker, which made him desperate to "save" Moll. Knowing that all she really wants is to live a quiet life, "Mirrors" could be the start of Moll and L'ak eventually joining forces with the USS Discovery crew. Captain Burnham is, after all, a big fan of second chances and redemption . If Season 5 is to have a big villainous threat, it will clearly be the Breen trying to collect on L'ak's Erigah, not two petty criminals.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Reveals What Happened to the Mirror Universe Enterprise

The iss enterprise was introduced in star trek: the original series “mirror, mirror (season 2, episode 4)”, star trek: discovery actors doug jones & david ajala prepare for their last adventure.

"Mirrors" also reveals another, older Star Trek secret, specifically the ultimate fate of the ISS Enterprise, formerly under the command of Tiberius Kirk . Previously, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Crossover (Season 2, Episode 23)" revealed what happened to the Mirror Spock and the Terran Empire. He started the revolution that Kirk suggested and was successful in conquering the Terran Empire to usher in galactic peace. Unfortunately, an alliance of Klingons and Cardassians attacked their weakened forces and took over the galaxy -- or at least the sector containing the Cardassian and Bajoran territory. The fate of Spock himself and his flagship was left open for other storytellers to explore.

Star Trek: Discovery still leaves Spock's ultimate fate an open question, though it seems unlikely that he would have fled his universe. His ship, however, became a refugee vessel for Terran reformers who fled, either in the face of Klingon-Cardassian attacks or a resurgence of the Terran Empire's xenophobic and warlike ways . Their goal was to cross over to the Prime Universe, where they knew the universe they hoped to build already existed. Along with Doctor Cho, the Federation scientist who hid the clue, the Mirror version of Saru (who also became a revolutionary) came with them. This placed the crossover sometime in the Kelpien lifespan, but close enough for Doctor Cho to still be alive. The use of the ship at all is mostly fan service, but it doesn't take away from the story's importance.

In Star Trek: Disocovery Season 3, a holographic interrogator told Philippa Georgiou, the former Terran Empress, that there was a subatomic "chimeric strain on the Terran stem cell" which explained their "evil" natures. Georgiou doubted this, and the ISS Enterprise's refugees are more evidence that the Empress was right. The ideal of Star Trek is that anyone welcomed into this utopian society would discover the logic and practicality of Federation morality, and thus abandon their more outdated worldviews. It obviously worked on Dr. Cho, who hid the clue to the Progenitors' technology instead of using it like a Terran out to reshape an ordered universe in their vainglorious image .

Moll & L'ak Are Bigger Wildcards Than Starfleet's 'New' Enterprise

Star trek: discovery season 5 suggests the uss discovery is headed for a confrontation with the breen imperium, star trek: discovery's sonequa martin-green embarks on one final voyage.

Thanks to the crew of the USS Discovery, the Federation is now in possession of a 23rd Century Constitution-class Terran warship. That said, its value is likely little more than that of an ancient relic from the Terran dimension. If anything, the dilithium left in the ship's stores is worth more than the rest of the ship's parts put together. However, one piece of it -- a warp-capable Terran life-support and escape vessel called a warpod -- disappeared with Moll and L'ak inside of it. The Breen's fate is an open question, but Moll will certainly return for the final piece of the puzzle. She doesn't have to solve the clues; she just has to follow Booker.

This episode is the middle point of Star Trek: Discovery 's final season , and the crew are just two pieces away from the full clue device. The race against Moll and L'ak will probably end in three episodes at most, leaving two for a different, more difficult mission. Whether or not L'ak survives, the Erigah placed on his head means that the Breen and the USS Discovery are headed for conflict. It's looking more likely that Star Trek: Discovery is going to go out with a big space battle. Star Trek is a sci-fi action-adventure story, too, which makes episodes like these even more special.

Star Trek: Discovery examines the kinds of big questions that Star Trek is supposed to. A happy ending for some of the "good" Terrans is reminiscent of how Picard brought the Borg into the Federation . In this universe, the heroes don't defeat their enemies; they convince them to become their allies. As Commander Hugh Culber and

Sylvia Tilly discussed in the lounge at the end of "Mirrors," the characters of this universe are essentially going to meet God, and not that phony one on Sha'Ka Ree. The fights ahead will be fun, but the biggest challenge facing Star Trek: Discovery from this episode onwards is making the discovery of the Progenitors' "prize" as meaningful as it needs to be.

Star Trek: Discovery debuts new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery

• Moll and L'ak get overdue screentime to tell their side of the story.
• Commander Rayner begins to find his place as a true member of the USS Discovery crew.
• The fate of Mirror Saru and the other Terrans is good Star Trek storytelling.
• Moll and L'ak's escape feels convenient, continuing the 'cards-down' approach to their telling story.
• The use of the ISS Enterprise could reasonably be called 'fan service' because the ship itself means nothing to the characters.
• The choice to keep the sequences on the ISS Enterprise so dark might be visually unappealing to some viewers.

Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Captain Kirk (Shatner) in the classic  Star Trek episode "The Man Trap"

The classic  Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was a breakthrough role for Shatner

Heather Locklear and James Darren costarred with Shatner in T.J. Hooker

William shatner on his classic tv roles, from  twilight zone to  star trek, the emmy-winning actor boldly goes for a trip down tv memory lane..

William Shatner 's decades-long relationship with fame began on the theatrical stage as a young Canadian actor before American television helped turn him into one of the medium's most noteworthy stars. 

With roles like the traumatized airline passenger aboard the classic Twilight Zone   episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," and, of course, his most famous part — S tar Trek 's Captain James T. Kirk — Shatner would spend more than five decades becoming a load-bearing column of pop culture. His landmark career, with all its considerable peaks (winning two Emmys for his role as attorney Denny Crane on The Practice   and Boston Legal ) and valleys (the cancellation of Star Trek ), is the subject of his latest documentary, You Can Call Me Bill . The doc, directed by Alexandre O. Phillippe, weaves key moments and events from Shatner's life and profession with the 93-year-old actor's preoccupation with his own mortality — which seems sparked by his recent trip into space at the age of 90 on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket.

In the documentary, a vulnerable Shatner reflects on his talents by saying: "Every human being is limited by who they are." If his industrious career is any indication, he seems to be the exception to the very limits he speaks of. With the pending release of You Can Call Me Bill on VOD April 26, Shatner spoke with the Television Academy and reflected on some of his most memorable TV roles and experiences. 

Television Academy: I know it's been a long, long time, but how was your experience working with the late director Richard Donner on  The   Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet?" 

William Shatner:  I had come from live television out of New York and Donner was a very prolific director. I had worked with him several times prior in live television. So we were more or less friends, pretty good acquaintances. So when he called, it was like an old buddy saying, "let's do this thing." And when I read it — I was of two minds. I mean, it could be laughed at. And then when I saw the suit that the Czechoslovakian acrobat was dressed in, I thought, "well, I hope this isn't laughed at." This is good for laughs, at least.

The last thing we shot was the last shot of the episode, where my character is being carried away on the stretcher. And [while shooting], I remember thinking: "I hope that everybody takes this thing the way it was meant to be [taken], and not laugh at it." Since we're talking about it more than 60 years later, my hope seems to have come true.

Moving on to T.J. Hooker ,  1982 was a significant year for your career — with this series airing March 1982 ahead of the June premiere of  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . How did this role, which was a significant departure for you at the time, come about?

Well, before the exigencies of television got ahold of it, it was meant to be about a cop who hadn't progressed into the modern police age. So the complex idea for  T.J. Hooker was this cop trying to work himself into the modern age. At its best, the show did that. And, at its worst, it was a good cop show. 

The series went from ABC to CBS for its fourth season. Can you recall why that change happened, and how that impacted you? 

I wasn't aware. I just knew it was happening, to the best of my recollection. As long as it went on the air — on   somebody's air —   I was happy.

And T.J. Hooker  afforded you opportunities to direct, as well. How was directing television different or maybe more exciting for you than, say, directing feature films, like your feature directorial debut, 1989's  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ?

Well, in television directing, the common knowledge is you're good for [getting] one artistic shot a day. Meaning a director gets that shot and you're busy doing close-ups for the rest of the day — just getting in and getting out. So I would try to take advantage of that time to set up a good shot —  whether the camera was moving, or whether it was an artistic shot where I'd want the lighting a certain way. It all took time, and I had to ration the importance of [getting] that shot that I would have thought of that morning or the night before. And I would fight to get it in, and then stick to getting fairly close shots from then on in the interest of time. So, when I got to direct a feature, I was armed with the knowledge of how to save time while filming.

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Star trek: voyager's janeway becoming ripley from alien explained by producer.

Brannon Braga explained his surprising inspiration for the Star Trek: Voyager season 3 episode where Captain Janeway becomes Ripley from Alien.

• Captain Janeway's "Ripley" moments in "Macrocosm" left a notable impact on Star Trek: Voyager.
• Brannon Braga didn't intend to copy Alien with "Macrocosm," instead wanting to create a dialogue-light episode.
• "Macrocosm" allowed Janeway to showcase new action-hero qualities while retaining her core characteristics.

Star Trek: Voyager 's Executive Producer Brannon Braga explained his real inspiration behind the episode where Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) becomes Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) from Alien . Although both Voyager and Alien are science fiction, there are a lot of differences between the Star Trek and Alien franchises. While Alien focuses on blending horror and suspense with its sci-fi elements, Star Trek almost always takes a more optimistic approach to the future. However, there are occasionally Star Trek episodes that take on more of a horror twist .

One such episode was Voyager season 3, episode 12, "Macrocosm," where an alien virus managed to take over the USS Voyager, mutating to grow at least a meter in length and then proceeding to make Voyager 's cast of characters very sick. As the lone un-infected, Captain Janeway was forced to mount a guerrilla attack on the viruses while the Doctor (Robert Picardo) worked on finding a cure. Along with similar premises, "Macrocosm" seemed to take a lot of influence from Alien , especially in how it portrayed Janeway as its heroine.

Every Upcoming Star Trek Movie & TV Show

Star trek: voyager’s janeway “alien” episode explained by executive producer, braga's intention wasn't actually to copy alien.

Despite Janeway's crusade against the viruses in "Macrocosm" often being compared to Ellen Ripley, Brannon Braga, who wrote the episode's story, claimed it wasn't his intention to create a tribute to Alien . In an interview with Cinefantastique around the time of the episode's release, Braga stated that "Macrocosm" actually rose out of a desire to do a solo character story with very little dialogue , and implied that any comparisons between Janeway and Ripley were completely unintentional. Read Braga's full quote below:

"Sometimes Star Trek can be a little high-and-mighty, talky, moralistic. Sometimes it's just time to have fun. The intention actually began, on my part, to do an episode with no dialogue. I wanted to just do a purely cinematic episode with Janeway and a bunch of weird creatures, these macroviruses, viruses as life-sized creatures. Unfortunately it was impossible to do, and I ended up having to put a couple of acts of dialogue in. I just wanted to do something that felt and looked and smelled differently than most shows. It was not an attempt to make Janeway look like Ripley."

Despite Braga's protestations, it is hard not to see the numerous similarities between Janeway and Sigourney Weaver's iconic Alien role in "Macrocosm." Stripped down to her uniform's undershirt and equipped with a large phaser rifle for defense, Janeway embodied the recognizable sci-fi "final girl" aesthetic popularized by Weaver's portrayal of Ripley in the first Alien film from 1979 . Given what a recognizable character Ripley is thanks to Alien 's popularity, it's no wonder that "Macrocosm" became such a memorable episode of Voyager after it aired.

Why Captain Janeway’s “Ripley” Moments In Star Trek: Voyager Are Still So Popular

"macrocosm's" version of janeway is still extremely well-liked.

Despite not being one of Voyager 's most popular episodes, Janeway's "Ripley" scenes in "Macrocosm" left an indelible mark on the series. This is likely due to what a departure Janeway's actions and aesthetic were from how she was usually portrayed on Voyager . "Macrocosm" allowed Janeway to be a true action hero , showing that she was able to handle more than just the scientific and diplomatic aspects of being a Captain.

However, Janeway never lost what made her such a popular character in the first place, including her stubborn determination and fierce loyalty to her crew. Her nearly single-handed defeat of the macrovirus perfectly demonstrated how far she was willing to go to make sure everyone under her protection was safe. The macrovirus itself also likely contributed to the episode's popularity , and demonstrated its longevity when it was brought back as part of Star Trek: Lower Decks ' tribute episode to Voyager , "Two-vix." Lower Decks helped remind audiences just how iconic "Macrocosm" was for Star Trek: Voyager season 3.

Source: Cinefantastique , Vol. 29

Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+ Alien is available to stream on Hulu

Star Trek: Voyager

*Availability in US

Not available

The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they've never faced before. 

Alien (1979)

Alien is a sci-fi horror-thriller by director Ridley Scott that follows the crew of a spaceship known as the Nostromo. After the staff of the merchant's vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, its landing on the source moon finds one of the crew members attacked by a mysterious lifeform, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.