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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds boldly went into the Whoverse.
And their mission nearly included a full-blown crossover between the Enterprise crew and Doctor Who, before settling for an Easter egg in the July 23 episode “Valles Marineris.”
“I think I was in a phone box at the time,” Commander Pelia (Carol Kane) remarked, a nod to both The Doctor’s TARDIS and past discussions with the BBC mainstay’s former overseer Russell T Davies.
“We really did talk to Russell for a while about crossing over the two shows,” Strange New Worlds co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman revealed to SYFY Wire in an exclusive interview. “Not just, ‘Hey, wouldn't it be a fun idea,’ but how to do it. How narratively it would work.”
The two even brainstormed when the crossover would air, how to merge the production aesthetics and the possibility of a two-part episode.
“Ultimately, there were too many corporate hurdles,” the Batman & Robin writer explained. “The idea went the way a lot of ideas go in Star Trek: really lovely and unfulfilled.”
While unfulfilled, Pelia’s anecdote canonized the offscreen mind melding for two of pop culture’s biggest franchises.
“The promise was obviously beguiling. It has happened before in comics,” Goldsman shared. “We went: let's assume it did happen. Let’s follow our hearts when it comes to the idea and do our little bit to connect them.”
Speaking of worlds colliding, Spock (Ethan Peck) and Kirk (Paul Wesley) are warping toward the stardate timeframe of the original series.
“I think the writers do such a great job of leading them into their very interesting and conflict-filled relationship,” Peck detailed to SYFY Wire. “It's really fun to kind of bring in so much suspicion of Kirk from the perspective of Spock, because everyone's just trying to do their best.”
Indeed, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy’s onscreen bond endures nearly 60 years later, but that doesn’t mean their Starfleet officers clicked from day one.
“It has to be earned. It can't just be assumed,” Wesley shared with SYFY Wire. “I think providing that context is such a joy, given it's one of the most iconic friendships in the history of television.”
Season four of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Paramount+, with new episodes dropping Thursdays.
