Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is uniquely situated on the Trek timeline, showing us adventures that unfurled not long before the original series. That means that there’s no avoiding having some familiar character names popping up, and with that, the built-in fun of seeing, say, an iconic figure like Spock be played in a younger iteration, with Ethan Peck stepping in for Leonard Nimoy.
This fun change in perspective is something fans already experienced in J.J. Abrams’ alt-world Star Trek movies (featuring, for instance, Spock played by Zachary Quinto). And it’s also happened in other Trek series—remember when TOS rapscallion Harry Mudd popped up on Star Trek: Discovery? But no other Paramount+ release has leaned into the refreshed nostalgia harder than Strange New Worlds, to the point that fans who’ve met SNW versions of Spock, Chapel, Uhura, Kirk, and Scotty are starting to wonder when the rest of the gang is going to show up.
Speaking to Polygon, co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman explained that even though the show now has an endpoint in sight, he’s upbeat about the trajectory it was given. “[The studio] gave us the opportunity to get up to TOS. We’ve got to reach TOS to fulfill the promise to the fans, which was ‘What happens to all these people? How do they start to become those characters we know, and what happens to the ones we don’t see in canon?’”
With some key TOS legacy characters yet to appear—McCoy and Sulu especially—Goldsman teases hope but offers no guarantees.
“You will not see [all] of the original series crew before this show wraps,” he said, but did confirm to Polygon that other familiar faces will indeed turn up before SNW bids farewell. He didn’t specify which ones, of course, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns for its third season July 17 on Paramount+, with a fourth and (shortened) fifth (and final) season also on the way.
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