Trivia / Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

• Acting for Two: Anson Mount plays both Pike and a future version of himself in Episode 10.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • The writers used Anson Mount's own leadership style on the series as a way to help write Pike's character.
  • The dog that La'an/Princess Thalia carries around in "The Elysian Kingdom" is Christina Chong's own; Chong had suggested including her in the episode considering its reality-bending nature, and the "character" was written with the same name as the real pup.
• Dawson Casting: Paul Wesley is 39 playing a younger James T. Kirk - but Kirk was only 32 when he assumed command of the Enterprise (becoming, famously, the youngest captain in Starfleet) so Wesley is in all likelihood playing a character at least a decade younger than he is. In fact, Wesley is five years older than William Shatner was when he began playing Kirk. Fortunately, Paul Wesley is very much Older Than He Looks.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: The character of Hemmer is from the Aenar species of Andorians, who are blind. His actor, Bruce Horak, is himself blind in one eye and partially blind in the other.
• Dueling Works
  • Taking the place of parent series Star Trek: Discovery, Strange New Worlds faces Star Trek homage The Orville, now revamped with a Big Budget Beef-Up and the subtitle New Horizons. Comparisons are further raised with this series returning Star Trek to a tradition episodic format focusing on exploration and diplomacy with the cast once again led by The Captain, whilst The Orville relaxes the comedic elements which defined its launch as it moves from network television to streaming.
  • With Obi-Wan Kenobi, a prequel/interquel set a few years before the start of each franchises' respective starts focusing on fan favorite actors reprising their roles from previous entries in the franchise, and having been made thanks to fans requesting a continuation of their characters' journeys. While Kenobi will release on the 45th anniversary of Star Wars, SNW comes out a few weeks early on, ironically enough, May 5th (or "Revenge Of The Fifth").
• The Other Darrin: A necessity given that much of the character's original actors have passed on or are too old, but a few TOS characters will have new actors in this series, after Pike, Number One and Spock were originally recast in Star Trek: Discovery.
  • Babs Olusanmokun replaces Booker Bradshaw as Dr. Joseph M'Benga.
  • Celia Rose Gooding takes over the role of Nyota Uhura from Nichelle Nichols.
  • Jess Bush assumes the role of Nurse Christine Chapel from the late Majel Barrett Roddenberry (who also originated Rebecca Romijn's role).
  • Paul Wesley will assume the role of Captain James T. Kirk from William Shatner in Season 2 (though he does make an appearance in Season 1's finale first).
  • Adrian Holmes replaces the late James Doohan, who voiced the character on Star Trek: The Animated Series, as Robert April. Doohan's other more famous role as Montgomery Scott is taken over by Matthew Wolf during the Season 1 finale, albeit under the credit of "Engineer".
  • Dan Jeannotte replaces William Shatner as Captain Kirk's brother Sam. Shatner made a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance with a stick-on moustache as Sam's corpse in an episode of the original series; here, several years earlier, Sam is alive and well (moustache and all), serving as a science officer on the Enterprise.
  • Several roles from "Balance of Terror" were recast, with Matthew MacFadzean replacing the late Mark Lenard as the Romulan Commander, Ali Hassan taking over from Garry Walberg as Commander Hansen Al-Salah (the ill-fated overseer of Outpost 4), Megha Sandhu assuming the role of Angela Martine from Barbara Baldavin, and Ian Rayburn playing Robert Tomlinson instead of Stephen Mines.
• Refitted for Sequel: In a way. "The Cage" was created as the first pilot episode for TOS, but was passed over by NBC and reworked into "The Menagerie" for a framing device. Now, the adventures of Captain Pike and his crew before Kirk's time will at long last come to be seen.
• Role Reprise:
  • Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck return from Star Trek: Discovery as Captain Pike, Number One, and Spock respectively.
  • Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid will reprise their roles as Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler from Star Trek: Lower Decks for a crossover in Season 2.
• Sequel Gap: Executive producer Henry Alonso Myers has quipped, "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 [for this show], this is the longest pilot-to-series pickup in the history of television." "The Cage" was produced 55 years before this series was officially commissioned.
• Similarly Named Works: The name Strange New Worlds was previously used by Star Trek Expanded Universe novel licensee Pocket Books for a series of anthologies of fan-written short fiction.
• Troubled Production: To an extent, as the series was subject to the whims of the COVID-19 Pandemic, which prevented Jonathan Frakes from directing episodes of the series like usual, and put off production by a few months.
• What Could Have Been: Jonathan Frakes was going to direct episodes for Season 1, but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented this. He was, fortunately, allowed to direct episodes for Season 2.

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