Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cast reveal includes major character returns

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is bringing back a few original series characters.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has already brought us three characters introduced in the original Star Trek series, aka TOS. Anson Mount will suit up as Captain Christopher Pike, while Ethan Peck will put on his pointy-Spock ears once again and Rebecca Romijn is again Number One aka Una Chin-Riley. All three debuted as these iconic characters during the second season of Discovery.

All three of those characters were originally introduced in the original canceled pilot of Star Trek in the 60s  before being made canon due to the two-part Star Trek episode The Menagerie. That episode saw those characters get brought back in archived scenes. Pike, Spock, and Chin-Riley aren’t the only ones from the Original Series coming aboard the new show, however. Joining the crew will be Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel.

Chapel is of course the second character that Majel Barrett played during her run with Star Trek. The first being Romijn’s character, Number One. Chapel isn’t the biggest name from the original series popping up on the cast list, either

An Original Series star joins Strange New Worlds

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Arguably the biggest surprise of the reveal was that Celia Rose Gooding will be playing Cadet Nyota Uhura. Uhura was famously played by Nichelle Nichols on the original show, before continuing on with the film crew as well. She’d later be played by Zoe Saldana in the J.J. Abrams-led film franchise, also known as the Kelvin Universe.

Another original series character is joining the crew is Dr. M’Benga, who will be played by Babs Olusanmokun. Dr. M’Benga only appeared in two episodes of the Original Series, so it appears as though Strange New Worlds will look to expand his significance with the franchise.

Also joining the crew is Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh, who bears the surname of the villainous Khan Noonien-Singh. Clearly, there’s a connection here, but no one knows what it is just yet.  The last two announced for the crew are Bruce Horak as Hemmer and Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas.