Three original characters to appear Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is being hyped as a return to the Star Trek fans remember and want, and they’re doing everything possible to, like building the show around classic and iconic characters that fans know and love. The core cast of characters having already been introduced in Star Trek: Discovery and were revealed to be Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One aka Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn).
The rest of the characters for the series include Lt. Erica Ortegas, Hemmer, and original series characters Nyota Uhura, Dr. M’Benga, and Christine Chapela. They also created a character who appears with apparent ties to a future/former Star Trek villain in La’an Noonien-Singh.
The series has already added six original series characters, so why not some more? While they did a great job building the cast, there are still some characters that would make sense to appear in the proper context and Strange New Worlds should absolutely go down this route.
It should be emphasized that none of these characters should be used in a starring capacity, save for maybe one in season two should the series get greenlit for it. The other two should be used specifically as characters that interact with the main crew in one or two episodes top.
While some fans may not like the idea of revisiting some of these characters, if not all, this show is a return to form, allegedly, and if the show can be bolstered by a few known characters then it should.
James Kirk
While some won’t like the idea of bringing in James Kirk, him being involved in some proximity makes sense. For this entry and the next, the idea wouldn’t be to have Kirk on the Enterprise but used in more of an occasional guest start. Someone that the crew runs into while they’re out on their adventures.
Maybe he’s in the brig for disobeying a superior officer or getting chased down by a jealous ex, or a jealous ex’s boyfriend. Putting him on the Enterprise itself would seem to re-write some more history than needed. While the new series has done plenty of retconning, you don’t really want to keep doing that.
The fanbase has already had enough people turn away from Nu Trek, the last thing you need to do is find new reasons to turn people away. Keep Kirk as an accessory character, something to add to the plot of an episode, not to change the course of the series.
Bringing him in would also give Captian Christopher Pike a chance to influence Kirk, and lay the seeds of who he’ll eventually become. While Spock did serve/will serve under Pike on the Enterprise, that doesn’t mean that Pike wouldn’t have had a far-reaching impact on many Starfleet officers.
Khan Noonien Singh
Now, before anyone loses their minds and starts talking about the idea of canon and when did Khan Noonien Singh actually get woken up and yadda yadda yadda, the idea behind using Khan would be more in a flashback sense. With his ancestor apparently being one of Captain Pike’s bridge officers, it would make sense that she wants to explore her past.
That would be the perfect way to bring in Khan. Maybe you can bring back Benedict Cumberbatch in the role, or you could always recast him. Recasting him would allow you to also consider the Ceti Alpha V series that’s long been rumored.
While Cumberbatch may make for a great cameo, it really doesn’t seem the fiscally responsible move. Moreover, there’s still a negative taste in some fan’s mouths from his turn as Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness. So recasting the role may also get fans into the idea of seeing Khan again, be it in as a special guest star role in Strange New Worlds, or in a starring role in the long-rumored Ceti Alpha V series.
Seeing how Khan rose to infamy and how he fell would be one hell of a storyline for any Star Trek series to explore.
Phillip Boyce
For those unfamiliar, Phillip Boyce was the original doctor on the Enterprise when the cast and crew shot The Cage, the original pilot of the series. The series had a lot of changes and Dr. Boyce was removed from the show but he did still have an appearance in The Menagerie, which repurposed The Cage to tell a different story. One where Spock was attempting to help Captain Pike now confined to a machine that was basically keeping him alive.
The series recontextualized the pilot to be more of an origin story of Spock and Pike’s friendship and time together while serving aboard the Enterprise. Boyce was the ship’s doctor during this time but as Strange New Worlds has introduced a different doctor, one presumed to be the ship’s chief medical officer, Boyce would need to be brought in similar to Kirk. As a character to build an episode or two around.
The reason to bring in Boyce centers around who you’d cast as him. Otherwise, there’s no real point in bringing him. He offers nothing different to the series that another medical character couldn’t fill.
So who do you bring in to play Boyce? Jeffrey Combs of course. Not counting the Hologram-Shran, Combs played 17 characters across Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. Granted eight of them were just different Weyouns.
Combs is a fan favorite among the fanbase and there were some who were pushing for him to be cast as Boyce. Since they didn’t use the character among the main cast for the show, using him as a guest star is still a possibility.