Anson Mount on dealing with Captain Pike’s future

Anson Mount picks up the mantle as Captain Pike in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere on May 5th on Paramount+, bringing back a captain whose career began long before Captain Kirk led the Enterprise in seeking out new life and new civilizations. Captain Christopher Pike, portrayed by Anson Mount, first returned in Star Trek: Discovery’s second season, and it was during that time that he learned what his future holds.

In the Discovery episode “Through the Valley of the Shadows,” Pike is inspecting a cadet when a radiation leak occurs. Pike manages to save all of the cadets who are still alive, but he was caught in the automatic lockdown when delta radiation reached critical levels.  Though Pike survives, he is confined to a type of automatic life support where he can only communicate by blinking. That’s where he stays until Spock intervenes in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “The Menagerie” and takes him back to Talos IV where he can live out the remainder of his life with the illusion that he isn’t incapacitated.

Anson Mount says Captain Pike doesn’t fear his own death.

In an interview with Trekmovie, Mount said that Pike cares more about the crew then himself, and his dilemna isn’t over knowing his future but whether or not he can still take care of his crew with that knowledge looming over him.

"“But I did know that every time a crew member walks through the doors of his office, the most important thing in the room is not Pike. It’s not even necessarily the question. It’s the crew member. He has to care about them above and beyond his own sense of self. That’s why his existential crisis [over learning his fate] at the beginning of the series is not his own fear of death. It’s ‘Can I continue to serve as a captain when I’m dealing with this? Am I going to be able to be responsible for hundreds of people who serve under me dealing with this crisis?’ And how do we as people telling the story, not ignore that, but find a way through that? And that leads into further development of character.”"

So while Pike’s future will be on his mind, he’ll have to push it aside to continue to lead the crew. It will be interesting to see how the series chooses to allow Mount to explore the emotions tied to the future awaiting Pike and whether or not that future will be shared with other members of the crew.