Star Trek: Strange New World’s wild holodeck episode was intended to be a great tribute to two legends who brought The Original Series to life, aided by another Trek icon!
Strange New Worlds had a wild blast for fans with the fourth episode of season 3, “A Space Adventure Hour.” The plotline had La’an testing an early prototype for the holodeck by crafting a 1960s-set murder mystery involving the cast of a fictional sci-fi TV show called “The Last Frontier.”
The episode was marked by Paul Wesley doing a hysterical performance as the William Shatner-esque actor playing the TV captain. The show also had fun touches in the production, and that was all deliberate, according to director Jonathan Frakes.
Talking to Variety, Frakes (who, of course, played Will Riker in The Next Generation) shared details on the episode and how the cast relished not being in their usual costumes. Frakes worked with production designer Jonathan Lee, costume designer Bernadette Croft and cinematographer Maya Bankovic in crafting the episode well. That included lucking out in finding a mansion in Canada to film in and working the script to fit the surroundings.
While Frakes wanted to capture the vibe of the era and have fun with a Star Trek murder mystery, he also worked in tributes to two of the most important figures in Star Trek history.
Like any good holodeck episode, the story has characters with the likeness of the crew. That includes Una (Rebecca Romijn) as Sonny Lupino, a former actress turned producer. The character is based on Lucille Ball, who is an icon of TV comedy thanks to I Love Lucy. More importantly, Ball’s Desilu company was the one who got Star Trek on the air in the first place.
“She was a very big deal in the ’60s, she had an incredible amount of power, and apparently had a lot of good taste,” Frakes said. “She was smart and fearless, and she used her power to help keep that show alive. A lot of our murder-mystery is loosely based on that backstory — on Lucille Ball. It goes back to the ‘If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage’ part of show business.”
Croft crafted a mod cocktail dress from “the most expensive fabric we’ve ever bought on the show…We felt we could only buy the best for that character, you know?”
Another character is TK Bellows (Anson Mount, who plays Pike), the creator of the “Last Frontier” show. One look and anyone can tell the character is based on Gene Roddenberry, with Frakes using his own personal experience to coach Mount for the role.
“I had the privilege of working with Gene for three or four years before he died. Anson and I started really wanting to lean into Gene, and he asked me to get some tapes which I was able to track down from the Roddenberry Association. We were really into him doing Gene, but I think [executive producers] Akiva [Goldsman] and Henry [Alonso Myers] wanted us not to lean in too hard.”
Croft wanted his outfit to be subtle, but Mount wanted to add a belly and suede jacket, citing Roddenberry “was this bookish intellectual, but then he kind of turned, like a cut snake if he was in a bad mood or if someone crossed him. We ended up in a wonderful place where Anson created a character who, for better or for worse, anybody who knew him could see Gene. The voice specifically is brilliant, the physicality is so not Pike. Everybody had a ball playing in a different part of their toolbox.”
It all came together into an episode that celebrated Star Trek as much as mocking it and showed once more how Strange New Worlds strikes that balance between moving ahead in Star Trek lore while capturing the spirit of the original show.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.
More from Redshirts Always Die: