“Going off what Leonard Nimoy once said about Spock…”
Leonard Nimoy’s importance to the Star Trek franchise can’t be overstated. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of the fans that Strange New Worlds actress Melissa Navia took a page out of the legendary Mr. Spock actor’s playbook, in regard to the relationship with her own Trek character, Lt. Erica Ortegas. Navia said in an interview (per TrekMovie.com):
“I’m incredibly proud of her. Kind of going off what Leonard Nimoy once said about Spock, Erica Ortegas is my best friend. I know her so well inside and out, and it is the highest compliment as an actor to receive and hear from fans of the audience that they want to see more of that character and not less.”
Nimoy's journey as Mr. Spock began over 60 years ago when he first played the character in the Jeffrey Hunter-led Star Trek pilot "The Cage." His standout moment came just over 15 year later, though, when Captain Spock sacrificed himself to save the crew of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
And over time, Nimoy developed a very special relationship with the fictional character he portrayed. "Spock is definitely one of my best friends," Nimoy said in an interview (per StarTrek.com) several years after he last portrayed the beloved Vulcan in director J.J. Abrams' Into Darkness. "When I put on those ears, it's not like just another day. When I become Spock, that day becomes something special."
Navia, who has portrayed Lt. Ortegas since Strange New Worlds debuted in May 2022, continued during her same sit-down with TrekMovie by saying:
“Erica’s standalone episode [“Terrarium”] in season 3 was just dream come true. But to be able to do that alongside legacy characters, alongside incredible new characters, has just been a joy, a blast, every actor’s dream […] And we also have season 5 coming up. So, lots of coming up.”
In my opinion, Lt. Ortegas’ standout moment from the entirety of Strange New Worlds remains the aforementioned season 3 masterpiece, “Terrarium.” The must-see episode is by far and away one of the streaming series’ most complex, rewarding, and ultimately heartbreaking character studies.
Trapped on a desolate moon with a mysterious Gorn and forced to take drastic measures in order to survive, Lt. Ortegas must team up with the alien from a race of beings who have been the sworn enemies of Starfleet for virtually the entire run of Strange New Worlds.
I don’t want to spoil the episode for those who might be new to the Star Trek fandom, but the genuine friendship that forms between Ortegas and the female Gorn ultimately leads to one of the most gut-wrenching Strange New Worlds endings of the entire series.
And one of the things I was surprised by in Strange New Worlds season 4 is that showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman didn’t explore the consequences of “Terrarium,” especially when it comes to how the final scene on the moon played out between the Gorn pilot, Ortegas, and the USS Enterprise’s security chief, La’An Noonien Singh (Christina Chong).
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Live long and prosper, Trekkies!
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