"You’ll get to learn more about Nahla, a lot more about Nahla, actually."
Academy Award winner Holly Hunter knocked her portrayal of Nahla Ake out of the park in season 1 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. However, fans didn’t get to know much about the chancellor and captain’s backstory, except that she felt guilty about separating Caleb Mir and his mother for 15 years.
Well, according to executive producer and co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman, Nahla will take center stage during season 2. “New characters will introduce new problems in season 2, and those problems are going to ripple through our cadets, and it’s going to shake things up a bit,” Kurtzman said in an interview with TV Insider.
“You might find romances between characters that you could never have expected," Kurtzman continued. "And let’s see, what else can I say? You’ll get to learn more about Nahla, a lot more about Nahla, actually.”
Co-showrunner Noga Landau added during the same sit-down: “We go deep on Nahla in season 2. Also, Holly Hunter in season 2, it’s like an acting [dream].” Kurtzman responded by saying, “You might meet some of Nahla’s family members. Yeah, I’m going to leave [it] at that.”
Finally, Landau possibly dropped the biggest season 2 spoiler yet when she said, “Lanthanites are fun. Lanthanites are a fun ride.” For those who aren’t familiar with Hunter’s character, Nahla Ake is half-human, half-Lanthanite, and the latter allows her to live an almost limitless life.
In Starfleet Academy season 1, Nahla is 422 years old. However, Pelia (Carol Kane), who is strictly Lanthanite and appears in Strange New Worlds, is 5,000 years old! So, I think it will be a trip to meet Nahla’s Lanthanite relatives, who could possibly be old enough to have met and known classic Trek characters like James T. Kirk, William Riker, and Kathryn Janeway.
Kurtzman also told Collider in a separate interview: “I'm very excited about a particular new character that's being introduced in the second season, and then the way that the ripple effects of that character's arrival play out through the entirety of the season.”
I don’t know who Kurtzman is referring to (Lanthanite, hero, villain), but are you as excited as I am to learn more about Nahla Ake’s backstory in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 2? Share your thoughts and comments with us on the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages.
Live long and prosper, Trekkies!