“We’re not the first people to imagine intersections between the [Whoniverse] and ours."
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 wouldn’t have been quite the same if showrunners and executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers hadn’t paid homage to Doctor Who yet again. In the very first episode of 2026, "Valles Marineris," Commander Pelia (Carol Kane) teased having been in The Doctor’s time-traveling phone box known as the TARDIS. And Myers even narrowed down which of the Doctors Pelia knew.
“I’m not going to say it, but maybe somewhere in the one to four range,” Myers said in an interview (per TV Insider). Given Myers answer, Pelia obviously made the trek through the Whoniverse with either the First Doctor (William Hartnell), the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), or my personal favorite from this group: The Fourth Doctor.
Personally, I like to think of Pelia traveling through time in the TARDIS with Tom Baker, who became the Fourth Doctor at the conclusion of season 11’s “Planet of the Spiders: Part Six.” Another reason I'm so fond of this particular iteration of the character is that Baker has the distinction of playing the beloved science fiction legend more than any other actor, and Pelia would have fit in perfectly with him and his companions.
As mentioned before, Strange New Worlds season 4 wasn’t the first time the showrunners teased a possible link between their Star Trek and Doctor Who series. During the USS Enterprise’s encounter with Asaasllich, the Destroyer of Worlds in the SNW season 3 episode “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” The Doctor’s TARDIS can be seen outside of the Federation starship oh-so briefly.
Strange New Worlds co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman added during the same sit-down: “It’s big out there. And I think we’re not the first people to imagine intersections between the [Whoniverse] and ours. So, we’re just going along for the ride.”
Would you like to see a live-action Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover as much as I do in the future? Share your thoughts and comments with us on the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages.
Until such a time comes, though, I encourage those who haven’t read it to check out the time the crew of the USS Enterprise-D encountered the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) in the pages of the comic book mini-series Assimilation².
Live long and prosper, Trekkies.
Add us as a preferred source on Google