Alongside a first teaser for 2025’s “Star Trek” streaming film, “Section 31,” more new material was revealed at Paramount’s big San Diego Comic-Con panel this weekend in the form of a five-minute look at “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” Season 3.
Even though “Strange New Worlds” won’t likely make a return loop until next year sometime, this encouraging clip depicts a funny scene where Pike (sporting an epic Vulcanized hair-do), and his crewmates pose as pure Vulcans for an emergency mission and are each injected with a revised Kerkhovian serum that alters their physiology into that of emotionless members of the noble Vulcan race.
Pike (Anson Mount), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), La’an (Christina Chong) and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) all get the customized jab and quickly morph from humans into logically-minded 100% Vulcans while chief engineer Pelia (Carol Kane) is upset that her transformation was not successful. Spock (Ethan Peck) is immediately alarmed at being the harsh target of their annoying, newly-gained intellectual superiority and being constantly reminded that he’s only half-Vulcan.
Doctor M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), Rebecca Romijn (Number One), and Martin Quinn (Montgomery Scott) look on in amusement as the four Vulcan officers adjust and adapt to their new mental prowess. We won’t spoil exactly what happens as the sequence progresses, but it showcases the cast’s smile-inducting chemistry, fine performances, and, as the old saying goes, “What could possibly go wrong?”
Strutting down the Enterprise’s hallway in a slow-motion saunter, all decked out in their Vulcan finest with Pike leading his poker-faced posse and confidently twirling his Vulcan Lirpa weapon, is truly a sight to behold. It perfectly exemplifies the tonal balancing act of the ambitious series and we’re most impressed at how showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers continue to pump out episodic gems season after season while still navigating amid traditional “Trek” territory.
“To see them in Vulcan makeup was really endearing,” Peck told Variety Studio during SDCC, regarding his fellow actors become Vulcans. “I did hand out a little bit of advice, but people really brought their own flavor and ideas to it.”
Spun off from “Star Trek: Discovery” in 2022, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” chronicles the adventures of Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock, Number One and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, a decade prior to Captain James T. Kirk taking the center seat, as they boldly venture into uncharted star systems in the Milky Way.
