{"id":208129,"date":"2025-12-24T06:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208129\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T06:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:16:08","slug":"star-trek-confirms-two-original-series-characters-are-returning-in-strange-new-worlds-but-not-in-the-way-fans-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208129\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek Confirms Two Original Series Characters Are Returning in Strange New Worlds (But Not in the Way Fans Want)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Star Trek<\/a> fans have been waiting for years now to see the Strange New Worlds<\/a> spinoff series get to a pivotal era in the Star Trek timeline: the period where Captain Christopher Pike\u2019s (Anson Mount) time with the USS Enterprise and its crew bleeds into the era where Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) takes over and leads his crew on all those now-famous expeditions through space. Well, now comes reports that we\u2019re getting just that, but probably not in the way that most Star Trek fans hoped. <\/p>\n

Thomas Jane (The Punisher, The Mist, The Expanse) has reportedly been cast as Dr. Leonard \u201cBones\u201d McCoy in Star Trek: Stranger Things Season 5; meanwhile, newcomer actor Kai Murakami will play Star Trek TOS character Lt. Hikaru Sulu. But don\u2019t expect to see much of either actor onscreen\u2026 <\/p>\n

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Reveals Its Endgame<\/p>\n

\"\"Thomas Jane will play Bones McCoy \/ Lionsgate \u2013 Paramount<\/p>\n

The key detail in this casting news is that Strange New Worlds is saving these big Original Series character reveals for a key moment: the final one. According to THR, McCoy and Sulu \u201cwill appear in the final episode of the upcoming fifth and final season, which recently wrapped production.\u201d<\/p>\n

That pretty much spells out the ending moments of Strange New Worlds, for any savvy Star Trek fan who is paying attention: Kirk taking over the captain\u2019s chair on the bridge of the Enterprise, with a rebooted crew around him, including Spock (Ethan Peck), McCoy, and Sulu. Granted, that\u2019s pretty much the ending of the series that most Star Trek fans expected \u2013 and pretty much the only one the series could deliver \u2013 but it could still end up being powerful, given the context. <\/p>\n

Strange New Worlds\u2019 Ending Will Be Bittersweet<\/p>\n

\"SpockParamount<\/p>\n

Strange New Worlds was a spinoff of the Star Trek: Discovery TV series, which started as a prequel story to the Original Series (before time-hopping into the distant future of Star Trek). The entire premise of Strange New Worlds hinged on Captain Pike getting to see the vision of his own horrific injury, and choosing to still live the life and pursue the Starfleet mission directives that will ultimately lead him to his fate. Captain Pike\u2019s heroic sacrifice and his living hell afterward, horribly disfigured and trapped within a withered, paralyzed body, became deeply formative milestones for Captain Kirk to evolve into the noble leader he became.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all to say, when Kirk finally stands alongside Bones, Sulu, and the rest, he (and the audience) will feel the resonance of Pike\u2019s legacy and presence in the franchise, which Anson Mount has cemented for good. <\/p>\n

During Comic Con 2025, Star Trek producer Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers teased that these recast versions of Bones and Sulu could have a future in the franchise \u2013 via the proposed \u201cStar Trek: Year One\u201d series that we see Kirk and his new crew working through their initial rough patches to become a unified crew. <\/p>\n

\u201cNothing would make us happier than to be able to continue telling the stories of how Pike\u2019s crew transitions to Kirk\u2019s crew and how Kirk\u2019s crew sets off,\u201d Myers told EW<\/a>. \u201cObviously, when we come into\u00a0TOS\u00a0[The Original Series], it\u2019s not the first day of the job\u2026. Fundamentally, there are relationships that already exist. How did they happen? And, obviously, we have the opportunity for Sulu, and we have the opportunity for McCoy in a longer life, and the opportunity for Chekov. So it would be awesome to be able to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Paramount+. Season 5 will premiere in 2026. Talk about the show with us on the ComicBook Forum<\/a>! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Star Trek fans have been waiting for years now to see the Strange New Worlds spinoff series get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,3282,57251,51828,6254,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-208129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-paramount","12":"tag-regular-news","13":"tag-star-trek","14":"tag-star-trek-strange-new-worlds","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}