If you guessed that the Scottish voice heard chatting with Spock in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ Season 1 finale probably belonged to Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (played by James Doohan in the original Star Trek series), you were on the right path.
Co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers told TVLine during the Hollywood Critics Association’s TV Awards this past weekend that the voiceover cameo was “a little tease about the future,” since producers weren’t yet ready to introduce the beloved engineer into the Paramount+ series.
“Obviously, we were jumping forward seven years, to the same era as [the original Star Trek episode] ‘Balance of Terror,’’’ he explained. “We felt like he would be on the Enterprise at that point, but we didn’t want to commit to that character yet because that character is something we’re looking forward to in the future at some point on Strange New Worlds.”
The season ender also marked Paul Wesley’s on-screen debut as James T. Kirk — albeit in an alternate timeline. When the show returns for Season 2, we’ll meet the real Kirk, who is a lieutenant on the U.S.S. Farragut.
But the future captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise is “not yet the person who he is going to be,” Myers noted. “He has some stuff to figure out before he becomes that person.”
A young Kirk boarding Strange New Worlds next season also means that he’ll encounter new faces, like his eventual best friend Spock. Laying the groundwork for their iconic friendship is a tall order, which Myers said he doesn’t take lightly.
“We think about it every day,” he said. “In the moment, when they finally meet, we absolutely make a big moment of it and hope people will enjoy what we come up with.”