Star Trek: Strange New Worlds star Anson Mount comments on whether or not he will return as Captain Christopher Pike for season 2.
Anson Mount comments on whether he’ll return as Captain Christopher Pike for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2. All true Trek fans of course know that Pike was the captain of the Enterprise before the arrival of William Shatner’s James T. Kirk. And when Trek launches its latest Paramount+ series, the new show will explore this pre-Kirk era of the Enterprise, with Mount occupying the captain’s chair.
Mount’s version of Pike of course made his actual Star Trek universe debut in Star Trek: Discovery season 2, along with his once-and-future Enterprise crewmate Spock (Ethan Peck). While Discovery continues its ongoing Paramount+ mission, Pike and Spock will now spin off into their own adventures on Strange New Worlds, which promises to be an old-school episodic take on Star Trek. But in fact Pike won’t be the only famous Starfleet captain featured on the new show, as Kirk himself is set to appear too, with Paul Wesley taking on the role originated by Shatner in Star Trek: TOS.
The recent announcement that Kirk will also feature in the story on Strange New Worlds naturally has Star Trek fans wondering about plans for the show going forward. Will the series ultimately only focus on Pike’s Enterprise, or will it at some point depict the hand-off from Pike to his successor, thereby changing the show’s focus entirely? For his part, Pike actor Mount is not able to confirm whether Strange New Worlds will carry on to the years of Kirk’s command (via CinemaBlend):
We wanted to do a true prequel — PREQUEL — to the original series, and that is couched in the Pike years. But, as you know, in the world of TV scripting, one season does not necessarily correspond to one year. As we get into the show, there’s really… I’m not sure we’ve really demarcated how far time is progressing between seasons. So, I don’t know. We’ll see where it ends up. But, yeah, no, that would be a very different show.
Star Trek lore of course dictates that Pike commands the Enterprise for several years before handing over the reins to Kirk and later being promoted to fleet captain. But as Mount himself said in his new comments, he isn’t sure how much time actually passes during the course of Strange New Worlds season 1, let alone between season 1 and season 2. So it’s clearly still up-in-the-air whether Strange New Worlds will at some point leap ahead to Kirk’s time commanding the Enterprise. Fans of Star Trek: TOS of course know that Pike ultimately meets a sad fate, being badly injured in a training accident and winding up living out his life in a telepathically-induced hallucination on Talos IV.
Obviously a big part of the excitement of Strange New Worlds is in the fact that it intends to depict a period in Star Trek history that hasn’t been shown much in prior small screen properties. This being the case, it would arguably prove a disappointment if the show changed course in mid-stream and became a Kirk show instead of a Pike show. But it seems the door is in fact being left open for Kirk to take over, if producers ultimately decide it would be better for the show to switch gears. So fan reception to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1 may ultimately be the deciding factor in whether Mount gets to come back as Pike for season 2. Season 1 meanwhile is set to premiere on Paramount+ on May 5, 2022.
Source: CinemaBlend
About The Author
