‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Cast on Avoiding The Sophomore Slump — And That ‘Lower Decks’ Crossover

A spinoff of a spinoff is nothing new for Star Trek. But Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was a big question mark when it premiered last year. Featuring a handful of actors first introduced on Star Trek: Discovery, set on the Enterprise years before Captain Kirk took charge, bringing the franchise back to done-in-one adventures instead of the ongoing serialized structure embraced by the shows for decades… There are a lot of ways Strange New Worlds could have gone wrong.

Instead, it boldly embraced the modern look of Star Trek series while harkening back to The Original Series, the one that started it all. And in a rare example of solidarity, both critics and fans loved the show. Now, with Season 2 premiering on Paramount+ this Thursday, is the pressure off? Or is it even higher, now that viewers are expecting the high quality the umpteenth Star Trek series delivers?

“It’s a tremendous relief because obviously the show did so much better than we had even hoped,” Anson Mount, who plays Captain Christopher Pike in the series, told Decider. “And then you do realize at a certain point, okay, we have to, we have to continue to deliver. We can’t relax here. Because we are all aware of those shows that stumbled in their sophomore outing. And we certainly didn’t want to be one of those.”

Avoiding a Sophomore Slump is no easy feat, but Strange New Worlds had a relatively simple way of dodging that particular bullet. Melissa Navia, who plays helmsman Erica Ortegas, noted that the show was already in production on that second season when Season 1 aired. Meaning any celebration of fan reaction was muted thanks to actually needing to make the darn show. And in fact, when that positive reception did hit the set, it made the team work even harder to deliver on the second season.

“It really energized us that everything we thought about Strange New Worlds was landing with the fans, and with the world,” Navia said. “In season one I felt more pressure to get it right because we felt that so much was riding on what Star Trek in Strange New Worlds was going to be, that when season two came around we were just like ‘yeah! This is working!'”

“What’s fortunate for us is that we’re working with a very bold set of writers within a very smart network,” Mount added. “And I’m not just saying this to kiss up to my bosses, it’s actually true… We’ve all seen those shows where the network goes, ‘Oh, it’s a hit. Let’s fix it. Or, keep it season one.’ And it just peters out. So we didn’t want to be that. The way that we’re shooting, the way that we’re storytelling in more of an episodic style, it’s really allowing for us to continue to experiment with not just the message that is being delivered, but how we get there.”

Navia also added that given that freedom, what fans will see in Season 2 is that the show “pushed the envelope… We go forward and do things that have never been done in Star Trek, or on TV.”

One thing Navia might be referring to? The late-in-the-season crossover between Strange New Worlds and Paramount+’s animated series, Star Trek: Lower Decks. While exact details are under wraps (under decks?), we do know that actors Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome will be reprising their voice roles as ensigns Boimler and Mariner in live-action in the Strange New Worlds episode, down to Boimler’s purple hair.

For Rebecca Romijn, who plays Una Chin-Riley, aka Number One on Strange New Worlds, the mash-up of tones between an hour-long live-action drama and half-hour animated sitcom worked because of franchise stalwart Jonathan Frakes, who directed the episode.

“[He] really helped balance the tone between actors coming from an animated show and our show,” Romijn said. “Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome are incredibly talented. They both [have] backgrounds in improv… But it was interesting watching them make adjustments, coming from an animated show onto our show, and find the correct tone… They never did the same thing twice. They were so funny. It was just it was a joy, watching them work.”

Celia Rose Gooding, who plays Ensign Uhura on Strange New Worlds agreed, adding that, “It’s all just a love letter… Shooting that crossover episode was such an energy boost, and it gave us confidence to try new things that we hadn’t been doing previously… I hope audiences get that goose-bumpy butterflies in stomach feeling that I had when shooting because it allowed us to try a bunch of new and exciting stuff.”

But the most important question about the upcoming crossover? Who wins in a hair-off: Pike and his majestic swoop? Or Boimler and his purple, unkempt hair?

“Well, I mean, [Boimler] wins just because it’s purple,” Mount said, laughing. “Right?”

We’ll just have to tune in to find out.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.