Original-Cin Q&A: Star Trek Stars on How Authenticity Makes or Breaks the Series
By John Kirk
What is paramount to the success of a new iteration of Star Trek is its discernible authenticity. If fans get a whiff of the slightest deviation from what they understand is core to this ideal, the show will not resonate with them.
Anson Mount (left) and Ethan Peck.
Despite grace periods within the earliest start of the seasons, the only show that managed to pull out of this was Star Trek: Enterprise in its latter days, thanks to showrunner Manny Coto, who brought changes too little too late.
Still, this series managed to make inroads with the fans and contribute to Trek’s authenticity, despite the absence of stories that were yet to come. It was this series that promised a look at the Romulan-Federation War that was never realized, sad to say.
But Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, entering its second season this week, did not suffer from this type of reaction from fans. In fact, it immediately hit all the right notes. We were able to chat with some of the cast and get their thoughts on how they were able to contribute to the continued authenticity that promises even more success going into the second season of this series.
We started with Rebecca Romijn, who plays First Officer Una Chin-Riley, a.k.a. Number One on the show. She says that living authentically, particularly personal backgrounds, contribute to the realism of the show.
“I’ve been drawn to these characters that have been hiding things and have decided to stop hiding things and live their lives authentically.”
Read our review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Of course, we remember we left last season with her character charged with concealing her Illyrian genetic modifications, something that Starfleet had outlawed and this season deals with the consequences of that choice, as she goes to trial.
“On a personal level, there are a couple of lines of dialogue from Season Two that I can draw from that are very similar to lines I said as Mystique from X-Men,” Romijn laughs. “There are similarities between those characters, but as far as Una is concerned, I’m a first generation American.
“My father is an immigrant. I came from a humble background, and it was tough in the beginning. Nobody held my hand in acting and I would say that the bulk of Star Trek’s characters are immigrants.”
There is nothing more authentic than an immigrant story: striving to explore, seeking a new life. Many of the characters in Trek have a diverse background and this strikes a note of realism that many fans can resonate with.
Anson Mount had a craft perspective on the realism of the show.
“It’s really important for an action-adventure show to know when to play the front foot and when to play the back foot,” Mount offers. “It’s a little too easy to become deliberate in these things.”
Relaxation has to be key when watching a show. The audience intuitively knows when a show is reaching for an angle and it’s particularly clear to fans.
For an actor who got his craft training in European sense of the concept of “clown,” it’s actually been fun for Mount to “spread his wings, have fun” and inject a bit of comedy into the drama, he tells us. This is the type of relaxed attitude fans can pick up on. It adds authenticity and authority.
But there’s also something about the nature of the relationships that develop in the show as well.
“Dialogue is one thing, but I think that the friendship Rebecca and I have developed on- and off-screen has really added a specificity to that as well,” Mount continues. “We’re the same age, we have the same sensibilities about these characters and their backstories and the conversations we have had add a special effect to the degree of realization to the show as well.”
Mount and Romijn’s imagined background into Pike and Number One’s relationship contributes a great deal of verisimilitude to the show but also because it’s built on a foundation of legacy characters that is also a hallmark of this show. We also asked what he had figured out about Pike so far, in terms of his further imagined background.
“He had good parents and great teachers. He struggles with his faith and his own self-confidence. He’s also learned that life is about the journey and not the destination.”
As we already know, several of the cast are playing legacy roles from the original series (a.k.a. TOS), namely Jess Bush as Christine Chapel, Babs Olusanmokun as Doctor M’Benga, Ethan Peck as Spock, Paul Wesley as Lieutenant James Kirk and Celia Rose Gooding as Ensign Uhura. Their presence adds a level of authenticity simply by being there in earlier stages of the franchise leading up to TOS.
But what about the performers themselves? How do they feel they add to the continuity going forward in Season Two?
Jess Bush had this to say: “The main thing I took from Majel’s character — and from Majel herself — was that she was pretty bad-ass, the way she got in to Star Trek.
“But what she wanted, probably didn’t get realized. I liked that essence and I think I brought that into the character. I also think that her Nurse Chapel was dry, funny and didn’t take any shit! I would like to see that explored in Season Two as well.”
Damn. Here’s what Babs Olusanmokun had to offer: “Booker Bradshaw looked like a serious man. I wish he had done more episodes of Star Trek but he had gone on to become a pretty successful television writer. There was a lot going on there, you know? So, I’m entrusted with his character, flying into it, in service of the past and in service of the future.”
Celia Rose Gooding plays Ensign Uhura and carries the legacy of Nichelle Nichols who passed away in 2022. Gooding never met Nichols, but she is on record for saying that she obviously was inspired by her character but to new horizons.
“As someone who is not the first or the last to put a spin on this beloved character Uhura… whoa. What do I hope I leave as a legacy? I hope I never leave, but I hope that I bring a widening of what we believe what was possible for this character. I hope the fans like me and I hope they think that I’m doing this right! I hope they trust me. ”
Every new show has its optimism, but in this case, with one successful season behind it, there is also the sense of anticipation of what new qualities this show can offer. In this case, the newness is represented in Ensign Ortegas, played by Melissa Navia who has already made an impact with fans as the new hotshot navigator who has coined the motto “I fly the ship!”
“I’m happy that I get to originate Ortegas. In a small way, she was always there, a male character named Ortegas that Gene Roddenberry saw in the pilot. She’s finally made it to the screen, and I feel that I’ve been able to bring this bit of Star Trek that didn’t make it, along for the ride.”
Navia adds, “Ortegas is established in Season One as cocky. She knows what she can do and that’s an aspect that people can gravitate towards because they don’t often see it in themselves.”
That’s a promise that’s inherent in Star Trek and a tradition carried on in this series. People see in Star Trek features and qualities what they hope to see in themselves. Star Trek fans want to be inspired by these characters. We want to emulate Captain Kirk’s leadership, or Spock’s loyalty or Scotty’s ingenuity.
The fact that Babs Olusanmokun’s Doctor M’Benga is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant is reflective of his actual status of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt Champion. That’s a background aspect of the actor, added to the character that makes the performance real, as well as the show. Ethan Peck told us he had stringed instrument training to add to the authenticity of playing Spock’s lyre.
There’s a lot of realism that has gone into this show that can set Star Trek fans’ hearts at ease: this is the real thing and it promises to even get better as Season Two emerges.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S2 drops on CTV’s Sci-Fi Channel and Paramount Plus every Thursday.