Before DeForest Kelley’s Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy became the most beloved (and crankiest) physician in the original Star Trek, there were actually not one but two different characters who were his predecessors. Well before the spinoff/prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds asserted that Dr. Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) was the CMO of the Enterprise prior to McCoy, Star Trek’s two pilot episodes from 1964 and 1965 had different characters filling the ship’s doctor role: Dr. Boyce (John Hoyt) in “The Cage” and Dr. Piper (Paul Fix) in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Counting M’Benga, this means there are no fewer than four men who served as ship’s doctor between 2254 and 2265.
And now, in Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 6, “Off Hour,” Dr. Boyce has returned to the Starship Enterprise for the first time on screen in 62 years, a rebooted character from a kind of prehistory of Star Trek. This time, he’s played by Brian Markinson, who, oddly enough, is now playing his fifth role in the Trek franchise. Here’s what to know about how Boyce fits into canon, how the Dr. Piper question of it all has not been addressed, and what Markinson has to say about rejoining the Final Frontier.
