Star Trek is no stranger to crossovers, ranging from the various Original Series alums who stopped by The Next Generation, to the tribute-filled episode “Kobayahsi” in Prodigy Season 1. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, however, is delivering a particularly ambitious crossover by this franchise’s standards, as later on in Season 2, Jack Quaid’s Brad Boimler and Tawny Newsome’s Beckett Mariner from the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks, will not only meet Captain Pike and the crew of the Enterprise, but also be depicted in live-action, as seen above. While speaking with CinemaBlend, ahead of the SAG-AFTRA strike, three of Strange New Worlds’ lead actors hyped up what this special episode, titled “These Old Scientists,” is delivering to fans, including teases of “Spoimler,” a completely “improvised” scene and just general “hijinks and silliness.”
Let’s start with Ethan Peck, who recently got to play a fully human Spock in the episode “Charades.” While he’s now back to his normal half-human, half-Vulcan self, Peck’s Spock will find himself in the unusual predicament of meeting two Starfleet officers from more than 100 years in the future who’ve somehow been transported to roughly half a decade before the events of The Original Series. Here’s what Peck had to say to me about Quaid and Newsome stopping by to play around with the Strange New Worlds cast:
Both Tawny and Jack are truly wonderful. Great actors, wonderful people, I had so much fun with them off-camera and on-camera… I’m so excited for people to meet Spoimler, which is the hybrid of our names… which Jonathan Frakes coins. ‘Spoimler, man!’ Jack and I were so charmed by that and flattered, and he and I had so much fun filming some of the scenes that we do together. And there’s a scene I’m thinking of in particular that you’ll just have to wait and see.
We got our first taste of “Spoimler” in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 trailer released in late May, with Spock telling Brad Boimler to “Live long and prosper,” only for Boimler to fail in repeating the same sentiment before being transported away. As anyone familiar with the modern Star Trek landscape knows, Lower Decks is a comedy series, so even though Quaid and Newsome will be playing their characters in live-action rather than only voicing them as per usual, that won’t stop them from delivering laughs and amusing moments in “These Old Scientists.” That includes Spock and Boimler being in enough scenes together that director Jonathan Frakes (also quite well known for playing William Riker) decided to affectionately join their names together.
Next, we have Jess Bush, the actress behind Christine Chapel, who reached a major romantic milestone with Spock at the end of “Charades.” When I brought up the Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover with her, Bush shared that one of her scenes actually came together literally just hours before she was supposed to shoot it. As she recalled:
It is so fun. It was so great having Jack and Tawny come in to that episode, with us. Their energy is so different to what we’ve had typically on the show, and it really injected this new energy into the cast that was really fun to play with. Yeah, my favorite part of that was there’s a scene in the crossover episode that I was written into the morning of shooting. I was in the makeup trailer, and they’re like, ‘Oh, can you do this scene today?’ And they wrote it while I was sitting there. So it was almost completely improvised. It was really fun, actually, to exist in that space. So yeah, wait and see that one.
The Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover was announced almost an exact year ago during the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, and now fans are less than two weeks away from getting to experience it, with “Those Old Scientists” set to be the former show’s seventh episode of the season. Now obviously Brad Boimler and Beckett Mariner won’t be able to get quite as wacky here compared to Lower Decks given that they’ll be in live-action rather than depicted in their traditional animated forms. Still, Celia Rose Gooding, who plays Nyota Uhura, assured fans that the episode won’t be lacking in comedy, saying:
I am so excited for fans to see the level of comedy, the level of hijinks and silliness that Lower Decks has in the dramatic world of Strange New Worlds. I think that Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid and Jonathan Frakes brought such a new layer to the show. I find that Strange New Worlds, while it does have comedy, I think Lower Decks is the real comedic hard hitter of our franchise right now, especially in the new generation of Trek. So to have them bring that to our very serious show was just lovely. I think fans are gonna appreciate the range that those three brought to our show, and just the range of storytelling that they pull from us as a cast. I think after that episode, we, as a cast family, just felt like we had a bit of room to try new things, a bit more permission to really go for it when it comes to the comedic moments and the silly things. Because just like we have deep dramatic moments, there’s a need for deep comedic moments, and we got those in that Lower Decks episode. So I’m really excited for fans to see it.
Following the airing of “Those Old Scientists,” there will only be three episodes left in Strange New Worlds Season 2, but the good news is that the show has already been renewed for Season 3. Meanwhile, not only will Lower Decks return for its fourth season sometime later this year, Season 5 has also been greenlit. As for what specifically unfolds in “Those Old Scientists” that leads to these corners of the franchise colliding, and bringing so many shenanigans, Paramount+ subscribers will simply have to watch the episode for themselves to find out.
New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds drop Thursdays on Paramount+, with “Those Old Scientists” on July 27. Remember to look through upcoming Star Trek shows guide to learn what else this franchise has coming up on the small screen side of things, as well as our 2023 TV schedule for information on current and soon-to-arrive shows.
