Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Reveals Its Uhura in First-Look Video — Watch
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is gearing up for its maiden voyage — and it’s adding a familiar face to its crew.
A new teaser for the upcoming Trek prequel, which you can watch above, reveals that cast member Celia Rose Gooding will be playing Uhura, the iconic character played by Nichelle Nichols on the original Star Trek series. “I am thrilled and honored to say that I will be playing Cadet Nyota Uhura,” Gooding says in the video, adding: “I am so excited to be stepping into this legacy.”
The first-look video also introduces us to more cast members like Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel and Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga, both characters from the original Trek. Plus, we get a sneak peek at Ethan Peck reprising his Star Trek: Discovery role as Spock, now looking much more like Star Trek-era Spock with short bangs and a clean-shaven face.
Strange New Worlds, which earned a series order back in May 2020, follows a trio of Discovery alums — Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn’s Number One and Peck’s Spock — as they boldly go off on their own adventures. The spinoff is set during the years when Pike captained the U.S.S. Enterprise before James T. Kirk took the helm.
The announcement came as part of the annual Star Trek Day celebration, which brought lots of Star Trek news: We also learned that Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery will premiere on Thursday, Nov. 18 and the animated kids’ show Star Trek: Prodigy will premiere on Thursday, Oct. 28, both on Paramount+.
Press PLAY above for a sneak peek at Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and beam down to the comments to share your thoughts on Uhura’s casting.
That is a lovely video. So glad Rebecca Romijn isn’t wearing a wig for the series! :)
I grew up with TNG so don’t know the Original Series that well to know if Uhura and Chapel were around that early but if this is the marketing angle Strange New Worlds is going with, then I’m going to share what it makes me feel: stop rehashing existing characters and create your own! Live up to your title – NEW.
Yes, there are original characters here and I’ll care about them (hopefully) when the show airs. But Trek – you are about the future: Stop living in the past! You’ve got Pike, #1 and Spock – isn’t that enough?
It’s a legacy show so we should see legacy characters…. and they do have some new ones as well.
Your comment is so out of touch! “Discovery” for your information is based on new characters, and for us life long fans… “Brave New World” and “Pacard”. Duh!!!
Looks cool. can’t wait.
Does anyone know if the shows takes place after Discovery season 2? Or during a different place in time?
After
Good question. If they do it after, Pike would have already been captain of the Enterprise for eight years (well, one of those he was on Discovery while the Enterprise was in drydock, but still). And it would give them a six year window to tell stories before Kirk is due to take command. My guess is, there might be flashbacks to events before Discovery season 2, but the bulk of the show will take place after.
Thanks you two for clarifying :)
We all guessed it but oh boy am I happy it’s real. And Chapel? M’Benga? Interesting. A character with the last name Noonien-Singh . . . what on earth could THAT be about? Whatever it is I hope they step carefully with that.
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It would be weird if M’Benga is the CMO under Pike but a subordinate doctor to McCoy under Kirk.
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If Uhura served under Pike, why wasn’t she assisting Spock in commandeering the Enterprise during the Menagerie? I suppose she probably did, and wasn’t discovered doing so.
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Would be nice if they included Colt, as the last remaining significant character from The Cage. Doesn’t have to be as a regular, but as a background character is fine.
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When’s the release date already? AAAAAGGGGHHHH!! :)
Yeah overall it looks like some good casting but interesting character choices. I’ll double your concerns on M’Benga and Singh (ancestor?). Uhura’s a weird choice to be senior carryover. If anything you’d think maybe Scotty.
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They should have had Rebecca play Nurse Chapel too and see if anyone noticed. 😂
Uhura is, I think, the member of the TOS crew we know the least about. It’s not like we really know that much more about Sulu and Chekov, but we do know a little bit more. I think the problem with using Scotty on the show is, as I mentioned, the episode The Menagerie. It’s not so hard to imagine Uhura surreptitiously helping Spock steal the Enterprise to save Pike while, as per Spock’s instructions, not tipping her hand that she is doing so; it’s a bit harder to imagine Scotty doing the same. It’s not in his character to stand by once Spock is arrested and on trial and not brazenly declare he should be standing up there next to him, ya know? (And yes, I’m assuming anyone who served with Pike would be helping Spock. We know from Star Trek III that disobeying orders and stealing ships is what these characters would all do for the people they served with.)
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That said, it wouldn’t be impossible to get Scotty and Sulu into the show later on if they wanted to. The others, it’s pretty clear in The Menagerie they had never met Pike before (or couldn’t have, in the case of Chekov).
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I’m excited for Uhura. I just hope she’s written and played more like Nichelle created her and less like Zoe Saldana’s version. Obviously she’ll be spouting more complex and intelligent lines than Nichelle was ever allowed to say, but I hope she’ll be doing it with more warmth and emotional intelligence like Nichelle and less with the hard-edged, competitive “alpha” attitude of Zoe (which is a trait all the characters in those films shared, so I’m casting no aspersions on Zoe for her performance). I want her to align with the character we meet later in TOS, ya know?
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My instinct is I really wish the show was staying away from Khan stuff, but I’m not going to criticize something I haven’t seen yet. I just hope, like I said, they step carefully with that. With a name like that it’s hard to imagine she’s anything other than a descendant of Khan, which raises so many continuity issues . . . unless she’s keeping that a secret and she has her own agenda, maybe?
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I’m surprised Lower Decks hasn’t made a Chapel/Number One joke yet, haha.
Yeah, there definitely were a big 4 little 3 aspect to the show. (And bigger 3 and main 2). So they could have gone with any of them. (Though it’s theorized Chekov didn’t become part of the crew till he showed up since he wasn’t around for the Khan episode). Just don’t know about how I feel with too many were there before Kirk or came in at the same time for the mission or after. I mean, they didn’t replace the whole crew with Kirk’s people (Spock obviously). So some were around before. And it wasn’t addressed ever anywhere I know of (though there’s a lot of Trek non-canon out there). It was more real than the neatly wrapped new movie origin. I would hope they wouldn’t follow suit and just add them one by one to live off fan service. So we’ll see. Or not see as it’s on Paramount.
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I’m afraid the Khan great great great grandkidmight just be fanservice too. (Or whatever…that nameline has stayed the same through all the years? No marriage changes? Maybe someone changing it since it evokes one of history’s despots? I mean, there are probably still Hitlers around too, but they’re not related to him). And is she going to be at least part super special? I don’t have a problem with them existing….Khan probably had lots of kids before going on ice…I mean it was Ricardo Montalban with abs! If he was going to have that sad kid at the end he obviously wasn’t too picky. But that one of them not only would be in Starfleet, but be on the same ship that would eventually find him….wellllll……
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And someone’s got to make a Chapel/#1 connection somewhere. I mean, it’s too easy. :-)
You forget Captains are allowed their own crew selections. and we don’t know what position Dr M’Benga will be occupying on the ship
This Star Trek Day stream is pretty embarrassing like they didn’t rehearse or prepare at all… they keep having this awkward banter between two girls that seem to have not seen any of the shows and keep getting names wrong.. and why are they showing the orchestra members instead of the video clips of the shows playing behind them?
Star Trek seems to really understand what Marvel did creating a ‘universe’ to work in. After the Enterprise series almost ended Star Trek as a franchise, maybe that break was needed to rethink and retool the universe, and it has paid off. I am loving that they finally have broken free of the old “constraints” that hampered Voyager and Enterprise, and maybe not being on ‘broadcast tv’ is what was needed. I have no problem with swearing, non-linear storytelling, or just killing characters unexpectedly. You must evolve or perish.
The Trio gave Discovery an awesome season and glad they are getting their own series. Sounds great.
There definitely needs to be some kind of plot in an ep, even just a subplot, where Chapel and Number one keep getting mistaken for each other, getting each other’s messages, etc.
Uhura is a cadet, so she hasn’t graduated from Star Fleet Academy yet. That makes sense, if as has been reported previously, this is intended to be a ten year period for Pike, number one and Spock.
There’s nothing that prevents other TOS characters from being recurring or guests, since this series is episodic like TOS was, and not season long story arcs, as the other new live action series are.
I heard someone say that this is the longest gap between a pilot and series, 57 years. “The Cage” was shot in the fall of 1964 and finished in early 1965. And, the clips of it used in the “Previously on Star Trek” sequence at the beginning of the Discovery episode “If Memory Serves” was absolutely perfect.
Odd, with often classic characters being altered/changed, I half expected Nyota to be male or caucasian this go-around.
I think SNW will be the best of all the new Trek series
I have seen every episode of every Star Trek tv show, spinoff and/or movie ever created since I was in elementary school way back in the early 70s! Gene Roddenberry is my oldest and dearest teacher in how to navigate life. True life is inside of all of us if we just look.