This season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds gave us everything. A musical episode. An episode about post-war PTSD. An amazing courtroom drama. And a time-traveling crossover where the crew of Lower Decks met the crew of Pike’s Enterprise. That episode was definitely a highlight of the season, and it got us thinking. What other famous starships could meet Pike and his crew in some Star Trek time travel crossover?
While Strange New Worlds is episodic for the most part, we don’t see anything stopping the creators from doing a multi-part story where the Enterprise encounters her namesake starships via time travel shenanigans. What those shenanigans are, we’ll leave that to the writers. But here are some other crews we want to see interact with the Anson Mount’s Captain Pike and his Enterprise crew in future seasons of Strange New Worlds.
The Kelvin-Timeline Enterprise Crew
Look, we get it. This one’s a long shot. But as every year passes, it seems less and less likely that we’ll get a final Star Trek movie in the Kelvin timeline. How many directors has Paramount announced only for nothing to happen? We’ve lost count. But at a recent Star Trek convention, both modern Spocks, Strange New Worlds’ Ethan Peck, and the Kelvin timeline’s Zachary Quinto, appeared on stage together. The two seemed very chummy, and it got us thinking. Why couldn’t Pike’s Enterprise encounter the alt-universe’s Enterprise?
Not only would an episode like this provide closure for the Kelvin timeline Enterprise crew, but it would give us a glimpse into their future. Since it might be cost-prohibitive to bring back the entire cinematic Star Trek crew, particularly Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana, maybe just limit it to characters who have counterparts on Strange New Worlds. For all we know, John Cho’s Sulu is Captain Sulu 10 years after Star Trek Beyond. This is one that’s least likely to happen, but also the one we’d want to see the most.
The Enterprise-B, from Star Trek: Generations
Ah, the Enterprise NCC-1701-B. We only encountered this Excelsior-class starship once, at the start of the 1994 film Star Trek Generations. In the year 2293, we saw her on her maiden voyage under the command of Captain John Harriman—the first Enterprise in 30 years without Kirk in command. An earnest but clearly inexperienced guy, Alan Ruck portrayed Captain Harriman. Sadly for Harriman, his guest of honor, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) died on the Enterprise-B’s first mission. Well, at least to the galaxy at large he did.
So, what was it like being the Captain of that particular Enterprise? Canon tells us that the Enterprise-B had a long and successful voyage. But no matter what accomplishments he made, could her Captain ever live down being the guy who lost a Starfleet legend on his first day on the job? This is a character study we want to see! Let’s be real, the Enterprise-B probably won’t ever get its own movie or series, but a fun time travel adventure where Captain Pike gives his eventual successor a much-needed pep talk? We’re there. Especially if that Captain is Alan Ruck.
The Enterprise-G Crew from Star Trek: Picard, with Captain Seven of Nine
We encountered the newest Federation flagship, the Enterprise-G, at the end of the final season of Star Trek: Picard. Captained by Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), with first officer Raffaela “Raffi” Musiker (Michelle Hurd) and with Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) and Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) as officers, fans are dying for them to get their own series—one Picard showrunner Terry Matalas has called Star Trek: Legacy. But nothing is officially in development, and sadly, we may never see that series come to life.
But we need at least one adventure of the crew of the Enterprise-G with Captain Seven at the helm. Why not a time travel adventure, where Captain Pike gets to see how far into the future his legacy goes? Star Trek famously did a “backdoor pilot” in the ‘60s for a show that never happened. Hopefully, an episode like this could be a backdoor pilot for an eventual Star Trek: Legacy. If nothing else, we’d have at least one adventure with Captain Seven and her gallant crew.
Captain Worf and the Enterprise-E
The Enterprise-E was under the command of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in the films Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis. Eventually, when Picard became Admiral, Worf (Michael Dorn) became her new Captain. Her final fate was shown as “classified.” In Picard’s final season, all we know about what happened to the Enterprise-E was that it was nothing good, and Worf said, “That wasn’t my fault.” Could this classified mission be a time travel one? Not only would this episode finally give us a Captain Worf adventure (long overdue), but it would solve one mystery left dangling in Picard’s final season. Besides, who doesn’t want to see Worf and La’an (Christina Chong) be badasses together?
The Enterprise-C from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
We only ever encountered the Enterprise-C in one episode, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation adventure “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” In that fan-favorite story, the Enterprise-C, while trying to save a Klingon outpost from Romulan attack, is thrust 22 years into their own future, where they meet Picard and the Enterprise-D crew. The C was under the command of Captain Rachel Garrett, played by Tricia O’Neil, the first female Enterprise Captain in the franchise’s history,
We eventually discover that the Enterprise-C must return to its own time and fulfill its destiny, which is to be destroyed while saving the Klingons. But presumably, that Enterprise had many adventures before that. Obviously, you’d have to recast Captain Garrett, but we’d love to see a proper Enterprise-C adventure where it doesn’t end in her death. And to anyone who says more than one time-traveling journey for this Enterprise is too much, I remind you of every time both Kirk and Picard time-traveled on their starships. Multiple time travel incursions just come with the name Enterprise.
George Takei as Captain Sulu on the U.S.S. Excelsior
In the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, we learned that Hikaru Sulu was the Captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior. He helped Captain Kirk on his final mission, which saw the peace treaty form between the Federation and Klingon Empire. We later saw Captain Sulu in the Voyager episode “Flashback,” which took viewers back to those events. But George Takei is a national treasure. He may be 85 now, but as anyone who follows him on social media knows, he has not lost a step. Who’s to say he’s not still in command of the Excelsior decades later? Although we hope by this time he’s at least Admiral Sulu. Let Strange New Worlds give Sulu a victory lap around the stars.
