Star Trek star confirms spin-off series answers big question

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actor Anson Mount has finally answered a big question about his character's time in the Discovery series.

Mount joined Star Trek: Discovery in its second season as Captain Christopher Pike, who temporarily takes command of the USS Discovery starship, and is due to reprise the role in Star Trek's latest spin-off series.

During his time in Discovery, however the character got an unpleasant glimpse into what appeared to be a very grim future, forseeing a radiation leak in his ship ending with his crew in danger and him suffering critical burns on his face and body.

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star trek discovery season 2 – anson mount as christopher pike

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Now, as Mount gets ready to reprise his role in Strange New Worlds, which will follow the adventures of Pike and his crew during his time in charge, the question remains – will the show address the captain's vision?

Speaking to Collider, Mount confirmed that the show would not have been able to go forward without "dealing with that question at the top".

He said: "There was no room to deal with it in the 13th and 14th episodes of Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery for very clear situational plot reasons. But we had to deal with it here."

On Discovery, Pike was seen making the hard decision of taking the raw time crystal and sealing his future, saying: "I'm not going to abandon the things that make me who I am because of a future... that contains an ending that I hadn't foreseen for myself."

ethan peck, anson mount and rebecca romijn in star trek short treks 'qa'

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For fans of Star Trek: The Original Series, Pike's eventual fate comes as no surprise, as the character was left disfigured in the original pilot episode 'The Cage', and ended up needing life support.

But this has been the first time that the series had revealed the Captain had been aware of his tragic fate that was to come all along.

Mount went on to add: "We also knew that rather than sort of mention it and sidestep it or deal with it quickly and move on, we decided, or I should say [showrunners] Keith and Henry [Alonso Meyers] decided, very wisely to jump into it and attack it in a way that feeds into the development of the character and the show itself.

"I'm very pleased with how they did that, right through the entire Season 1."

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres on May 5 in the US, streaming on Paramount+. UK transmission details are yet to be confirmed.