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Beloved Star Trek Guest Star Officially Returning “in a Big Way” [Exclusive]

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has featured a variety of intriguing guest stars over its four-season run; for one, this season saw Days of Our Lives legend Deidre Hall drop in for the show’s soap-opera-themed episode, “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass.” Now, one of the show’s most beloved guest stars is set to return to the show in the future, as revealed by star Christina Chong at a panel at last weekend’s Tampa Bay Comic Con moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt.

On the series, Chong plays La’an Noonien-Singh, a descendant of genetically-enhanced dictator Khan Noonien-Singh, one of Star Trek‘s most infamous villains. The survivor of a horrific attack by the reptilian Gorn aliens, she now serves as the chief of security aboard the USS Enterprise. The businesslike La’an is quite different from her effervescent portrayer, who managed to get one of her best friends a role on the series. Chong’s beloved dog Runa Ewok, named after the cuddly critters from Return of the Jedi, is officially slated to make a return appearance. Sadly, she couldn’t attend the panel in person, thanks to a customs issue, but her owner was happy to speak on her behalf: “She may or may not be appearing on the show very soon, so keep an eye out for that, in a big way. I’m very excited for you to see that.”

Runa previously appeared on the first-season Strange New Worlds episode “The Elysian Kingdom.” When a powerful entity turns the Enterprise into a storybook kingdom, La’an becomes the kind-hearted Princess Thalia and is never seen without her furry companion. Chong explained how Runa landed that role with the power of social media. “During the first season we had, during the quarantine before the show actually started, I created an Instagram page for her,” Chong explained. “And I had to decide what character she was going to be. I know, she wanted to be an actress, and wants to get an audition for the show, so I started doing her posts like that. If you go to her Instagram, you’ll see, from the beginning, how I was like setting it all up.”

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When it came time for her big moment, Chong had some help from castmate Celia Rose Gooding, who plays Uhura, in getting Runa on-screen. She told the audience:

“And then obviously, work colleagues would follow her and look at her page, and they would be like ‘Why don’t you just ask if she can be on the show?’ I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a good idea, why don’t I just ask?’ And then the script came out for the fantasy episode of Season 1, and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this is the perfect episode for her, she can be the princess’ dog.’ And so I asked them, and they were like, ‘Is this like a morale thing, or what is this?’ I was like ‘Yeah yeah yeah.’ So this was around Covid, we were all really struggling, and we needed a dog on set. Celia was behind me, and was all ‘Yeah, we all want it, we all want the dog.’ So the next time a draft came out, the dog was in it.”



















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Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz
Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like?
Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky

Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.

🏜️Paul Atreides

🖖Capt. Kirk

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Princess Leia

🔦Ellen Ripley

🔥Max Rockatansky

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01

How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher?
The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.





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02

What is your greatest strength in a crisis?
The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.





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03

What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for?
Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.





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04

How do you relate to the people around you?
Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.





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05

You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do?
How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.





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06

What has your heroism cost you personally?
Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.





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07

How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in?
Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?





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08

When everything is on the line, what keeps you going?
The answer is the most honest thing about you.





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Your Hero Has Been Identified
Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…

Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.

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Arrakis · Dune

Paul Atreides
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You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.

  • You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
  • You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
  • Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
  • That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.


USS Enterprise · Star Trek

Captain Kirk
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You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.

  • You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
  • Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
  • Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
  • That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.


The Rebellion · Star Wars

Princess Leia
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You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.

  • You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
  • You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
  • Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
  • That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.


The Nostromo · Alien

Ellen Ripley
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You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.

  • You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
  • Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
  • You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
  • When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.


The Wasteland · Mad Max

Max Rockatansky
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You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.

  • You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
  • Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
  • Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
  • That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.

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What Other Dogs Have Starred on ‘Star Trek’?

Surprisingly, there have been several canine guest stars on Star Trek, dating back to The Original Series; in the episode “The Enemy Within,” an alien canine is played by a costumed puppy, complete with a horn on its forehead. Of course, Star Trek‘s most prominent pooch is Porthos, the prized beagle of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) on Star Trek: Enterprise. Despite the impracticalities of keeping a dog aboard a spaceship, Porthos (who was played by several different canine thespians) remained at Archer’s side for all four seasons of the series. More recently, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) owned a dog named Number One after his preferred sobriquet for Will Riker on Star Trek: Picard.

The first eight episodes of Season 4 of Strange New Worlds are now streaming on Paramount+; the season finale is slated to premiere on September 24. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

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Release Date

2022 – 2027-00-00

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Network

Paramount+

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Showrunner

Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman

Directors
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Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman, Dermott Downs, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jonathan Frakes, Jordan Canning, Leslie Hope, Valerie Weiss, Sydney Freeland, Christopher J. Byrne, Rachel Leiterman

Writers

Onitra Johnson

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