Entertainment
Beloved Star Trek Guest Star Officially Returning “in a Big Way” [Exclusive]
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.”
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.”
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.
- Release Date
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2022 – 2027-00-00
- Network
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Paramount+
- Showrunner
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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
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Onitra Johnson
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