La’an and Kirk Actors React to This Week’s Strange New Worlds Twist | Star Trek

Warning: Full spoilers follow for Season 2, Episode 3 of Strange New Worlds, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.”

In its second season, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues to shine a light on its supporting cast with Episode 3, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” A one-off time travel story that follows in the tradition of early Star Trek: The Original Series episodes, the David Reed-written script features the unexpected pairing of La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and an alternate timeline version of Captain James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley). The two are stranded together in 21st century Toronto, where they have to analog-unravel a nefarious plot meant to create a cataclysmic change to the timeline. Within the episode, they seek out a pre-Federation Pelia’s (Carol Kane) help, discover a young Khan Noonien Singh and feel the mutual pull of an unexpected romance. 

If you’re a long-time Trek fan, there are shades of the all-time great Harlan Ellison/D.C. Fontana episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” to be found in the DNA of “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” Curious about how that classic influenced the breaking of this episode, and the nuts and bolts of the time travel and moral quandary plots, IGN assembled executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers and actors Chong, Wesley and Kane to provide their insight into one of the season’s most old school-style Trek episodes. 

Origin of a Time Travel Idea

Ask any Trek writer for an example of seminal writing in the franchise and the 1967 episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” is invariably cited. That’s the one where Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) travel back in time to Depression era America seeking to retrieve a drugged up McCoy (DeForest Kelley). While there, Kirk falls in love with a saint of a woman (Joan Collins) who they have to watch die in order to save their future timeline. It’s clever, romantic and features an absolute heartbreaker of an ending. 

Goldsman tells IGN that they weren’t looking to remix their own version of that classic story for “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” but he sees the similarities. “The piece that is similar is a love story that has real depth and loss,” he says of the parallel doomed romances. “That’s always something that we try for if we have the opportunity. So we had La’an and we had Kirk, and the pieces started to come together in a way that let us reach into a classic Star Trek time travel episode.”

Alonso Myers adds that the episode really evolved in the writers’ room by following the story elements laid out in front of them. “We all love ‘City’ and we’re not trying to compete with it,” he clarifies. “We wanted to take it to a natural, emotional place, and that happened to be in a very similar direction.”

La’an and Kirk: Unexpected Chemistry

The pairing of very straightlaced La’an and an even more charming, alt version of Kirk initially came from the writers looking for a worthy story for Chong in Season 2. “The one thing we did know was that La’an had gone through a real journey in the previous season, so it was important to us to try to give our actress something else to try,” Alonso Myers says of crafting this adventure around the character. “It had to be something different, something that might give them a chance to explore another idea.” 

I very much thought about ‘City’ while filming it. -Paul Wesley

He says Chong and Wesley’s rapport in Season 1 set the stage for them to push that even further in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.”

As strangers from different timelines, they have a purely comedic vibe as they bicker and clash about how to navigate their situation. “That kind of sibling vibe is always fun to play because it’s a competition,” Chong says. “It’s kind of one-upping. But then the first time she sees him take his top off, we’ve never seen La’an look like that and feel those feelings,” she laughs.

Interestingly, Paul Wesley cites “The City on the Edge of Forever” as his personal favorite Trek episode, so he immediately caught the parallels reading the script. “I very much thought about ‘City’ while filming it,” he admits. “And when I read the script, I was super excited because as a guest star, I got this juicy, meaty script where I get to really dive into Kirk and La’an. Honestly, that’s just a lot of fun. Then it was [also] an action adventure, so it felt like it was this much-needed fun that I wanted to have.”

Asked where she thinks their relationship turns from comedic to something more, Chong says it’s on the car ride to Vermont. “She realizes he doesn’t know who she is, or what the Singh [name] means. And she’s like, ‘Oh, wow, he’s not going to judge me.’ She’s been fighting her whole life with people judging her because of her name. But that’s a barrier that doesn’t exist with him.”

Pelia’s Past

Setting the episode in the 21st century allows the audience to finally get more context about Pelia’s Lanthanite history and her wandering existence in the universe. Having already admitted her more than 100-year old age to the Enterprise crew, Pelia becomes a resource for La’an in the past, allowing her to look up her future/past shipmate in Vermont and add an ally to their seemingly impossible mission.

Kane tells IGN the script was definitely a helpful source at filling in more of her character’s details. “It’s wonderful to have that, just because she’s changed a lot since then,” she says of Earth Pelia vs. Starfleet Pelia. “I’ve been around for hundreds of years before this episode, so maybe we’ll explore that too. I don’t know.”

For the scene where past Pelia talks science with La’an and Kirk, Kane admits she was able to just literally perform the moment because her lack of any Trek knowledge meant she wasn’t playing to the lore of the Kirk character in any way. “For me, Kirk is sort of just another guy,” she smiles. “And a wonderful actor. Paul is a wonderful actor and handsome guy. So I had fun.”

Another Heartbreaker

By the time La’an and Kirk reach the Noonien-Singh Institute, they’ve bonded as friends, potential lovers and as people trying to do right for the greater good. In Kirk’s case, hearing La’an’s tales of the Federation, and a future more united than his own, spurs him to the ultimate sacrifice. 

Wesley says he loved exploring this Kirk, and his unique world view. “He is adamant that his version of the world is the better version and that his timeline is the version that should exist,” he says. “But then towards the end, even though he’s basking in and enjoying this Earth, he sacrifices everything for the greater good. And that’s Kirk, in my opinion. He’s this guy who you can have a lot of fun with, and he’s goofing off throughout the episode. But then in the end, he does something quite heroic and it really makes him a very worthy character in the TOS story.”

She was judged for who she was, right? Yet she’s looking at this little boy and going, ‘I’m not judging him.’ -Christina Chong

Devastated by Kirk’s choice, La’an is spurred to complete her mission and not let his sacrifice be in vain. And that’s on her mind when she comes across her infamous ancestor, a very young Khan Noonien Singh, who is in the early days of being used as a genetic lab rat. In that moment, she has the choice to kill the future conqueror, and save many from his future crimes, or be compassionate to the young victim. It’s a classic Trek-style moral conundrum that, in this case, allows La’an to set aside the burden of her familial connection to Khan to be a better person. 

“She was judged for who she was, right?” Chong poses. “Yet she’s looking at this little boy and going, ‘I’m not judging him.’ Yes, Khan became this tyrant, but he didn’t start like that. At that moment he’s a little boy, and I love that scene so much. You’re feeling the weight of the whole Star Trek legacy, and Khan’s legacy, in that little boy’s eyes with her making that decision to leave him be.”

“Honestly, I think we cheated it a little bit in the best possible way by making Khan an innocent boy,” Goldsman says of that scene. “It is intellectually a conundrum. Emotionally, it isn’t really. I think no one in the audience is going, ‘Just shoot the kid!’ For me, when you can tie the emotional journey to the intellectual conflict, that’s where we’re really cooking with gas.”

A Future Uncharted

La’an ultimately corrects the past and returns back to her timeline and her USS Enterprise, but she’s irrevocably changed in the bittersweet way evoked by all the best Trek episodes. Her incredible time-hopping experience culminates in an impromptu call to this timeline’s Kirk. 

Chong says in that scene, La’an is just looking for any link to the Kirk she bonded with. But all she receives is understandable confusion. “It’s about her opening up and her vulnerability,” she says of what that moment and her subsequent tears mean. “We’ve all lost [something], in some way. The part of me that connected with La’an just felt that loss of having that beautiful connection, and then it being taken away. Will she ever find that again?”

She continues, “La’an is definitely realizing that maybe it’s not that James, but now that I’ve experienced it, I know it’s something that I can do, so she’s very open to [connection]. In her La’an reserved way, she’s open to it.

“And I think it will evolve further,” she teases. “But with whom?”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 releases new episodes Thursdays on Paramount Plus.