Posted in: CBS, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: khan, paramount, star trek, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, strange new worlds, The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Showrunner Coy on Khan Connections

It's no surprise that the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be exploring the familiar timeline of The Original Series. In fact, one of its crew members creates some possible continuity issues in Christina Chong's La'an Noonien-Singh. Anyone who's remotely familiar with the sci-fi franchise's canon knows she shares the last name of Star Trek's most infamous villain in Khan Noonien-Singh from the TOS episode "Space Seed" and in the theatrical second film The Wrath of Khan (1982) originally played by Ricardo Montalbán. At the Television Critics Association, executive producer and showrunner Akiva Goldsman did confirm the obvious.

"[La'an]'s related to Khan, for sure, and, uh, and the deal will unfold…" Goldsman said. "We don't want to bring folks into the show to be splashy. We want to dig deeply into characters that are part of our ensemble and then, obviously, we're open to getting our arms … but right now, what you see is what you get." With Montalbán's passing in 2009 and the very unlikely reprisal from Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) star Benedict Cumberbatch, we'll probably see another recasting in the role if we see Khan at all. Aside from how maligned the Kelvin Universe film was, the Doctor Strange star is also likely too old for the part.

The continuity issues arrive since Strange New Worlds takes place right before TOS and Spock (Ethan Peck) remains one of the holdovers from Capt. Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). During the events of "Space Seed", Spock is also Captain Kirk's (William Shatner) science officer and would likely remember dealing with such an enhanced superbeing if the last name wouldn't already trigger it. Perhaps for the purposes of the plot, La'an could be going by an alias so that people wouldn't discover her lineage and abilities as an augment as she rises up the ranks of Starfleet. After all, we did just have a Romulan rise up as Commodore in Picard free of any suspicion way further into the timeline. Strange New Worlds, which also stars Rebecca Romijn, Babs Olusanmokun, Celia Gooding, Jess Bush, Melissa Navia, and Bruce Horak, premieres on May 5 on Paramount+.

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