Posted in: Paramount+, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: paramount, preview, season 3, star trek, strange new worlds

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Star Melissa Navia on "Mirror Ortegas"

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds star Melissa Navia on what Mirror Erica Ortegas would be like: "You wouldn’t want to mess with her."

Kicking off back in December and expected to roll on into early spring, production on the third season of Paramount+'s Anson Mount (Pike), Rebecca Romijn (Una Chin-Riley) & Ethan Peck (Spock)-starring Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues rolling on – and you know what that means, right? Yup, it's time to get as much intel out of the cast, show's creators & writers – and for them to stay in spoiler-free mode as long as possible. For this go-around, Melissa Navia (Lt. Erica Ortegas) has found a way to walk the line between the two – sharing her thoughts on what a "Mirror Universe" version of Ortegas would be like during a convention in San Francisco from over the weekend.

"You wouldn't want to mess with her," Navia states matter-of-factly – giving us the impression that she's thought about this before. "I would love that. Especially because I've never really played any villains, and I would love to do that. I can't even fully articulate how it would look… I think she would be a force to be reckoned with, and I wouldn't want to go up against her. For me, that would be fantastic as an actor to play that. There is something about a villain that is captivating, as well as that dark side. So I don't know what it would look like, but it would be pretty great, and I hope the writers are thinking about something like that in the future."

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Showrunners on Season 3 & More

"We're going to keep going. We genre hop. So where we haven't been, we will try to go. Henry's watchwords for Season 2 were, 'Let's do Season 1, just bigger and better.' That's become the truth of Season 3. We're always doing the thing that we do best, which is secretly just a lot of relationship stories in space. We'll keep unfolding those, hopefully in ways that are different, in the same way, that the tones of our episodes will be different. But yeah, ambition will taper off only when we can't figure out a thing to do we haven't done before," Akiva Goldsman shared with Variety back in August when asked what boundaries he and co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers were thinking of taking on next season. Myers added, "The joy of doing the show — Akiva and I spent a lot of time on this — is trying to come up with something really great and cool and different for our actors. The more challenging stuff you bring them, the harder they will work. We want to bring them great material so that they will continue to do incredible things."

With the Season 2 finale now streaming, Myers discussed how confident the creative team was about finding resolutions to the cliffhangers in play heading into the third season. "The best way to approach this is with a deep sense of confidence. We were very upfront with all of our folks internally about what we were doing. They were very supportive of it. We wanted it to be a surprise," the co-showrunner shared. "I remember how the ["Star Trek: The Next Generation" cliffhanger episode] 'The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1' made me feel. That was what we wanted to revisit for the audience, to really surprise them."

Myers continued, "By the time we were shooting that episode, the first season had come out, and it did very well. We were trying to take risks. We knew it was going to be challenging, but it's crazy if you don't try the challenging things. The opportunity when you have a show like this is to make it as interesting and surprising as you possibly can. Sometimes that just means taking risks. This was a big season of risks. So by the finale, we had done so many risks, it was kind of like, 'Yeah, sure!'"

Paramount+'s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is based on the years that Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) manned the helm of the U.S.S. Enterprise, following Pike, Science Officer Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn) during the years before Captain Kirk boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise as they explore new worlds around the galaxy. The streaming series also stars Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as La'an Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas, and Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M'Benga. The second season will also feature the return of special guest star Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk and new addition Carol Kane in a recurring role as Pelia. Jack Quaid (Boimler) & Tawny Newsome (Mariner) from "Lower Decks" will be crossing over in a live-action way this season, directed by none other than Jonathan Frakes.

Paramount+'s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 is produced by CBS Studios, Secret Hideout, and Roddenberry Entertainment. Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers serve as co-showrunners. Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lumet serve as executive producers in addition to Alonso Myers, Aaron Baiers, Heather Kadin, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Rod Roddenberry, and Trevor Roth.

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