Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: star trek, Star Trek: The Original Series

Strange New Worlds EPs Pitched William Shatner on TOS Era Ep Return

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds EPs Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman tried to pitch William Shatner returning to revisit a TOS classic.

With all five seasons of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in the can with seasons four and five awaiting a release, executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman clearly still have plenty of stories to tell, but are constricted by what Paramount and its streamer Paramount+ affords them. As season five wrapped, signaling the end of the Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), in hopes to pave the way for Paul Wesley's James T. Kirk for the proposed Year One that would see him learning the ropes of becoming captain of the U. S. S. Enterprise before becoming the more experienced The Original Series incarnation played by William Shatner. Alas, the Paramount SkyDance era under David Ellison killed the idea, with the SNW sets destroyed, ruining any budgetary chance of the Enterprise set being repurposed. Speaking with Polygon to preview SNW season four, the duo reveals a giant TOS surprise they were trying to pull off, but were unsuccessful in getting Shatner to return to the franchise.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Proposed William Shatner Return Involving TOS Classic Episode

The proposed idea Goldsman and Kurtzman had was bringing back Shatner as an alternate reality Kirk that sees him stay with Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), a soup kitchen volunteer, activist and pacifist who needed to die in the TOS season one episode "The City on the Edge of Forever," regarded by many to be the best of the original Gene Roddenberry-created series. The episode saw Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) under the influence of a powerful hallucinogenic drug and traveling through a time portal courtesy of The Guardian of Forever to mid-20th-century Earth with World War II looming. After revealing that time has changed due to McCoy's interference, which would prevent US intervention into the war, Kirk and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) jump through the portal to try to track him down. The two catch up, and they also meet Keeler, whom Kirk also falls in love with.

As the unintended love triangle commences, Spock tries to get both humans to focus. At the episode's end, Spock and Kirk meet with McCoy on the sidewalk as Kirk separates from Keeler by crossing the street. The aloof Keeler, standing in the middle of the road, doesn't notice oncoming traffic. As McCoy tries to save her, Kirk holds him back with his back turned away from the car accident that takes Keeler's life, knowing he saved history. Shatner's reintroduction would have taken place in a reality where that didn't happen, staying in the Great Depression-era New York instead. "I think if you get to the end and there's nothing left for you to want to do, then that's more of a disappointment," Kurtzman said, noting the showrunners made an attempt every season and several scripts before falling through. "I'm proud of every episode we've done, but I feel like the best dinners you come to don't leave you feeling stuffed. They leave you wanting more." For more, including how season four won't have the major alien threat of previous seasons, puppets and more, you can check out the entire interview. Strange New Worlds season four premieres July 23rd on Paramount+.

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