Strange New Worlds’ Paid Off a ‘Doctor Who’ Joke

The latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds planted the seeds for what’ll eventually become classic Star Trek by giving James Kirk (Paul Wesley) time in the captain’s chair. Along the way, it also decided to have a little crossover with Doctor Who.

In this week’s “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” Kirk and the Farragut crew have to rescue the Enterprise from the tendrils of a power-draining scavenger ship. Throughout the episode, the camera cuts to the wrapped up Enterprise, and each establishing shot features a tiiiiiiny glimpse at the Doctor’s TARDIS on tendrils covering the ship’s left engine.

During the premiere of Ncuti Gatwa’s inaugural Who season, the Fifteenth Doctor’s companion Ruby compares his transporter technology to Star Trek, which he agrees with and suggests they go check out that universe sometime. Well, it happened here in “Sehlat,” and after the Enterprise breaks free, the TARDIS has disappeared.

For the Who heads who watched Gatwa’s two seasons, this little Strange New Worlds cameo can be read one of two ways: either the TARDIS also got trapped in the tendrils and left once it could avoid the explosion that wiped out the scavenger ship, or it survived said explosion thanks to its shields and then left without anyone aware. It sounds like this Doctor would’ve let the scavenger crew perish, since they’ve been stealing power from ships and killing the crews within for centuries.

During 2024’s San Diego Comic-Con, then-Who showrunner Russell T. Davies and Star Trek architect Alex Kurtzman did a panel together, where Davies mentioned he’d love to do a Trek episode featuring the Borg. This probably won’t lead to such a crossover, but when it does happen, this can be a fun mention made by the Doctor for audience members in the know.

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