In the identical custom that produced a fairy story story in Season 1, the Decrease Decks crossover and musical in Season 2, and the recently-announced puppet episode for Season 4, Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds Season 3 delivered an episode with an particularly kooky premise this week on the 2025 TV schedule. With a view to check an early model of the holodeck, La’an Noonien Singh entered a homicide thriller simulation revolving across the forged and crew of a TV present from the Nineteen Sixties referred to as The Final Frontier. It was clearly meant to poke enjoyable at Star Trek: The Unique Sequence, and Paul Wesley, who performs James T. Kirk on Unusual New Worlds, opened up about breaking out his William Shatner imitation for the occasions of “A Area Journey Hour.”
Whereas Wesley’s Kirk efficiency is normally comparatively subdued, “A Area Journey Hour” gave the actor the chance to enter caricature territory when the Enterprise’s short-lived holodeck used Kirk because the mannequin for Maxwell Saint, the lead actor of The Final Frontier. Talking with TVLine, Wesley had this to say about channeling William Shatner’s Kirk from the TOS days, however with out going too far with the impression:
I spotted instantly what a chance it was to offer the viewers a satirical, extra humorous model of what I might have accomplished. As a result of I do know lots of people are like, ‘Wait a minute, the place’s the pause within the cadence, and the place’s the gesturing, and that Shakespearean virtually aspect of James T. Kirk that everyone knows from the ’60s?’ And I believed, ‘Effectively, right here it’s. Let me do it for you now.’ And I had an absolute blast doing it… I didn’t need to overdo it, however I additionally wished to do sufficient the place it was a wink to the true followers.
Anybody who’s hung out watching the unique voyages of the starship Enterprise that ran on TV from 1966 to 1969 will immediately acknowledge that halting, oftentimes overly dramatic dialogue studying. It’s so typically used for William Shatner impressions, and now Paul Wesley has gotten to do his personal inside an official Star Trek manufacturing. That mentioned, there have been instances in the course of the taking pictures of “A Area Journey Hour” (which additionally launched a brand new romance for La’an) that Wesley needed to pull again somewhat bit on the Shatner-isms, recalling:
I did, clearly, a bunch of takes. And so there have been variations within the pauses, the place the pause is like, ‘Is he gonna say his subsequent line?’ After which we settled on type of the average one.
Paul Wesley’s William Shatner impression was simply one of many ways in which “A Area Journey Hour” served as a humorous, but heartfelt homage to each Star Trek: The Unique Sequence and the behind-the-scenes of all of it a long time in the past. Different examples included Anson Mount enjoying a Gene Roddenberry-type determine and Rebecca Romijn enjoying a girl who helped get The Final Frontier on the air and was closely invested in its success, similar to what Lucille Ball did for Star Trek. Sadly, the holodeck on this episode proved to be extra hassle than its price, so don’t anticipate Unusual New Worlds to revisit this simulation by the point the present’s completed its five-season run.
Sure, there’s an endpoint already plotted out for what’s presently the one Star Trek TV sequence airing. Nevertheless, now we have a protracted methods to go earlier than reaching it, so watch new episodes Thursday on Paramount+ within the meantime. Additionally don’t overlook that Starfleet Academy, the subsequent of the upcoming Star Trek TV reveals, will premiere in early 2026.