Captain Christopher Pike’s five-year mission is coming to an end, but that’s not the end of the voyages of the starship Enterprise. As a prequel to the Original Series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has always been moving toward the status quo at the start of the first Trek show, understanding that characters like La’an and Ortegas would be replaced by more familiar names. The series started with Spock, Uhura, and Chapel, and then added Kirk and Scotty. Now, Strange New Worlds is adding the Enterprise‘s most famous helmsman and doctor.
Veteran actor Thomas Jane will be taking on the role of Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy, joined by newcomer Kai Murakami as helmsman Hikaru Sulu. The two will appear in the sixth episode of Strange New Worlds season five, which is also the series finale.
One third of the Original Series‘s central triumvirate, Bones is a crusty frontier physician who resents all the deep space nonsense he has to put up with to keep Kirk and friends alive. DeForest Kelley’s gruff performance (and incredible beard and necklace in the Motion Picture) made him a fan favorite, yet somehow Karl Urban did an equally fantastic job portraying Bones in the J.J. Abrams films.
Thomas Jane seems particularly well-suited to continue the tradition. Like Kelly, Jane is older than his castmates and comes to the role with several credits to his name. Jane portrayed Frank Castle in the 2004, pre-MCU movie The Punisher, fought with a super-intelligent shark in Deep Blue Sea, and participated in one of cinema’s most depressing endings in The Mist. Lately, Jane has been working in sci-fi television, playing detective Joe Miller on The Expanse. In short, Jane has the experience to play someone more than a little annoyed to be around a bunch of space explorers.
