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“Nothing frustrated me more than Kirk losing Edith Keeler one week and being fine the next week,” Goldsman considers. “But on our show, we actually can talk about relationships having beginnings, middles, and ends. They couldn’t. So they were sort of trapped in stasis in a strange way. But we’re not.”
One perfect example of how this kind of character evolution unfolds in season 3 is the transformation of Gooding’s take on Nyota Uhura. Thanks to Strange New Worlds’ character-driven episodic arcs, she’s had much more development with her younger Uhura than Nichelle Nichols ever had on The Original Series, to say nothing of Zoe Saldaña’s Uhura in the reboot movies. As iconic as the two previous Uhuras are, Gooding’s is the one we’ve gotten to know the best. In fact, the journey of her humble Uhura in seasons 1 and 2 will start to fully morph into the more ebullient Uhura of The Original Series during the forthcoming season 3.
“I think with season 3, we’re now getting an opportunity to show her more playful, flirtatious side,” Gooding says. “In the previous seasons, she was a character with so much depth and history and trauma. Now we get to see how she can still find lightness, joy, and playfulness. It’s very reminiscent of the Lieutenant Uhura we see in TOS. That’s a change from what we’ve seen of her in previous seasons.”
On the other side of the Starfleet biographical coin is Dr. M’Benga as played by Babs Olusanmokun. A minor character who appeared in just two TOS episodes (as played by Booker Bradshaw), Olusanmokun’s take on the man has been one of pure invention rather than reinvention. When it comes to M’Benga, canon hardly matters. The character was basically a blank slate. So while he started out as a sympathetic doctor with a mysterious past in Strange New Worlds’ first season, in season 2, we discovered a more physical, action-adventure version of M’Benga, a trend that Olusanmokun ensures will continue in season 3.
“’There are other pieces of him that we’re still unraveling,” Olusanmokun says. “But, yes, we leaned into that for season 2 and there’s more of that in season 3.”
For those who remember Olusanmokun in both Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two, where he played the Fremen Jamis, the actor has the ability to bring equal parts warrior and monk to certain roles, something that is on full display for M’Benga in Strange New Worlds Season 3. But, is this character the most dangerous doctor in Star Trek history? Could this badass take Dr. Bashir or Bones in a fight? Olusanmokun hints at a connection between himself and the quiet strength of M’Benga, saying only, “Those that know what they do don’t talk about what they do, or glorify what they do. They just do it.”
