Star Trek: Strange New Worlds EP Breaks Down Pike's Emotional Struggle In Premiere: 'It's An Opportunity For Him To Dig Deeper'
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Thursday's Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiere.
Captain Christopher Pike is on a mission as Season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds dawns — and it's an emotional one.
In Thursday's premiere, Pike managed to pilot the Enterprise to safety in a deadly battle against the Gorn while his love interest Marie Batel struggled to survive with a life-threatening Gorn infection. By episode's end, an teary-eyed Pike knelt by Marie's bedside and prayed for her recovery, telling her, "I've already lost too much... I really don't want to lose you." It was a raw display of emotion that we've rarely seen from Pike... or on Star Trek in general.
"We're looking to do something that we haven't done, which is a lasting relationship in a [Star Trek] series," executive producer Akiva Goldsman tells TVLine. "Marie Batel seemed like a great potential partner for Christopher Pike, and so it's an opportunity for him to dig deeper." As for Marie's health and immediate future with Pike, the EP will only say that we'll "see where it takes them."
Marie wasn't the only one to have an unfortunate brush with the Gorn, either. Ortegas barely escaped alive from the Gorn's lair in the premiere, and that encounter will leave her forever changed, Goldsman hints: "It's trauma, and it really ends up being very significant when it comes to storytelling in the back half of the season." The storyline gives Melissa Navia, who plays Ortegas, some great material to work with, he adds: "There's an opportunity for Melissa to do some stuff around this story which is pretty great," he says, leading to an episode that's "one of the best episodes we've done, which is basically just a virtuoso performance by Melissa."
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