Filming a high-profile episodic TV series like "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is often a Herculean task for any professional cast and crew, but toss in massive spaceship sets, a colorful constellation of costume changes, tone and stylistic shifts, hand-to-hand combat, horseback riding, and puppets, and you’ve got a mad sci-fi circus.
We connected with Ethan Peck (Spock), Christina Chong (La’an Noonien-Singh) and Paul Wesley (James T. Kirk) for Paramount+’s "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'" penultimate season to hear more about the rigors of shooting, genre-hopping, and character evolution.
"Every season feels kind of manic," Peck tells Space. "Grind has such a negative connotation, but it really is a marathon. We lose so much sleep, we have crazy hours, we say crazy things, we even look crazy.
"But I’d say we really found our groove in season four because we’ve had all this experience with these characters. And the writers have had all this experience writing for these actors playing these characters. So we grow over time and become more comfortable. I think that's what allows us to pull off these crazy swings in season four and five, perhaps."
Chong echoes those thoughts and felt like leaping from one genre to the other was far more intense this time around than previous seasons.
"I was also taking horse riding lessons throughout, I was doing fight rehearsals, and then getting to see the digital mockups of our puppets," she shares. "Then we were thinking about how to approach the puppet episode and then obviously the horror of it all. It was a lot of jumping around because of the big genre swings.
"Every season has been incredible so far, and I think this was really upping the stakes. For horse riding, I’ve ridden once before for a show, but it was ten years ago, so it was like starting from scratch again. But we had plenty of time to rehearse. And I absolutely loved my puppet; I thought she was brilliant."
For Wesley, being able to stretch his performance skills by portraying the legendary spacefaring hero and exploring his transcendent connection to Spock has been an immensely rewarding challenge.
"The writers are very good at identifying our strengths and identifying what dialog would suit us, not as our characters but also as actors," he notes. "Having been on the show now for two seasons, I think the writers really were able to give me the ability to play a variety of things like comedy and horror.
"These big swings carry a lot of risk, and what’s so brilliant about this show is that they somehow pull it off," continues Wesley. "It all works. Kudos to the writers, and I'm just really excited for the audience to experience the evolution of Kirk becoming the man they know he’ll be eventually.
"You know these characters as having one of the most iconic friendships on television, but you don’t really know how they met and what brought them there. In the shore leave episode, you get to see Spock express his vulnerabilities inadvertently to Kirk, and they will, in turn, allow them to become closer. These little things are so important because they begin to establish why these characters are so connected in 'TOS.'"
Peck instinctively recognizes that these episodes do a fantastic job of slowly and naturally helping Kirk and Spock build trust with one another.
"It's a great joy and privilege to be able to convey this relationship because it is so iconic," Peck reveals. "And that’s so strange as an actor, to be filling in some of this missing history for these characters that have been around for so long and that were so beautifully performed by other actors before us."
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 4 is currently streaming on Paramount+, with new episodes arriving each Thursday through the finale episode on Sept. 24, 2026.
