Jonathan Frakes discusses special tributes in Strange New Worlds holodeck episode
is TK Bellows (Anson Mount, who plays Pike), the creator of the “Last Frontier” show. One look and anyone can tell the character is based on Gene Roddenberry, with Frakes using his own personal experience to coach Mount for the role. “I had the privilege of working with Gene for three or four years before he died. Anson and I started really wanting to lean into Gene, and he asked me to get some tapes which I was able to track down from the Roddenberry Association. We were really into him doing Gene, but I think [executive producers] Akiva [Goldsman] and Henry [Alonso Myers] wanted us not to lean in too hard.”
Croft wanted his outfit to be subtle, but Mount wanted to add a belly and suede jacket, citing Roddenberry “was this bookish intellectual, but then he kind of turned, like a cut snake if he was in a bad mood or if someone crossed him. We ended up in a wonderful place where Anson created a character who, for better or for worse, anybody who knew him could see Gene. The voice specifically is brilliant, the physicality is so not Pike. Everybody had a ball playing in a different part of their toolbox.”
It all came together into an episode that celebrated Star Trek as much as mocking it and showed once more how Strange New Worlds strikes that balance between moving ahead in Star Trek lore while capturing the spirit of the original show.
You can catch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streaming episodes on Paramount+ every Thursday!
