Star Trek Day has brought many gifts, but this one’s especially welcome. In its upcoming second season, Strange New Worlds will have a new face aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise: None other than the incredible Carol Kane is coming aboard as Pelia, the ship’s engineer
Kane’s career includes recent turns on Hunters, Gotham, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (her house is definitely not a sideways boat), and Los Espookys, but to an entire generation she may always be Valerie from The Princess Bride. You know: “I’m not a witch, I’m your wife!”
Paramount says of Pelia: “Highly educated and intelligent, this engineer suffers no fools. Pelia solves problems calmly and brusquely, thanks to her many years of experience.”
Calm and experienced is good on this ship, which is always facing some kind of unprecedented and peculiar space situation (as one does). Brusqueness, though? I’m already looking forward to watching Captain Pike (Anson Mount) deal with another brusque and extremely skilled member of his crew. Will she get along with La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) or will their personalities make them bounce off each other like the wrong ends of magnets? How much fun is easygoing Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) going to have with another serious person to poke gently at?
Paramount also released a first look at season two, which features poor Ortegas (Melissa Navia) getting her hopes up about getting to be part of a landing party.
Strange New Worlds will return to Paramount Plus for its second season sometime in 2023—but if you haven’t watched the first season yet, you really, really ought to.
