Star Trek, when they were young
Since childhood Anson Mount was driven to take his place in the captain’s chair.
When Anson Mount first sat in the centre seat on the bridge of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), as Captain Christopher Pike, he had a flashback to when he was a kid watching reruns of the original Star Trek series in the 1960s and re-enacting it with his older brother.
“Star Trek was my make-believe game as a kid,” Mount, 50, tells Review via Zoom. “We would pull the dining room chairs up to my parents’ fireplace and pretend that was the bridge, and we would fight over who would get to be Spock and who would get to be Kirk. We never had an Uhura because the girls wouldn’t play with us. So, the first time I sat in the (captain’s) chair, I had this flashback to that and it was quite emotional actually. So, yeah, it is the longest a job has remained surreal to me.”
In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Pike leads the Enterprise crew in search of new life and new civilisations, promising to boldly go where no one has gone before, and even before Captain James T. Kirk. The series, now in its second season, is a prequel to the original starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley.
Pike, first played by Mount in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery (2017-), is an intriguing character in the Star Trek universe. According to Star Trek lore, Robert April was the first captain of the famous starship. He was followed by Pike who was, in turn, succeeded by Kirk.
In the pilot for the original Star Trek series, Jeffrey Hunter portrayed Pike. But the pilot was rejected and a new pilot ordered. Hunter declined to return for the re-filming, so the character of Kirk was created with Shatner cast in the iconic role.
But in the compelling two-part episode, The Menagerie (1966), the original pilot footage was reused for a story that revealed Pike as the previous Enterprise captain. Hunter’s portrayal of Pike finally made it to air along with a disfigured and disabled Pike, who we learn had sacrificed himself to save others during a rescue mission, played by actor Sean Kenney.
In preparation for the role, Mount went back and looked at what Hunter and Kenney had done in the original series and researched the Pike character. In the film series reboot, beginning in 2009, Bruce Greenwood portrayed an alternative Pike who mentors the young Kirk (Chris Pine) and rises to become a Starfleet admiral.
“I was going to be playing a different Pike, a Pike who is in a very different place in his life who has moved beyond the sort of youthful navel gazing of someone who is not sure he wants to be a captain,” Mount explains. “They needed a Pike who came in very assured of his position and his job and his mission in life when I started on Discovery. So, I kind of let what Jeffrey did be Jeffrey’s Pike, and I made my own.”
Mount is enthralling as Pike. He has a commanding screen presence, conveying the authority and integrity of a Starfleet captain with a thoughtfulness, empathy and a desire for collaboration and respect for colleagues, and eager to mentor those climbing the ranks, demonstrating a more modern approach to leadership. Mount talked to the writers about how to shape the Pike character in both Discovery and Strange New Worlds. Kirk was bold, Jean-Luc Picard had brains and Pike has heart.
What makes Strange New Worlds so interesting is the opportunity to also explore well known characters such as Spock (Ethan Peck), Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Kirk (Paul Wesley), before we knew them in the original series (1966-69), the animated series (1973-74) and original films (1979-91). Moreover, several of the storylines have their genesis in the original Star Trek series which is also thrilling for devoted fans.
Rebecca Romijn, who portrays Pike’s Number One, Una Chin-Riley, says it is the well-drawn characters that make the show work beyond the exploration of planets and encountering new civilisations.
“A character is only interesting in the most, you know, personal essence possible,” Romijn, 50, tells Review via Zoom. “So Star Trek is an incredible world, no pun intended, but the characters are what drives it. The characters (are) what makes it important.”
Star Trek, in all its forms, is known for its lofty themes and championing timeless virtues as our intrepid explorers traverse the galaxy, engage with Romulans and Klingons and Borg, and wrestle with violating the so-called Prime Directive not to intervene. The magic of the show, first developed by Gene Roddenberry, is that it transcends generations with its adventure, drama, light humour and profound moral teaching.
Romijn also started watching reruns of Star Trek when she was seven or eight years old. Romjin and Mount were introduced to the 1960s science fiction show by their mothers, which they have found is common with other fans. “There’s something about Star Trek that sparks conversation between mothers and their children about exploration, thinking outside the box, fostering curiosity in their children (and) whether or not we’re alone in this universe,” Romijn says.
Although the Star Trek franchise keeps expanding with new films, television shows and animated series, and a pipeline of projects to come, only about a dozen actors can say they have captained a starship. Mount is good friends with several fellow captains from across the Star Trek shows.
“I’ve actually known Patrick Stewart since I was around 22,” Mount says. “I’ve spent a good amount of time getting to know Kate Mulgrew when we are at events. And obviously William Shatner is somebody who I love to have dinner with and pal around.”
Season two begins with the courtroom trial of Una, who was imprisoned for lying about her background to Starfleet. Spock, the half-Vulcan and half-human science officer, is wrestling with his emotions. We see Kirk in an alternative timeline captaining the Enterprise. And Mount teases that Pike’s relationship with Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano) has been fun to develop.
What haunts Pike is that he knows he is going to meet a terrible fate. He visions it. It is how the Enterprise ended up under the command of Kirk. So, for Pike, it is a race against time with his doom foretold. But he learns to accept it rather than fear it. It is a unique framework to revisit this new, and old, generation of Star Trek characters.
“It’s a tremendously exciting third act that we all knew is the thing,” Mount says.
“One of the hardest things to do in television is to figure out how to end something, whether that’s a series or a character arc or, or both, and because everybody has their own idea of what that should be.
“But in this one, we know what it is. It’s just a matter of getting there. And it’s similar to the character’s arc, in this case Pike, continually learning that the journey is the destination and not the other way around.”
Series one and two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is streaming on Paramount+
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