Captain Christopher Pike star Anson Mount has revealed his hopes for the character in future seasons of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – saying he wants to cover his “eventual end”.
The actor – who first appeared as Captain Kirk’s predecessor in season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery before reprising the role for the new series – explained exclusively to RadioTimes.com that he hopes he gets to live out Pike’s entire arc.
“I like to be surprised as an actor,” he said, ahead of the show’s UK premiere on Paramount Plus on Wednesday 22nd June. “And I don’t like having too much say in where a character is going because I think the most dangerous thing in the world is an actor with power.
“But I think it would be… I love the fact that in the age of streaming television, shows now have a beginning, a middle and an end. They’re not just cancelled, the studios and networks, they’ve learned that for something that has a shelf life, it has to be a contained whole.
“And so with this one, I would love to see this show through to Pike’s eventual end,” he added.
Fans of the original series will know exactly what that ending is – and indeed it’s referenced heavily in Strange New Worlds – but for now Mount is just enjoying taking part in a show that puts fun front and centre.
“There’s an optimism and a sense of fun from the original series that we really wanted to inject into this,” he explained.
“And I also think that going episodic, it obviously allows us to have the big idea of the week, the planet of the week. There’s more sense of adventure when there’s more room for that.”
He continued: “But what it also does is it gives us the freedom to not only have different stories each week, but different ways to get there. So each episode can be its own standalone, not just story, but its own kind of thing.
“So we’ve been encouraging our directors to come with very strong takes on the look, even the genre that they want to dive into. So we’ve been having a lot of fun.”
Additional reporting by Olivia Garrett.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere on Paramount Plus UK on 22nd June 2022. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.
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