Despite COVID-19 restrictions, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds star Anson Mount says production on the series is going smoothly. That’s despite having to have some crewmembers quarantine after coming into contact with a guest star who tested positive for COVID-19. “COVID [protocol] makes everything take longer,” Mount tells RadioTimes.com, “but you get through it and it’s weird trying to get to know my cast only on set.” Despite all of that, Mount goes on to say that “it’s been one of the smoothest starts I think I’ve ever had in television.” Production on the series, a spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery, is currently underway in Ontario.
Strange New Worlds shares some production staff with Discovery, which Mount says has helped when dealing with the particular circumstances around filming during the pandemic. “That has worked to our benefit,” he says, “not just with the world and the material, but interpersonally, with this production company and these producers. Normally I’d be throwing barbecues and we’d be going to the park and you can’t do much of that right now, particularly during the lockdown in Ontario but we’re surviving.”
The most important thing is that “We’re really happy with the material,” Mount says. “We’re all having a good time together.”
In a previous interview, Mount talked about Strange New Worlds‘ more episodic format compared to Discovery. “Well, I think that Star Trek is, by nature, episodic,” Mount told Collider. “Now, that doesn’t mean that Star Trek can’t be other things. Star Trek can be a lot of things, as we’ve seen in every iteration of it. But classic Trek is really founded on the big idea of the week, and the big idea of the week needs room to breathe. In serialized structure, you’re trying to take care of so many relationships that there doesn’t tend to be a lot of room for that. Now with that said, I think Discovery does a phenomenal job with that structure and I was very fortunate to be a part of it. Normally, serialized is my taste, as an actor, but this really felt like it needed to be episodic.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stars Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One, and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock. The series follows Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock, and Number One in the years before Captain Kirk boards the USS Enterprise.
Akiva Goldsman wrote the series premiere based on a story he co-wrote with Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet. Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers serve as co-showrunners, with Goldsman directing the premiere episode. The series will stream exclusively on Paramount+.