Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Just Featured Another Doctor Who Easter Egg, Offering TARDIS Fans A Morsel While Show is Off-Air

Doctor Who fans eagerly awaiting connection of their time-travelling leader should beryllium paying attraction to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which conscionable dropped its 2nd Gallifreyan Easter ovum this season.

Strange New Worlds' 3rd play finale features an evident notation to 1 of its characters gathering The Doctor, arsenic the millennia-old Commander Pelia (played by Carol Kane) tells Spock (Ethan Peck) that helium should conscionable a "time-travelling Doctor I erstwhile knew" (thanks, ScreenRant).

While clip question is surely a happening successful Star Trek, it seems highly apt that Pelia's notation is meant arsenic a motion to the BBC's long-running sci-fi franchise, with the 2 series' presently enjoying an unusually adjacent relationship.

Indeed, this season's sixth occurrence bizarrely featured The Doctor's TARDIS, which made repeated blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearances successful the background. Look cautiously during the galore space-set scenes successful Strange New Worlds occurrence The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail, and you'll spot the iconic bluish constabulary container floating astir the Enterprise.

These references travel a erstwhile tease of a afloat crossover by the Doctor himself, successful 1 of the astir breathtaking moments of Ncuti Gatwa's archetypal play occurrence Space Babies. There, Gatwa tells companion Ruby Sunday that the brace should instrumentality a travel to sojourn the Enterprise astatine immoderate point, suggesting that the events of Star Trek are besides someway reachable wrong Doctor Who canon.

In different news, the TARDIS from Doctor Who shows up successful the astir caller occurrence of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds! pic.twitter.com/LNBBGZ3r79

Of course, team-ups betwixt the Time Lord and the Federation person already occured successful different mediums. 2012's Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation graphic caller saw Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor connected committee Jean-Luc Picard's Enterprise, with companion Amy Pond on for the ride. The escapade saw the heroes battling Star Trek's Borg and Doctor Who's Cybermen (which are, to beryllium fair, rather similar). During the comic, the Doctor besides mentions his Fourth incarnation (that would beryllium Tom Baker) gathering James T. Kirk.

More recently, smartphone games Star Trek: Lower Decks Mobile and Doctor Who: Lost successful Time shared a 2024 crossover communicative featuring David Tennant's Tenth Doctor, told successful each rubric from the position of either franchise. This followed a affable shared sheet astatine San Diego Comic-Con 2024 featuring Star Trek writer Alex Kurtzman and Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, the second of whom said helium would "love to denote a crossover betwixt Star Trek and Doctor Who" for TV, though doing truthful would necessitate "two large large empires — and their lawyers" to marque it happen.

Such a crossover would besides person to enactment astir the aboriginal of Doctor Who, which is presently connected hiatus. After 2 seasons funded by Disney, the BBC has indefinitely paused the show's production, though the broadcaster has vowed to proceed the amusement astatine immoderate point.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social