Star Trek Gives Fans First Peek At The New Scotty
There's a new miracle worker in town!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has given us new actors to play classic Trek roles. Anson Mount (Christopher Pike), Ethan Peck (Spock), and Rebecca Romijn (Number One) all debuted their respective takes on old characters in season 2 of Discovery and reprised them for the new series. Now Celia Rose Gooding has taken on Nichelle Nichols’ signature role of Lt. Uhura, Jess Bush succeeds Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel, Babs Olusanmokun plays Booker Bradshaw’s old recurring role of Dr. M’Benga, Gia Sandhu replaces Arlene Martel as Spock’s betrothed T’Pring, and Adrian Holmes is Robert April (previously voiced by James Doohan on Star Trek: The Animated Series). But now as the season 1 finale streams, the series has teased us with a possible new addition to the crew: a new Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, aka Scotty.
SPOILERS follow for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episodes 9 and 10!
The season 1 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes us back to the events of the 1966 episode of the first Trek series, “Balance of Terror,” except with Pike as the Captain of the Enterprise rather than William Shatner’s James T. Kirk. When the Enterprise’s phaser control is damaged during a fight with the Romulans, Spock assists someone with fixing it. While we never see this someone’s face, it’s clear by their voice and, more importantly, what they say. All we see of him is his arm as he hands a tool to Spock while he speaks in a Scottish accent. When Spock says, “I do not need to remind you we have less than two hours to restore phaser control to working order,” the unseen engineer responds, “I’m an engineer, not a miracle worker, Mr. Spock.”
TrekMovie‘s review of “A Quality of Mercy” notes that the voice of Scotty was portrayed by British actor Matt Wolf in the episode though he’s credited only as “engineer.” It’s unclear whether or not Wolf is also the person handing Spock the tool in the scene. Since many of Wolf’s credits on IMDb are for voice roles in video games such as Mafia and multiple entries in the Call of Duty franchise, it’s conceivable it was just his voice, and not his appendage.
So does this mean we’re getting a new version of Scotty in season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? Well, there’s nothing definitive, but at this point it would be weird if it didn’t happen. The penultimate episode of the series’ inaugural season ends with the death of Hemmer (Bruce Horak), the chief engineer, which already had fans wondering if the creators were clearing the way for Scotty. Between that and the character being teased in the very next episode, to not introduce him in season 2 would seem almost cruel.
It was, of course, the late James Doohan who first played Scotty in the original series, the first animated series, the first seven films of the franchise, and the TNG episode “Relics” when we learn he’s survived to the future by means of a transporter buffer. Simon Pegg took over the reins of Scotty starting with 2009’s Star Trek and through the rest of the Kelvin Timeline films. The Shaun of the Dead star is expected to reprise the role of the iconic engineer in the upcoming Star Trek 4.
