Red alert: Star Trek: Discovery is boldly going into classic Trek territory this season.
In a new Season 2 trailer just released during the CBS All Access drama’s San Diego Comic-Con panel —which you can watch above — Hell on Wheels star Anson Mount joins the cast as Christopher Pike, the pre-Kirk captain of the USS Enterprise. (Michael Burnham and the Discovery crew came face-to-face with the Pike-era Enterprise at the end of the Season 1 finale.) But Pike isn’t just there to play nice: He announces he’s taking command of the Discovery, since there’s an imminent threat from a cluster of mysterious red lights. We get a thrilling rush of interstellar action, set to Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away.” (Centuries later, it still rocks.)
For those hoping Spock might make an appearance — he did serve with Pike on the Enterprise, after all — new showrunner Alex Kurtzman confirmed we’d see him in Season 2… even though we didn’t catch a glimpse of him in the trailer. (Pike mentions that he “took leave.”) And we’ll see another familiar crew member, too: Mount let it slip that Rebecca Romijn (The Librarians) will join the cast as Number One, Pike’s right-hand (wo)man played by Majel Barrett in the original Trek series.
We also got a closer look at Pike and his Enterprise crew through a series of first-look photos released Friday. (Check out the gallery above, or click here for direct access.) In the photos, we see Pike sitting confidently in his captain’s chair, and teaming up with Burnham for an away mission that involves (yikes) an emergency containment unit. Plus, we get a glimpse of David Benjamin Tomlinson as Linus, a big-eyed alien of the Saurian species.
Plus, the world of Discovery will be expanded through a series of shorts entitled Star Trek: Short Treks. The four Short Treks episodes will roll out monthly beginning this fall, and will be stand-alone stories, each running approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Each short will be an opportunity for deeper storytelling and exploration of key characters and themes that fit into Star Trek: Discovery and the expanding Star Trek universe.
Rainn Wilson will reprise his Season 1 role as mischief maker Harry Mudd in a short he will also direct, and Aldis Hodge (Underground) will star in another as Craft, a man who finds himself the only human aboard a deserted ship. Additional episodes include a deep dive into Saru’s backstory as the first Kelpien to join Starfleet, and Tilly’s journey aboard the U.S.S. Discovery and her friendship with an unlikely partner.
