"Those Old Scientists" is the seventh episode of the second season of the American television series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The series follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship Enterprise in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds and carry out missions during the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). The episode is a crossover with the animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–2024) in which Ensigns Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler from that series are sent back in time and interact with the crew of Pike's Enterprise, who try to send them back to their own time. It was written by Kathryn Lyn and Bill Wolkoff, and directed by Jonathan Frakes.
Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn respectively star as Pike, Spock, and Number One, along with Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, and Babs Olusanmokun. The second season of Strange New Worlds was announced in January 2022. It was revealed to have a crossover with Lower Decks that July, with Tawny Newsome (Mariner) and Jack Quaid (Boimler) reprising their roles in live-action. Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, and Jerry O'Connell also reprise their respective voice roles as D'Vana Tendi, Sam Rutherford, and Jack Ransom. Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan was closely involved in the episode. Studio Titmouse returned to provide animation.
"Those Old Scientists" premiered at San Diego Comic-Con on July 22, 2023, and was released on the streaming service Paramount+ later that day. It was estimated to have high viewership and audience demand, and was positively received by critics for successfully merging the tones of both Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, for taking character arcs seriously despite the overall humorous tone, and for Quaid and Newsome's transition to live-action. The episode was nominated for a Hugo Award.
Plot In the 24th century, an away team from the Starfleet starship arrives at the planet Krulmuth to perform routine scans on an old portal. While Ensign Brad Boimler excitedly says that it was discovered by the crew of the , led by Captain Christopher Pike, D'Vana Tendi insists it was found by an Orion science vessel that her ancestor was stationed on. When Boimler has his picture taken at the portal, it unexpectedly activates and he is sucked through to the 23rd century where he meets the Enterprise crew.
While the crew tries to figure out how to send Boimler back to his own time, Boimler—nervous around the historical figures that he considers to be heroes—unsuccessfully tries to avoid divulging knowledge of future events. An Orion ship arrives and Boimler convinces Pike that they are a harmless science vessel, but the Orions transport the portal onto their ship and warp away. Boimler helps the crew track the Orions and they get the portal back by trading grain supplies which were destined for a colony in need. The Enterprise crew takes the portal back to Krulmuth. Before Boimler can return to his time, Ensign Beckett Mariner comes through to rescue him and exhausts the portal's power supply.
Boimler and Spock fail to synthesize more of the portal's power source, the rare material horonium, while Mariner discovers that her idol Nyota Uhura is too focused on work and needs help relaxing. Enterprise engineer Pelia informs Boimler of the irreplaceable nature of the grain they traded to the Orions, and a remorseful Boimler tries to contact the Orions to get it back. He and Mariner are detained and have a conversation with Pike, during which Boimler realizes that the previous Enterprise (NX-01) had horonium components and a piece of that ship was included in the construction of the current Enterprise. On the surface of Krulmuth, the Starfleet officers encounter the Orions, who received Boimler's signal. Pike explains the situation and Boimler mentions that, in the future, Orions are no longer seen as dishonorable pirates and that one of their friends is an Orion. Pike asks for the grain back and, in exchange, offers to let history remember that the portal was discovered by Orion scientists; the Orion captain happily agrees. Boimler and Mariner successfully return to the future.
Production Development
Executive producer Alex Kurtzman envisioned Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a spin-off from the series Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024), as an ongoing series that could cover the seven years between Discovery second season (2019) and the accident that seriously injures Christopher Pike in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). Frequent Star Trek actor and director Jonathan Frakes said in December 2021 that he was booked to direct an episode of the second season of Strange New Worlds, and Paramount+ officially announced the season a month later, ahead of the first season's release. Showrunners Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman committed to the first season's episodic structure and said they would "go for broke" in differentiating the second season's episodes with unique genres. Goldsman said it would have some "creative stretches" and "big swings" that had not been seen in Star Trek before.
In December 2021, Kurtzman said there was potential for the different Star Trek series he was producing to crossover, as long as there was a story reason to justify this. Crossovers between previous Star Trek series were infrequent and generally limited to characters from one series making a guest appearance on another. During a Star Trek Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022, star Anson Mount announced that the season would have a crossover episode with the animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–2024). Myers explained that one of the Strange New Worlds writers, David Reed, also worked on the series The Boys (2019–2026) which stars Lower Decks voice actor Jack Quaid. Reed and Quaid had discussed the potential of their Star Trek series crossing over, and Reed suggested the idea to the Strange New Worlds writers. They moved forward with the idea after Kurtzman also suggested it.
The episode is titled "Those Old Scientists", referencing a joke in Lower Decks that explains what future Starfleet officers are referring to when they call the time period of The Original Series the "TOS" era. It was written by Kathryn Lyn—a writer on both series—and Bill Wolkoff, and directed by Frakes, who was prevented from directing an episode of the first season when the COVID-19 pandemic impacted his directing schedule for the series Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023). Frakes believed he was chosen to direct "Those Old Scientists", the 222nd Star Trek episode he had worked on, because of his guest role as William Riker on Lower Decks and because his long history with the franchise aligned with the amount of lore in the episode.
Writing Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan said he was "heavily involved" in the crossover. He previously did uncredited work on the first season episode "Spock Amok" and the Strange New Worlds team enjoyed working with him. McMahan was pitched the crossover episode and gave several suggestions to make it "feel more Lower Decks". He also did multiple passes on the dialogue, and was involved in editing the episode as well. Goldsman initially felt the crossover would be as simple as having the Lower Decks characters "just come over", but they found integrating the different tones of the two series to be unexpectedly difficult. He said it would not be a Lower Decks episode in live-action. Myers said viewers did not have to know Lower Decks to understand the episode, but fans of that series would appreciate the details that are carried over for the crossover.
The episode features the characters Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler from Lower Decks traveling back in time from the 24th century to the 23rd century and arriving on the under Pike. The original plan was to primarily focus on Boimler with a small role for Mariner, but this was reworked based on input from McMahan and the executive producers. In the final version, Boimler travels back in time first and interacts with the Enterprise crew. Frakes said they did this until they had "milked all the fish-out-of water elements" and then Mariner travels back to get Boimler and "brings a brand-new energy to the room". For both characters, meeting Pike and his crew is literally meeting their heroes from Starfleet history. Frakes felt the success of the episode came from balancing the "wacky hijinks" of the Lower Decks characters with more "emotional, self-aware, self-evolved... character study" scenes. The latter includes Boimler accidentally revealing aspects of the future to Christine Chapel which has major ramifications for her relationship with Spock in future episodes.
Casting Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn star in the series as Captain Christopher Pike, science officer Spock, and first officer Una Chin-Riley / Number One, respectively. Also starring are Jess Bush as nurse Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as chief security officer La'An Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as Ensign Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as helmsman Erica Ortegas, and Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. Joseph M'Benga.
With the episode's announcement, Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid were set to reprise their respective roles as Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler. Quaid soon clarified that there would be elements of animation in the episode but he and Newsome would primarily be playing their characters and interacting with the Strange New Worlds cast in live-action, as opposed to the animated characters sharing scenes with live-action characters like was done for the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, and Jerry O'Connell also reprise their Lower Decks roles as D'Vana Tendi, Sam Rutherford, and Jack Ransom for animated scenes. McMahan said they wanted other Lower Decks actors to appear in live-action but scheduling issues meant only Quaid and Newsome could. As a reference to O'Connell and Romijn being married in real-life, Ransom makes a "semi-lewd comment" about being attracted to Number One. Also guest starring in the episode are Greg Bryk as the Orion captain Harr Caras, and Carol Kane in her recurring role as Enterprise engineer Pelia.
Design Newsome and Quaid both had input on how their characters would look in live-action. Newsome believed Mariner should have a "full head of curly hair" and worked with makeup artist Scotia Boyd on the character's "winged" eye liner. For Boimler, who has purple hair, Quaid considered dying his hair but had limited time due to other commitments and also did not want to reveal the crossover early by being recognized in Toronto with purple hair. Several wigs with different shades of purple were tested on set, including one that went through a lot of camera tests which was "a little more cartoonishly purple". Quaid compared it to characters from anime. They settled on a "slightly more subdued, more realistic purple" for the final wig.