Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Secret Scott Bakula Enterprise Tribute Is Great

Published Aug 19, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT

John Orquiola is a New & Classic TV Editor, Senior Writer, and Interviewer with a special focus on Star Trek. John has over 5,000 published articles at SR, and he has interviewed the biggest names in Star Trek on the red carpet and VIP events, among other beloved shows, movies, and franchises.

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 introduced a new character who's a secret callback and ode to the dynamics of Scott Bakula's crew in Star Trek: Enterprise. Strange New Worlds season 4 has proven to be a genre-bending exploration of the beloved crew of the Starship Enterprise through the lens of popular movies like Jurassic Park, The Hangover, and Casablanca.

Strange New Worlds is a prequel set in the 23rd century, but it was preceded by Star Trek: Enterprise, which was set 100 years earlier. Enterprise was the first Star Trek prequel that retconned Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) as the leader of the NX-01, the first Starship Enterprise capable of warp five. Archer's historic voyages laid the foundation for the United Federation of Planets' formation.

Star Trek: Enterprise's retcons also established that the first Vulcan in Starfleet was Subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), a century before Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck and Leonard Nimoy). Indeed, a controversial aspect of Enterprise was its depiction of Vulcans and the hostility they shared with humans, who resented their logical allies as United Earth's Starfleet launched into exploring deep space.

Strange New Worlds’ New Vulcan Is The Best Tribute To Star Trek: Enterprise’s T’Pol

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere was the debut of A'Sha (Bianca Nugara), the newest Vulcan and Starfleet cadet joining Captain Christopher Pike's (Anson Mount) USS Enterprise. Amusingly, A'Sha is not a friendly or accommodating Vulcan, to the chagrin of her would-be mentor, Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding).

Cadet A'Sha was rude, patronizing, and uncooperative, which left Uhura reeling. Even Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck) shrugged his shoulders at the young Vulcan. In her reappearances later in Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere and her return in Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 4, "A Case of Chiaroscuro," A'Sha has made no effort to warm up to her crewmates.

A'Sha's looks and attitude echo T'Pol's early tenure on Captain Archer's Enterprise. T'Pol was unhappy that the Vulcan High Command assigned her to a starship crewed by humans (and one Denobulan), and the Vulcan's interactions with Enterprise's crew were initially hostile. It took a couple of seasons of Enterprise for T'Pol to shift her loyalty to Archer and see his crew as her own.

Cadet A'Sha also hails back to how Star Trek: Enterprise depicted Vulcans as aloof and mistrusting of humans. Enterprise season 4 even revealed that Romulans had infiltrated the Vulcan High Command. Humans and Vulcans are often at odds in Star Trek regardless of the era, but A'Sha's coldness towards humans is very reminiscent of T'Pol's early experiences on Enterprise, in a very good way.

Strange New Worlds Has Honored Enterprise The Most In Star Trek’s Paramount+ Era

Among the classic Star Trek series of Rick Berman's era, Star Trek: Enterprise has had the hardest time being integrated into and homaged by Paramount+'s Star Trek franchise. Enterprise's berth in the 22nd century makes it challenging to reference by series set in the 24th century, like Star Trek: Lower Decks, the 25th century, like Star Trek: Picard, and the 32nd century, like Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 brought back Jolene Blalock to voice T'Pol from an alternate timeline, and Connor Trinneer voiced Trip Tucker in the non-canonical Star Trek: very Short Treks.

However, as the closest in Star Trek's timeline to Enterprise, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has genuflected to Captain Archer's crew. Strange New Worlds season 2's crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks revealed that Captain Pike looked up to Captain Archer, Uhura's hero was the pioneering linguist Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), and Lt. Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) admired helmsman Ensign Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery).

Captain Pike's Constitution-class USS Enterprise NCC-1701 even as a piece of Archer's Enterprise. Strange New Worlds established that legacy starships contain a piece of their predecessor, so that the hull of Pike's Enterprise contained horonium from Archer's NX-01.

Star Trek: Discovery, which began as a prequel series, also gave Enterprise its due, from Discovery's original blue uniforms homaging 22nd-century Starfleet jumpsuits, to the climactic reveal that Doctor Kovich (David Cronenberg) is actually Agent Daniels, the temporal agent who recruited Captain Archer early in Star Trek: Enterprise.

Bianca Nugara's sharp performance as Cadet A'Sha in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wonderfully evokes Jolene Blalock as T'Pol in Star Trek: Enterprise, and she is a welcome callback to Captain Archer and his NX-01 crew. Whether A'Sha embraces Captain Pike's crew the way T'Pol gradually saw herself as belonging aboard the NX-01 Enterprise remains to be seen.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's new episodes premiere Thursdays on Paramount+

• 

  Captain Christopher Pike

• 

  Spock