Jess Bush Discusses Playing Star Trek: The Original Series' Nurse Chapel On Kirk's Enterprise (Exclusive)
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 4's Finale - "Tomorrow's Enterprise"Jess Bush reveals what it was like to don Majel Barrett Roddenberry's familiar blue uniform and play that version of Nurse Christine Chapel in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's finale.
"Tomorrow's Enterprise," the final episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, lives up to its title. Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) faces a temporal crisis that sees her meet her future self from one year later, who is serving on Captain James T. Kirk's (Paul Wesley) USS Enterprise. Meanwhile, Nurse Chapel remains in Sickbay working with Chief Medical Officer Dr. Phil Boyce (Brian Markinson).
Speaking to ScreenRant's John Orquiola, Jess Bush calls wearing a blue uniform and stepping into Majel Barrett Roddenberry's shoes as Nurse Chapel "a real trip... really surreal and special." Bush's future Chapel sports a 1960s-style beehive hairdo, completing her spiritual and visual transition into Majel's Chapel in Star Trek: The Original Series. Read Jess' quotes below:
ScreenRant: I want to ask you about playing Chapel on Kirk's Enterprise and switching to the blue uniform because that was amazing. Tell me a little bit about that.
Jess Bush: “I had such a fun time with these new costumes and hairdos. It was a real trip, stepping into the potential future for the Enterprise, and feeling aesthetically and spiritually a little bit closer to Majel's Chapel was a real, surreal experience. That’s kind of all I can say, is that it felt really surreal and special. We were kind of like little kids, excited about this like cool kind of new aesthetic that we're stepping into."
ScreenRant: Do you prefer the blue or the white uniform?
Jess Bush: “Ooh! I love the white jumpsuit. The blue dress is a little more forgiving, and I don't know, I think there's also just the novelty of wearing something new. I love the neckline on the dress. It feels very retro. Yeah, there was something novel about the blue tunic dress.”
Bush wore Nurse Chapel's original series once before, in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1's finale, "A Quality of Mercy," which showed an alternate future version of Star Trek: The Original Series' "Balance of Terror." However, Chapel goes 'full Majel' in "Tomorrow's Enterprise," with Jess looking as close to the beloved Star Trek legend as possible.
Nurse Chapel plays a crucial role in "Tomorrow's Enterprise." As one of the remaining crew members closest to Lieutenant Uhura on Captain Kirk's Enterprise, Christine helped Nyota with her crisis across two timelines and the secret of a white and black hole. Chapel also heroically volunteered to use her medical expertise to deliver the anomaly's "space baby," although only Uhura could perform the dangerous mission.
"Tomorrow's Enterprise" could be seen as a backdoor pilot for Star Trek: Year One, executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers' proposed Captain Kirk-centric spinoff. Although the odds of Star Trek: Year One don't look good, Jess told ScreenRant that she would play Chapel again if Paramount+ gives Year One a green light:
Jess Bush: “I'm at the ready. I would love to devote myself back to this show again. And if all things line up and everyone's available, including myself, it would be a yes from me. So, I think I can speak for everybody, like, everyone is so open to that if we were to get the call.”
Expect Jess Bush to don Nurse Chapel's blue uniform one more time in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' series finale, which will show Captain Kirk's first day leading the USS Enterprise, and the debuts of Dr. Leonard McCoy (Thomas Jane) and Hikaru Sulu (Kai Murakami). Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' 6-episode final season will premiere on Paramount+ in 2027.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 is streaming on Paramount+
- Release Date
- 2022 - 2027-00-00
- Network
- Paramount+
- Showrunner
- Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman
- Directors
- Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman, Dermott Downs, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jonathan Frakes, Jordan Canning, Leslie Hope, Valerie Weiss, Sydney Freeland, Christopher J. Byrne, Rachel Leiterman
- Writers
- Onitra Johnson
-
Captain Christopher Pike
-
Spock
- Franchise(s)
- Star Trek
- Creator(s)
- Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet
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