37 Years Later, Leonard Nimoy’s Boldest Rejected Star Trek Plan Finally Happened

Published Sep 3, 2026, 1:30 PM 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 4, Episode 7 - "Like Chronitons Through The Hourglass"37 years after it was rejected for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Leonard Nimoy's boldest plan is finally realized on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Directed by Anna Dokoza and written by Dana Horgan and Bill Wolkoff, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 7 turns the Starship Enterprise crew into unwilling participants in a soap opera.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 7, "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass," is a big swing where Trelane (Rhys Darby) returns to warp the reality of the USS Enterprise crew. For a school project, the mischievous young Q forces soap opera tropes onto the unwitting Starfleet Officers. Only Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) realizes that Trelane is meddling with their lives.

Trelane's "body cleaning theater" includes boilerplate plots like Pike having amnesia, Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) believing she's Pike's long-lost daughter, and Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) afflicted with "space madness."

However, it's Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh's (Christina Chong) storyline trying to save a dying Lieutenant Spock's (Ethan Peck) life that pays off a Leonard Nimoy rumor from Star Trek V.

Leonard Nimoy’s Plan To Play Spock & Sybok Finally Happens In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 7 reveals Sybok, Spock's criminal, elder half-brother. Ethan Peck playing Sybok and Spock fulfills Leonard Nimoy's rumored intention to also play both Spock and Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. This rumor was shared by Lawrence Luckinbill, who played Sybok in Star Trek V, in an interview with ScreenRant in 2024.

Star Trek V director William Shatner created Sybok, who was originally named Zar and modeled on 1980s televangelists. Sybok was reconceived as Spock's older brother during Star Trek V's development. Luckinbill recalls hearing that Leonard Nimoy wanted to play both Vulcan siblings, but Shatner shot that idea down and cast Lawrence after seeing him perform as Lyndon B. Johnson on television.

In "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass," La'an captures Sybok to force him to submit to a "living heart transplant" to save Spock's life. Sybok tests La'an's resolve, but in a shocking swerve, agrees to help his brother. Spock and Sybok are identical in Trelane's "body cleaning theater" reality, with Sybok cast as the resentful evil twin whom La'an is nonetheless attracted to.

Of course, Star Trek V established that Sybok and Spock are very different Vulcans inside and out. Sybok's mother was a Vulcan princess, and he is a full Vulcan who rejected logic for emotion. In Star Trek V, Sybok is driven by the mad belief that God is speaking to him, commanding the Vulcan renegade to steal a starship and find the Creator of the universe on the fabled world of Sha Ka Ree.

The Real Sybok Still Hasn’t Fully Appeared In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Sybok's appearance in "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass" finally delivers on the tease of Sybok at the end of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 7, "The Serene Squall"... sort of. Unfortunately, Ethan Peck did not play the real Sybok. Instead, Sybok was a soap opera construct by Trelane.

Ironically, William Shatner played both Captain James T. Kirk and his mustachioed older brother, Sam Kirk, in Star Trek: The Original Series season 1's "Operation - Annihilate!'

As Spock explained to La'an at the end of "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass," he and Sybok are not identical. Trelane pulled the idea of Spock having an "evil" brother from his memories and created a version of Sybok that fit the "evil identical twin" soap opera trope. "It is, by nature, contrived," is Spock's accurate and meta summary of how Star Trek: Strange New Worlds chose to 'reveal' Sybok.

Three years since showing the back of Sybok's head, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has yet to show the real Sybok. The questions from season 1's "The Serene Squall" remain unanswered, including what happened to Sybok's wife, Captain Angel (Jesse James Keitel), and whether T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) knows that her prisoner, named Xaverius, is Spock's half-brother.

Ethan Peck playing Spock and Sybok in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a clever meta nod to the long-standing rumor that Leonard Nimoy wanted both Vulcan roles in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It's also still possible that the real Sybok will appear in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' fifth and final season.

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

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  Captain Christopher Pike

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  Spock