Star Trek actor left ‘enraged’ about sci-fi show’s first-ever musical episode

Stage actor Wilson Cruz said talks of a Star Trek musical episode had been discussed years before

Star Trek: Discovery actor Wilson Cruz has said he was “enraged” after seeing a musical episode in the prequel series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

The actor claims that Discovery had been promised a musical episode long before Strange New Worlds, but it never happened.

Cruz played Dr Hugh Culber on Discovery, which aired on Paramount+ for five seasons from 2017 until 2024. Strange New Worlds, also available on Paramount+, premiered in 2022 and already has three seasons under its belt, with two more to come.

In season two of Strange New Worlds, released in 2023, an episode called “Subspace Rhapsody” became Star Trek’s first-ever musical and featured original songs by musicians Tom Polce and Kay Hanley.

Speaking at the STLV: Trek to Vegas convention, Cruz, who has appeared in the stage musicals of Rent and Tick, Tick... Boom, expressed his disappointment about Discovery’s musical episode never being made.

Cruz told Trek Movie editor, Laurie Ulster: “Season one , we’re sitting there with [showrunners] Aaron Harberts, Gretchen Berg, [co-creator] Alex Kurtzman and [producer] Akiva Goldsman. And someone says, ‘Well, what do you guys think about having a musical episode?’ And we’re like, ‘Of course! That would be amazing.’”

Wilson Cruz played Dr Hugh Culber in 50 episodes of Star Trek: Discovery (Getty Images for Paramount+)

Cruz added that the cast was left guessing for four seasons as to whether the musical episode was going to happen or not. The Strange New Worlds musical episode was then announced while Discovery was in its fourth and penultimate season.

“I love them, but I was so enraged by that, and they did a fine job,” said Cruz. “It was fun. But I was mad. I don’t work for them anymore, so I can say it.”

Discovery underwent major creative changes after its first season, with Harberts and Berg leaving the show and being replaced by Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

In 2018, The Hollywood Reporter said that Berg and Harberts’s departure were not for creative differences but operational issues. The budget for the season two premiere reportedly ballooned past expectations, meaning future episodes suffered as a result.

Discovery came to an abrupt end after its fifth season, with the cast only learning that the show had finished after filming had wrapped.

Star Trek: Discovery ended after five seasons (Paramount+)

Series star Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Captain Michael Burnham, told the Radio Times in 2024: “We’ve had a lot of time to process it.”

“We found that after the fact, right – we had shot all of season five, and thought it was just another season, and then found out a few months later, after we had wrapped. Then we went back to do a shoot, and really wrap up the series.”

Despite the programme ending sooner than she expected, Martin-Green expressed her pride in the show lasting as long as it did.

“TV has changed, and we’re in the streaming era, and so I feel that five seasons is solid. I think we had a good run, you know? So I always felt peace.”