Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: How Lin-Manuel Miranda Ghosting a Picard EP Led to That Memorable Musical Episode
Nobody is having more fun making television than the creatives behind Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. That was evident in this week’s episode, “Subspace Rhapsody,” a musical installment which found the Enterprise crew involuntarily sharing their true feelings through song.
The hour is predicated on an outside force compelling the crew to perform catchy song-and-dance numbers when emotions are running high, much like the demon behind the musical hijinks in the beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Once More, With Feeling.”
Co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers confirms that Thursday’s Strange New Worlds was, in fact, influenced by the Buffy musical.
“That was definitely an inspiration,” he tells TVLine. “We held that up as like, ‘OK, well, we have to live up to that because if we do this badly, it will not go well, and we would be upset by it. And none of us wanted to do it badly.”
The idea for a Star Trek musical came up while Picard executive producers Michael Chabon and Akiva Goldsman were enthusiastically chatting with star Michelle Hurd about the prospect of one on the Picard set.
Goldsman, who also serves as EP and co-showrunner on Strange New Worlds, recalled how Chabon told them he knew Lin-Manuel Miranda. “We were like, ‘Call him! call him!”” the EP shared. Two days later, when they followed up with Chabon, he told them, “[Lin-Manuel] didn’t call me back.”
“And that was the end of that musical,” Goldsman noted. “But it did seem like such a good idea. As soon as Henry and I got together to make [Strange New Worlds], I kept peppering him with, ‘We should do a musical,’ and Henry, of course, had done musicals before.”
Myers, who oversaw musical episodes as showrunner on Syfy’s The Magicians, “was like, ‘You know they’re really hard,’ and I was like, ‘Well, they can’t really be hard, can they?’ knowing nothing about how hard they could be. But my blind optimism, I think, finally persuaded Henry’s pragmatic, actual practical understanding of the heavy lifting required, and off we went.”
According to Myers, writer Bill Wolkoff had “a kind of crazy pitch for a musical idea” at the beginning of Strange New Worlds’ second season, and they ran with it. “We were like, ‘Oh, that sounds good. Let’s finally do that,’” Myers explains.
“It has to come late in the season because there’s a lot of work that is required. I remember I started making calls about six months out because we needed to find a composer, we needed to find a lyricist, we needed to start designing what we would do for the sets,” he continues. “Once they’re finally ready, they shoot more quickly than you think. But it’s the months and months and months before that, while you’re making a TV show and doing lots of other things, that make it extremely hard.”
TVLine has reached out to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s reps for comment.
What did you think of Star Trek’s first musical episode? Grade “Subspace Rhapsody” below, and then share your thoughts in the comments!
I’m relieved that they didn’t end up trying it with Picard. A musical is a much better fit for the lighter, wackier tone of SNW.
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I had totally missed the Magicians connection – I always loved their musical moments, which were often hilarious but actually delivered real emotional impact.
I am still missing “The Magicians” and I won’t ever forget the cast perform “Take on me”.
I absolutely loved the arrangement of Take On Me performed after Quinn’s death.
i can’t recommend the books enough. There are a few differences, some major, but theres more story and a much more satisfying conclusion.
That was an experience!!! The talented cast pulled it off… The other thing is as well as the musical numbers, it revealed a lot… Didn’t just sing for singing purposes… The songs revealed stuff the the audience and it actually pushed the stories of this season forward and answered some fan questions like for instance about Spock and Chapel.. As a one of event, it was fun.. And it looked like the cast all had fun doing it as well which is a great thing.. Hope they all can get back to work soon…
Did anyone else notice the main Klingon was played by same actor who portrayed Hemmer?
Really? I didn’t know that. Makes it even more fun.
I love any and everything Lin Manuel touches. Feels strange to me that any Star Trek is related to that, but ok.
Except this happened specifically because he *didn’t* touch it…
I’m not a big fan of random musical episodes (I’m that person who hates the Buffy musical episode), but this was better than I thought it would be. More interested in the “Dr. Korby” easter egg and trying to remember if Kirk ever mentioned a “Carol” on the OG series – definitely no mention of Jim Kirk having a child, but his brother Sam did. At least the show can say they did it and never have to do it again.
Never mind about the Carol Marcus bit; I looked it up and it’s from the Wrath of Khan movie, including the reference to Kirk having a child that I had completely forgotten about (I know, everybody loves that movie but it’s not one of my personal favorites so I don’t remember all the details from it)
And to add to this, in the second TOS pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, Gary Mitchell mentions having set Kirk up with a “little blonde technician” whom many people assume was Carol Marcus, or at least that the Wrath of Khan writers kept this line in mind when creating the character.
Kirk being an absent parent wouldn’t have been accepted as a lead on a 1960’s show, but it was obvious from how old David was in 1982 that he was conceived before TOS ever began.
Well, even Kirk didn’t know he was a father. I love that the are playing with the cannon. I hoping for more surprises!
No, Kirk knew he had a son. Carol asked him to stay away.
It seems almost every show now does has a musical episode, it it’s a sci-fi or fantasy show. Going all the way back to shows like Xena, Buffy to more resent shows such as The Flash, even Gray’s Anatomy did one.
The only one that was any good IMO was the Buffy the vampire one. I really just hate them with a passion. as such this is the one episode I’m just going to watch something else, and return for the week after.
It was horrible and a rip off of Lin’s music in Hamilton
I felt no connection to Hamilton at all in it.
There really wasn’t, but most of the music was obviously derivative of other musicals (one song obviously had most of its parts derived from Let It Go). I rationalized it as the wave was using the ‘great american songbook’ so obviously all the song swould have been derivative of clssics.
Uhura won hands down – she got some pipes
No. I’ve watched Hamilton many times. This had no Hamilton vibes whatsoever.
Wow. A Star Trek the musical… the other OG Trekkers will probably go cranky over this episode but I loved it! And that cast has some pipes! The only negative was that the Klingons had better choreo.
Krunking Klingons. Oh my…..
I AM an OG Trekker and I absolutely loved this episode! I hate musicals where the story is stopped for a musical number. Here, the songs propelled the story. It was well done and the cast looked like there were having a blast!
Very good singers. And K-Pop Klingons — I have no words. But, overall, not that good. BTVS is still about the only non-musical show that has pulled off a musical episode.
Xena would like to have a word with you about that comment.
I really liked it and tjhe nod to Buffy’s Once More With Feeling by bringing up bunnies.
And Uhura said, “I have a theory…” I replied, “…that it’s a demon.”
Me too!
I thoroughly enjoyed the episode. This season has been top-notch and the episodes keep getting better.
As a die hard ST fan this show showed promise last season but has clearly “jumped the shark”
You mean last season when Spock and his fiancee swapped bodies and an omnipotent child transformed everyone into storybook characters? If you haven’t figured out what this show is by now, you aren’t paying attention.
LOVED the episode!! Thank you cast and writers.
Going in, I felt the same way I did before the Buffy musical came on — I hoped it wouldn’t embarrass a show I liked. Nothing to worry about in either case. I’ve watched this a couple of times, and liked it the first time, but loved it the second.
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Celia Rose Gooding is a powerhouse, but it was Christina Chong and Jess Bush that really did it for me. Chong in an excellent singer and dancer, and she has that way of going straight to your heart, as she did in Doctor Who. The Bush number was interesting, for example in the way Chapel flirts with a man and a couple of women in celebrating the freedom the fellowship will give her. Ethan Peck was also very good, and you wanted to take poor Spock aside and tell him that it’s a three month break and he should at least talk things over with Christine before withdrawing from emotional involvement forever. This Nurse Chapel is a surprisingly complex character, and Jess Bush has been giving a strong performance, particularly in the episode before this.
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It was fun to see Anson Mount and Melanie Scrofano singing, among others. Rebecca Romijn isn’t as strong a singer as Celia Rose Gooding or Christina Chong, which is hardly a criticism, but she is very good, and she’s a pleasure to listen to.
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I’m incredibly slow on the uptake, but until now I hadn’t clicked with the fact that Number One’s first name is Una, which means one in Spanish or Italian..
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worst episode ever in the history of all trek series combined
This is just factually inaccurate
Star Trek TNG had so many brick episodes, the worst of which is the one with david ogden stiers
Any episode that reolved around westly crusher, objectively worse, especially if it involve ashley judd and an addictive space checkers game
Let’s not forget the Voyager clunker where Tom Paris turns into a lizard and mates with Janeway. Can not watch.
They were salamanders, not lizards! They were salamanders!
LOL!! I don’t want to remember LOL!!
The best was Chapel’s “musical” number in the lounge. I have to admit that I thought that this episode was going to be SNW “jump the shark” moment but it wasn’t. The story as to why everyone would break out in song was well thought out. The next best “musical” number were the singing and dancing Klingons! I had thought that a ST musical would be better as a Lower Decks episode, but everything considered it was better than I expected it to be.
The first season was sharp, suspenseful with good character development and storylines. This season is not. It is bordering on stupid. This episode and the one combined with lower decks, for me were unwatchable.
Dear Star Trek,
If you’re resorting to Musical Episodes to remain relevant and trying to do something “unique” with your Franchise then it’s probably time to give it a rest. You’ve had a good run but come on… You’re done. You belong in a museum now.
Sincerely,
-Me.
Dear Jaye,
I have retired in 2005. The person you are adressing is just an impostor that uses my name.
Regards,
(The actual) Star Trek
While I thought they did an excellent job, I would have preferred it on a stage in a theatre. I’ve been a Trek fan since Day 1 and did not like the episode.
Pure cringe
It was a fun episode and I enjoyed it. I didn’t care for some of the songs and no song really stuck with me, but that Klingon scene was absolutely hilarious.
Surprisingly excellent in its execution both in demonstrating Cast & supporting Writers/Producers’ talent & most importantly sticking well within the series story line. Well done!
I don’t normally mind (or especially like) musical episodes, but I feel like they packed way too many numbers into this episode. Seemed like they’d start the next song 30 seconds after the last one ended. And the songs were mostly “meh”.
I loved every minute of it. Funny because I felt it had a “Lin-Manuel” flow, but to find out he actually had nothing to do with it is interesting. Well done!!
This headline had me scared that this was going to be another stop-start Lin-Manuel musical – was pleasantly surprised when I watched the episode that the songs were SONGS!
This was a really fun episode, goofy in a good way, and it was very nice to see the whole cast getting a lot to do – something this season has not been great about juggling. The Klingons’ shame was hilarious.
There were some very fun numbers in there and they tried hard to make everything relevant and pushing the characters forward. Not every song was a winner, most were too long, some of the lyrics got awkward and some character work still felt trite, but this was a stellar effort all the same. Great acting, fantastic production team, and a fun bold concept. The idea of an improbability field is straight out of Douglas Adams.
The Infinite Improbability Drive!
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Actually, I took it as a sort of self-parody. They’re always pulling rabbits out of hats — nebulas as magical places, particularly when they contain Boltzmann brains, people hallucinating because their spaceship passed through deuterium, deuterium somehow hosting extradimensional beings, whatever that means, and so on. They do it so blithely and their “science” is such word salad that I wonder sometimes if they’re winking at you, as well as getting their plots from A to B, keep moving, nothing to see here.
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This time they obviously were joking. You had “subspaces” with “quantum improbability fields” like zippers that someone thinks might have gotten stuck in a musical theater mode and which are somehow shut off if everybody sings at once and exceeds a specific threshold measured in GeV that somebody just knows. I found that very funny.
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In more serious contexts, I kind of hate it when a show waves its hands that way. It’s like assuming your audience is so ignorant that you can double talk them and they’ll believe it. SNW does some of that, sometimes in ways that drive you nuts, but on the whole it’s pretty good at not putting you in that position.