‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Almost Killed Off This Fan-Favorite Character

Published Jul 24, 2026, 6:34 PM EDT Michael Hein has been covering entertainment, fandom news, and trending topics since 2016 on outlets including Rogues Portal, PopCulture.com, and ComicBook.com. He has provided live coverage of red carpet premieres, conventions, and up-fronts, and has interviewed major stars including Charles Dance, Patrick Stewart, and Chloe Sevigny. An avid fiction reader and writer, Michael has been diving deep into all the biggest book-to-screen adaptations of the last decade, from Game of Thrones to Foundation. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is going out with a bang, and the producers are leaving everything on the table — even episodes they didn't get to shoot. The series is currently airing its fourth season on Paramount+, and it has already shot its fifth and final season. Last week, the cast and creators came together for a virtual panel hosted by the Television Critics Association to celebrate the premiere of Season 4, and the impending finale of the show was baked into every question and answer. When discussing storylines that never made it onto the show, co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman revealed that they had actually written an episode that would have killed off Pelia (Carol Kane). An exploratory mission onboard the U.S.S. Enterprise is by no means a safe endeavor, yet it's not all that common for a main cast member to be killed permanently in this franchise. The fact that such a story was on the table — but it was scrapped specifically because it would have killed Pelia — tells us a lot about the creative philosophy behind Strange New Worlds. It comes with some implicit hints about the remaining episodes of the series, and it is a testament to the popularity of the character. Knowing that the story will continue in other shows and other media, it should come as a relief for die-hard Pelia fans. Carol Kane Had Her Own Question for the 'Strange New Worlds' Showrunners The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds panel consisted primarily of questions submitted by TCA members and answered by the cast and crew, including co-showrunners Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers, as well as stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Kane. Towards the end of the panel, Kane slipped in a question of her own for Myers and Goldsman. She asked if they could share any story ideas they were dying to write for this show if it were to continue, with no constraints on the budget or timing. Both professed to having many story ideas, but Goldsman brought up a specific unproduced episode. "We had this amazing episode... I mean, we didn't do it because we didn't want to kill you off," he said to Kane. "But we had an amazing death episode where your daughter came back. It was a little bit like Sixth Sense — there was a character who you didn't know why you recognized. We built it so that it took the whole episode for everybody to realize — the audience to realize — no one else saw her, but you did, and she was a daughter coming to..." As an aside, Goldsman promised to give Kane more details on unproduced episodes when the panel was over, but that's enough to pique the interest of any fan on its own. As Kane mentioned, Pelia came into Strange New Worlds in the second season, but she has become as beloved as any other character on the show. The idea of killing her off — or even putting her through a ghostly tragedy — is unsettling, so it's no wonder this story landed on the cutting room floor. 'Strange New Worlds' Is Leading Star Trek Into the Future Image via Paramount+ This anecdote from behind the scenes of Strange New Worlds encapsulates everything that's great about the series. It is one of the most recent additions to the franchise in an era of many spinoffs and expansions, yet it may capture the spirit of Star Trek better than any other modern title. Goldsman and Myers left their sad Pelia story in the writers' room not because it wasn't compelling, but because it wouldn't add anything to this series about exploration and found-family. Of course, it helps that Pelia may be the most interesting new character for this franchise in years. Pelia is a Lanthanite — an alien humanoid species that lived on Earth among humans undetected for thousands of years in the Star Trek continuity. Pelia herself lived on Earth at least as far back as the 6th Century BCE, as she said she was there at the same time as Pythagoras. She told her crewmates she was 5,000 years old, and that Lanthanites could live practically forever if they are not harmed. This has created plenty of chances for Pelia to name-drop famous acquaintances from history, serving as a bit of comic relief among the crew. At the same time, the show explored the difficulties that would come with near-immortality, including the loss of perspective and purpose to drive one in life. The show also introduced a Lanthanite-human hybrid character named Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter), revealing that such offspring could inherit the long Lanthanite lifespan. There's plenty left to explore with Pelia and with Lanthanites in general, so Goldsman and Myers made the right choice in shelving a story that would endanger her. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 is airing now on Thursdays on Paramount+. It will conclude with one more season, which does not have a release date yet. Release Date 2022 - 2027-00-00 Network Paramount+ Showrunner Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike (played by Anson Mount) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds throughout the galaxy in the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series.