Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 is all about destiny and time travel. The episode titles alone teased a lot of time travel, and the premiere immediately delivered with a dinosaur story. But one plot sadly won’t be happening; however much the showrunners wished otherwise, we’re not getting a Doctor Who crossover. Most have assumed this was supposed to be part of the season finale, given that episode is openly called “Tomorrow’s Enterprise.”
Speaking to TrekMovie, Strange New Worlds executive producer and co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers has just addressed those Doctor Who plans – and rejected that particular theory. “On the Doctor Who thing,” he said, “we had a lot of discussion with them about trying to make it happen. That wasn’t a season finale. I think we had even talked about potentially doing it as a separate spin-off episode.”
As exciting as the prospect of a Doctor Who crossover may be, I’m relieved that this wasn’t supposed to be the season finale. That would have made the Doctor and the TARDIS a little too “big,” because season finales naturally tend to carry a lot of narrative weight; the idea works best as simply “just another episode,” weaving the Time Lords of Gallifrey into Star Trek lore. Strange New Worlds has already embedded the idea, with a repeated gag that the Lanthanite crew member Pelia – who herself has a unique relationship with time – was once one of Doctor Who‘s companions.
I can understand why many suspected “Tomorrow’s Enterprise” would have been the crossover. The title alludes to a previous episode, “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” that was all about time travel; given the importance of destiny to Strange New Worlds, it’s reasonable to assume Captain Pike will learn something about the Enterprise’s future, perhaps even meeting a future Captain Kirk in a time travel team-up. I admit, I’d been more than a little concerned the failed crossover plans may have affected the season finale; there’s always a huge risk when it comes to abandon or adapting such ideas.
In the end, negotiations between the various companies fell through. At a guess, that’s principally because Doctor Who was in an unusual position at the time; Season 4 filmed in 2025, when the BBC was producing the show in partnership with Disney. At a guess, Disney disliked the idea of having props and assets they’d paid for used in a show that would have distributed on Paramount+ rather than Disney+. That partnership fell through in late 2025, and the BBC has now put Doctor Who out for competitive tender, meaning nobody would want to make a special or crossover that would risk accidentally setting a narrative direction.
Sadly, then, it seems the opportunity has been missed for a Doctor Who / Star Trek crossover. Star Trek itself now seems to be leaving the small screen, despite hopes Strange New Worlds could evolve into a Year One spinoff. Instead, Paramount is focused on bringing the USS Enterprise back to the big screen. There’s no conceivable scenario where an actual theatrical Star Trek release will feature the TARDIS, so it’s unlikely to ever happen.
