The original Enterprise crew is almost fully assembled. Once , the classic team will be complete. In a newly confirmed press release, Paramount+ has announced that Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy and Hikaru Sulu—originally portrayed by DeForest Kelley and George Takei in Star Trek: The Original Series—will make an appearance in the final episode of Strange New Worlds Season 5.
Like the rest of the Strange New Worlds cast, Bones and Sulu will be portrayed by fresh actors in the series, making each the third performer to step into these iconic roles.
Below is the official statement from Paramount+:
“A holiday surprise for the fans! The Paramount+ Original Series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds reveals casting of iconic and fan-favorite characters for the final episode of season five of the beloved series, which recently wrapped production and promises to deliver unforgettable adventures aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise.”
So, who’s stepping into the roles of Bones and Sulu? For sci-fi fans, the new Bones will be a recognizable face: Thomas Jane, known for and the 2004 iteration of The Punisher. Sulu, on the other hand, will be played by Kai Murakami—whom Paramount labels a “rising star.”
Bones and Sulu Within the Star Trek Timeline
It’s likely that Strange New Worlds Season 5 — slated for release in 2027 after — will align the series’ events with the year 2265, the first year Captain James T. Kirk took command of the USS Enterprise. Notably, only one Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) episode is set during this debut year: the 1965 second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Even more unusual: Bones doesn’t appear in this episode, and Sulu wasn’t serving as helmsman back then!
When “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was shot, it served as a soft reboot of the series, following NBC’s rejection of the first pilot, “The Cage.” Since then, both episodes have been retroactively added to official canon, but “Where No Man Has Gone Before” still contains several inconsistencies—like Spock wearing a gold uniform and Sulu in blue, working in the ship’s sciences division.
Official tie-in novels and comics have tried to resolve these details, especially Bones’ absence from “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” In the main TOS series, Bones is the central figure of the first-ever aired episode, “The Man Trap,” and he also plays a key role in the first regular episode filmed, “The Corbomite Maneuver.” However, there’s no on-screen explanation for what happened to Dr. Piper—and fans wouldn’t have questioned it anyway, since “Where No Man Has Gone Before” aired third, framing Piper as a temporary replacement for Bones rather than the reverse.
In 1986, Vonda N. McIntyre’s novel Enterprise: The First Adventure tried to clarify why Bones was actually present at the start of Kirk’s Five-Year Mission, despite the Piper confusion. In 1985, DC’s Mike Barr did the same with a story titled “All Those Years Ago…”—which connected the Enterprise’s first mission to events in the comics’ then-contemporary timeline, where Kirk was in command of the Excelsior(Sulu’s future vessel!) after the events of The Search for Spock. (DC’s 1980s Star Trek comics often tried to predict future film events, but were mostly incorrect.)
However, from the official Prime Universe perspective, we’ve never witnessed Sulu and Bones’ first day aboard the USS Enterprise. The 2009 J.J. Abrams film Star Trek did show Bones (Karl Urban) and Sulu (John Cho) on the Enterprise’s first mission—but that exists in an entirely alternate timeline, placing everyone on the ship several years earlier (2258) instead of 2265.
Thus, with Strange New Worlds Season 5, showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have a unique chance to make Star Trek history. The question remains: after we see this new, classic iteration of the Enterprise crew, will there be more adventures for them to fill in the missing gaps of 2265? If not, fans can always turn to the beloved 79-episode TOS series—now 60 years old—that’s available to watch immediately.