‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’: Paul Wesley Gushes That the Kirk-La’an Romance “Was Everything”

If you’re a fan of Star Trek, then you already know one of the absolute greatest rivalries of all time is Captain Kirk versus Khan Noonien Singh. Even if you’re not a fan of Star Trek, you’ve probably seen GIFs of William Shatner shouting “KHAAAAN” from the iconic Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So what in the name of fanfic are we to make of today’s surprising episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, where the show’s version of Kirk (Paul Wesley) falls deeply in love with Khan’s relative, La’an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong)?

“Yeah, that arc was everything,” Wesley told Decider about the surprising romance. “Obviously La’an’s character is very reserved… Romance is the last thing on her mind. Watching them go from essentially a hostile relationship to then [a] romantic relationship, and then to have that all ripped away… We had to really nail that we had to nail that arc. We had to make it believable.”

To give you a little more context, thanks to some complicated shenanigans best described as “Star Trek stuff” for the uninitiated, La’an finds herself trapped first in an alternate, darker timeline, and then in the past. And not only is she trapped there, but she’s also stuck with an alternate version of Kirk who was raised in a much more warlike version of the universe. He was also raised in space, leading to some hilarious fish-out-of-water bits like not understanding revolving doors, or how money works.

What the duo discovers is that this alternate timeline is all caused by killing Khan as a child. It’s a classic “Would you kill Baby Hitler?” dilemma, with the added note that killing Khan would positively impact La’an’s life and reputation (she’s suffered thanks to the Noonien Singh last name), but the universe would suffer. And to add to the complications, over the course of the episode, as noted, this Kirk and La’an fall in love thanks to some incredible fanfic tropes (enemies to lovers and “what if the hotel only had one bed?” come to mind). So if La’an fixes the timeline, which she of course eventually does, the “real” version of Kirk will never remember their relationship. La’an is left at the end of the episode having finally opened her heart to someone, only to save the universe at the cost of her own happiness, and it’s heartbreaking.

“Christina is such a wonderful actress, and also hilarious,” Wesley continued. “We connected as actors, and actually as characters, we connected through our sort of humor. And I hope well, hopefully that showed.”

It definitely did. So while this might not be the gender-bent Khan/Kirk romance fanfic artists have depicted for decades, it’s somehow better, and sadder all at the same time.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.