Strange New Worlds’ “Once La’an A Time” (Exclusive)

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 9 – “Once La’an a Time”Christina Chong pushed herself to her limits playing two sides of Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s penultimate episode, which returns to season 1’s fairy tale world, the Kingdom of Elysian.

Although Star Trek: Strange New Worlds series wrapped last December, Christina tells ScreenRant’s John Orquiola, “In a strange way, it feels like we are still going back. We’re not, but because we had big chunks of time off in between seasons, I can still envisage a world where I go back into my Starfleet uniform.”

Christina and her Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cast are still promoting the show’s fourth season, which ends on September 24 with the finale, “Tomorrow’s Enterprise.” They are also popular guests on the Star Trek convention circuit, and there is also the fifth and final season of Strange New Worlds still to come in 2027.

Christina Chong Says “Once La’an A Time” Was Her Hardest Challenge As An Actor

In “Once La’an a Time,” Chong and the rest of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ cast did double duty playing their Starfleet characters and their fairy-tale counterparts. For La’an, meeting her double, Princess Thalia, meant confronting her own warring duality, which led to her most difficult challenge as an actor.

Those scenes where I play both characters were probably the hardest scenes that I’ve ever had to do.

Christina admits that playing Princess Thalia “was, in a way, a relief because I’m not very like La’an. So it’s harder for me to play this repressed character. Those scenes where I play both characters were probably the hardest scenes that I’ve ever had to do. Especially the fight, because I had to learn… I think it was something like 74 beats of a fight. And I had to learn both sides of it, obviously.”

Thalia is generally easier to play, but for this particular scene, she was the hardest to play because she was so angry. We filmed Thalia’s fight first, and I think it was like a Friday or something, and we had to change over to do La’an’s side of the fight at three in the morning. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe that now I have to completely flip my brain, change over into a different costume.’ And as we started La’an’s fight, I just collapsed for a minute. I just got overwhelmed, and I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ and everyone just stopped.

The whole crew was silent, and I had two voices on my shoulder going, ‘You just get up. You can do this. Just keep going. Just get up. Just do this. You can’t do this anymore. Just tell them you can’t. You have to pick it up tomorrow. No, you need to get up, and you need to do it.’ Like there were two voices on my shoulder, and I just had to take a couple of minutes. I got up, and I finished the fight, but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as an actor.

Although La’an emerges as a happier person at the end of “Once La’an a Time,” Christina is mum about whether this truly is the end of La’an’s trauma: “We’ll see. We’ll see. We still have seven episodes to come. But yeah, one would hope.”

Christina also teases, “We’ll have to wait and see” whether the USS Griffin, the ghost ship seen in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 2 that infected La’an with its evil darkness, will factor into season 5.

How Christina Chong’s Dog, Runa Ewok, Joined Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The USS Enterprise gets a new crew member at the end of “Once La’an a Time” when Runa, played by Christina Chong’s real-life dog, Runa Ewok, comes aboard. In the Elysian Kingdom, Runa is Princess Thalia’s pet, but she gives her dog to La’an, and Runa now lives aboard the Enterprise. “How cool is that?” Christina beams.

Chong thanks Star Trek: Strange New Worlds executive producers Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers for the gift of Runa joining the show. Christina even teases that Runa may get her own Starfleet uniform:

It was actually Akiva and Henry. They had the idea to bring her onto the ship. And when they told me at Comic Con last year, I was like, ‘Oh my god, absolutely yes!’ And I actually can’t remember what she wears. Does she wear anything in this? She doesn’t wear anything, does she? In this episode. But you can imagine, you can imagine where it goes.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Filmed New Runa Scenes

Runa Ewok joins Star Trek Strange New Worlds

Although Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wrapped production before Christmas 2025, Christina reveals that she and members of the cast and crew returned to Toronto in February to film new scenes about Runa.

I actually finished [filming] in February. My last shoot date was February because they wanted to add more Runa into the show, so we had a dog day unit in which we filmed this scene. Actually, this scene was filmed, and not everyone came back, but the crew came back, and Jess came back, and I think Melissa came back to film extra Runa scenes.

Strange New Worlds‘ sets were torn down, and parts of it were auctioned off in the spring, along with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s sets, but it’s fascinating that new scenes were filmed while the USS Enterprise’s interiors were still standing.

Christina Chong Chooses La’an’s Best Romantic Partner: Kirk Or Spock?

At the end of “Once La’an a Time,” La’an and James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) decide to give romance a shot. La’an has a complicated history with Kirk, which began when she fell in love with James’ alternate-reality double, who was then killed in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2. La’an and the Prime Timeline Kirk also share an attraction, and now they both decide the time is right for romance.

Of course, Christina Chong can’t say where La’an and James’ romance goes, but she wishes them the best: “Let’s hope” Kirk and La’an’s relationship works out, “because I think Laan deserves some happiness.”

In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, La’an became dance partners with Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck), and that blossomed into a romance. La’an ultimately broke it off with the Vulcan in season 4.

We asked Christina to pick between Kirk and Spock as La’an’s best romantic partner:

I can’t choose, really. Both characters bring different things, but I guess Kirk helps her to open up, and that’s probably what she needs on a human level, just to feel and to give love. So I think Kirk.

Even La’an can’t deny her attraction to Kirk, which manifested when Prince Dashing, who looks exactly like James and was played by Paul Wesley, appeared in the Kingdom of Elysian. This led La’an to resignedly quip, “I want a word with Carl Jung.”

“That was hilarious,” Christina recalls. “And with his hair and his slo-mo, that scene was so funny and hard to film, for wanting to laugh.”

Christina Chong Updates Her Music Career

Christina Chong is also a recording artist, with two EPs, 2002’s Twin Flames and 2025’s Since 2021, which she released to accompany Star Trek: Strange New Worlds seasons 2 and 3, respectively. Since 2021 features the talents of her co-stars, Ethan Peck, who sings in “Baby Blue Day,” and Mynor Luken, who co-wrote and performs in “Once of a Kind.”

ScreenRant: Are you dropping new music with season five?

Christina Chong: I’m not sure yet. Last year, doing the two seasons back-to-back, there was a lot of work. And so, this year, I’m kind of taking a step back and just relaxing, and we’ll see. I need to find the right team to put it out there, but I essentially have the songs. I just need to find the right way of presenting them. So we’ll see is the answer.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 is streaming on Paramount+

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