A recent blink and you’ll miss it Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover just happened, but this isn’t the first time these two universes have suggested a deeper connection. We look at the history of a possible crossover… Pretty much everyone loves an Easter egg, not least those deep into particular TV or movie franchises. Recently, Star ... Doctor Who and Star Trek | will their paths ever truly cross on screen?
A recent blink and you’ll miss it Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover just happened, but this isn’t the first time these two universes have suggested a deeper connection. We look at the history of a possible crossover…
Pretty much everyone loves an Easter egg, not least those deep into particular TV or movie franchises. Recently, Star Trek fandom were all a tingle on noticing, in a still image from recent Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode ‘The Sehlat Who Ate It’s Own Tail’, a suspiciously TARDIS-shaped image attached to the hull of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
No official confirmation that Alex Kurtzman’s retinue included a very overt nod and wink to Doctor Who has been forthcoming, with some questioning whether or not this actually was the TARDIS at all (Google’s AI summary seems to indicate not, which could be another sign it’s a load of incorrect rubbish). The image is below – judge for yourself. Looks quite legit to me.
Either way, fans had differing reactions.
Some enjoyed the Easter Egg reference. Others didn’t appreciate the intrusion unless it was going to influence the narrative. A few started discussing the possibility of a genuine crossover event between Doctor Who and Star Trek, an idea that isn’t as far fetched as you might think. It’s happened a few times in print but on screen, there have been points it came surprisingly close to reality.
For one, Russell T Davies has been keen for at least two decades to intersect his revival of Who with modern Star Trek. He hasn’t given up on the idea, evidenced as recently as the 2024 episode ‘Space Babies’, where companion Ruby Sunday asks if a transporter device is like one from Star Trek. The Doctor responds with a broad grin “we really have to visit them one day”, which Ruby lets go without asking the obvious question: isn’t that a fictional universe if I know about it?
This is obviously more of a tongue in cheek reference than anything serious, suggesting perhaps the Doctor is capable of visiting alternate realities where fictions such as Star Trek actually exist (a very Galaxy Quest idea), but it also serves as an Easter egg reference to Davies’ own desire to see these two universes come together for fans who know the series’ internal history. Especially the moment around 2005 when a crossover between Doctor Who and Star Trek: Enterprise was discussed as more than just a joke.
As I discuss in my book Lost Federations: The Unmade History of Star Trek, Davies directly references this in The Writers Tale, his diaries which cover the making of the first four seasons of the revival. “I would so love to see the Doctor on board the Starship Enterprise, puncturing all that Starfleet pomposity with his sheer Doctor-ness. When we began in 2004, Star Trek: Enterprise was still on air, and I told Julie (Gardner, Doctor Who producer), in all seriousness, that I wanted to do a Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover. It was on our list of plans, until Star Trek: Enterprise was axed.”
Davies later claimed in an interview with The Times that conversations were had between the team at Bad Wolf and Paramount, with at the time Rick Berman still in charge of the Star Trek franchise as he had been since 1987 on the small screen. But the cancellation of Enterprise put paid to any concrete plan. “Landing the TARDIS on board the Enterprise would have been magnificent. Can you imagine what their script department would have wanted and what
I would have wanted? It would have been the biggest battle.”
We can assume such a crossover episode would have happened in the first or second season of new Doctor Who and the fourth of Enterprise, placing it in the orbit of either Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant alongside Billie Piper as his companion. No plot ideas, if that stage was reached, have ever come to light, and one wonders further at not just the budgetary alignment but also the tonal shifts that would have been necessary to combine these shows.
We would likely have seen the Doctor and Rose appear on Enterprise, rather than the other way around, and the more sobre tone of Berman-era Trek would have been difficult to integrate with Davies’ ground level pantomime sci-fi theatrics. Davies’ comments further suggest his take on this crossover would have been to see the Doctor essentially mock Captain Archer and his crew for their stiff-backed rigour. It’s hard to imagine Paramount being okay with such an approach on a Trek show, especially one with falling ratings at the pinch point between network and cable television.
The topic came up again in 2024 at San Diego Comic Con, where Davies and Kurtzman sat on a joint panel. Davies suggested if fans want it, raise their voices, and both were asked what episodes of each other’s series they would want to write. “Borg, Borg, Borg! I love the Borg!” Kurtzman pointed out that Star Trek: Picard had largely wiped out that deadly robotic species but Davies, in inimitable fashion, replied. “There’s always a way. The Daleks keep coming back!”
Though such a crossover has not happened on screen, we have seen a significant one in comic book form from IDW Publishing that sees the Borg and Doctor Who intersect. In 2012, they published ‘Assimilation2’ which sees Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, alongside companions Amy and Rory Pond, arrive on the U.S.S. Enterprise-D under Captain Jean-Luc Picard as two very similar villains from both franchises – the Borg and the Cybermen – threaten a universe-bending alliance which the Doctor must join forces with Starfleet to prevent. We even learn that Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor had his own adventure with Captain Kirk’s iconic 1960s crew of the original Enterprise fighting the Cybermen.
Not that Star Trek hasn’t at least had fondness for Doctor Who historically. As far back as 1992, when The Next Generation episode ‘I, Borg’ aired, an Easter egg in that episode saw the names of the first six actors to play the Doctor—Hartnell through to Colin Baker—flash on a screen, which many fans caught. The 1985 novel, ‘Ishmael’, from Barbara Hambly, also sees Kirk reference the ‘Kasterborous galaxy’, which is where the Time Lords hail from.
Most recently in video game form, for the Star Trek: Lower Decks story ‘The Badgey Directive’ and Doctor Who’s ‘Lost In Time’, a crossover occurred which saw the Tenth Doctor (as played on screen by David Tennant) and his mischevious wife Dr. River Song cross over into the Trek universe and meet the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos as they battle Daleks. You could find eternal amounts of fan fiction across the internet, spanning decades, which brings together these two franchises. There has long for many fans of both series been a desire to see the worlds of Starfleet and the Doctor collide.
Beyond a mere Easter egg such as recently in Strange New Worlds, would it ever happen is the key question? Both franchises are at a point of change. Star Trek has just been amalgamated in terms of TV and film into a new Paramount set up following a corporate merger, with promises to lavish attention on the franchise, which has begun to ail of late, cancelling shows and scaling back significantly on promises to flood the small screen with Trek. Budgetary considerations and mixed reactions from fans, and undoubtedly a lack of take up on the Paramount Plus streaming service, are all factors as to why.
The situation is more perilous for Doctor Who, of course. After the unexpectedly underwhelming return of Russell T. Davies amidst backing from Disney, the loss of Ncuti Gatwa before he even truly got started as the Doctor, and now the series at sea with the BBC unable to fund it completely in these trying economic times for TV production, who knows (pun intended) when we’ll even see another series again? If Davies remains at the helm, no doubt his wish to see Star Trek properly cross paths with Doctor Who will remain live too, but a great deal of stars would need to align in order to make this a reality.
Stranger things, across both of these franchises it’s fair to say, have definitely happened. Keep your Vulcan entwined fingers crossed.
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