The two will make their “Strange New Worlds” debut in season 5’s finale.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds reveals casting for Sulu and Bones

The two will make their "Strange New Worlds" debut in season 5's finale.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on *Entertainment Tonight* and Popsugar.

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December 23, 2025 1:00 p.m. ET

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Ethan Peck, Melanie Scrofano, Jess Bush, Anson Mount, and Dan Jeanotte on 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'. Credit:

Marni Grossman/Paramount+

Paramount+ has a holiday surprise for *Star Trek: Strange New Worlds*!**

On Tuesday, the streamer revealed the two stars cast who will portray the iconic and fan-favorite characters of Leonard "Bones" McCoy and Hikaru Sulu for the final episode of season 5 of the beloved series.

While viewers are still a ways from the fifth season — season 3 dropped its final episode in September and season 4 will premiere in 2026 — production only recently wrapped on the fifth and final season of the *Star Trek: Discovery* spinoff that follows Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the starship Enterprise in the 23rd century. And with what Paramount+ promises to be a chapter that unveils "unforgettable adventures" aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, comes the introduction of two iconic characters to the crew!

Thomas Jane; DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy, a.k.a. Bones, on 'Star Trek'.

Bjoern Kommerell; CBS via Gett

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McCoy, the beloved chief medical officer of the USS *Enterprise*, will be played by acclaimed actor Thomas Jane. The triple Golden Globe Award nominee picks up the role after portrayals from DeForest Kelley, who originated the character on the original *Star Trek* series from 1966 to 1969, and Karl Urban, who assumed the role of McCoy for the *Star Trek *reboot series that began with the 2009 relaunch.

Kai Murakami; George Takei as Hikaru Sulu on 'Star Trek'.

Kim Hardy; CBS via Getty

Sulu, the USS Enterprise's staff physicist, will be played by rising star Kai Murakami. Murakami, who performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company as Kazego in the critically acclaimed, multi-Olivier award-winning stage show *My Neighbour Totoro*, assumes the role after George Takei played the character in the original series. John Cho took over the role in the reboot series, including its sequels *Star Trek Into Darkness* and *Star Trek Beyond*.

Sulu and McCoy will appear in the final episode of the series, which seems an ideal place for the show to segue to a sequel series that sees Anson Mount's Captain Pike passing the Enterprise to Paul Wesley's James T. Kirk.

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As ** previously reported, that's a place that the executive producing trio of Alex Kurtzman and *Strange New Worlds* showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers would love to go.

While chatting with Goldsman and Myers after *Star Trek*'s Hall H panel at Comic-Con over the summer, the pair confirmed it's "100 percent" the dream plan to have a sequel show that chronicles Kirk in his first year as captain, though they haven't had any concrete discussions about it.

"Nothing would make us happier than to be able to continue telling the stories of how Pike's crew transitions to Kirk's crew and how Kirk's crew sets off," Myers told EW. "Obviously, when we come into *TOS* [*The Original Series*], it's not the first day of the job.... Fundamentally, there are relationships that already exist. How did they happen?"

He continued, "And, obviously, we have the opportunity for Sulu, and we have the opportunity for McCoy in a longer life, and the opportunity for Chekov. So it would be awesome to be able to continue."

Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk on 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'.

Marni Grossman/Paramount+

Myers also noted that he and Goldsman "have fates in store for those folks who don't seem to appear in canon post-our show [*Strange New Worlds*]," but that "doesn't mean they don't exist."

"All our dreams of post–*Strange New Worlds* iterations, [pay]checks notwithstanding, we gotta stick the landing," Myers added.

Season 4 of *Star Trek: Strange New Worlds *is slated to premiere sometime in 2026. Seasons 1 through 2 are currently streaming on Paramount+.**

- TV Development

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Source: “EW TV”