Star Trek 's Hemmer actor had a secret cameo in Strange New Worlds musical
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Warning: This article contains spoilers from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 9, "Subspace Rhapsody."
The last time Star Trek fans saw Bruce Horak as Hemmer was in "Lost in Translation," the sixth episode of Strange New Worlds season 2. But Horak made a surprise return as a completely different character in this week's musical event, "Subspace Rhapsody," now streaming on Paramount+. Any guesses who?
Horak appeared once again under heavy makeup and prosthetics, this time as General Garkog, the Klingon who threatens to blow the subspace fold to bits and is then later forced to perform a Klingon bit inspired by K-Pop boy bands within the finale ensemble number, "We Are One."
"We love Bruce and wanted to find a fun way to bring him back," Strange New Worlds showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers told EW in a joint statement.
Paramount+ Bruce Horak as General Garkog in 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 2
Directed by Dermott Downs and written by Dana Horgan and Bill Wolkoff, "Subspace Rhapsody" marks the first-ever Star Trek musical episode. The crew of the U.S.S Enterprise encounter a naturally-occurring subspace fold that Spock (Ethan Peck) hopes can help revolutionize their own subspace communications. However, the experiment releases a quantum probability field that causes everyone on the ship to break out in song and dance, threatening to reveal hidden truths.
As Rebecca Romijn's Number One quips in the episode, the last thing anyone needs are singing Klingons. Then Horak's General Garkog delivers.
Paramount+ Bruce Horak as Hemmer in 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 2
Letters to Cleo's Kay Hanley and Tom Polce wrote the episode's music and lyrics.
Goldsman and Myers told EW in an interview that they looked to the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 2001's "Once More, With Feeling," for guidance. "That's one of the best-made ones," Myers said. "It was done very well. It's really smart and thoughtful. It has big heart. The only thing I will say that I distinctly thought differently was that they wrote their own music, and I knew that that was a little more than we could handle. But that was kind of like, let's challenge ourselves to be as good as the best of this [genre]. That was our bar."
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' musical episode is now available to stream on Paramount+.
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