With Star Trek‘s next show, Starfleet Academy, set to debut in a little under a week, Paramount’s marketing campaign has been turning up the gears. So far, there’s been teasers and clips offering a hint of what to expect from Starfleet Academy, and the blend of nostalgia and hopeful forward looking is hard to miss. But, as ever, with Star Trek fans, it’s inevitably the former that is more important.
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Star Trek shows have to know – and acknowledge – where they came from, and with Starfleet Academy stretching its legs even further into the distant future, that feels both more important and more challenging. That said, we keep getting great little hints – like the tribute to Wesley Crusher and the reveal of Harry Kim’s promotion – and a new clip released this week revealed another, somewhat more strange, look back: the return of the Mugato from Star Trek: The Original Series:
The Yeti-like horned ape first appeared in The Original Series Season 2 episode “A Private Little War,” but never reappeared in live-action. The only subsequent appearance in canon came in Star Trek: Lower Decks episode “Mugato, Gumato.” It’s a strange cameo, given how little the alien race has featured, but Starfleet Academy is clearly working hard to show it understands Star Trek‘s legacy. Even in strange ways.
Why The Mugato Are Back in Starfleet Academy
The question here is whether this is a real Mugato in Starfleet Academy. The biggest hint of the truth is probably the fact that it’s shown high-fiving a Starfleet student, which is pretty radically different behavior from the version we saw several decades ago fighting Captain Kirk.
The fact that the footage plays over a question about parties suggests that it may well simply be a costume. The other, more likely suggestion than a sentient evolved version (which would surely be too unnecessarily provocative) is that the Mugato is a teachable moment, perhaps drawn from Captain Kirk’s own personal logs, given how beholden the show is to the achievements and footsteps of great officers from the past. Time will tell, but it’s unlikely it’s a real Mugato. Surely.
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Image Courtesy of Netflix -
Image via HBO
