On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Babs Olusanmokun’s Dr. Joseph M’Benga is like a guiding light to his fellow USS Enterprise crewmembers, a voice of reason whether he’s advising his old friend Captain Pike (Anson Mount), mentoring younger crewmembers like Ensign Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), or just being a friend to someone like First Officer Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn). And the funny thing is, when talking to the actor in real life, he also exudes some of those “I’m just here to help you through this” vibes. In a word, he’s cool.
In the latest episode of Strange New Worlds, “A Case of Chiaroscuro,” M’Benga gets the chance to talk both Uhura and Una through their covert mission while on a planet occupied by Klingons. His advice to both? Solid. His demeanor? Chill. Their success rate? 100%!
When we spoke earlier this week, Olusanmokun didn’t necessarily offer me any life advice – my mistake, probably, for not asking – but we did talk about the new episode, the doctor’s other life as a lethal warrior, what it was like shooting the last episode ever of Strange New Worlds, and more.
Babs Olusanmokun’s Dr. Joseph M’Benga in the Season 4 premiere of Strange New Worlds.
Doctor by Day, Commando by Night
One of the things I love about the doctor is that, while he’s such a kind-hearted guy, he also has a dark history of being the ultimate soldier. He was in Starfleet’s special forces and was known as “The Ghost,” racking up the most hand-to-hand kills in the service. In “A Case of Chiaroscuro,” we learn more about this history as well, with M’Benga saying, “My calling is medicine, healing people. It’s the great mystery of my life that some of my strongest skills lie in opposition to that calling.”
Olusanmokun says that this dual nature of the doctor was a big part of what attracted him to the role.
“I loved it, because there is nothing more interesting than some duality, than some color, than some substance that’s not necessarily obvious,” he tells me. “So really when [showrunners] Akiva [Goldsman] and Henry [Alonso Myers] in the first meeting, and after I got the job, were like … ‘He’s a healer. He’s this doctor, but he used to be a man of war,’ I just loved the way that was phrased and how it came out of Akiva’s mouth. And I’m like, ‘Say no more, man. Say no more.’
‘Yeah, maniacs! They’re maniacs in their off time.’“
“It’s just that’s what you want. You want a bit of a complexity. You want somebody that’s going to have a struggle, that’s going to give you something to think about, and you might end up hating him. So be it. But there’s a plethora of choices and obstacles that have gotten him there.”
In Season 2’s “Under the Cloak of War,” we saw flashbacks to M’Benga and Chapel’s time during the Klingon War… which included the use of Protocol 12, the super-soldier drug developed by the doctor. This back story gave Olusanmokun the chance to perform some action scenes on the show, as Protocol 12 turned M’Benga and Chapel into temporary super-warriors.
The actor laughs when I mention that escapade. “Yeah, maniacs! They’re maniacs in their off time.”
Chapel and M’Benga get down with some Protocol 12 in Season 2’s “Under the Cloak of War.”
You Must Remember This
In “A Case of Chiaroscuro,” M’Benga, Una, and Uhura’s visit to the “film noir” planet Mat’aar XII meant that the actors got to jump out of their Starfleet uniforms and into some 1930s/40s-style duds. It also allowed for them to interact with sets that were about as far from spaceship-acting as you could get.
“Yeah, man, it was beautiful,” says Olusanmokun. “It was delicious. It was exciting. It was really just appreciating the artistry of the production team, art production, this beautiful salon that they created for us that we just spent quite a bit of time in. I was so blown away that the first day we worked on that set, I had to, in the early morning meeting, I had to give a shout-out to the whole production team. I’m just like, ‘This is incredible that you’ve created this space, this world for us to come into.’”
Strange New Worlds is among the handful of television shows these days that use AR walls – essentially giant digital screens that surround a set and on which backgrounds are displayed – but as Olusanmokun explains, the physicality of sets like the ones used in this week’s episode are just as important to sell the illusion of the scene not just to the audience, but to the actors as well.
In “A Case of Chiaroscuro,” Uhura, Una and M’Benga visit a “film noir” planet.
“Our show, Strange New Worlds, has been great in terms of having physical sets and pieces in front of [the wall],” explains the actor. “So [the wall is] just then an extension of that world. If we actually get to play in something real, that feels real, then that stuff is just an extension of it. So it’s never a sense of truly playing in front of a green screen. We’ve never really done that.”
I mention the infamous green screen sets of George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, but Olusanmokun says the AR walls are nothing like that.
“You step on – there’s a stage aspect of it – what you could call the set, and you’re avoiding furniture, you’re avoiding curtains, you’re avoiding physical things,” he says. “So the salon, the cafe in this [episode] was just a cafe. It’s like the bar was right there and there’s somebody behind the bar and there were the drinks there and the bottles and the chandelier and the pillars. It was gorgeous.”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Images
Saying Goodbye to the USS Enterprise
While new episodes of Strange New Worlds’ fourth season are currently being released weekly on Paramount+, the fifth and final season has already been shot as well. The sets have been struck (and some of them sold off to auction!), which means this iteration of the voyages of the USS Enterprise is truly over… even if we, the audience, still have to wait a bit to see how things turn out.
The same cannot be said, however, for the cast, who finished shooting last December and have moved on to other gigs. Still, for Olusanmokun at least, he doesn’t really believe that it’s all over.
“It was strange, of course,” he says of wrapping up the show. “It was strange because then a five-year journey that was started during the pandemic, in the heart of the pandemic, really came to an end. And it whizzed by so quickly. And so you’re looking at all … your castmates and the time has gone, and it’s been a lot of hard work. … It went by quickly, relatively, even with the big breaks of life with the strikes from the writers, the actors. Even when there was so much chaos on the outside, starting with COVID, that this show got through. … It was special because you were so focused on the work and we developed something and put together something that looks like it’s touched a number of people. So I’m grateful for that. Just grateful for a beautiful, wonderful experience.”
‘For me, this person is living. He’s out there trying to find his place. And so I don’t put a finality to it.’“
As for Dr. Joseph M’Benga, he’s a unique Star Trek character because he actually did appear on the original 1960s series for a couple of episodes. So unlike, say, Una or La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), whose fates remain a mystery, we know Dr. M’Benga at the very least is going to survive the series finale of Strange New Worlds and return to the Enterprise again in some form.
And while he says he’s “absolutely” happy with where his character winds up in that final episode, Olusanmokun doesn’t really look at things in that way anyhow.
“The final episode is, well, maybe perhaps for me right now… I don’t see it as a final episode,” he says. “That’s the reality actually. Not because I know that there’ll be some other show or blah, blah, blah – I think it’s only when you see something else eventually that you can either say that was the final show or that was a… for me, it’s a continuation. For me, this person is living. He’s out there trying to find his place. And so I don’t put a finality to it. I can’t. I simply can’t. I don’t think it serves anybody. You, the viewer, will make their decision on that and say, ‘Oh yeah, that was the final.’ For me, it wasn’t. He’s out there living his life really.”
To this I say, Joseph lives!
And Babs, my new best buddy (even if he doesn’t know it), chimes right back in:
“Joseph lives! If that sounds crazy, I’ve got no issues with that.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Talk to Scott Collura @scottcollura.bsky.social, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!