When asked which “Star Trek” episodes or movies she watched to prepare for “Ad Astra per Aspera,” Weiss shared the classics that inspired her:
“I of course watched ‘Measure of a Man’ and ‘The Menagerie’, and I think I watched ‘Court Martial’. And I watched the movie ‘The Wrath of Khan’ because of the story of La ‘an, I wanted to figure that out. And I know I’ve watched other episodes too, and I’ve watched all of ‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 1. And we actually, fun fact, our old neighbor, he just sadly passed away, but Michael J. Pollard, he was Oscar nominated for ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, but he was in the original series, an episode called ‘Miri’ So I remember watching that with my family because he was a good friend of ours.”
“The Menagerie” is particularly significant, as it’s a two-part episode of the original series in which Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is court-martialed for stealing the Enterprise (sound familiar?) in order to to help his former commanding officer, Captain Brochet (Sean Kenney). These are events that we know will eventually happen for the “Strange New Worlds” versions of Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck), and this is a major “Star Trek” episode, it’s so logical that she used it for inspiration. “Court Martial” puts Captain Kirk (William Shatner) on trial for criminal negligence resulting in the death of a member of his crew, and is also a great “Trek” courtroom episode. Perhaps more important than either, however, was an episode of the upcoming “Star Trek” series, “The Next Generation.”