Fans of Doctor Who who are eagerly awaiting news about their time-traveling hero should keep an eye on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which has just delivered its second nod to Gallifrey this season.
The season three finale of Strange New Worlds includes a clear allusion to one of its characters encountering The Doctor, as the ancient Commander Pelia (played by Carol Kane) suggests to Spock (Ethan Peck) that he meet a "time-traveling Doctor I once knew" (thanks, ScreenRant).
While time travel certainly exists within the Star Trek universe, it seems highly probable that Pelia's comment is a deliberate reference to the BBC's long-running science fiction series, given the unusually close ties currently developing between the two franchises.
Indeed, the sixth episode of this season surprisingly featured the Doctor's TARDIS, which appeared multiple times in the background—so quickly you might have missed it. If you watch the space scenes in the Strange New Worlds episode "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail" carefully, you'll notice the iconic blue police box drifting near the Enterprise.
These hints come after an earlier tease of a full crossover by the Doctor himself, in one of the most thrilling moments of Ncuti Gatwa's debut season episode "Space Babies." There, Gatwa tells his companion Ruby Sunday that they should visit the Enterprise someday, implying that the events of Star Trek are somehow accessible within the Doctor Who universe.
In other news, the TARDIS from Doctor Who shows up in the most recent episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds! pic.twitter.com/LNBBGZ3r79
— Dan Leckie (@Dan_Leckie) August 16, 2025
Of course, collaborations between the Time Lord and the Federation have already happened in other media. The 2012 graphic novel Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation² featured Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor aboard Jean-Luc Picard's Enterprise, with companion Amy Pond joining the adventure. The story pitted the heroes against both the Borg from Star Trek and the Cybermen from Doctor Who—two factions that are, admittedly, quite similar. In the comic, the Doctor also recalls his fourth incarnation (played by Tom Baker) meeting James T. Kirk.
More recently, the mobile games Star Trek: Lower Decks Mobile and Doctor Who: Lost in Time shared a 2024 crossover storyline starring David Tennant's Tenth Doctor, with each game presenting the narrative from its own franchise's perspective. This followed a joint panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 with Star Trek writer Alex Kurtzman and Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies, where Davies expressed his enthusiasm for announcing a TV crossover between Star Trek and Doctor One—though he noted that such a project would require "two great big empires—and their lawyers" to agree.
Any crossover would also need to navigate the current status of Doctor Who, which is presently on hiatus. After two seasons financed by Disney, the BBC has paused production indefinitely, though the network has committed to continuing the series eventually.
