Look: It’s never not going to be a little funny that director David Cronenberg has become such a visible part of the Star Trek universe in recent years—to the point that it’s Cronenberg’s face and voice that welcomes fans in the new teaser for the upcoming fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery, unleashed at the franchise’s big New York Comic Con panel today.
Of course, it’s not just the director of Rabid and Crimes Of The Future who shows up, daring Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham to be great—again. Although the teaser is very light on plot, we do get little check-ins on all our favorite crew members, including Saru, Stammets, and, of course, Tilly. They all seem to be having a nice time living in the future, at least until—
Wait.
Hey, wait.
Is that the dang Lament Configuration from Hellraiser? Damn, this series really is indulging its love for 1980s horror films of late.
(Alternate joke: We never expected to see Discovery’s obsession with the seasonal structure of J.J. Abrams-style puzzle box shows get quite this literal.)
But we kid Discovery, which looks typically energetic in this teaser. (Lots of desert planet shenanigans, from what we can see.) The short vid also features a few new cast members for this season, including Battlestar Galactica alum Callum Keith Rennie and outlaws played by Elias Toufexis and Eve Harlow.
What we don’t get, unfortunately, is a release date for this new season: We’re still hanging out on “early 2023" as an arrival point, which is more or less when all these dang Star Trek shows—i.e., the third season of Picard, slated for February, plus the second season of Strange New Worlds, which is currently standing at an even more nebulous 2023, in general—are supposed to be rolling out.