Star Trek: Strange New Worlds co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers revealed that a Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover spent years in discussions with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies.

“We were trying with Russell to do a crossover, Goldsman explained to Awards Radar. We were for years. Again, these are the near misses, but we got not unclose and we had some really cool conversations about it. And so, certainly in our view, I mean, Pelia traveled in the TARDIS. Why not?”

In the the 2025 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds finale New Life and New Civilizations, chief engineer Pelia (Carol Kane) mentions spending time with a certain time-travelling Doctor.

“Long history. She’s done many things. She’s had many adventures,” Myers said of the long-lived Lanthanite.

Goldsman replied “That’s right” at the suggestion that Starfleet is canon in Doctor Who after the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) suggested to Ruby (Millie Gibson) that they should visit them someday in the Season 1 episode Space Babies.

Earlier in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2025 series, the Doctor’s TARDIS is seemingly trapped with the USS Enterprise inside a star-eating monstrosity in The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail.

Doctor Who and Star Trek did unite for two mobile game crossovers from East Side Games, as announced at the Intergalactic Friendship Day panel at San Diego Comic Con in July 2024 by Russell T Davies and Star Trek executive producer Alex Kurtzman.

The good-natured practice of subtle winks aimed at keen-eyed (and eared) fans of both iconic franchises never did make it to a full-blown crossover on television screens.