Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman has revealed a crossover with Doctor Who was very close to happening after last year’s epic Easter egg.
The sixth episode of season 3, titled The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail – which aired last August – treated fans to the appearance of the TARDIS in the background behind the USS Enterprise, while Commander Pelia (Carol Kane) also suggested she had met a Doctor.
Asked about the Easter egg during a recent interview with Awards Radar, Goldsman discussed how he was actively working with former Who showrunner Russell T Davies on a crossover for years.
“We were trying with Russell to do a crossover. We were for years," he said. “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?”
Although The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail marked the first time Doctor Who and Star Trek have crossed over in live-action, the sci-fi series have made multiple nods towards one another over the years, with one notable example being Doctor Who episode Space Babies, in which the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) declares to companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) that they should visit the Enterprise sometime.
Davies previously expressed his desire to make a crossover happen, saying at a panel in 2024: “We would love to announce a crossover between Star Trek and Doctor Who [but we aren’t doing that today].”
He added: "If anyone can make that happen… it’s fans that can make that happen! Two great big broadcasters, two great big empires – and their lawyers! – would have to come together, but we can do that, can’t we?
“Quite seriously, I’d love it. That [montage] video, that shows you what it would feel like, what it would look like… the joy of it. It must happen!”
I don’t think Trek and Doctor Who are particularly different in their handling of timelines and universes.
Most of Trek takes place in the Prime timeline. Time-travel alters it on occasion.
Most of Doctor Who takes place in a single timeline as well, but due to the core concept of the show time-travel (and history-changing stuff) happens a lot more regularly. To get around this there’s the whole concept of “fixed points” that can’t be changed without serious consequences, and beta canon or extended universe explanations as to how the Time Lords “fixed” a certain continuity (the web of time). This tends to give the show a lot more flexibility in its handling of canon, but one could argue that even then there are a host of inconsistencies in New Who that don’t respect the Classic Series canon (or changes that are poorly explained due to poor writing).
Both shows do deal with alternate/parallel universes from time to time, and in much the same way. Trek’s Mirror Universe has equivalents in the two parallel universes in televised Who (the 3rd Doctor story Inferno and the 10th Doctor story Rise of the Cybermen). Edit: it is interesting to note that both these parallel universes depicted lack the Time Lords or an equivalent Doctor. There are, however, parallel Doctors and Time Lords that show up in the audio dramas (e.g. the alternate Gallifreys visited via the Axis in Gallifrey Series 4-6, or David Warner’s Unbound Doctor in the Bernice Summerfield audios).
Both shows consequently also have methods for travelling between universes. Star Trek typically uses a transporter accident, but Discovery also has the mycelial network (can’t recall if the Guardian just does time travel or more like you say). Doctor Who has the TARDIS (although requires something to go badly wrong for it to jump universes) as well as CVEs (Charged Vacuum Emboitments, or effectively tunnels between universes – typically just the Doctor’s main universe and pocket universes adjacent to it).
All that said, without being that familiar with the Lower Decks/Who crossover game, I’d be inclined to treat it as part of the main Trek timeline with an intrusion from the Whoniverse (likewise I understand the IDW crossover comic Assimilation is similar).