Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Melissa Navia reveals this week’s episode has a heartwarming Easter egg honoring her late partner, Brian Bannon. ”Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 6, “Lost in Translation” contains an Easter egg that’s a touching tribute to the late partner of actor Melissa Navia. In Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 6, the USS Enterprise visits Bannon’s Nebula, the site of an installation the United Federation of Planets built to mine the starship fuel deuterium. Bannon’s Nebula has another real-life meaning as well.
Brian Bannon tragically died from leukemia in December 2021, just a few days after he received his diagnosis. It was a truly heartbreaking loss for Melissa Navia and all who were fortunate enough to have known Brian. But it’s also touching and fitting that Brian is now also part of Star Trek canon forever with Bannon’s Nebula named after him.The knowledge of who Bannon’s Nebula was named for adds an extra layer of significance to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 6. “Lost in Translation” was about Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) coping with her grief and finally facing the loss of her mentor, Lt. Hemmer (Bruce Horak), as well as the accidental death of her parents years prior. Uhura didn’t know how to face death, but she had some help saying goodbye to Hemmer and her loved ones from Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), who helped Nyota solve the mystery of the aliens who reside in Bannon’s Nebula.
Along with showing the canonical Star Trek Prime Timeline meeting of Kirk and Uhura, “Lost in Translation” also ends with the canonical first meeting of Kirk and Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck). But the heart of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 6 is coping with grief, and Uhura is an in-universe substitute for Melissa Navia’s real-life loss of her love, Brian Bannon, the namesake of Bannon’s Nebula.
