Given her mission to the past was to keep mankind from exploring the stars it would not track that she would destroy herself when leaving an alien body to be examined could just as easily accomplish that mission by instilling fear into the populace of the early 21st Century.

At the end of the episode, Sera vanishes in a burst of shadows, while La’an vanishes in a burst of light. The use of shadows and light can be interpreted as representing good and evil, with the good girl vanishing in light and the bad girl vanishing in darkness.

The episode has quite successfully given La’an an archnemesis, and it would be a shame if they never returned.

I think it is impossible to see these current shows as prime. I’ve been thinking that for years but this episode pretty much cements it. My main beef is that the producers just come out and admit it. Either admit they lied from the start and knew it was reboot when they said it wasn’t, or admit they originally intended it to be prime but soon realized they didn’t have the talent or creativity to make Trek under the Trek universe rules so they shifted gears and decided “this is why it’s all reboot”.

Just as Star Trek ’09 explained themselves away, too. This is the same thing. I saw that as essentially a decent way to reboot Trek their way while still attempting to appease the few fans who would refuse to accept a reboot. And the producers all but said as much. The way I see it this episode has cemented all nu-Trek as reboots. Their own thing. Which is odd because they have constantly been telling us “this is Prime!” What we are seeing conflicts with what the makers tell us. They really do need to come out and confirm what their intent is. I mean, if they said nothing about where this show is set I strongly suspect nearly everyone from day one of Star Trek Discovery would conclude Secret Hideout shows are all reboots. And rightly so. Honestly they should have kept their mouths shut about it or just flat out admit what they were doing. All of this leads me to the conclusion that Kurtzman & Co really don’t know what they are doing. They are changing things on the fly if you will. With no real plan of any kind.

And even if they flat out admit to all that, that won’t suddenly make the show good. It will only eliminate their canon issues. The other problems remain.

SNW seems to really be going for telling stories for character journeys and character arcs. The first Star Trek series to do that was the Deep Space Nine series. DS9 had a huge and rich cast of characters that were written by a very talented writer’s room, and played by very talented actors. They also had a long list of talented guest stars who themselves had their own character arcs.  All of which made for compelling and rich storytelling. Unfortunately for SNW, they’re limited to only 10 shows per season. SNW’s writer’s room probably has to be very selective with each episode for each season. That limitation makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the level of richness in the storytelling that DS9 accomplished with their 26 episodes per year, and 7 year run. 

Question: Should the SNW’s writer’s room attempt storytelling on the level of DS9, where guest stars, like Mr. Wesley’ and his Jim Kirk would have their own character arcs? The conundrum is that on one hand, Kirk is one of two most important characters in Star Trek lore. On the other hand, Kirk is not in SNW’s principal cast, so he can only pop up so many times in a series that has 10 episodes per season. If the unwritten rule ifor streaming shows is 10 episodes per season, then I’d want a separate Star Trek show featuring Paul Wesley in the main cast as Lt Kirk, Cmd Kirk, etc., learning the lessons of command, explorations, adventure, diplomacy lessons with different cultures, the list goes on.

Maybe he’ll be a bit more polite as well?

Overall, another solid episode for Season 2!

Oh… and poutine is now canon in Trek!

If that makes it work for you, great! Enjoy!!

yeah it (TCW) did. without siliks intervention, the nx01 would have exploded early.

kang and kodos in the simpson were already named after star trek characters.

Excellent

Be sand in the engine of the world, not oil.

He who opposes the state most serves it best.

Exiling despotic rulers is not a 60s TV convention of creating bad plot holes; ever heard of Napoleon at Elba?

If your notion of being a Trek fan is to mindlessly embrace whatever gets the brand slapped on it, then I’d be happy to never be considered a fan. Perhaps you should advocate for a timeline in which Berman never gets deposed. After all, he was the guy who dismissed BLADE RUNNER by saying nobody would ever watch a series set in such a depressing future, apparently unaware that there was something of high art at work there. Then again, Berman and taste seem mutually exclusive (but he did make the trains run on time.)

Boldly going, my friend. :-)

But dude, you have to admit, this change does explain in a very logical way WHY there are so many differences in the timeline and things people like you been complaining about like running into the Gorn so soon.

Again, I have to stress I still think they should’ve avoided the Gorn just as much as much I think they should’ve avoided the whole Khan stuff, but sadly here we are anyway. But they never given everyone not only an explanation but also a way for the hardcore canonistas to just enjoy the show more.

It’s not a reboot, but it’s probably the closest we’re going to get to one and it does solve a lot of their problems. Again, NOT everything. It doesn’t explain why Chapel is basically a totally different character for example, but it covers the bigger issues IMO.

Exactly. I don’t really understand why people keep saying it’s shoddy record keeping to explain Khan in this period when they had Sera monologue it was specifically a time altercation that did it. And yet, people keep bringing it up lol.

It’s one of these weird disconnects you see on the internet. The character explained it on screen. She didn’t say or implied she ended up in 1992 because they were following Earth history books that apparently really stupid humans wrote by getting entire dates of crucial history wrong by decades and got screwed in the process.

She made it clear she time traveled to the past to alter history only to realize someone else already altered it before she got there. That’s it. That’s the explanation.

Lose the attitude, chief.

I never said all time line changes are reboots. It depends on the context. Time line changes CAN be a reboots. They aren’t inherently reboots.

That makes sense. But they kept coming back. Which sort of legitimizes their existence as more than a mere joke. That agent in this episode was as serious as a heart attack.

We can agree on that. :)

And just a reminder… I was impressed with Prodigy. The front half, at least. I found the back half to be a bit of a quality drop. Was a bit bummed it got the axe. But it wasn’t totally unexpected.

To me this just shows that this guy shouldn’t be writing Trek. Let alone running an entire Trek show.

Yeah I don’t know how it can’t be argued now it simply isn’t an alternate timeline? But I don’t think that’s a bad word or anything, it’s just another interesting but odd tapestry that makes up Star Trek. It’s no different than having various shows in multiple time periods centuries apart from each other or a set of movies in a completely different universe altogether and of course famously lives in an alternate timeline as well.

To me, it means now they can (mostly) do what they want and not worry that much about stepping on TOS shoes.

Akiva Goldsman admitted in an interview on another site that they officially changed the dates in Trek canon.

The quote:

This is a correction. Because otherwise, it’s silly, or Star Trek ceases to be in our universe… By the way, this happened in Season 1, so this is not a Season 2 [issue]. It’s a pilot issue. We want Star Trek to be an aspirational future. We want to be able to dream our way into the Federation as a Starfleet. I think that is the fun of it, in part. And so, in order to keep Star Trek in our timeline, we continue to push dates forward. At a certain point, we won’t be able to. But obviously, if you start saying that the Eugenics Wars were in the 90s, you’re kind of f*cked for aspirational in terms of the real world.

Agreed they’ll never create such a thing, but I’d like to see something like this as well. It would at least give the impression of trying to pull the whole Trek ‘universe’ together.

Agreed, it was a decent episode, a little draggy in parts, lots of filler. But as I commented somewhere above, I’m not even bothering thinking about canon anymore with regards to this show. Lost era or a redo of TOS, either way for me, SNW is an alt timeline. Which this episode basically confirmed. I don’t see myself watching this one again, although Christina Chong did some fine acting.

Bold to say that when one startet this topic with “I am so sick of the moronic whining”

...or you could not be triggered by it over and over again.

This episode has helped me decide the Kurtzman era is not canon

Exactly, like how Blade Runner 2049 was the future of the 2019 from Blade Runner and not the real 2019.

This means First Contact will happen later and changes Enterprise also.

The writers have used this episode to undo most of Trek’s future history. Won’t First Contact now be delayed since Eugenics War won’t happen till 2040s since Khan was a child 27 years after he left.

Is SNW meant to be lost era or the producers wanting to redo TOS? If it’s the latter then I feel it’s disrespectful.

Looking over at France, I feel DS9 got it mostly right. They just got the city (and country) wrong …

And just go to town with it. Bring in all the time related characters and organizations. Put in the Department of Temporal investigations, the 29th century time cops, Daniels and other 31st Century temporal agents, the Travelers, Watchers, Carl/GOF, Section 31, etc, along with characters from various shows like Archer, Kirk, Kovich, Riker or Janeway. Just a few main characters but make them vital to the plot.

I think that could be a lot of fun and make it clear how much history has changed in various periods. And we finally get the reveal of future guy and maybe his back story of how and why it all started. I know it will never happen but I wish Star Trek can just do one-off stuff like this sometimes that could bring in multiple eras, shows and characters. The closest Trek would get to their Infinity War.

Everyone is entitled to have a different opinion on shows. You can certainly disagree, but no one is crazy because they don’t like something you do.

What I think is really amazing when you look at all of this in hindsight is that the classic shows were making episodes 26 times a year with a limited budget and time to make these episodes and we still got amazing stories out of them.

Then we have these new shows which only makes 10 episodes a year, given weeks to make an episode with a bigger budget and yet most of the stories are still not anything amazing. Certainly some solid stories but should still be a little stronger given all the time and money they can devote to a story. There is really no excuse the Enterprise in this episode couldn’t get even a slight redress to make it clear it’s really in a different timeline the way the older shows pulled it off.

I agree, this might be the lamest episode if this series so far.
The plot was generically cool, but that’s all it was… the cliff notes to a synopsis. Like someone took the storyboard from an episode pitch meeting and slapped some short 5min live scenes together.

I can smile at a Swiss cheese of convenient plot holes with every scene progression, but when they needed a tricorder I was so excited to see their solution,
…until they went full sci-candy with a tritium watch dowsing rod and simply plot-fibbed about some very elementary chemistry and easily observable laws of physics a just to get to the next bulletpoint in under 2 min.
They didn’t even DO anything to it, they just didn’t care.

I know I’m just griping…
But In their enthusiasm to be a part of the amazing universe/brand it doesn’t feel like they’re putting the same kind of effort or research that star trek used to be stellar with.

lol Kent Brockman, classic. Should have made the aliens Kudos and Kang :p

Lower Decks is awesome, you’re crazy

Man you’re a wiener. Time travel changes and reboot aren’t the same thing

I think it was Gene Coon who shepherded the concept of the United Federation of Planets, and he was not around for the first batch of TOS shows produced. They were inventing the basic framing concepts of the show as they went along, which resulted in the discrepancies you note in who the Enterprise works for.

One of the MAJOR plot lines of Enterprise that was never resolved was who was Future Guy who set the entire series in motion? Brannon Braga admits that they never knew the answer in the writer’s room, and bluntly ended the Temporal Cold war story without ever resolving it. Your DIT show proposal could solve that mystery (although maybe I’m the only person who still cares).

Sure, they existed. But it seems nowadays it forms a much bigger part of the criticisms. Must be an artifact of social media.

I get the desire to have Trek exist in the real world, but why no concern over the show itself? Wouldn’t it be weird that an entertainment series would reveal so much about what would eventually happen in the 22nd-24th centuries?

It’s the inconsistency I don’t get. Maybe it’s just a blind spot.

LOL! Nice!

I liked the episode, but I admit on my second rewatch it slowed down even more.That was already my biggest complaint why I didn’t love as much as I wanted to but the rewatched proved it. But I still think it’s good overall, but yeah reading and watching other reviews on it, there are things that makes it messy for sure.

I certainly agree, but the main mistake with the Kelvin movies is not making it a complete reboot. I had no problems of how they tried to do it but as STID showed, they couldn’t even keep to their own rules after just two movies and what really put a lot of fans off from that point on. But it might’ve been different if they at least tried to just be its own thing completely and Khan could be whoever they wanted.

I know not everyone likes the reboot idea either, but either you are tied to 55 year old canon for the next 55 years or you roll the dice and try something completely new. But it’s eye rolling to keep suggesting fans ONLY want to follow it when you literally given them no other choices in that time either.

But of course if you choose to follow it, fans expect them to stick to it. That’s the case for every long in the tooth franchise out there. But the irony is with the exception of Star Wars, most of them have gotten reboots, certainly comic book stories.

Make fun of the TOS writers? Yes let’s make fun of the universe they created and then crap all over it by just rehashing and reusing everything they can.

These new writers are lifting everything they can from TOS and pretending to be original. It’s not. These are just gimmicky, gotcha stories exploiting what already was written.

SO WOULD I!!

That’s the kind of spin off show I would do if you wanted to get away from starships but have a chance to explore Federation history; but through time. I think most fans would be more into that than the Section 31 idea even if it still wouldn’t be their first choice.

You can do so much with it. And give it to Terry Matalas. That guy has proven he knows how to do both Star Trek and time travel shows very well. ;)

The latest quote from the showrunners about this episode was something to the effect that it was necessary to move the Khan timeline to keep Star Trek as an inspirational possible future for the audience like it was in previous century. Something along those lines anyway.

I think that even an admitted reboot would suffer from the problem of not being able to please everyone. Kelvin-verse as the main example of that.

Because the people who make Star Trek today seems to think it should still be followed and that in turn feeds into how fans perceive it. Nothing stops them from just rebooting it and starting anew instead of constantly trying to make all the new shows fit around it. Nothing. And yet…

Again, it’s a huge reason why so many fans want to keep going forward and hate the ideas of prequels in general. And then we got Discovery which did itself no favors by pretending it was following TOS canon while basically ignoring it at the same time. You can’t have it both ways as that show proved.

I saw some Shatner’s Kirk in there. He got to kiss the girl with the dramatic music playing in the background. I also totally pictured Shatner when Kirk was panicked and mashing the button on the time device.

Wesley is growing on me as Kirk the more I see him and his chemistry with Christina Chong helped a lot with that.

Do they still take place in the same years they did before, or have they similarly shifted?

Or you could try not going out of your way to make a mess out off things just to warm up old ideas over and over again.

Well I’m sure some would but maybe I should say Paramount themselves don’t want them to go down that road. And especially after all the moaning the Kelvin movies got over it when people literally thought that’s what those films were doing at the time.

Same here. What a small universe in this writer’s room. ‘I know, let’s use Khan again!’ Ugh.

Eventually they will have to push the timeline by a century. TOS in the 24th, TNG in the 25th.

There is also no planned space flight to Europa next year either. There are no sanctuary districts anywhere as well. On the flip side of that, we don’t have a Millennium Gate either although one was suppose to be finished a decade ago. And while it CAN happen, I’m really really hoping WW 3 doesn’t happen in 3 years as it’s suppose to be happening in Star Trek in 2026.

I think we have to accept the ‘Prime’ universe isn’t our universe specifically anymore and hasn’t been since the 90s. That’s why ‘moving history’ doesn’t really work as this episode tries to do with Khan. There is just too many other elements, and some very big, that still conflict with our reality today.

But “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “Trials and Tribble-ations” can’t both exist at the same time on the same timeline. Tribble-ations replaced Trouble on the timeline. For both to exist, that would have to mean that Tribble-ations caused a branching off from the Prime timeline since Sisko and crew did in fact interact with Kirk and crew when they originally didn’t. It may not have had any universe altering butterfly effects, (not until a writer or showrunner decides if it did or not) but it did change the Prime timeline and did replace the original episode. Sisko, Dax, Bashir and O’brien should all be edited into “Trouble” if that episode is still in the Prime timeline.

Spock never told Kirk he had a brother until it was necessary to do so. Why is it difficult to believe he would also fail to mention an adopted sister? Why was the introduction of Sybok accepted but not Michael as well?

It’s mentioned in this episode that myriad temporal attacks have shifted the timeline, but certain key events keep happening. So, this is a tweaked version of what we know (of an entirely fictional universe rife with years of inconsistencies). I think it’s a fairly elegant solution.

Doesn’t the episode mentions that the Khan etc. timeline has shifted from the 1990s due to previous temporal shenanigans? The (terrible actor playing the) Romulan said she’s been waiting for 30+ years.

OK, fair enough. And yeah we’ll have to see how all of it is handled on this show. I love time travel stories but I certainly can’t argue they can make things a complete mess lol.

Not at all. I thought they looked dumb. And cheap. And unflattering. The pastel color palette was right on trend for the late 70’s though.

Agreed, but it also takes just one press release or quote from the show runners to admit that this isn’t the same timeline, and everyone (including those who can easily blow off 50+ years of Star Trek) can move on and enjoy the show for what it is.

I get that many people don’t care, but a lot do. And if Kurtzman and company would just give up on trying to act like they are just continuing what was started in 1966, you wouldn’t even have to worry about a post full of these kind of debates.

He’s really been iced out of all 3. Even Una’s episode doesn’t really count since 90% of his interaction in the episode was watching a view screen.

Baby or not, with only 10 episodes, I don’t see how you just keep him out of a substantial role for a THIRD of the season. Pike/Mount and Spock/Peck are the main reason SNW even exists.

Man you really don’t like this show lol. But I know you like it more than Lower Decks, so that’s a positive. ;D

I do like it as you know but I agree with people who says it could be a lot stronger as well. I like that it’s light on one hand but I wish the writing went a bit deeper at times too. It doesn’t harness the sci fi stuff on the level the older shows do. And for a show called Strange New Worlds, we’ve seen very very little of that so far.

It’s a fun show but it’s not really doing anything innovative or new either. It just feels like its copying so much of what the classic shows did but not trying to stand out in any meaningful way. But this episode was the first to do something big and regardless how you feel about it, it’s finally taking real chances. We also know this is the season of ‘big swings’ they said over and over again and this was a good example of one. So this season may change my mind on that, especially with episode 9.

But overall I like SNW because it is comfort food in so many ways and does feel like TOS and the Berman era shows. I still don’t like it more than any of those either, but it’s still very early of course. It is the first live action show since Voyager I really liked its first season. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s doing more things right than wrong but we can agree to disagree on that.

I think we can agree it’s light years better than Discovery at least. ;)

It doesn’t, but it needs to. It would be great if the next episode would explore that even the world that La’an returns to is different, giving us reason to really believe that things have changed. But until the power then be come out and say it, it still doesn’t count. At this point, they just love taking “big swings” in the “prime universe”.

I haven’t seen the episode in a while, and I can still recall the emotion I felt the first time I saw Picard jump to the back of the bridge to take over on weapons. The look on his face in that moment, along with the meeting you’re recalling where he talks about losing the war really sold the premise of the whole thing in a way we rarely saw in Star Trek to that point. It was VERY DARK, and maybe the darkest episode we saw concerning Starfleet and the Federation until DS9 got into its mid-series stride. But it was also a chance for Stewart to span the emotions from hopelessness to something to fight for.

I think hindsight is always 20/20, but I think it’s a questionable argument that it’s overrated based on Crosby or a pretty small detail in regard to the fate of the Bird of Prey. There’s been better Trek since Yesterday’s Enterprise, but in context of TNG, it was a bold episode that really pushed the boundaries of the production design and execution at that point in Star Trek history. Not many other episodes ever did a near full-redress of the bridge, noticeable uniform changes for the main cast along with a whole other set of uniforms for a guest cast, another bridge and starship model to fill-in a missing piece of canon, and the return of a previous lead cast member that many fans never thought they would see again.

Yesterday’s Enterprise is prime 1990’s Trek, and helped set the bar higher for the series. The script might not have been perfect, but I think the story concept and the effect it had on canon and even the last few seasons of the series (e.g. Sela) put it in rare company in terms of Star Trek episodes that hold that much weight in their respective series.

DS9 pretty much handled Temporal Affairs as a joke – obviously a continuation of the very light and fun mood of the episode “Trials and Tribble-ations”. It’s obvious that Sisko and his crew weren’t just hiding during their jump into the TOS timeline and CLEARLY had some level of effect given that they interacted directly with members of that timeline. Sisko’s retelling of the story doesn’t seem to cover that up at all. A true “Temporal Agent” would know that any interaction can mess things up (a.k.a. the butterfly effect), but they finish up giving Sisko a stern look but also acknowledge a bit of jealousy from getting to see that period of history.

From that point on, no matter what show Temporal Affairs appears on, it’s pretty clear they are pointless. Maybe they can’t change anything, but you would think they would at least try to do something to prevent the same thing from happening again. Maybe some better training of Starfleet personnel?

I think we all have a personal code for what parts of canon are important and what is less so. Personally, I feel like if a date in Trek history is dished out, that date is set in stone. If a new alien is introduced in a specific episode, that is set in stone as well. The Eugenics wars had a specific date. So for me at least, that date is set. Unless you are a reboot, that date stays put.
Yes, there have been a lot of in show violations. But I would argue that nearly all of them are very very small and not enough to ruin the fantasy.

As a youngster watching TOS reruns in the 70’s I very much liked the positive view of humanity’s future ST showed. This was at a time when the bulk of sci-fi centered on apocalyptical/nuclear horrors in our future. Back then, the fact that there was a future show where there was no nuclear war was a welcome and positive respite from that. Even when they brought up the Eugenics Wars it seemed likely it wasn’t nuclear. And although they didn’t say, I figured when they mentioned WWIII that was the Eugenics wars. So there was one last conflict. It wasn’t about political ideology. It was about the last tyrant. And it wasn’t nuclear as far as we could tell. At least, not on the world destroying level other sci-fi was doing.

Then the TNG pilot was aired. And they brought up some sort of “post apocalyptical horror.” I remember thinking, “where the hell did THAT come from?” GR just ruined the hopeful non-nuclear future of humanity Trek hinted at. I was super disappointed and just thought, “well, if they never mention it again, that’s fine.” And if I recall they didn’t until the feature film “First Contat”.

Sorry if that went off topic some. It’s just that your post made me feel like I ought to respond with that.

They are creating an alternate timeline, not “adjusting” the future. The changes they are making are no less history altering that Kirk’s Dad dying at the hand of a Romulan from the future. Except this time, Kirk himself died at the hands of a Romulan who came from the future to basically get revenge on a species they don’t like. Oh wait, even that part is pretty much the same….

Regardless of this episode (because I don’t think it’s the only one), I TOTALLY agree with the argument about 10 story ideas/10 episodes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: With ONLY 10 episodes to fill, this is the best you can offer?

And even more than that, we’re three episodes in with Pike having almost no screen time and little to no influence on the storylines – other than hiring a lawyer. This is the first Trek in history to sideline the captain/commanding officer for a THIRD of the season!

The irony to me is that there are a lot of Trek fans who are really enjoying SNW. But the whole Kahn timeline it messing it up for a lot of us who can’t just forget that TOS and TWOK happened. The truth is that, in my mind, I’ve already “de-canonized” SNW just so that I can enjoy it! I’ve already removed it from the “Prime” timeline in my head, and I think if that was made official by the power that be, a lot more people would feel better about the series. But, for now, as long as they continue to claim that this is the direct lead-in to TOS, I just think the criticism will just get worse.

And, for what it’s worth, even with the other time travel episodes, pretty much none of those changed canon on the level of what is happening in SNW. Archer and T’Pol didn’t time travel and interact with other characters from a different version of Star Trek. Sisko and company may have interacted with TOS characters, but they didn’t do anything to change what actually happened before – even if they displaced a few people who originally took on similar roles (like fighting in a brawl or standing in a line-up for Kirk). And even Discovery’s interaction with Pike was plausible, but we can just agree to disagree that Spock ever had an adopted sister.

Of course!

Kirk in an antique store not flustered in any way… The man has a fondness for antiques.

First, it was an alternate version of Kirk. Secondly, many people develop much more of an interest in history and antiques after age 40 versus before, and the Kirk antiques interest was much more pronounced in the movies when it was an older Kirk.

I agree, but if she really had been on Earth for centuries (which is apparently possible somehow), she may have just really blended into the culture. Maybe a stretch of an explanation, but there are people in our own world who either forget where they came from or just choose to adapt to a new country/state/city.

Yeah, but there’s multiple references from other time travel episodes and movies that don’t correspond with our reality. Star Trek is an extension of our history, so I’ve always forgiven the creative liberties taken – either due to copyright or just because they didn’t want to get too specific.

Sure they can. If we can have Lower Decks sitcom, juvenile BS as canon, then they can certainly update the future timeline every 40-50 years as new versions of Trek come out. Like you said, it’s fiction.

Maybe we saw different takes from Gene then, because I was part of a futurist convention group where several of us hosted Gene in the summer of 1979 for a weekend — and in the speech get gave at the conference, plus in a couple of really cool group/drinks informal talks several of us had with him (and I was in the car that picked him up from Dulles airport!), he was most definitely tying Star Trek to a possible future for mankind.

I hear you! It’s not in my Top 10 TNG eps, but I do know a of other fans rate it near the top.

Streaming series don’t tend to run long, I’m okay with other cast members getting fleshed out a bit. More so with an episodic format.

Yeah, I saw that. That’s something some advanced interstellar race wouldn’t want to leave hanging around this solar system….

I doubt they care. JJ’s right of refusal with Paramount aside, the Trek film franchise is a small dot in their rear view mirrors.

Rule of thumb for SNW writers: ignore this commenter.

See I can do that, too. And frankly, I’d rather they not try to write Shatner’s Kirk. I do not care one iota if he reminds me at all of Shatner’s Kirk.

Most nation states would prefer to destabilize a region from within than provoke an all out war, especially when the region hasn’t attacked them first.

Lot less loathsesome to have the Eugenics War be World War III in the near future than to have Khan kill millions back in the 90s but not of us know about it somehow.

Kirk in an antique store not flustered in any way… The man has a fondness for antiques.This may be picky but maybe a shoutout to Kirk’s other, though later, visit to recent history to his knowledge of the time period…. Maybe a referense to Pelia doing “a little LDS, a mention of colorful metaphors or a “double dumb-ass on you”.Not so picky… Thank goodness they didn’t have the shot Kirk give an “Oh my” at the end.Speaking of Pelia, I absolutely expected after the time agent said you can not tell someone from “your time period” to have Pelia enter after and La’an still able to talk to her since technically she’s from another time period and was there back then. They didn’t need to giv e La-an SO much pain…. When they focused in on the clock, would have been a real bonding moment to have Pelia walk in and say “could I have my watch back” in a real bonding m oment. A real missed opportunity. And don’t get me started on the left-behind gun… The analysis above described it as good writing, I saw it as a flub…. Save Khan but LEAVE A GUN IN THERE!?!?!?Wesley is doing a decent job as Kirk but I’m not sure the writers are….. Rule of thumb to write for Kirk in Strange New Worlds for the writers should be: Write like you imagine Shatner saying it in 1968…. then Wesley can give his own interpretation.

I don’t get the TOS canon obsession, either. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, almost nothing of Starfleet/Federation was fleshed out during TOS’s run.

Not a fan on the onesie uniforms?

Anthony and Laurie touched on this briefly, that among fandom there’s an expectation of Trek being some sort of fictional or alternative human history, that a better future had to follow the Trek path. So, there’s some retconning of how ‘future’ events in 60’s era Trek need to be rationalized away.

TNG Trek did some crystal ball gazing as well. According to DS9’s ‘Past Tense’ we’re only about 14 months away from the Bell Riots.. We don’t have Sanctuary Districts, the efforts of a couple of southern Governors notwithstanding. We’re only 40 years away from discovering FTL space flight, which means we’ll need to sandwich in the postponed Eugenics/WWIII conflicts between now and then.
So there’s that….

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Roddenberry couldn’t have intended Trek as a possible future history because he didn’t take the show at all seriously as a possible vision of the future. How do I know this? Because I was there, at his ’70s college lectures, when he plainly said so. A number of times, in fact.

Yeah, for most of the first season Starfleet and the Federation wasn’t much more then background noise. Very little context over why living in the Federation was preferable, outside of ‘we’re not the Klingons’….