The second season of Strange New Worlds has already been shot and the showrunner and cast are dropping more clues about what we can expect with Kirk, Spock, Pike, and maybe more.
When Kirk met Spock
The season one finale of Strange New Worlds featured the introduction of Paul Wesley as Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Farragut in an alternate future. Kirk will be back in season two, but this time it’s the canon “Prime” timeline and he will be a younger lieutenant on the Farragut. So this new season will show him meeting the USS Enterprise crew for the first time, including Spock who will become his closest friend. The importance of this moment was not lost on the writers, as explained by co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers in a brief interview with TV Line, saying:
We think about it every day. In the moment, when they finally meet, we absolutely make a big moment of it and hope people will enjoy what we come up with.
In a newly released Comic-Con interview with Fandom, the actors playing both sides of this friendship talked about this beginning in season two. Spock actor Ethan Peck talked about how he too is taking the Kirk/Spock relationships seriously:
I would say a lot, but I think a lot of the work for us is done in the writing. In the [season one] finale, we kind of don’t quite connect, Kirk and Spock. That’s obviously purposeful.
Ethan Peck as Spock in the season one finale
And Wesley echoed that sentiment, telling Fandom:
Obviously, the finale of season one is an alternate timeline so they don’t have that relationship… as Ethan said, it was purposeful. And without giving anything away, yeah I definitely think – it’s in the early stages of it, but there is that kind of intrigue. This guy’s interesting. Maybe there’s a part of me that’s that wants to explore a friendship with him. I think there’s a little bit of that you have to telegraph a little bit.
Paul Wesley as Kirk in the Strange New Worlds season one finale
Maybe there’s a little Kirk in Pike?
In discussing about how he developed his performance for Captain Pike, Anson Mount talked to Fandom about how he may have snuck in a bit of classic Kirk, and how that has a whole new context with Paul Wesley joining the cast. He explained:
I went back and we watched Jeffrey Hunter’s work. I grew up watching The Original Series, so obviously I’m a big [William] Shatner fan… but honestly, I was more concerned about making a new captain and wanting to differentiate him from everything else we’d had before. Although I did set myself an arbitrary goal. If you watch the first Kelvin timeline movie, in the last bridge scene Chris Pine absolutely nails the Shatner walk across the bridge into the chair and he sits perfectly. I was like, “Wow, I’m going to try to work that in.” I know I’m not playing Kirk, but I don’t care. But what’s interesting is now having Paul playing a younger version of Kirk, there is this kind of rejiggering of that character and I like to think sometimes that there’s just enough of that style, that walk, that command mode that may be Kirk took some of that from Pike.
Anson Mount as Captain Pike
Looking forward to Scotty
The season one finale also featured a tease of Montgomery “Scotty” Scott on board the USS Enterprise in the alternative future, Myers indicated to TV Line that this doesn’t mean we should expect the engineer to show up in season two. However, he hinted that Scotty is a character they plan on introducing in a future season, saying:
We felt like he would be on the Enterprise at that point [in the alternate future], but we didn’t want to commit to that character yet because that character is something we’re looking forward to in the future at some point on Strange New Worlds.
2023
There is no word on when the second season of Strange New Worlds will arrive besides some time next year. Season one of Strange New Worlds is currently available to stream exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., U.K., Latin America, Australia, South Korea, and the Nordics and airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada. It will also stream exclusively on Paramount+ in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria later this year. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.
Find more news and analysis on Star Trek Universe TV shows at TrekMovie.com.
Interesting!
They’re still going to have the problem that Kirk said, in The Menagerie, that he’d met Pike ONCE.
I’d rather have interesting stories than slavish devotion to canon. If it makes sense within the context of SNW, I have no problem with Kirk meeting Pike.
Agreed.
The fact that they need to use canon to make this series ‘interesting’ is the problem. I personally don’t think the stories that are bumping up against canon are that interesting anyway. It just creates distractions so the writers can play in the sandbox of their childhood. I think the stories that have steered clear are much more interesting.
I tend to agree. But part of that is because when they do things connected to existing Canon they invariably screw them up. They just can’t help themselves. There are exceptions to this. The final episode was good but more often than not those sort of things don’t work.
I think most would but it comes down to the subjective definition of “slavish devotion to canon.” Some things seem to be more important to some people than others. For me, I think it very important universal events maintain consistency. Like no one should know about the Gorn before Kirk’s encounter because it was so very obvious it was the first. But if someone decides Kirk is from Montreal rather than Iowa I would not consider that a really big deal if the episode that makes that reference is good. Perfect example… WoK was great even though Khan never met Chekov. A canonical error forgiven because the rest of the movie was so good.
They MET once, but it was during a plague lockdown, so they spent months together.
He didn’t say that.
MENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?
KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.
MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.
KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him. Spock served with him for several years.
As long as Pike receives a promotion to Fleet Captain (whatever that means), Kirk can meet him alright.
Not quite. Kirk’s response is “We met when he was promoted to Fleet Captain. ”
You forgot the “We met”.
It heavily implies they only met once based on his wording. Now if he said We “first met” or if he said “yes” before mentioning the promotion it would imply he knew him after the promtion.
If someone asked me if I was familiar with a real estate agent and I was – in more than 1 occasion including times where he was working for me, I would not say ” I met him when he sold his first house to my friend” .and leave it at that.
Technically it could mean he met him more than once. If your a subscriber of common sense it’s pretty obvious it was implied it was just once. If you’re a subscriber to uncommon sense to smooth over a cannon issue, it can nean he met him numerous times.
Regardless, I’m going to reserve judgment until I see exactly how they handle it
Just talked to Common Sense, and they said that “We met when he was promoted to Fleet Captain.” could easily mean that that’s when they FIRST met, and that they met multiple more times.
All that the writers gotta do is have Pike be “promoted to Fleet Captain” at the time of their first (prime timeline) encounter, while Pike continues to serve on the fleet’s flagship (after all!!), and make sure that Kirk doesn’t “serve with him for several years” on the same ship (as that honor belongs to Spock), and the canon gods will smile upon the rest with benevolence.
😇😇😇😉😇😇😇
Yeah, I don’t think “we met when X” means there was no later interaction. At the same time, such later interactions should probably be kept to a minimum. Otherwise I’d have expected Kirk to say something along the lines of “we’ve had a few adventures.”
So hopefully any Kirk/Pike teamups will be short and sweet.
Um… No. The example fpp uses is perfect. Saying “we met when he sold his first house to my friend.” That implies a one time meeting. If they met more than that the response would have been “We first met when…” Or “Several/a few times. The first was…”
Some canonical things there is a ton of room to play with. Others, not so much. I would say this, like the Gorn, is something you don’t play with. It would be like doing a Picard on the Stargazer show but deciding Picard was British rather than French.
Nope. “We met when he was promoted to Fleet Captain” means “We met when he was promoted to Fleet Captain.” If fans like you and myself assumed that was their ONLY meeting because he at that point relinquished command of the Enterprise; well, that’s on us. The comparison is much closer to the assumption that Spock hadn’t seen T’Pring since their betrothal than the treatment of the Gorn, which simply can’t be reconciled with the events of “Arena.”
There are implications in language. For a situation where you have no idea about past meetings Kirk’s answer if he ever met him severely implies one meet. Is it possible? Sure. But unlikely. It’s the sort of logic that says ‘if episodes did not explicitly show it or say it then it is fair game to do it.’ I find that argument flawed. Often reasonable inferences can be made from comments and reactions. The most extreme of which would be, even though it was never mentioned or we saw Scotty selling ice cream in the rec room it doesn’t mean he didn’t. No. We can reasonably conclude he never did such a thing. Therefore, since the question obviously implied that Mendez had no idea what Kirk’s relationship with Mendez was, Kirk would answer appropriately. If it was the one time you say what Kirk did. If it was more you say, “We first met when…” Or you say something like “We’ve met a handful/numerous times over the years.” What he did say means it was safe to conclude it was indeed the one time. If it was more then he was being oddly cryptic to a Commodore.
I met my wife in Seattle.
Context is everything. Your wife, or even your friend, is a person we already know you are with quite often or have known quite for some time. A completely different circumstance then asking if you’ve met someone you it is not obvious you have met before.
Or, it could mean that Kirk was not being entirely truthful or had some unknown reason for holding back information when he was speaking to Mendez. Or, it could mean that Kirk’s memory was imperfect. Or it could mean a dozen other things that could explain what might appear, on its surface, to be inconsistent. It’s always struck me as weird how canon purists assume that everything that comes out of a characters mouth is absolutely true, accurate, and unambiguous. Real life doesn’t work that way. Why should Star Trek?
Very good points as well! ☝️😎
That is exactly the response I was going to make and have made in the past. But it’s the same garbage that they felt enabled them to use the Gorn. They decided what was said and also in this case, shown, in the episode was not what the characters meant so they decided to change everything up. Once again, if they said this was a reboot none of it would matter. But they did this to themselves when they decided to say this was completely in line with TOS and proceeded to change the huge things they did.
Well… all of the clearly out the window, already. This is the ‘body English’ that Akiva Goldsman talked about when asked about canon in an interview before the season started.
“Body english” is one thing. Khan recognizing Chekov is about as extreme as “body english” can get. Outright changing universal events is full cheating.
Fleet Captain comes between Captain and a Flag Officer such as Admiral. It is often used as an honorific title rather than a practical one. My guess for in Star Trek is that it could be used in both forms, simply as a way to honour a distinguished Officer and as a practical rank (probably the Captain in charge of a fleet of starships engaged in a mission).
Mendez also said to Kirk that Pike is “About your age.” Clearly in SNW, and in the Abrams films for that matter, Pike is older than Kirk. But I’m not bothered by that… perhaps Mendez is just bad at guessing people’s ages.
Yeah that’s more the weird thing in my mind as well. That’s much more of a head scratcher than how many times they met before. Pike looks like he has 20 years on Kirk.
Even worse in the Kelvin movies, but no one ages make much sense in that universe lol.
‘About your age’ doesn’t track AT ALL, it would mean Pike was in his early to mid 20s when he took command of the Enterprise, given Spock served with him for over a decade.
Yeah… That line very well could be taken to disavow anything said in the entire scene. On that basis I guess we could move forward with multiple Kirk/Pike meetings. I would begrudgingly accept it and move on.
I don’t think they think it’s a problem. This show isn’t for fans of old Trek. “Canon” is just a springboard.
They’ve already totally retconned the Gorn. I don’t think they bother about that.
It’s such a Trek thing to be so caught up over one sentence from 56 years ago.
That “one sentence” is important for the context of the episode(s). It establishes that the story is about Spock’s connection with Pike, and Kirk having any sort of awareness/foreknowledge about that really zeroes out the impact of “The Menagerie.”
Understand that *most* people watching Star Trek today don’t either like TOS or haven’t seen it, but it’s not like some obscure line of dialogue.
Exactly.
How, exactly, is one line of dialogue from a fifty year old episode a “problem” now?
This should be interesting.
I’ve been forgiving of SNW’s playing fast and loose with the mythology, but “The Menagerie” is my favorite TOS episode, and Kirk’s statement about having only met once previously. If the writers don’t come up with a plausible workaround (maybe de-linking Pike’s promotion to Fleet Captain and Kirk taking command of the Enterprise?), I’ll be pretty disappointed.
Who says pike and kirk even meet? It could be Spock on his own
That is true. They could set it up so Pike & Kirk never meet. But I’m doubting that. They could have set up Chapel never knowing about T’Pring but opted to ignore that one, too.
Cannon Schmannon. Anything close is better then the way it was handled in the JJ verse. I really hope JJ verse 4 reverses 1-3 and they return to the prime timeline somehow. Sounds like a job for Q, – talk about a cannon meltdown. Perhaps Kirk being promoted to Captain when he is 12 causes him to destroy the universe later in life and someone (Q, metrons, alien of the week) fixes it all by making Kirk fight a large slow moving monster in Southern California. Or better yet… they revive fake Khan to help Kirk fight the slow moving monster in Southern California, or maybe they have to fight Spock who again commits mutiny to get back to Vulcan.
But seriously, I do hope that they do not make Pike Kirks mentor they way he was for Spock in TOS and so far in SNW. Limited contact with Pike, more with Spock. That could justify the Kirk/ Spock friendship.
I take the KU as essentially a reboot. Which is why I do not expect them to follow canon in any of their stories. Only that they follow what they themselves have established in their own universe.
Hence the argument that Secret Hideout Trek should have been all reboots from the beginning. Most of what they made would still be awful but it would eliminate the canon issues as problems.
Still not a fan of this Kirk. I’m hoping he’s better in season 2—-much better!
Maybe I’ve missed it, but I find it interesting noone involved in producing SNW has really gone out of their way to praise Wesley’s performance. I think even they realize he is not doing the role justice. I’m not confident about Kirk in season 2 . An actor either has charisma or he hasn’t. It’s not something you can aquire later on. Or at the very least, it’s uncommon. Maybe I’m wrong and he gets better regardless. Well see
Feel the same.
Plus – at a certain level I am really frustrated that Kirk is present this early in this show.
Like Akiva, Henry, just stop hyping how this show is all about remaking TOS.
The canon issues aren’t bugging me at all, but the way all the story choices, Cage characters (Una’s and even Pike), and new characters (Hemmer!!!) are impoverished to make this all about hitting the legacy character develops beats is impoverishing the show as a whole.
I had been waiting for more than 30 years after The Cage was reconstructed and stitched back together for a VHS release in the 80s to see PIKE’s Enterprise and that show.
Yes, over the course of a 5 year period we could imagine the rest of the TOS legacy characters being introduced, but I actually wanted the more cerebral pre-TOS story with an ensemble that The Cage promised.
I like SNW, so does my spouse, but this actually isn’t at all what I was hoping for, and they are just doubling down.
Wow I think this is the first time I read something from you a bit negative about SNW! You could’ve posted something before obviously, but this is the only thing I’ve seen.
And yes I agree of course. I’m not surprised by ANY of it, but yeah a little disappointed. It’s just feeling too focused on TOS characters in a time it really should just be about Pike and his adventures. And yet, half the episodes last season was foreshadowing TOS plot lines or character beats.
When the show was announced, of course I expected it would have at least 1-2 more TOS characters on it. That just made logical sense a few of those characters could already be aboard. Uhura was one I was strongly for having and so was happy to see. I didn’t expect Chapel at all but I was OK with that too. M’Benga is in a weird position since he was only in 2 episodes of TOS and was really just a throwaway character so that made sense to really develop him.
But then for some reason they had to make characters Sam Kirk and La’an Noonien Singh part of the ship.There is no reason for either of them to be there other than obvious fan service. Now Captain Kirk is showing up and my guess is a Scotty will show up in the season 2 finale now.
It’s just too much too fast. That’s not even counting characters like T’Pring and Sybok but you can excuse that more because they are part of Spock’s character development at least. But we don’t need ANY of the Kirk’s at this time. I suspect we’ll also get a McCoy or Sulu in season 3 as well.
I agree,
Sam Kirk made no sense and was unnecessary. Seemed to only be there to tease fans with a few lines in episode 1 about a Lt. Kirk joining the crew. I like the character of
La’an, but just like jj verse 2, why Khan??? the exact same character could exist without the name and backstory. JJ Khan could have been another leader expelled from Earth during that time period, just not Khan. I do not think there is anything in cannon that says Khan was the only leader that was banished. That would have made that movie so much better, especially considering they changed the characters ethnicity from Asian to European (certainly no wokeness there).
Why does La’an have to be a relative of a banished superbeing to be a bad ass? Again, cheap writing. I’m not sure most fans appreciate this, and those who do not know the history don’t care. Lots of shows seem to do this, not just Trek. It’s like they think we are stupid.
Because if they don’t mention TOS then fans get up in arms about ‘why no mention of this Trek character’ etc. It’s always going to be a double edged sword.
They should have had him grow into the role and be the LT Kirk first. Showing him as boring alt universe Kirk was a mistake.
It’s also possible they don’t actually meet or interact. Or voice comm only, briefly.
Did Sulu or Chekov “meet” anyone on the viewscreen who talked to Kirk?
So, if might be more accurate to say, “X and Y happened when I was on the Farragut, and then I properly met him when he was promoted to fleet captain.”
But, if they are really clever, Kirk won’t be on the bridge when Pike talks to the Farragut’s captain or some other contrivance to keep canon.
My $0.02.
If they are able to do it without Pike meeting Kirk then fine. But that is not what seems like is happening. They could have kept Chapel completely shielded from the Spock/T’Pring thing in an attempt to keep it in line with what we saw on TOS. But they didn’t even bother to try. They just ignored it and did what they wanted. It is that disrespect for the source material that really bugs me about the people running this show. Their hubris is atrocious.
It is no way that is going to happen. I remember people suggesting the same idea with T’Pring last season, that no one will actually meet her but Spock. She will somehow be there but not share any scenes with the rest of the crew. That went out the door literally in her second episode lol.
And it would make no sense to do that here because they already had Pike and Kirk meeting in the season finale. You can’t put them together but then somehow Pike never meets the guy directly after that for an entire season. It would feel too forced now.
People just have to accept the obvious, that they want these characters to have real meaningful interactions even if the canon of doing it is questionable, because otherwise, why bother at all?
There is a possibility that Pike will be off the Enterprise, perhaps trying to help Una, when Kirk shows up. We don’t even know how many episodes he’ll be appearing for. There seems to be a lot of assumption this will be a regular role on the series when it might just be a recurring role over a handful of episodes.
We’ve already seen them meet, so we get another meeting but in a different timeline? This is getting tedious.
Correct. I agree! What if this Kirk is not the same Kirk in the time crystal timeline created by future Admiral Pike when he visits Captain Pike?
Fun fact: Not the first time we saw Kirk and Spock meeting in a different timeline…
yes and it sucked
This is getting ridiculously predictable…
As much as I enjoyed SNW … The relieance of the past is Not a good thing.
Its in every new show. They cant’t do it without it.a total Lack of confidence in original, independent ideas :(
Strangely familiar worlds….
I’d ike to agree, but then I think of my favorite, DS9, and how it introduced the show through Wolf 359 and Locutus/Picard, brought the Duras sisters to the station, as well as Vash and Q, Kurn and Alexander, had Tom Riker pass through, Mirror-Tuvok cameo, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman woo Leeta, Gowron appear frequently, not to mention Worf and the entire O’Brien family making the station their permanent home for years, or everybody hitting up Kirk and Spock for Tribble time…
And I loved it all! 😍
I doubt I’ll ever fall in love with it like I did with DS9 or The Orville, but I’m giving SNW a few more chances to deliver.
Ethan Peck as Spock is fantastic, a great casting choice. I’m not yet sure about Paul Wesley as Kirk… he’s not—how shall I put it?—”cuddly” enough? But I’ll keep an open mind… after all, in the end it’s in the acting. (By the way, I think Chris Pine did a great Kirk.)
Mount seized on that last bit in the 09 when Pine really channeled Shatner with the ‘Bones’ line as he took the seat; it is the only time Pine ever really seemed to be feeling it IMO, though I think the material in BEYOND gave him opportunity that he didn’t deliver on (the less said about his high school acting next to cumberKhan in ID, the better … rarely can I recall a lead actor being so totally out of his league as with that brig scene, his ‘end you’ line is nearly on par with Kirstie Alley’s ‘prepare for warp speed’ in TWOK, sounding like a flustered cheerleader.
He channeled Harrison in Star Trek. He was nothing like Shatner. He was playing Indiana Jones or Han Solo. Which at least is charismatic, just wrong franchise.
I got that other actors being out of their league feeling from every episode of TNG. Stewart out classed everyone else so much that even a decent actor like Spiner looked like a high school drama student by comparison.
Anson Pike won’t want to meet young Prime Kirk because in his mind “they already met.”
I could be totally wrong here but that last scene from the season finale where Pike is reviewing Kirk’s service record suggests to me that he will be actively grooming Kirk to replace him in order to make sure that the timeline progresses as it should and I’m sure the writers will use the hazy history of Kirk and Pike’s interactions to mold the story to their liking.
i’m happy if the only legacy characters we have on the show are the ones in season 1, pike, spock, una, chapel, uhura, and m’benga….thats enough i don’t need kirk, scotty and sulu.
gary mitchel could be fun though in later seasons
I really wish they would just stick to Pike. We don’t need gimmicks. I don’t need to see Kirk or Scotty. Lets see more of the people we saw in The Cage. Can’t they come up with stories featuring that crew?
Want to show Kirk? Wait till the series finale and show us the ceremony of Pike giving the keys to Kirk.
I agree, I’d rather SNW be focused on Pike and his crew instead of being like a TOS reboot.
It would be more impactful if we’ve followed Pike throughout the show and then him finally giving the keys to Kirk, I don’t know, I feel like it’s a bit early to have Kirk play a role in SNW…
As the Kirk/Spock relationship is the very bedrock that all of Trek is built on I hope they do a good job with it.
Well said!
I realize why they’re having Paul Wesley appear at Cons with the regular cast (I mean, the guy is playing a younger Jim Kirk), but since SNW is an episodic show it seems unlikely he would appear in more than a couple episodes.
Since they are introducing Scotty, maybe they could give Paul Mc Gillion (who played Dr. Beckett in Stargate Atlantis) a chance and cast him? Or let him play Dr. MacCoy if he appears somewhen in later seasons?
Paramount usually skips 50th anniversaries in Star Trek…
The series is too lightweight & YA to be taken seriously !!!
This your first Star Trek?
I’m not sure how a man who is nearly 40 can play the younger Kirk, but what the hell, it’s only TV
I enjoyed SNW Season 1 SOOO much, and the Season Finale was really good. I am so sad we have to wait until next year for Season 2.
I feel like they are telegraphing TOS Reboot, when Captain Pike should be the focus for a couple more seasons, at least to me. Overall, though, I think the revival with Trek over the last few years has been wonderful.
Can we see new motion picture news soon?
The more they talk, the more I’m not looking forward to season 2. When they bump against canon, the results are controversial, to be kind. When they branch out and go sci-fi into mostly uncharted territory, those episodes are pretty dang good. The appropriate path forward is pretty clear, but that’s not what they’re doing.
Agreed.
Imagine that Star Trek origin movie with this prime universe than the Kelvin universe when Kirk meets Spock.
So once again we’re already being told about the addition of another TOS character being brought into SNW. And, yes, Kirk is no surprise, but it still annoys me. And then the tease of Scotty being brought in as well? And that’s on top of the others who are already on board, although I don’t see why they should be.
I get that the Enterprise is already “out there”, but every other Star Trek series that features a new captain/commander (TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT) gets a hand in selecting their crew. From the way SNW is going, every major TOS character will already be on board, and apparently Kirk will just take over the reigns and call it good. Does that make any sense?? Especially in context of previous Trek? It just seems ridiculous to me. Sure, one or two strong recommendations might be taken by a new CO, but we’re already up to 4 or 5 at this point, with a tease of another in later seasons. That just seems like a stretch.
When Pike and Spock were introduced in Discovery season 2, everybody loved them! But it was also canon that Pike and Spock were on the Enterprise together. We also got Una, and everyone was good with that too because that still made sense. Why couldn’t SNW just stick with those characters and call it good? I’ve enjoyed the new/original characters, and even some of the re-imagined characters (Chapel, M’Benga) would have been fine if they just had a different name. Maybe even bringing on Uhura as a cadet and then reassigning her would have been within the realm of acceptable, but I just think this is getting out of hand.
I really think the showrunners just need to come out and say SNW is in another universe. Get it over with, and then play all you want. But continuing to call this “canon” or that this is in the same timeline is just getting way too far stretched past the point of believability.
I hate this. I’m sure it’ll be well-done, but for all the complaints about Trekkies’ slavish devotion to canon, I’ve really found the current writers’ OBSESSION with canon to be much more limiting for Star Trek. We get 10 episodes a season. Why are the writers so pressed to use one of these precious slots to introduce young James T. Kirk in season 2? Why is Lower Decks dialog a deluge of inside references? Why did Prodigy have to explicitly link back to Voyager?