Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 debuts in just four weeks, and the co-showrunner is dropping some hints.
First Officer Kirk
The brand new issue of SFX magazine includes a cover story about the upcoming season of Strange New Worlds with an interview with co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman. He goes out of his way to avoid spoilers but does confirm a few previously reported details, including the return of the Gorn and Jesse James Keitel as Captain Angel. He also offered some insight into the return of James T. Kirk:
What we’re dealing with is Lieutenant Kirk, First Officer Kirk. We’re not dealing with Captain Kirk, and there’s opportunity there. Paul Wesley is really this wonderful – to me – hybrid of Shatner’s Kirk and his own. That is, of course, serviced by this moment in the Kirk timeline where he’s dating Carol Marcus. So you’ll see…
Paul Wesley first appeared in the season 1 finale as Captain Kirk of the USS Farragut from an alternate future. He is playing the younger Lt. Kirk in season 2, years before taking command of the Enterprise. It’s unclear if Goldsman’s reference to Kirk as first officer was related to his posting on the USS Farragut or is revealing that he gets temporarily assigned as first officer on the USS Enterprise while Una (aka “Number One”) faces a court martial following the season 1 cliffhanger. Wesley can be seen in the season 2 trailer beaming onto the Enterprise.
Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk from the season 2 trailer
Bending Star Trek
Goldsman also talked in general about how the show approached developing season 2, saying, “The pitch was ‘We’re going to do what we did last year, but more’, and we did.” One new element for season 2 will be a comedic crossover episode with Lower Decks, which Goldsman confirmed will include “full-on animated pieces,” noting how they worked closely with Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan to help “find the tone” that was a mix of both shows. Later in the article, Goldsman talks about how Star Trek can allow for different kinds of storytelling:
Star Trek allows you to be in space adventures, or at-home adventures or on-planet adventures. And then amongst them, there can be dramas and westerns and comedies. So Star Trek has wide arms when it comes to the kind of entertainment it can accommodate, as long as it’s Star Trek. I think that is what we will always be discovering: how much does it bend before it breaks? Weirdly, that’s our job, to keep trying to put it out there, bend it a little bit and not break it.
He also talked about their approach to Trek lore:
Part of what’s interesting is we’re interpolating history. There’s pieces that are dark that we’re filling in. Having said that, we will body-check canon when we need to, and we have. We’ve moved some folks around in terms of timelines, we put some folks together who aren’t necessarily canonically together at the same time, we pull some things forward because ultimately story wins. But trying to stay within canon is an awfully fun exercise, and leads to solutions that you might not come up with if you didn’t have those boundaries.
Spock, Pike, and Number One from the season 2 trailer
The June issue of SFX Magazine with Strange New Worlds on the cover is out today.
The cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are on the cover of SFX 366 (in UK shops now). Also inside: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, Transformers, the new Gremlins animation, The Walking Dead and more!
More info: https://t.co/Tmn50ONmyn
Buy online: https://t.co/CViLm4yNgE pic.twitter.com/R8jYjwqNzz— SFX magazine (@SFXmagazine) May 17, 2023
Season 2 of Strange New Worlds will premiere Thursday, June 15 on Paramount+ in the U.S, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The second season will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in South Korea, with premiere dates to be announced at a later date. Following the premiere, new episodes of the 10-episode season will drop weekly on Thursdays. Strange New Worlds airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Kind of weird that in the trailer’s stinger Kirk clearly has captain’s stripes. I wonder how all of that is going to work.
It will not work. That’s his whole point about “bending Star Trek”.
Star Trek needs to be spanked as well. 🤣
Hopefully its just a wardobe malfunction.
Captain temporarily assigned as first officer? I see no problem with that given that Spock and Kirk were both Captains and Spock was first officer in the movies.
They wouldn’t bump him all the way down to lieutenant for a temporary assignment as XO, though. Kirk as a lieutenant at this point in time makes a ton of sense, but the uniform doesn’t.
I will laugh very hard if he just borrowed one of Pike’s shirts or if he’s pretending to be captain for some reason.
I imagine they just used a photo of Kirk from the SNW episode “A Quality of Mercy” that takes place in an alternate future where Pike avoided his accident and stayed on as captain of the Enterprise during the events of TOS episode “Balance of Terror”. Kirk was Captain of the Farragut instead of the Enterprise in this reality.
Yes. Definitely the first time there’s been a rank insignia error in Star Trek.
Not the first time.
Discovery had to add correct braid in post for the first few days of shooting.
The stripes don’t mean anything. With the exception of Pike and Uhura the entire Season 1 main cast had incorrect stripes.
Honestly if that was as bad as the “bending” got it wouldn’t be that big a deal.
Someone, and their co-signirs can’t count or pay attention to details.
In the portion of the trailer where he is with Cadet Uhura, he has NO Captain Stripes. 😂
The franchise has been around for over fifty years. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with creative storytelling. Nostalgia is only going to carry you so far.
Well said! Nostalgia is fine, as long as it’s handled with care and finesse. If they’re part of the story, or worked in organically, I’m fine with Easter eggs, references, cameos, and other memberberries. When they’re used as a replacement for a competent story, or to emotionally manipulate the audience into caring about what they’re watching (I’m looking at you, every current Star Wars production other than Andor), that’s when I get annoyed.
In regards to James T. Kirk being on the show again: do I need Kirk in Strange New Worlds? No; of course not. Do I mind his presence? Not at all…for now. I think Paul Wesley has done a fine job. I don’t need or want a Shatner impersonator (or a Chris Pine impersonator, for that matter), so Paul’s take on James T. Kirk is working out fine for me so far. This is pre-TOS, while he’s still becoming the man we’ve come to know, so I don’t expect him to be a carbon copy, and I welcome the opportunity to learn more about the man before he became the Captain of the Enterprise.
That being said, I don’t want him to overstay his welcome. I still want this series to be about Captain Pike and his crew, first and foremost. Kirk can visit, but I don’t want him staying too long.
Nostalgia bores me.
Creative storytelling needn’t be sloppy storytelling.
Yup.
“Art consists in limitations. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.” – Chesterton
Canon =/= nostalgia
In the video TrekCulture made about the interview they quoted Goldsman saying “they hadn´t gotten to the events in The Cage yet.” That is of course wrong. And it makes me nervous that they will somehow change events of history so much that The Cage hasn´t happened. Which is stupid for many reasons not least among them that in Discovery season 2 disproves that.
He clearly means the present day bits of the bottle episode re-edit.
If you mean the Menagerie I hope you are right cause the comment as it stands is clearly incorrect.
To be fair, it seems like Akiva’s a bit confused. More than once he suggests that The Cage hasn’t happened yet, when we know full well it happened before the events of DISCO S2. It seems that some people are reading too much into certain things in the article.
Yup, its embarrassing and ridiculous. These people shouldn’t be anywhere near the franchise. Star Trek is a living breathing universe, a legacy an ideal. Not just some tin pot sci-fi show. These people haven’t a clue.
Well now you´re overreacting. “These people” as you say are doing a great job. I just don´t want them to change the timeline for The Cage.
Glad to see you dropping in Emily.
Hope you’re hopeful as I am to see more of the new characters in SNW this season.
If you’re going to ‘body-check canon, then make it a new timeline/reboot (which would be fine!).
Otherwise, there is no point in even having canon.
Also, he may be a fine actor but he just looks too old to be believable as Kirk at that point in time.
That’s my problem with him. I don’t know why they made that decision, but it was a poor one.
There was no reason to include Kirk in this series.
Agreed. I was hoping that the series finale of SNW was going to involve just one scene of Kirk and company coming aboard to take over from Pike. Maybe recast the crew of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” as a cool Easter egg. But seeing Sulu, McCoy, Scotty, etc. would make more sense to most viewers.
This is exactly what I have been saying since Kirk first appeared last season. The last scene of the series should be Kirk taking command, taking the chair with a slight smile on his face because we all know what is to come.
Agreed, it makes no sense for Kirk to be there. I don’t mind it that much but it clearly breaks canon.
Yup.
“Mendez: You ever met Chris Pike?”
“Kirk: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain”
True. But they have done it already with the Gorn & Chapel. And the article finally has them admitting they don’t care about canon at all.
I get the idea of “bending” canon but that should only if they NEED to in order to make a good story. But thus far all their “bending” was completely unnecessary. There was no reason to use the Gorn. They could have used a different alien that didn’t have a history laid out. There was no reason to include Chapel if that character was going to get in the way of future events. These things could have been done with new characters or species without changing ANYTHING about the story they were telling. That is what is galling.
WAY too old to be a 27-year-old Kirk!
I dunno, if we can accept all the visual inconsistencies of a franchise that has lasted 57 years with unbroken continuity, I think it’s okay for Young Kirk and Jack Crusher to look a little off for their ages.
People just look older in the future. Probably all that warp travel.
…and all that beaming around takes a toll.
It’s worse than smoking
Upgrading the special effects is something I expect to happen as the show gets closer to the time in which it’s set. But there are a zillion actors, so there’s no need to cast one who doesn’t look the part.
100%
Another word for canon is continuity. Regardless of what you call it, the franchise has beat the holy hell out of it almost from day one. Just because some choose to obsess over it doesn’t mean it should straightjacket anyone looking to exercise a little creativity with the franchise.
Yeah. Canon can be a fun challenge to incorporate and lead to its own storytelling innovations, as the producers have been saying, but it also shouldn’t be a straight jacket if a story element is too good to pass up. A lot of the pedantic things that get picked up on just don’t make for a better *story* if time has to be taken to address them.
Correct. Again, their problems thus far could have easily been dealt with through other means that wouldn’t affect their storytelling in any way shape or form. The Gorn is a perfect example? There are other aliens they could have used. Or barring that make up a new one. Just because that new alien was never dealt with on TOS doesn’t preclude they didn’t exist. TNG did it all the time. No one cared. In that sense the comments in the article I find to be disingenuous. They do indeed feel compelled to go the ‘memberberry’ route when it makes no sense canonically AND they could tell the same story with new elements.
Seems to be a thing with ST producers these days (see: Speleers, Ed).
The thing is, Pike’s command of the Enterprise, aside from The Cage, has been a big empty space until DISCO S2 reintroduced him, Number One, and Spock. Pike has at least another five full years of commanding the Enterprise (or as long as the series lasts) before he meets his fate, and there’s a lot of blank canvas on which to paint new tales of the characters and test the fan-imposed limits of canon (because, let’s be real here: canon is far more important to fans than anyone else, and they’re the ones trying to dictate it when they’re not really in a position of authority to do so).
So, people getting all bent out of shape about canon being “body-checked” need to calm down a bit and trust that they know how far they can go and what they can’t safely mess with.
Yes. This.
This has been my point from day one. If you are going to change up everything that made Star Trek Star Trek then just say it’s a reboot. I very much doubt many will have a problem with a rebooted show. I sure wouldn’t. A rebooted show would be judged 100% on how good the show was. But a prime universe set show that blows off all the established rules and in universe realities will just get blasted for blowing them all off.
The above poster was correct. These people shouldn’t be running Star Trek. They’ve been at the helm for many years now. Have made a good number of shows. It’s pretty obvious they don’t know exactly what they have or how to handle it.
All the promotional material show Kirk interacting with La’an. You think Kirk’s first meeting with Spock, something that’s never been featured canonically in over 50 years, would be the hype and the focus of the marketing. Yet unless I missed something we don’t even see any shots of Kirk and Spock together in any of the trailers or promotional photos.
Maybe they’re looking to leave that untouched, since their friendship is so iconic and important to the franchise as a whole. Just guessing; I could certainly be wrong.
Yeah, it seems as if the Kirk-Spock meeting would be a fateful one! Maybe they’re saving that for later? Maybe Spock is off trying to get Una out of hock or something?
You don’t need a first meeting, cuz we’ve already seen their first meeting of minds, which is a lot more important, back with pilot #2 in 65. The teaser in WNMHGB is a wonderfully succinct setup for these characters.
Oh, I love WNMHGB! I didn’t say we NEED a first meeting. But now that they’ve decided to put a younger Kirk on the ship while Spock is there, it seems like a moment with lots of dramatic possibilities. Like the OP, I’m surprised the showrunners would choose to forego that, so I was thinking of alternate possibilities.
Kirk, Spock. Spock, Kirk.
Now, if you want to enrage a few folks, turn up the lights, que the Trek harp music, and have them engage in a long, passionate embrace.
You’re welcome.
Was done in fan fiction in the 60’s and 70s.
….. taking sloppy storytelling to a whole new level.
It could be that this is such a big deal for the season, the first meeting of prime Kirk and Spock, that they do not want to spoil it in the trailers.
That is my theory. I think the beginnings of their bond could potentially be a major storyline of this season.
Yep. Personally I’m hoping it will be much more Kirk/Spock and much less Kirk/La’an.
As usual I agree with you man. I think they are saving it as well for the episode. OR maybe it will just be in the next frailer. The one we got was just the teaser.
Yeah honestly I can’t imagine bringing LT Kirk into this season and not having THE moment which Kirk and Spock begin their historic friendship. I mean what could be more important for having Kirk there than that. Almost 60 years into this franchise and we still have never had an explanation for how that happened!
I think I remember reading somewhere that will happen this season although how can it not since Kirk will be on the Enterprise unless Spock is stuck in 1950’s Earth or something. 😅
At least they should have a decontamination gel scene together.
I know they have to support their Kirk but the casting of Paul Wesley as Kirk is truly the shows biggest whiff to me. He’s closer to a Saturday Night Live mockery of Kirk. The actor just isnt up to it. He’s not that guy.
I have no idea how they looked at his work and thought he was their guy.
I guess Austin Butler was too expensive so they needed to find a different CW soap actor…
I’m inclined to disagree with you on that point. If he was a SNL mockery of Kirk, he’d be trying way too hard to look and sound like Shatner as Kirk, which would be a profound mistake.
I’ll grant that Paul Wesley doesn’t have the same charisma that, say, Chris Pine had with his take on Kirk for the KT Trek films, but I think he’s better than he’s being given credit for.
Even if he is twice as good as I think he is(n’t), twice nothing is still nothing.
He’s fine. Relax.
He hasn’t been seen to play anything but an alternate reality Kirk thought. Still okay to reserve judgment I think.
Not to be the grouchy fanboy here, but I have to agree that Paul Wesley is an… interesting casting choice for kirk. I get much more of a “serious Jim Carey” vibe from him than I get a Shatner vibe or even a Chris Pine vibe.
I’m not sue what “Kirkish” qualities they thought they found when they cast Wesley, or even what they were looking for.
Though a friend of mine said, “Maybe the casting director was drunk.”
Agreed. He’d be better cast as playing a young Jim Carrey in a new Ace Ventura movie than a young Jim Kirk. I loved the casting of Uhura, Pike, and Spock in SNW, and I eventually came around to the new Nurse Chapel (she’s better than the TOS version!). But this new Kirk just ain’t it.
I agree. He is no Shatner or Pine. He is just wrong for the part.
Yeah Deadwood Kirk blows.
But maybe he will improve next season. 🤞
Don’t knock the ‘WOOD – any chance we can get Olyphant into Starfleet?
Hopefully they will put in Kirk’s emotion chip in season 2.
Do these comments about bending canon mean SNW is confirmed to be a different reality from the prime timeline?
No, it just means that creative people like to put their own spin on things, and they’re trying to see how far they can go without making it an alternate reality.
Too late. That entire first season could only be explained by being a 100% reboot. In that article it sounded like they wanted to say it but stopped a few steps short of actually saying it.
Nope, it just means that Pike’s Enterprise is a big, clean slate, and they choose to explore it.
It also means, the Gorn don’t belong pre-TOS as a well known villain but they are going to do it anyways because Akiva can’t resist.
nor should T’Pring be around but they need Kelvin-ize Spock
I don’t have a problem with T’Pring being on the show. The problem I have is her interaction with characters who were around on TOS. Uhura & Chapel aren’t supposed to even know she exists. They might be able to get away with her interacting with the non TOS crew but even then I think that a bit of a stretch as I think it unlikely the subject would never come up between them for other reasons.
Yep. I think it’s been confirmed they only reason they did it was because they thought the Gorn were “cool”. Which may be but per the episode they were in no one knew the Gorn even existed in Pike’s day. I consider this to be a MAJOR blunder. They may as well have Q show up now. Or have Pike encounter the crystalline entity. Because some writer thinks they are “cool”.
After watching the masterpiece of Picard it’s going to be hard to go back to watching Strange New Worlds, and I like this series.
Agreed! I’ve loved all these shows but Terry really showed us genuine Star Trek. I believe he raised the bar on storytelling and character development and now some of these characters in SNW just seem bland and uninteresting by comparison. I definitely rather have a show on the G. But, our feelings may fade as we get closer to S2 SNW.
LOL Masterpiece. It’s only a masterpiece when they pull out the senior citizens from TNG.
Loved Picard season 3 so much but I’m still excited about this season too. A big part of it is the crossover episode which is the single biggest episode I been looking forward too out of everything! 😁
Yup, totally with you. The Discoverse is just bad. Sorry to the people that love it. I’ve tried, but it is just really poor.
Masterpiece? That’s the funniest thing I’ve read on here in ages. Take out all of the nostalgia, all of the fanservice of Picard… and there’s nothing left.
It was good but far from a masterpiece. Still wasn’t close to as good as SNW season 1, and I’m thoroughly anticipating more greatness from Season 2.
Let’s just say that I and several others here feel very strongly the reverse.
If only the back half of Picard S3 had been as well written and executed as S1 of SNW, we would be much more positive towards Matalas’ proposal for Legacy.
‘Masterpiece’ is far from my thoughts on the series finale.
Hey bro you’re staying ‘we’ don’t speak for all of us????? 😒
Yeah I’m just teasing! 😬 And I know what you meant.
As far as the Legacy show I don’t understand this thinking. You didn’t like the finale so you think the entire next show will be bad? Every season of Star Trek haa had bad finales and seasons, but most actually improve in time. I think every season of Discovery has been bad, that doesn’t mean the show shouldn’t be made, just get better ideas.
But if you didn’t like the show, that’s cool, you know me by now I don’t care either way. But it’s a weird reason not to have a show. He can simply change stuff if most fans aren’t happy. Although they been doing that for every season of Discovery and still no improvements. 😂
Season 1 and 2 of Picard were just dreadful and fans still wanted a spin off show even then. Because they still wanted more stories in this era and the hope they would just learn from their mistakes. Season 3 was already a huge improvement, I imagine they would simply keep trying to make it better in the next show as they always do although I loved the finale personally. I’ve watched it three times lol.
I’ve never said that I wouldn’t support a 25th century show in principle, my negatives are
– where the finale left Starfleet as an institution (decimated, riddled with familial privilege and influence / nepotism)
– what the finale proposed as the premise for the future show.
Wow. I found the back half of Picard S3 to be on par with S1 of SNW. And that’s not a good thing.
OK. You liked Picard S3. But “masterpiece” seems too hyperbolic. It did have its moments. All the best stuff happened in the first half. Was it better than the rest of Secret Hideout Trek? Yes. Was it good? Not really.
Every Time Akita talks canon, it just pisses me off. Nowhere in there does he mention talk about it’s it importance. Contrast that with Terry Matalas’s approach to canon, and you see the problem. Akiva shouldn’t be running a prequel show.
Matalas’ approach was to turn the nostalgia fire hose on full. I get that a lot of folks liked that, and that’s fine, but it was a one off. SNW’s is (sort of) treading on new ground, there’s no story to be told that wouldn’t just suck horribly with wall to wall easter eggs and gratuitous cameos for the length of the season.
Having KIRK intrude on a show that’s supposed to be about PIKE isn’t a nostalgia exercise?
If SNW is treading on new ground then why the heck do they have all the nostalgic, legacy characters in the show? The honest answer is Nostalgia sells. They could have just got the core cast and a couple of established characters from the original TOS timeline and created the rest from total scratch but they decided to go with known quantities going so far as to even include Sybok in some ham-fisted way.
I agree SNW is as much fan service and nostalgia as Picard season 3. There’s actually very little that’s original in that show. Which is fine, I like the show but it is what it is. It most certainly is not treading new ground, let’s not fool ourselves.
Agreed! I’m a canon fan and don’t mind bending but he’s already broken it. All they have to do is set the Enterprise in an unknown quadrant and tell good stories with new aliens and new worlds. The writers trap themselves in canon rather than canon trapping them.
Easter Eggs and fan service is fine when it’s earned and useful to a good story. The problem with SNW is most of it is neither. With the Gorn, they could have told the same exact story with a new species and it would actually work better. The BoT remake couldn’t avoid it because they were outright cribbing the original story, and maybe it would have worked if they could have replicated what was most important about it. L’aan as Khan’s predecessor is unnecessary, as is M’Benga, Chapel and Uhura in their roles (Uhura probably makes the most sense to include). Everything they do, could have been done by a new character. What Matalas got right was making the canon intersections he brought in to Picard S3 meaningful and not just window dressing (for the most part). It’s amazing to me that he gets that so well. The reverence Matalas has for what has been established, despite what he may WANT to do, is not in dispute. That’s why he was so good at it. When you nail that, it allows you to do a few blatant things and they can work. Amazing that a man with the pedigree Akiva has, doesn’t get that. He’s supposed to be a better writer than that.
The man wrote “Batman and Robin”. Who are you kidding?
He also won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. Industry wise, he has cred. I’m not making an argument for him being a good writer, as much as I’m saying he’s got a very strong resume of work, no matter what any of us think of certain works he’s been attached to. Believe me.. I don’t think he’s that great at what he does.
You do remember that Akiva is the writer responsible for Batman and Robin so I don’t really think he is a better writer than that. (Before everyone gets up on me yes I know he won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, but Oscars are the biggest fluke on the planet. We live in a world for Goldsman can win an Oscar but not Alfred Hitchcock.)
Here, too. I feel attempts to comply with canon should be made. But if the story can’t be told in any other way selective “bending” of canon is acceptable. But there is a big difference between “bending” and “ignoring”. Using the Gorn isn’t bending. It’s flat out ignoring. Same as if they wanted to have Q appear.
Canon isn’t that important.
To you.
It wasn’t when the TNG writers decided to forget that the Klingons had joined the Federation.
Surely there is a tremendous difference between a throwaway line that can be interpreted metaphorically, and casting aside decades of character development for one of the most important characters in the franchise.
It wasn’t just a throwaway line though. The first couple of times we see the Klingons on TNG it’s pretty clear their Federation members.
It was also the original explanation why Worf and Alexander’s mom was in Starfleet. The writers later admitted that is was a mistake to have them in the federation and just swept all that under the rug and hoped no one would notice.
They retcon it, that’s pretty common in Star Trek. The difference is they were making new canon. Nothing conflicted with the idea, they just decided not to have them in the Federation for some reason and changed after a season so most don’t even know or cared.
With SNW it’s conflicting with old canon and they are pretending it isn’t. That’s a different thing and why it’s bothering some Trekkies.
Other real-life examples:
– Madeleine Albright (nee Korbel), born in Czechoslovakia, became a naturalized US citizen, and negotiated heavily as secretary of state with Eastern European countries re. NATO expansion, Balkan policy, etc.
– Henry Kissinger, born in Germany, also a naturalized US citizen, negotiated heavily with CEE states and the USSR as secretary of state and national security advisor.
This is incredibly common; K’heylar’s Klingon parent simply met a human, became a naturalized Federation citizen (remember, relations were good after Nardendra III), and their kid acted as an intermediary between the two states, albeit on terms that weren’t made crystal clear (and didn’t need to be).
Somehow my first response never survived moderation, so I’m retyping it, albeit less eloquently, because part 2 doesn’t make sense without it!
I thoroughly disagree that it’s “clear” the Klingons were Federation members. First off, we have seen individual member alien races (such as Bajorans and Ferengi) join Starfleet while their homeworlds have not joined the Federation.
Second, on K’heylar specifically, she has half-Klingon, half-human, and she served as a special Federation ambassador to the Klingons. She was never shown to be in Starfleet.
This arrangement is quite common in the real world. For example:
– Zalmay Khalizad was born in Afghanistan, became a naturalized US citizen, and subsequently served as US ambassador to Afghanistan, then to Iraq, and finally as UN ambassador.
– Dmitri Simes was born in Moscow, but served as a foreign policy advisor to Pres. Nixon, who appointed him to head the Center for the National Interest.
– The US intelligence community (dubiously) cultivated Ahmad Chalabi, who was an Iraqi exile in the US, as a proxy figure in Iraq.
– I noted the examples of Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger in my follow-up post, both naturalized US citizens who engaged in diplomacy with their native countries.
In none of these examples did the state in question ever become part of the US!
Third, associate membership in international organizations is a thing. For example, Australia is an associate membership of the European Broadcasters Union (which is NOT an EU body), which explains its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The EU itself does not formally have “associate members,” but in practice, it signs multiple association agreements with countries on the periphery of Europe, some of which become full member states. For example, the current Ukraine crisis was precipitated by the EU-Ukraine association agreement of a decade ago. Turkey and the EU signed an association agreement in 1963, and (VERY long story short) until 10-15 years ago, it seemed plausible that Turkey would one day join the EU. Several commentators have suggested formalizing the concept of an associate EU membership.
The whole idea that the Klingons “joined the Federation” stems from Wesley’s throwaway line in “Samaritan Snare.” Personally, I would interpret it to mean that the Federation has either a formal associate member status or an informal, EU-like one (cf. the whole Federation-Bajoran cooperation). Alternatively, maybe Wesley was speaking metaphorically, as in the Klingons “joined up” with the Feds in playing a constructive role in galactic politics.
“Heart of Glory,” a first season episode, featured a Klingon captain referring to the Federation-Klingon relationship as “an alliance.” O’Brien said the same thing in that episode where some rogue Klingon mercenary tried to assist in stealing Jadzia Dax’s symbiote.
Thus, in sum, Wesley’s throwaway line can indeed be interpreted consistently with what we have seen in the Klingon-Federation relationship — which is emphatically NOT true of how Kirk, the Gorn, etc. are depicted on SNW.
Exactly. Mistakes are one thing. Willful and blatant disregard for no good reason is another.
True. And I think it understandable that the task is difficult and things are going to slip though the cracks from time to time. I think Enterprise did a pretty darn good job. I think it clear they were actually trying to make things work even though sometimes errors were made. The difference between Enterprise and SNW is that I think it clear the people running SNW have just decided to intentionally ignore the canon any time it got in the way of the some writer’s “fun”. Not just the small things. They’ve ignored the small things too but a couple of really BIG things.
It is, Star Trek isn’t just another crappy sci-fi. The canon is a very important part and makes the universe feel real to many.
100%. It’s not that I need everything to synch up either. I need to believe that this takes place in the same universe. That the people we knew from other iterations are fundamentally the same people in this issue. I don’t really believe that this Spock is the progenitor to the Spock we know in later iterations. I don’t buy that this Enterprise is the same ship, several years earlier as what we see in TOS, just updated to look a little cooler. That’s my core problem.
Window dressing I am actually OK with. How the Enterprise looks on SNW obviously would need an upgrade. But that upgrade NEEDED to be tempered by what we saw on TOS. The Captain’s quarters didn’t need to be a luxury apartment with a fireplace. The Enterprise shouldn’t have a 5 star restaurant on board. These things needed to get scaled back and evoke some of the feel of TOS without duplicating the exact look. As it stands the only thing this ship has in common with TOS is the circular bridge.
And this is another thing Enterprise did well. They updated their show but still made it look like it could evolve into what we saw on TOS. Yes, they had the advantage of being a century ahead instead of a few years. But they still respected their source material enough to make honest attempts.
100% agree and totally get your frustration.
Thank you. No matter where anyone stands on the issue, the willful disregard of it in the name of ‘story’ is lazy. Mistakes have happened in all iterations over the years. Sometimes these things are small and it’s no big deal. Sometimes it’s big (like the Gorn) and much more problematic. Another big issue is when they get character wrong. Best example of this is Khan in STID. They had no real understanding of who Khan was, but the problem is they managed to make him less interesting. I think they’re kind of ruining Pike by making him everyone’s buddy (which really has nothing to do with Canon), and not their Captain. Sure, it can be justified because we knew so little, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. I just hope they don’t screw Kirk up. They have a good actor, but I just don’t think he has ANY Charisma.
In addition to the Gorn was the complete reimagining of the character of Christine Chapel. As presented there is no way in hell viewers can reconcile such a take charge bad-ass becomes the demure nurse at McCoy’s side only a few years later. She NEEDED to be a different character. They only went with Chapel because (I’m guessing but I think I’m right) they wanted to play with the origins of the Chapel crush on Spock. And in the process wanted to “change the character for modern audiences”.
Ugghh 4 weeks. Thats SOOO long!
I don’t mind bending canon a little just don’t obliterate it either. I don’t think there is an issue with LT Kirk on the Enterprise so long as he’s not all of a sudden in command all the time like the Kelvin movies.
And seeing a Prime pre TWoK Marcus might be fun! Just please don’t let David be concieved on the Enterprise. No real reason I can offer except yuck.
I should probably watch the last three episodes of the first season. I hope the next season is better.
I don’t think the last season was perfect but I enjoyed it quite a bit! As always I hope things improve with every next stage!!!
I found it a boring and predictable. They need to stop worrying about the freaks in the fandom and cut loose and reboot all of TOS. I don’t even consider TOS as real Trek anymore.
THat’s what they tried to do with Kelvin. And Kelvin made the same mistakes that producers always do. They could have forged a completely new path and not have been beholden to canon at all. But instead they tried to remake Wrath of Khan and bring back Kirk with magic blood instead of saying in the Universe Kirk just dies a hero.
If you are going to reboot canon, fine. But then stop telling the same stories like the Gorn and Sybok again
I actually prefer Into Darkness over Wrath of Khan. Darkness is just better.
In a pig’s eye (can provide a canon reference for that remark if need be.)
If they actually had the balls to actually reboot it, I’d be on board. I still think the writing is subpar, but enjoy the cast, and to be honest there are a handful of episodes that are really good. The common denominator in the best episodes is they’re treading new ground. More of that, and this show could soar.
To be honest they are doing a low key reboot. They just need to be more up front about it. The fear of angering a loud minority of fans is holding Star Trek back.
100% agree. It’s actually insulting that they keep claiming to honor canon.
I’m good if they rebooted it too but it will never have the sane pull as the Prime Universe as JJ verse proved.
I have to agree. The holy trinity of Kirk/Spock/McCoy is just so iconic (I hate that description nowadays, but in this case it’s absolutely true) that it’s near impossible to live up to. The one thing the Kelvinverse did well was in its casting. That’s probably as good as you could hope to do. They wisely chose not to impersonate.
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion. My own opinion is that TOS is the MOST real Trek. There’s room for everybody at the table…
Exactly! 👍
And TOS is the show I seen the least outside of TAS which I never seen but I know how important TOS still is for old fans.
How could you not consider TOS ‘real’ Trek when it’s the first show and set up basically all the 23rd century canon?
I haven’t even watched a third of the episodes (mostly season 3 because I know it mostly sucks) but there is no Star Trek without it. That’s a ridiculous statement.
It’s a reason why fans still care about that canon but has basically forgotten the JJ verse version. It still carries weight 55 years later.
The show is obsolete now. No one considers the Batman serials from the 1940’s canon. So why should anyone consider TOS from the 1960’s still valid as SNW overwrites it?
Oh and I have watched all the TOS episodes. Most of them were pretty bad. I’ll never watch them again.
No one considers 1940s Batman canon because when it was cancelled the next show was a reboot.
Every Star Trek show and movie has followed TOS canon. That’s why Discovery got the boot out of the 23rd century, it didn’t follow it closely enough.
And don’t have to watch it. That’s why I liked old school Trek, it followed TOS canon but you didn’t have watch it because the other shows came 100 years after it or before it like Enterprise.
I didn’t watch any TOS except the movies until 5 years after I became a fan because I only cared about TNG and VOY then. And they just mentioned small stuff so it never mattered. But for 23rd century stuff then it matters.
Because Canon is what the owners of the IP say it is, and they have stated over and over that this fits within canon. They have control. If they don’t want to work within it, they don’t have to. They can call it a reboot and be done, but they refuse to do that. It’s a choice they made… not fans.
Apples and oranges. Besides, the 40’s Batman serials were never meant to be canon. The original Bob Kane comic books are the canon.
Totally agree. Storywise, I think a build up to a Kirk reveal is far more interesting than bringing him in now. But I’m open to it. If they can make it make sense and be worth having him involved now, then I’m all for it. Same with Carol Marcus. I need to go ‘a-ha’ and not ‘groan’. if that makes sense.
I’ve seen this Kirk actor, Wesley, in other stuff and it seems like his neck has gotten much smaller and his nose looks a bit different as well.
Also I do think Goldsman gets a bit too much of a pass on some creative decisions, there definitely should be more constructive criticisms with the storylines and character choices. That goes for Kurtzman as well.
Matalas seems to have more of a understanding, bad lighting on ships and other questionable newer aesthetic decisions aside.
I’m SO excited for Season 2 of SNW! I know most fans loved S3 of Picard, but personally, I wasn’t that wild about it. But I AM wild for SNW!
I think a little of Captain Angel goes a loooooong way, and I’d be happy to never see her again; I think space pirates are kind of stupid, actually. But it looks as if I might be in the minority on that one, too. :-)
I want to hear from Henry Alonso Myers. As far as I can tell, he’s the only showrunner who’s on SNW and no other Treks. And since I like SNW way better than the other current Treks, I think maybe he has something to do with that…
Good point.
Myers was also an EP on The Magicians, a serialized show that worked. It held my attention despite being about grad students at a secret university for magicians.
(Noga Landau was the story editor for season 3 and has some script credits too. She will be the showrunner for Starfleet Academy. Makes me wonder if Myers recommended her to Kurtzman when the backdoor pilot in Discovery S4 fell flat. Bodes well in my view.)
I haven’t seen The Magicians, but it sounds like I should check it out. What network or streaming service was it on?
I think a Starfleet Academy show could be really good if done well or really bad if done poorly, so I hope it will be done well! I’m glad someone you think well of will be running it; I hope she knows her Trek.
Amazon Prime has had it streaming, but it’s gone anything in Canada recently.
It’s still showing as available in the US so you might want to start it soon.
It was originally made for SyFy (US).
Getting to 5 seasons there was almost unheard of.
Thanks!
I just want to point out that in the trailer (and in the downtown b.t.s. footage leaked long ago) Kirk is wearing three stripes (two large, one small) that we have come to associate with season one Pike and TOS Kirk. So, if he is a lieutenant in season two, the uniform rank does not confirm that (yet).
I will also say given how controversial its been to fans that Kirk even appears you would think they would be über-meticulous about it.
Not Angel! Such an interesting character until they flipped the character into mustache-twirling villainy. Way too hammy and not particularly interesting.
You must not be fond of Harry Mudd then, either. I mean, if we’re going to be fair about it, he’s just as mustache-twirly an antagonist, if not more so, and hammy is almost an understatement for the character.
I personally preferred Rainn Wilson’s version of him.
We don’t have a lot of really outsized or campy characters in Trek these days. I thought Vadic would be but that didn’t amount to much. Captain Angel is a little less convincing as a pirate, but there’s room for villains to have a little more fun on these shows.
So true but that was the 1960’s to be fair.
I agree! I’ve already seen ALL the Angel I want to!
I felt the same way.
Perhaps if Mike McMahan gave Angel a Short Trek with the Harry Mudd Escape Artist treatment the character might get there.
This is not in the prime timeline. TOS Kirk only met Pike when he became Fleet Captain
TOS Kirk isn’t canon anymore.
Till ViacomCBS says otherwise TOS Kirk is canon. Besides, we don’t even know if Pike will be a Fleet Captain in S2. If Admiral Janeway can command a ship I don’t see while Fleet Captain Pike can’t.
Oh you know they would never say that publicly.
Then it is so WONDERFUL that you will say it on their behalf. What courage, what daring! What a load of whooeee.
I’m just a great guy.
Now you’re just trolling bto.
Always he is just trolling
Having a different perspective on things don’t make you a troll.
Having the same ‘different perspective’ on things — while usually offering little more than a one-line snipe in most of these instances, rather than new or intriguing insights to support a minority opinion — certainly does make you appear to be one.
I’m a man of few words..
Gary Cooper played a man of few words. You’re something else and I still can’t figure why the mods don’t act on it.
As I said before, having a different opinion isn’t trolling.
Well that’s vague… Kirk said they met when Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain. And for all we know, Pike could be promoted to Fleet Captain in season 2 of SNW. Its sort of implied in TOS that they met when Kirk first took command of the Enterprise. We shall see.
Just say its an alternative universe and it’s all fine.
The people who make these shows have said repeatedly we are in the prime universe. Why is that so hard for folks to understand?
Makes me want to say what we did to our kids when they were younger and tried to boss one another around, “Not your job.”
I can however appreciate a view that says “Why then do you insist in telling stories in the sandbox of a specific continuity if you don’t want to respect it?”
It’s hard to understand because it’s inconsistent. If I tell you an apple is a pear, it does not make it so.
Just because I tell my kids we’re going to Disneyland when in fact we’re going to the dentist doesn’t make the Dentist visit part of Disneyland..
You can SAY one thing, but if your actions clash with reality (established canon), then your word is meaningless.
It’s hard to understand because what they have done is say they are going to deliver a new car and then deliver a bicycle. And then keep insisting the bike is a car.
I don’t mind them bending cannon to tell ‘good’ stories, although I do think DSC/SNW will be relegated to alternate reality at some point, they’ll just use some event in the past to explain it (the Xindi attack, or all of First Contact, etc…..)
LOL no that will Never happen. Get use to it. Disco Forever!
Discovery is in the 32nd century, no one even have to care about that show anymore like JJ verse. Both are outside main Trek canon.
Academy
You don’t care about that show either.
I can’t wait to see it. I Care.
Oh come on… let Kirk work for it. Let’s see Lt Kirk for a while, make him sweat. Horatio Hornblower in space, let’s see him work up the ranks, that is fun! I don’t see why they want him to leap all the way to Captain, no one respects that and it makes no sense.
Leave that nonsense for the Seven of Nine series or whatever, leave that out of a true non-Kelvinverse TOS show. You’ve got Captain Pike, you’ve got Number One, let the Kirks thrive on landing parties, weapons, etc.
Some of the fun of Horatio Hornblower is seeing how he learned to become the legend. LET THE GUY LEARN – MISTAKES, TRAGEDIES, ETC.
And if they miss out on the Farragut going down without Kirk as the phaser officer and dealing with the death of his Captain and the aftermath, well, what a waste.
Also Kirk at Axanar, wish they could have shown him get some action in the Klingon War (but there is still a Cold War to go!).
Another note, why does the Farragut get the colors back on the bridge while the big E gets de-TOSed for monochrome displays. Really bugging me as the colors are a) really obviously in TOS and b) look sooo much better. Let’s not TNG snoozify SNW, they need to move those people to lower decks or the Seven show or whatever.
The years would be wrong for Garrovick’s death aboard FARRAGUT, which was nearly a decade before he took command of 1701 if the years bear out, but Kirk should definitely be dealing with the fallout and (for him especially) the lack of consequences arising out of it. You could even use it as a justification for him having a phase of being seriously trigger-happy as a result, and see some tragedy arising out of THAT. Lotsa possibilities … none of which we’ll ever see with AG riding herd.
I think SNW is supposed to be decades before Kirk would take command, I think you actually could have the whole Garrovick’s death in an episode. Or a flash back for sure!
Regardless concerning the fall out, I am with you 100% That all sounds great.
Maybe I’m going to have to get some timeline issues worked out on this (I am making a huge assumption thinking TPTB have already done this.)
50 years ago, OBSESSION was my third favorite TOS ep (behind DOOMSDAY and BoT — I had some time in jr. high to write out my list of best to worst and I remember those at the top, with AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD, FRIDAY’S CHILD and … wait for it, SPACE SEED at the bottom — was seriously repelled by Khan’s treatment of Marla), so I think I still have some parts of the ep committed to memory (I should — along with ARENA and DOOMSDAY, think I must have seen OBSESSION at least 50 times.)
Pretty sure Kirk tells Bones about an incident with Farragut from 11 years prior, so that would place it around 2255 or 2256, give or take. SNW has to be around 2260, doesn’t it? That would put it around 5 years prior to Kirk getting the E, so he’d be a lt. or maybe Lt. Commander (probably former given his meteoric rise, probably getting command before hitting age 30.)
In writing this, I remember that TREK magazine had its own account of Kirk’s career that had some fun stuff, including when he commanded a small ship that was described as a flying phaser bank. (man I haven’t read a BEST OF TREK in 30 years at least.) Often wondered if Ronald D. Moore read that same account and that it might have inspired his DEFIANT in DS9, which I now remember describing to somebody as a flying phaser bank.
(sorry for digressions, my wife underwent major surgery yesterday — results thus far inconclusive, though outlook is likely grim — so I’m going nuts and just spewing at this point. Except for a sleep apnea test and three nights spent in Marin to cover THE PHANTOM MENACE vfx, tonight and last night are the only times I’ve spent not in the same bed with her since late 1995, and I am decidedly out of sorts.)
My condolences on your wife’s troubles. I can’t begin to imagine how tough it must be.
To your point about Kirk commanding a smaller ship early there is a pretty cool article on Memory Alpha breaking down his career beginnings as a “daring and creative” destroyer captain, performing feats of subterfuge and derring-do behind Klingon lines.
Hope your wife recovers, all the best to you and your family.
“Ultimately story wins”
LOL. That’s rich coming from the guy who wrote Batman and Robin.
Why is it so hard for these people to BUILD on canon? Use canon as a building block to create new stories. There’s no reason why they can’t tell these same stories within the same continuity. If the writing were so damn good, it wouldn’t matter if you invented new races and characters. Arguably, the most successful episodes of season 1 were the ones where they did that (e.g., “Lift Us Up Where Suffering Can’t Reach”).
For example, there was absolutely no reason to make the Gorn villains in season 1, except for the fact that they wanted to drop an easter egg and were insecure about introducing a new species without name dropping a legacy race to go along with it. And they didn’t care that it conflicted with canon because they wanted the name recognition.
I think this is why a lot of fans loved that Matalas dropped the USS New Jersey into the Fleet Museum in Picard season 3. No matter what Strange New Worlds and Discovery wants to say a Constitution Class starship looks like, we all know what a “real” one looks like and what the real Enterprise 1701 will look like.
I’ll summarize the comments for anyone trying to read them now:
Blah blah canon shouldn’t be messed with
Debates about Paul Wesley
Something something discovery isn’t canon
But what about Legacy
Oh no the trans character is returning, they’re just not interesting, who would be interested in trans characters
There, I just saved you all time and from feeling exhausted.
I haven’t laughed this hard all week! 🤣
Well done!
Also…
Every Star Trek: Legacy detractor in various stories about Picard season 3 and the possibility of a new Matalas led series: I don’t want a show that wallows in easter eggs and legacy characters. We need to move Star Trek forward.
Same people defending Strange New Worlds: Why are people upset that the show is dropping easter eggs and using legacy characters to wallow in Trek’s past while messing with continuity? I’m excited to see the third version of Kirk in the umpteenth revision of the 23rd century instead of the “old” people in a Legacy show.
I’m sure Spock would find that to be perfectly consistent logic.
Both sides are exhausting and I say this as a guy who isn’t interested in Legacy. It’s all exhausting. and before you go off and assume shit, I already said what I’m interested in many times on many different articles. And no I don’t trust Matalas to give it to me. Legacy is going to end being all about the damn Borg again and I’m not falling for it again.
I just want to say that I liked Picard S3 (and now Picard S1 through the lense that the Borg were manipulating Picard subconsciously) and SNW. If you TOS movieize TNG as with S3, it is not horrid, unlike TNG/VOY proper. You TNGize (proper, not PIC S3) SNW and it will suck.
For constancy and critical thought – Seven of Nine jumping to Captain is as horrid as Kirk jumping to Captain in the Kelvinverse.
Let us enjoy some Lt Kirk stories and see the guy work for it, learn some lessons, earn some respect, etc.
Side note –
With Seven you got to think here is the young Starfleet that was forced to kill thousands on Earth spacedock / senior officers and friends/family like Shelby.. some have got to question her attachment to a time when her body was abused and used by the Borg for xenocide. And who is her councillor, the very David Marcus Picard who enabled their own kidnapping? That’s got to rub a lot of young traumatized crew the wrong way. I don’t think anyone did any favors promoting her without serving, that could be a whole storyline right there.
Can I ask Gritizens whether you were disappointed when Angel flipped from cool and complex to mustasche-twirling over-the-top?
I was, and I was kind of disappointed that they took the franchise’s first trans villain there. Which makes me less interested in seeing her again.
But if the character could have the kind of comedic writing that Mudd got from Mike McMann in The Escape Artist, I’d be enthusiastic.
(I agree though that there are some here who seem to find any character uninteresting who isn’t SWM or perceived eye candy for the SWM gaze – hero or villain.)
Yeah I was super disappointed. And in fact I’m not really pleased that she was a villain at all. If we had a trans woman hero to counterbalance her, I’d be okay.
I love the character but I definitely understand the tissues of making a trams character a villain.
But we still have to see how it plays out. She may have more layers and be more of an antagonists. She is being played for laughs too. I think maybe we’ll see her loosen up and that’s she’s not really evil but more like a Harry Mudd type.
Yeah but we still need a trans woman protagonist to balance it out. Or in fact another trans protagonist period.
I remember thinking for the first half of the episode that Angel was an interesting character, particularly during the discussion with Spock about his human and Vulcan halves; it was a not-so-subtle but still very Trek way of working a real-world issue into the story.
Then the villain switch was thrown and my interest went out the airlock.
It’s too high a barrier to entry to have this grim, cheerless, 40-year old looking guy be a ‘younger’ Kirk and have anyone believe that he’ll grow into the charming 35-year old that everyone remembers from the original show.
Yup, it’s ridiculous.
I just pray that they dial back on the soap opera approach to Spock and T’Pring for Season 2. I don’t they made it such a focus in the first season other than “we need to give Spock a plotline”, which is weird when they shoehorned him into everyone else’s
That didn’t bug me as much as Chapel being FULLY aware T’Pring existed. Especially considering she even asked Spock who the woman was on TOS.
But at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Q shows up on SNW. Just because some writer thinks it’s “cool”.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the crossover episode gets the highest ratings this season. They then must do a sequel but this time as a Lowers Decks episode. Pike and co. as cartoons!! Yes, baby.
In other words, they can’t be bothered to keep things in check. Hmmmm maybe NOT making another bloody prequel, which has its own pre-established history, wasn’t the way to go AGAIN??
Akiva Goldsman and the Discoverse writers should be no where near this franchise. Their careless attitude and poor handling of canon is depressingly lazy. Paramount Plus need to give the franchise to Terry Matalas and Mike McMahan etc. People that respect what came before while making new canon, without haphazardly wrecking what came before. Kurtzman’s cabal haven’t a damn clue.
I think that Trek Movie’s Laurie Ulster put it best on another thread, the makers of SNW are fans and know TOS very well.
They are however, because they are long time fans, writers with their own ideas about the stories that they want to tell in this universe. They’ve got their own head canon and their giving it back to us.
They are taking the story of the Enterprise and its characters before TOS where they wanted to see it go. It may or may not be where we wanted or expected. We’re just along for the ride with their vision. (Something like my feelings about the last 3 episodes of S3 of Picard.)
For my part, I’m going to continue to love the show for what it is and not sweat what it isn’t too much. I do wish Akiva wouldn’t shoot out his opinions like this though. It’s kind of the opposite of building positive excitement. Bell Media did a better job with its clips. (And yes, it runs against the grain as a Canadian to praise the monster telecom for anything.)
Coda – Akiva Goldsman was once a kid trying to run a TOS fan club and attended one of the first cons in the early 70s, when both were barely a thing.
No. I don’t see how both those statements can be true. Based on what we have seen so far they couldn’t be fans of TOS they wouldn’t blow off elements just because they wanted to something “cool”. Especially when they could tell the exact same story by just using using writing skills and coming up with something else that actually works within they sandbox they are playing in. If the knew TOS well they wouldn’t blatantly blow off elements from TOS just because to make their stories work.
It’s great that they are telling stories where they would like them to go. The problem is anytime something from TOS gets in the way instead of working around it they just opt to ignore it and pretend it still falls in line with canon.
I’m sorry but their persistence in telling us this is prime universe is insulting to the fans. Perhaps they could be cut some slack if what they were bringing us had some quality to it. But it just doesn’t. At best they have been mediocre. There are no standout episodes. I’m not a big fan of TNG but even THAT show had some standout episodes. Thus far nu-Trek has had none.
They are using canon in a way that is active, taking what already exists and telling really fun and exciting stories. Perhaps it is not the most meaningful, yet. But… not lazy. Your comment is just the definition of griping.
You had me with the SNW & Star Trek Discovery people shouldn’t ever be allowed to touch Star Trek ever again. But I would extend that to Mike McMahon as well. His Lower Decks has been a complete fail on every level. The jury is still out on Matalas. There might be potential but the entire 2nd half of Picard S3 was typical Secret Hideout garbage.
I support this bending but not breaking Cannon ideas. Because it keeps new things and Star Trek Fresh for the “new generation” of Fans.
@Shatterland
“When they’re used as a replacement for a competent story, or to emotionally manipulate the audience into caring about what they’re watching (I’m looking at you, every current Star Wars production other than Andor), that’s when I get annoyed.”
Exactly. I second that statement.
“trying to stay within canon is an awfully fun exercise, and leads to solutions that you might not come up with if you didn’t have those boundaries.”
I wish more writers understood this! It’s not a hinderance, it’s just asking you to get creative and discover different ideas.
I don’t mind them bending the canon as long as it’s in the service of telling a good story. I just hope they handle the Gorn better next season.
Here too. But it is a bit of a gamble. It can only be tolerated of the end result works. Which hasn’t been the case from Secret Hideout.
And the only way to handle the Gorn better is to completely drop them and forget they ever appeared on the show to begin with. Their very presence is a HUGE FU to TOS.
Reboot City, baybeeeeee
I’m very nervous. I’m nervous because Akiva Goldman and his writers have shown they don’t understand how to write Star Trek, specifically dialogue. But what is really concerning reading this is this type of tinkering with known canon and Trek history is dangerous, and because people that don’t understand Trek are handling it, they can only make it worse. The more you mess with the lore and history, the bigger the chance of it getting screwed up.
Given that Akiva Goldsman has been a fan since TOS was in first run (attended early cons and had a club / early fanzine), it’s hard to make the case that he doesn’t understand Trek.’
His headcanon and priorities are clearly different than many of ours, but saying he and other EPs don’t know Trek just comes off as arrogant and ill-informed.
The fact that we’re at the point in this franchise that Oscar-winning screenwriter, who are longstanding fans themselves, are creating and running their own shows says something about the maturity of the franchise.
It also means that fans with different ideas about what’s most important are likely to disagree. Whether EPs, writers, production designers or viewers.
Akiva being a fan, and a successful writer, is going to have views and isn’t shy to express them. Matalas also has his views on what he likes most, and at times I haven’t found him as respectful of the work of others in the franchise as I would like. Both could be more circumspect surely.
I’ve been watching Trek since 1966. I don’t agree with all the creative choices that Goldsman and Myers have made, but I’ve been loving SNW for what it is, am delighted that more is coming. I’ll wait judge what’s on screen and hope that Goldsman and Myers continue to please.
Idk. Having characters refer to the ship as “Enterprise” and not “The Enterprise” shows the writer does not know how to write for Star Trek.
Oh come on. This is what you feel is important?
English usage varies and native speakers don’t habitually use articles in formal names, even when it’s the formal name. (I can think of examples in my daily work life.)
French speakers never miss an article, Slavic speakers don’t use them even when the should.
I do think it’s important. Mark Altman also does. When Ortegas says “Welcome to Enterprise,” it feels like a place. When referring to the ship as “The Enterprise,” it feels more like a character. All throughout Star Trek up to Discovery, characters always called ships “The Enterprise” or “The Voyager,” etc. DS9 was just “DS9,” which is more fitting since it’s a station.
I’m sorry, but it’s my nu-Trek “ick.”
OK. You have a point. But I still think it minor compared to the HUGE other things going on there.
I agree but we have come to our conclusions through entirely different means. I say it was because they used an alien that was 100% clear no one 10 years later had ever heard of. I say it was completely changing a character from demure to a bad-ass take charge kind of person. But the use of a definite article? Um… Ok?
That’s what confuses me. Goldsman has a history of supposedly being a “fan”, but if he’s been a fan for this long, he’s running the show. How could the showrunner make a Star Trek show that is missing the basic common-sense lore, style and characterization that a fan “should” bring to this show. It would be like having a huge fan of Firefly showrun a reboot, recast everyone, and change the lore, and how the characters should be true to themselves. Also, it wouldn’t be Firely without characters saying things like “I reckon” and “y’all”, and instead using modern language, and using laser guns instead of a Colt 45 or whatever. It would feel all wrong. It would make you wonder what show THEY were watching, because the rest of us were watching a space western. Same here. Terry Matalas is a fan, and his Trek show was RIGHT IN LINE with how the characters should act, speak, and the lore matched canon perfectly. Actually, he had to “fix” what Akiva Goldsman was doing with that show. Picard didn’t even act like Picard. I digress. This is not Star Trek.
Just being fans doesn’t mean you are a good choice to be running a Trek show. Goldsman says he’s a fan yet constantly ignores important in-universe history and and characters. McMahon says he’s a fan yet is way too afraid to actually poke fun at Trek in his supposed Trek comedy show. So far only Manny Coto has achieved the balance of being a big fan and still producing good Trek. So fandom is hardly a necessity here.
But let’s also be brutally honest here. Even if SNW was said to be 100% a reboot (which it is in every way but official name) it still wouldn’t be very good. It pales when compared to even the most mundane of the new-Trek era of the late 80’s to early ’00’s.
If his tunic shows the wrong rank?
It will be fixed in post-production.
Filming in downtown Toronto poses its problems.
Somebody in wardrobe made a mistake, and the 1st AD was most likely yelling:
“gotta shoot!”
This wouldn’t be the first time they’ve fixed the braid in post.
Gersha Phillips has shared that all the TOS coloured uniforms for Discovery S2 were shot without braid the first few days.
Given that the writers send the requirements to the costume designer, and showrunners and other EPs have to sign off in the costumes before they’re made, it sounds as though the rank insignia aren’t getting the scrutiny they should when the drawings are signed off.
With the exception of Pike and Uhura, the entire main cast had incorrect rank stripes in Season 1. Clearly whoever is in charge doesn’t care at all about these things.
“We’re not dealing with Captain Kirk, and there’s opportunity there. Paul Wesley is really this wonderful – to me – hybrid of Shatner’s Kirk and his own.”
Yes…..to you…..
To me: Nothing near being SHATNERS Kirk, NOT even 1% hybrid
Bending canon my ass. They’ve clearly broken it as far as I’m concerned. And I would have no problem with it, if they simply admitted it to be an alternate universe. But I feel a bit insulted, if they feed us asinine explanations how what they did is not a retcon.
I can’t help but view SNW as a reboot. I actually have no problem with that and I enjoy the show much more for it (although it’s nowhere near as perfect as many fans make out; we’ve yet to have one truly “classic” 10/10 or even 9/10 episode yet).
100% – I just wish they would admit it instead of trying to play both sides equally poorly
Although the fast forward episode was very interesting, in my opinion the series should not have ANY KIRK. But hey, the damage is done. What I’d like them to do now is come up with some space-time phenomenon where they’ll erase Michael Burhnam and Discovery from continuity.
Here’s my comment about SNW and canon for what it’s worth. Discovery also messed with canon in big ways.
But I also never really found the show enjoyable or entertaining.
I watched it bc as a die hard I’m supposed to watch it but more often than not the canon problems just pissed me off.
SNW has canon problems too. But the shows FUN and Pike is a joy to watch. I’m not particularly pissed off that the Gorn are a bit different or the shop doesn’t look exactly the same. It feels much more like what a modern re-imagining should look and feel like that Discovery ever did.
I LOVE Star Trek canon. But SNW does it much better than Discovery IMHO
Also let’s be honest trek canon has a lot of gaping wholes in it already. And the TOS error had a TON of wholes
If they spent as much time, money and effort BEING Star Trek instead of “bending” it, they might be onto something good.
“Interpolate”, “body-check”. This guy is soooo…deep.” (props to Lawrence Kasdan)
So I read this: “We’re going to do what we did last year, but more”
Which of course, means ‘We plan to ignore even more elements of the show that comprises of our source material.’
But then there was this… “we will body-check canon when we need to, and we have. “
So they are fully aware they made ridiculous changes that don’t line up at all and don’t seem to care. At this point they may as well just include Q on the show. Or what the hell? Have Jean-Luc Picard as a boy in an episode. They flat out admitted they move characters in time just to make their stories work.
Here is the thing… I’m not a slave to canon. Smaller issues are fine. But there are just some things that cannot be touched. Show “history” is a big one. If events of future shows preclude using some elements then SNW writers need to find a different way to tell their story. These guys have just flat out admitted, finally, what has been amazingly obvious. They will change anything they want to make their story work. What they really needed to have said was, “We change so much that none of us consider this show to be set in the prime universe. It’s in the KU or even some other one. But this show is 100% a reboot of Trek which is why we can play fast and loose with Prime canon.”