Star Trek: Strange New Worlds [SPOILERS]

Who is that guy?

I second this.

Who is that guy?

Nevermind. I did a reverse image search.

It's Luke Hemsworth.

Here’s a better picture.
Definitely looks more like Kirk/Shatner.

That finale was a banger.

With a season in the bag now, I believe Strange New Worlds suits me best of all the "modern" Trek series. It's not even a contest, and it pains me to say that about Picard.

The JJ timeline is the prime timeline right up until the Narada pops through the doorway, so yes, Kelvin is canon to both.

Fair enough. I'm good either way.

I think they mentioned that kirk’s dad was first officer on the Kelvin, but they cut it off before saying whether he died or not, but yes, everything up until the Narada shows up is canon.

Paul Wesley looks more like Jim Carrey playing Kirk on In Living Color.

Luke Hennsworth, currently a regular on Westworld

it's a very minor quibble but having watched a few of the videos that the regular crowd made about the episode and the direct connections to TOS, both Balance of Terror and The Menagerie, I'll restate my observation that this story implies that because he avoided the accident he remained captain of Enterprise, while Kirk stated in TOS that he spoke briefly with Pike at the hand-off implying that in that timestream, Pike left Enterprise before the accident anyway.

I rationalize that maybe the full story is that in the course of Pike having worked out the details of avoiding his fate (thinking he's causing minimal disruption) part of that plan is to decline the promotion to Fleet Captain and stay in his position as captain.

yeah, sorry... not seeing it at all

Well that was quite alright wasn't it.

Kirk ragging Pike for a second's delay in firing... referring to the Republic incident?

Also, why didn't they get James Frain to play the Romulan commander?

I'm disappointed we didn't see Pike aboard the refit Enterprise, well exterior shot of the refit Enterprise.

it fades out and Kirk is saying "...before he moved to Tarsus.".
So no Narada incursion, err, yet?

Easily the best episode so far. Probably the best episode of Star Trek in many years.

Kirk was the only thing that felt off.

Not just the resemblance but also the mannerisms. I was also thinking of Jim Carrey from In Living Color.

I want to see what it would have been like if they had gotten Chris Pine to play the part instead.

I thought Pike looked great in the role although his impression of Kirk was over-exaggerated and also not very Kirk-like.

I'm not sure if we need to see Kirk more in season 2. I think the cameo was nice but I don't want them to go overboard with it.

Interesting how they gave the Romulans the V ridges from TNG but a lot more subtle.

Also interesting that the Praetor was a woman. Was that supposed to be the Romulan commander from 'The Enterprise Incident'?

The ending with Pike and Spock ties in nicely with 'The Menagerie'. And we can understand why Spock would do something completely illogical and career-threatening to help Pike (although I still feel this is an alternate universe, just not as drastically different as the Kelvin-verse, Mirror Universe, etc.)

I wonder if Erika has a similar backstory to that of Lt. Stiles from the original episode? Maybe some of her family were also killed by Romulans and she is carrying a grudge.

Interested in season 2. So far so good. No truly bad episodes yet. No main characters I absolutely can't stand as in some other Trek shows (thinking of Neelix, Raffi, Burnham).

I could stand to see Kirk back (since apparently they are gonna) but in no more than one or two episodes. I'd still like to see them integrate some aspect of his known history into a story but his service record at the end implies he's already past a lot of those events (Axnar, etc). Might be nice to do something where the cross paths with Farragut right after the cloud monster event. But a little goes a LONG way, having done "TOS Kirk" and "Young Kirk" (assuming they do) they should then move on.

I'm still waiting for Garth Of Izar.
Garth was Kirk's Kirk.
That makes him a big deal, and his fall should rival Darth Vader.

If only someone had an idea for an Axanar movie with Garth, oh wait...

Not just Garth, but the event that caused him to lose his mind.

I've made lists like this several times. I want plot-valid reason to have Gary Mitchell come through (can't get anyone to tell e if Pike's Mitchell is designed to be some relation); I want the next Connie they use in a story to be commanded by Matt Decker; I want - down the line - more Mudd; I want a story that involves Deltans;

But scattered over 4-5 seasons, not just fan service every couple of weeks

I’m reasonably certain that it was because he thought Wayne was hogging the spotlight and not giving Garth the credit that he was due. Of course, since the show was called “Wayne’s World,” Garth should have known that he was dealing with someone who had a big ego.

Strange New Worlds' Paul Wesley Talks Being the New Captain Kirk

I don't wanna be a buzzkill, but... is the mythology surrounding time crystals just bullshit then? The monks at Boreth told Pike that taking the time crystal would lock in his future, but we saw in this episode that he was able to escape that future simply by writing some letters. Or does a locked in destiny like Pike's allow for the illusion of free will despite the final outcome remaining inevitable?

I mean it turned out that his choice was either to put things back how they should be, or to face the Klingon Monk Time Police coming after him.

Or there's a "you could change the future, but being the person you are, you won't" angle going on. Notice here Pike only tried not to save himself, but to save one of the cadets who he WASN'T able to get out of the room in time. He was still fully prepared to make the sacrifice, but even trying to alter things otherwise still sent time screwy, something the monks might have better communicated to him. So they let him see how even that small change would still fuck things up, trusting him to put it right.

All the bat'leth talk was just typical Klingon "sort your shit or we will" posturing.

I think all Trek Captains, if given the option, would sacrifice themselves for the greater good. I think the point was that Him Kirk would do it differently. Also, “risk is our business.”

Catching up ...

The Serene Squall: A fun adventure. Didn't see the twist coming. This episode and "All Those Who Wander" sort of help us see the arc that might plausibly lead to the Chapel/Spock relationship seen in TOS. (More on that later.)

The Elysian Kingdom: I actually caught this one a while back but missed "The Serene Squall." Not especially remarkable. The "let's watch our characters playing somebody else" episodes can be fun, but in this case I didn't feel like we've known most of them for long enough for it to have an impact.

All Those Who Wander: I am kind of wishing they had just made up a new reptilian species instead of the Gorn ... having Kirk be completely unaware of the Gorn's existence several years later is getting less and less plausible.

Chapel and Spock. It seemed weird at first to go from a pretty close friendship, with mutual attraction, to the "unrequited love from a distance" vibe of TOS, but now I'm starting to see Spock's arc. From TOS to the movies, we only saw him go from uptight Vulcan to accepting his human side. Now, it looks like in Pike's era he was a little less in control of his emotions and that scared him, possibly driving him to do something like begin the study of Kohlinahr (or at a minimum spend some time on Vulcan learning better control), and then circling back to a greater acceptance of his humanity. TOS-era Chapel, then, is not just pining for Spock because she has a crush on him, she's mourning the friendship she used to have with him and lost due to his complete rejection of emotion and the ties that reminded him of it. (Majel Barrett's simpering portrayal of the character, I'll just write off to '60s sexism on the part of the writers.)

Will Hemmer's death lead to Scotty becoming a character on SNW?

I hope there's a parallel arc at the beginning of Season 2 featuring La'an searching for the girl's family, and that she eventually ends up back on the Enterprise.

A Quality of Mercy: Holy shit, that was a good episode. Loved the callback to the TOS music. I feel like this would have been a fun episode to watch in a theater full of people ... hearing the reactions when Pike popped into the middle of wedding as people figured out, at different times over the course of the scene, what was going on.

Having Ortegas take on Stiles' role worked pretty well, although they had to dial it back a little since Stiles was a one-off antagonist and we have to continue liking Ortegas.

Crew changes -- we've seen that Starfleet gives captains wide latitude in picking their crews, and just generally gives officers latitude in accepting or declining assignments, so presumably that explains why Ortegas and Mitchell are still on the Enterprise and why Sulu isn't.

Is Scotty the Enterprise's chief engineer, or did he come over from the Farragut?

M'Benga still seems to be in charge. Maybe whatever got him demoted, and McCoy brought in over him, didn't happen in this timeline? Something that Pike intervened to stop? That Pike helped him cover up, or at least avoid demotion for, while Kirk didn't?

Another timeline change: Sam doesn't end up getting posted to Deneva. (Yes, "Operation: Annihilate!" is after "Balance of Terror," but it's in the same season and specifies that Deneva hasn't been heard from in a year.)

Did the writers (either in DIS or SNW) already give a complete list of all the cadets who were involved in the accident, thus forcing the weird little "oh, Hansen is actually his first name" retcon? That was a little awkward. If the only reference to his name in TOS had been Kirk calling him "Hansen," we could assume that they knew each other and were on a first-name basis, but he calls himself "Commander Hansen" in dialogue, which would be unusual. Seems like the kid wouldn't have to share his last name to be his son.

Kirk's strategy, even though it's not what he did in the original episode, feels appropriately Kirk-like.

It's interesting that the future Crapsack World is created not just by the "Balance of Terror" incident leading to war, but by Spock turning out to be a pivotal historical figure. (I wonder if the monks at Boreth showed Pike more of the future, including his attempts at reunification in the TNG era?) And the idea that every single action Pike takes to change history wold lead to Spock's death is an interesting one. So Pike can't just retire and turn over command to Kirk at the same time as it happened in the proper timeline -- if he does that, Spock will just die some other way. Seems like the writers are trying to completely close off the possibility of Pike escaping his fate instead of leaving it open to speculation.