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Jim Kirk on Pike’s Enterprise - Inverse dives into an analysis of canon constraints and lack thereof

www.inverse.com Star Trek is Playing a Dangerous Game With 'Original Series' Canon — But There's a Solution

Paul Wesley has put a fun twist on Captain Kirk, but how does he fit into the canon?

A fairly thorough piece.

Whatever your view on whether it’s a pro or con for the ensemble and storytelling, SNW ‘Lost in Translation’ having covered off the ‘met him when he made fleet captain’ reference to Pike in TOS, there seems to be a great deal of flexibility for SNW to keep bringing Jim Kirk into its stories.

Here’s one unexpected take.

So what does that mean for Kirk? We have to wait until 2265 for him to take over as captain of the Enterprise, right? Well, maybe not. Canon is oddly vague on the handover from Pike to Kirk. In fact, only one episode of TOS actually takes place in 2265: “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the second pilot. There’s also nothing that indicates Kirk didn’t serve on the Enterprise in another role before getting promoted. If, in theory, Pike were to step down and someone else became an interim captain, then nothing is stopping Kirk from serving on the Enterprise before 2265.

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In The Original Series episode “The Menagerie,” Kirk noted he’d met Pike only once, “when he was promoted to Fleet Captain.”

Well, no.

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.

Kirk says he met Pike when he was promoted to fleet captain, and also that he took over the Enterprise from him. Those could have been separate occasions, and there's no real reason there couldn't be others in between that he didn't mention to Mendez.

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- Thanks! I was wondering about that!
  
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I find it weakens the storytelling on SNW. If I wanted to watch Kirk, I’d tune into TOS or one of the many movies he’s featured in. I also think the actor they’ve hired to portray him isn’t channeling the existing character very well.

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- He really isn't. I can see Ethan Peck as a younger Spock and Celia Rose Gooding as a younger Uhura, but Paul Wesley doesn't bring to mind Kirk at all.
  
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  As someone who grew up with Picard, I only really knew Kirk as the brash/cocky, but often correct captain. Wesley does convey that to me quite well. But it can feel forced.
  
  I'm allowing him more time to own it. The idea of him having a deeper involvement with Kahn through La'an is pretty fun. But the title of "Jim Carrey Kirk" does hit a little hard.
  
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There’s also nothing that indicates Kirk didn’t serve on the Enterprise in another role before getting promoted

Hm, here's an interesting formulation for all or part of a final season:

Pike leaves, becomes an Academy instructor

Una becomes captain of the Enterprise

Kirk transfers in to be her XO

Kirk and Spock working together for a year or so would give us a chance to explain the unusual situation where Spock is simultaneously science officer and XO. By the end of this season you'd have the full TOS crew in place. (Minus perhaps Chekov, or maybe he's a cadet like Uhura was in season 1.)
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- Funny ... maybe I'm alone in this ... but I really am not that interested in SNW transitioning into TOS as a clear prequel.
  
  I like the prequel dimension being in the background, and the canon consistency, but I want SNW to focus on itself and its own characters.
  
  I'm not sure how the show should end, but I feel like it should end, not just slide into TOS like Rogue One into A New Hope.
  
  If Kirk is going to be a mainstay, as it seems he will, I hope it focuses on "young Kirk" in the same way we've got "young" Spock without taking focus away from the SNW characters with the Spock-Chapel relationship being a nice example. I guess the canon flexibility the article talks about opens up possibilities there. But still, I don't want the focus to be on ... "how does this lead to TOS".
  
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  I agree completely. I don’t want all TOS characters to take over, at least for another 2-3 seasons. I’m loving M’Benga’s character and would hate for a McCoy to come in to replace him. There’s a nice opening for Scotty to come into the picture without any character currently in that role but I also want this series to stand on its own. I love how the writers have gone back to an episodic series. It just works so well for trek
  
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  If there were 15 episodes per season, a few TOS bridges would be ok. But at ten? It is very tight, there is only so much story that fits.
  
  I like how SNW is exploring the world, both inside the Enterprise and outside. There are more trees to set on fire with the current cast climbing them, more science fiction to explore, more places to discover.
  
  If that includes some ”These Old Scientist” links, so be it—but I do like the word New in the title!
  
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I would surmise that Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow has somewhat altered the main timeline, and there could be some minor adjustments with the characters to accommodate the story that showrunners want to tell.

I'd consider the Pike/Kirk relationship to be a minor thing. If they meet again, I'd be okay with it if the story broke some of the canon. I mean, they already changed the timeline of the Eugenics War, so is it a huge deal if Pike and Kirk come face to face a couple more times throughout the series?

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- and there could be some minor adjustments with the characters to accommodate the story that showrunners want to tell.
  
  Other than the Kelvin timeline where they said up front "THIS IS A DIFFERENT TIMELINE," when has that ever happened?
  
  Keep in mind, we're talking about showrunners who contrived a reason for Pike to be "fleet captain" for a single episode just so they could have Kirk and Pike interact without invalidating one line from TOS: "Court Martial." These are not the type of Star Trek fans who are going to make "minor adjustments" and justify it with "well you see back in S02E03 we changed the timeline, so now we can do whatever we want!"
  
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  I'm all for keeping canon intact if its possible. But I hope they don't get trigger happy with contrivances just to keep a line from the 60's intact that more or less doesn't matter too much. Does it really matter how much Kirk and Pike interacted? No, not really. But I can say I trust these writers, this show seems to care about Trek and what made it good a lot more than doing their own thing 100% (looking at you Disco).
  
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  This timeline is Altered not Alternate They did the same thing for First Contact, and ENT add just enough time travel to excuse not making the show into a history documentary yet none the less its considered part of the same story as everything that was made before but came later in the timeline.
  
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I think you'll find the crossover of last week to be indicative that SNW is again in a different universe from TOS. Spock's changes were notable to characters who studied his past.

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- The timeline is more robust than that. We’re not in the Marvel or DC comic or EEAAO infinitely branching universes concept of a multiverse.
  
  There can be branching events like the one that established the Kelvin universe but they are rare and take something of the order of the Romulan Supernova to create.
  
  This is the prime universe of TOS and the other shows. It’s the same wide river of time, but the layers of temporal incursions - both seen in shows and movies and reported by temporal agents - accumulate changes. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow confirmed this.
  
  The key events and their sequences do not change. The kind of differences that are discernible only by deep study are not sufficiently material to be necessary to protect against.
  
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