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HOW STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS REIMAGINES THE “HERO’S JOURNEY” FOR THE BETTER
Emmet Asher-Perrin
Mon Aug 8, 2022 12:00pm 29 comments 13 Favorites [+]
Image: CBS
It’s been said before in a multitude of ways, but it does bear repeating: The
Hero’s Journey has fucked us up as a culture.
That probably sounds harsh to some, but there’s an important core of truth in
the sentiment. In a century that is currently being defined by our absorption in
superhero narratives, the pop culture consuming public has been inundated with
stories about larger than life figures who commit feats of great heroism.
Usually those feats require untold physical strength, unique moral fiber,
adamantium will. We only have room for people who commit acts that are writ
large, on a mountain face or across the multitude of screens we use every day,
and we aren’t stopping to consider how that might shape our beliefs about what
in life is worthwhile, or how we can best offer our help to others.
Which is why Captain Pike’s arc in Strange New Worlds is honestly a thing of
beauty.
[Spoilers for season one of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and season two of Star
Trek: Discovery.]
Christopher Pike was already known to Trek fans as the captain who failed to
entice the network well enough to keep him around when the universe got its
start in 1966. While he was switched out for the more dynamic and romantic
Captain Kirk, Pike became a figure of intrigue in “The Menagerie” two-parter of
the show’s first season—where we learned that Spock’s former captain was largely
incapacitated and only able to communicate in response to yes-or-no questions
via a light at the front of his mobility chair. Spock commits treason in those
episodes to get Pike to a better place, one where the Talosians who formerly
captured Pike can offer him the chance at a better and more enjoyable life by
virtue of their reality projecting capabilities.
So we’ve always known how Pike’s story effectively ended. And while it’s not at
all boring to know a character’s future before their past, it did beg a few
questions about how to tackle that knowledge on screen, should it ever come up.
Star Trek: Discovery made things a little more interesting by introducing a new
snag into that fifty-year-old story. In its second season, when Captain Pike
encounters a Klingon time crystal, he sees the future accident that destroys his
body beyond what 22nd century medicine can reasonably repair. He experiences it
as though it’s happening to him, feeling the pain, but also learning what
brought him to such a terrifying choice: The chance to save the lives of many
young Starfleet cadets. His fate was already known to viewers, but we now had
new information that Captain Pike was also aware of this ending, and had been
for years before the accident occurred.
I’ll admit to some trepidation on this particular front when Strange New Worlds
began, knowing Pike would be in command and that this was sure to be on his
mind. The concept of a character knowing their future is often used as mechanism
for humans to examine the concept of free will—do we truly have it; is fate a
real and inescapable thing; what do those concepts even mean when you add the
scientific understandings of time and causality to the mix; and so on. Knowing
your future is not a bad idea on its face, but plenty of stories often aren’t up
to questions that big.
Strange New Worlds began by harping on the concept a lot. It’s the driving force
of the first season, the background noise shaping many of Pike’s decisions as a
captain and as a person. We see Spock show concern for his mental state, see Una
Chin-Riley argue with Chris about fate and his ability to change what’s coming.
But overall, their captain’s plan for handling this information doesn’t waver.
As he says to Una, he keeps telling himself: “Stay the course; save their
lives.” He has a responsibility to those cadets, and he isn’t about to shirk it
just because the knowledge of what waits on the other side hurts him.
And that seems to be the final word on it until the first season’s finale, “A
Quality of Mercy.” Pike has an encounter with one of the few cadets who are
killed during the accident in his future, still a child at this point in life,
and that encounter shakes him so badly that he considers warning the boy against
enlisting in Starfleet. When he begins writing the letter that would change
everything, a future version of himself suddenly appears—this is the first step
on the path to altering what he saw, enabling a different reality. But future
Pike needs his past self to know that what he’s trying to do won’t result in a
better tomorrow. It will damage the future in ways that he couldn’t begin to
imagine.
Rather than tell past Pike what will occur, the man from the future has brought
along a Klingon time crystal to show him, and the rest of the finale is a redux
of the Original Series episode “Balance of Terror.” Still in command of the
Enterprise, Pike comes face to face with the Romulans, a species that no one in
the Federation has encountered since the end of a war with them one hundred
years ago. He also meets one Captain James T. Kirk, who is currently commanding
the Farragut—and is immediately suspicious of how Kirk’s read on the situation
might affect his reaction to this scenario as it plays out.
The episode runs us through a few fake-out scenarios where it seems as though
Kirk may die, forcing the audience to wonder if perhaps this is the action that
ruins the future. After all, we know that Jim Kirk is meant to command the
Enterprise. It stands to reason that robbing the galaxy of him entirely would
throw things off. But when it all does, in fact, go to hell… the one who winds
up paying the price is Spock.
Future Pike returns, telling his past self that when he looked into the time
crystal and tried to see other ways out of his conundrum, every attempt to dodge
the future led to Spock’s death.
The beauty of this is that we know Spock’s story well. Kirk is important too, of
course, but Spock is the architect of so many pillars of this future. He
continues on in Starfleet, exploring and eventually bringing about a
far-reaching peace with the Khitomer Accords. He makes beautiful and lasting
friendships, and works well with an incredible variety of people. He becomes an
ambassador to heal the millennia-old rift between Vulcans and Romulans, bringing
about Reunification. Spock is, in so many ways, a perfect stand-in for that
bright and beautiful future that Starfleet and the Federation promise us. And if
Pike tries to avoid his fate… he will kill him.
But there’s another little tweak in this episode that suggests at an even deeper
meaning. Because Pike takes a liking to James T. Kirk, though their command
styles differ. He looks up Jim’s file and has it hanging there, over his
shoulder, when Spock comes in to check on him in the present. He clearly saw
something in the man, and it got the wheels turning. And now we can see that
it’s entirely possible Christopher Pike is the reason why Kirk comes to command
the Enterprise when he can no longer do it. We’ve already watched him
successfully parent a crew full of endearing misfits and help them find their
way—particularly with La’an and Spock and Uhura in this first season. His
calling often seems to be in orchestrating people toward their best destinies.
So here’s the real question: What if your hero’s journey is about setting up the
future for the people who will carry it forward?
Future Pike tells himself that in so many words. That everyone wants to believe
that they’re important, “And we are,” he says, “just… not in the way you think.”
Acknowledging this is key because consciousness often leaves us with a pressing
need to believe that our lives matter. But we keep telling stories that suggest
the only way to matter is to save everything in the most bombastic and flashy
way possible. We don’t leave as much space for people doing small-scale work
without the aid of PR departments and huge R&D budgets. The people who make the
flashy stuff possible in the first place.
And the thing is, we’re living through a point in time when we don’t need the
Avengers, or a Justice League. We need more Christopher Pikes.
BUY IT NOW
*
*
*
*
*
At the risk of being a downer, the world is in a state of flaming chaos that is
unlikely to abate any time soon. Bad things are likely to get far worse before
they improve. And while plenty of folks will look toward apocalyptic doomsday
scenarios, the truth of the matter is that we’ll probably still be around, no
matter how rough things get; in some form or another, we will survive as a
species. And our most heroic gestures at this point in time won’t have anything
to do with rushing into danger and feats of great strength or sacrifice—they
will be measured by how well we laid groundwork for the people who follow us.
If Strange New Worlds stays the course on this particular story, it will make
Captain Pike’s life unique among the many Starfleet captains that populate Trek…
and also arguably far more real. We should measure our importance by how we aid
others and make the path easier to walk for whoever takes it next, not by how
we’re remembered in history books. The truth of time and the nature of reality
is that nearly everyone is forgotten eventually—and often our greatest heroes
are the ones who did work that went unremarked and unnoticed. And that’s not a
bad thing, so shouldn’t more of our heroic narratives reflect that concept?
Shouldn’t it be modeled for us, especially in moments of unrest and fear?
There are plenty of delightful aspects (and certainly characters) to recommend
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but this one was perhaps the most unexpected for
me, and the most rewarding. Because if Star Trek is meant to help us envision a
better future, that means it must do so at points when we’re not so sure about
the one we’ve got. And the only way to meet that future head-on is by reframing
our understanding of what it means to live our lives well.
Sometimes that means heading into the kitchen and making your crew breakfast.
Sometimes it means setting your Chief Science Officer up with his soulmate. And
sometimes it means staying the course, no matter what everyone around you thinks
of fate. Because it’s not about you, or at least it can’t be all the time—it’s
about all of us. And Christopher Pike believes that, like all true heroes
should.
Emmet Asher-Perrin cries every time they watch the SNW opening credits.
Seriously, every time. You can bug them on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of
their work here and elsewhere.
13 Favorites [+]
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CITATION
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* THE CREATOR OF VEEP AND THE DIRECTOR OF SKYFALL ARE MAKING A SUPERHERO COMEDY
FOR HBO
* STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE REWATCH: “SINGULARITY”
* THE SANDMAN IS DAMN NEAR PERFECT
* ANSON MOUNT FIRST THOUGHT THE STRANGE NEW WORLDS-LOWER DECKS CROSSOVER WOULD
BE LIKE ROGER RABBIT
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1. 1. ChristopherLBennett
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 12:26pm
* 2 Favorites [+]
“Christopher Pike was already known to Trek fans as the captain who failed
to entice the network well enough to keep him around when the universe got
its start in 1966. While he was switched out for the more dynamic and
romantic Captain Kirk…”
It’s worth pointing out that Kirk was initially written exactly like Pike
with the name changed, and his description in the series bible was mostly
cribbed verbatim from Pike’s description in the initial series prospectus.
The difference between them emerged only gradually, partly due to the
writers adjusting to fit William Shatner’s personality, and partly because
of network pressure to turn the “cerebral” show Gene Roddenberry wanted to
make into something with more fistfights and love scenes, pushing Kirk to
become more like the conventional action heroes of other contemporary
shows.
At the time, it was fairly common to replace cast members with characters
who were written indistinguishably and differentiated only by performance,
so that scripts written for the former character could easily plug in the
latter character with no rewriting; for instance, Mission: Impossible
replaced Martin Landau’s Rollin Hand, a magician and master of disguise,
with Leonard Nimoy’s Paris, a magician and master of disguise. Maverick had
two alternating lead actors playing brothers, so that they could have two
parallel production teams running to keep up with the shooting schedule,
but scripts were written generically without the writers knowing which
brother they were writing for, so 100% of the difference came from the
actors’ personalities. Star Trek was no different. On the page, Pike and
Kirk were the same character, and Boyce, Piper, and McCoy were all the same
character.
What worries me about season 2 is the fear that their portrayal of Jim Kirk
will perpetuate the modern myth of the character that’s based primarily on
the movies and pop-culture memes and bears almost no resemblance to who he
actually was in TOS. “A Quality of Mercy” reinforced that fear by having
Sam Kirk perpetuate the utterly false notion that Kirk was a renegade who
made his own rules. I can see the dramatic logic of SNW emphasizing their
differences, but when I tackled similar ground in my TOS prequel novel The
Captain’s Oath, I took more of the tack that Kirk and Pike had a lot in
common, while hinting that Kirk’s later friendship with Spock might have
given him license to loosen up more in contrast to Spock’s seriousness.
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3. 2. Doug
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 12:36pm
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Lovely article Emmet. Long time Trek fan here, and I have to say I’ve come
to adore Mount’s portrayal of Pike far more than I expected. At first, I’d
say it’s Pike’s almost every-man quality, but he’s more than that as you
point out in the article. Pike has very quickly, and surprisingly, become
my second favorite captain from all the series, and I can’t wait to see
where his story goes.
Sidenote: interesting how my two top captains both like to cook. :)
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5. 3. Mark Painter
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 12:49pm
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Spot on commentary, Emmet. It’s worth noting how the character of Kirk
changed between 1966 Star Trek and the 2009 “nuTrek.” In the original, Kirk
was a leader because he was brave and smart and worked his tail off. (“A
stack of books with legs” at the Academy.) He’s a larger-than-life hero,
but he’s also someone the rest of us could aspire to be.
the new Kirk is a jerk who doesn’t care about work or rules or much of
anything, but gets to be captain right out of the Academy because his dad
was a hero and it was “meant to be.” It speaks volumes about the change in
our culture between 1966 and 2009. Hard work is for losers. You are either
born a winner, or else suck it up and learn to be a loser.
We need fewer stories about The Chosen One and more stories about people
who work together in teams that value and respect each other’s
contributions. Star Trek can be a vehicle to tell stories like that, when
the writers decide that’s what they want to do. Our culture is full to
overflowing with people who style themselves The Chosen One; people who
value and respect the contributions of others, not so much.
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7. 4. EC Spurlock
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 1:55pm
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Just noting here that the original Captain Pike, Jeffrey Hunter, was not
replaced by William Shatner as a studio or network decision. He was killed
in an accident after the pilot episode was made, necessitating the
recasting, and also necessitating the radical reframing of the pilot
episode in order for it to take its place in the first season’s run.
Otherwise it would have been Hunter as Pike commanding the Enterprise
throughout its mission, not Kirk.
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9. 5. krad
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 2:14pm
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EC Spurlock: that’s not at all true. Hunter didn’t die until 1969, after
all three seasons of Star Trek had been filmed.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
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11. 6. wlewisiii
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 2:16pm
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@4 Mr. Hunter finished the pilot in early 1965 (copyright date 1964),
declined to film a second pilot later in 1965,
In May 1969 he would suffer an intercranial hemorrhage that would cause his
death at 42.
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13. 7. dmtd
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 2:25pm
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@5/krad
For whatever it’s worth (and I’m sure krad and CLB know this well, but
others may not), the story told by Associate Producer Bob Justman and
Desilu exec Herb Solow is that Hunter’s wife came in to see the completed
pilot, then announced that Jeffrey Hunter was a movie star, not a TV star.
Doubt has been cast on whether this decision came from Hunter himself, or
from his wife, who’d taken to managing his career.
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15. 8. JAK
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 2:29pm
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#1: “What worries me about season 2 is the fear that their portrayal of Jim
Kirk will perpetuate the modern myth of the character that’s based
primarily on the movies and pop-culture memes and bears almost no
resemblance to who he actually was in TOS. ‘A Quality of Mercy’ reinforced
that fear by having Sam Kirk perpetuate the utterly false notion that Kirk
was a renegade who made his own rules.”
What’s particularly interesting about “A Quality of Mercy” is that the
major difference between Kirk and Pike here isn’t really that “Kirk is a
renegade.” The difference is that Kirk took Spock’s advice and analysis
seriously in “Balance of Terror” to create the prime timeline while Pike
ignored Spock’s advice and started a war.
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17. 9. 7and7
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 2:44pm
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Excellent analysis of Pike’s dilemma.
As for Kirk and Pike, it seems to create an interesting writing dilemma all
its own: how do you make these characters distinct from one another without
going with the tiresome renegade Kirk from pop culture? Despite Sam Kirk’s
description of his brother as such, the episode showed a fairly
level-headed individual, I thought. I didn’t detect much of a renegade
there at all. He seemed like another version of Pike, and that’s probably
why I found their scenes together so flat. But maybe it’s the casting. I
can’t be sure.
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19. 10. ChristopherLBennett
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 3:27pm
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@3/Mark Painter: “He’s a larger-than-life hero, but he’s also someone the
rest of us could aspire to be.”
I don’t think Kirk was meant to be larger-than-life at all. Extremely
competent, yes, but in a believably human way. The writers’ bible stressed
how the burdens of command weighed on him and how he wrestled with
self-doubt. And if you look at the first season especially, there’s a
strong sense that these aren’t exaggerated pulp heroes, but just
professionals doing a day-to-day job that happens to be in outer space.
Roddenberry wanted to get away from the fanciful, kid-friendly adventure of
Irwin Allen sci-fi shows and approach science fiction with the same
naturalism as Naked City or Gunsmoke. The season 2 edition of the writers’
bible opened with a 3-page screed about verisimilitude and writing
characters believably, stressing that if a character’s actions would be
unbelievable in a show aboard a present-day aircraft carrier, they
shouldn’t be in Star Trek either. “Larger than life” was the very last
thing Roddenberry wanted.
“the new Kirk is a jerk who doesn’t care about work or rules or much of
anything, but gets to be captain right out of the Academy because his dad
was a hero and it was “meant to be.””
To be fair, the intention of the Kelvin movies was that this Kirk was a
more flawed and unruly person because he’d been raised without a father,
but that he would mature into the Kirk we knew over the course of the
trilogy. We did see some of that, with Kirk learning humility in STID and
being recognizably the mature Kirk in STB. Although the 3-year jump between
the second and third movies — 4 years, really, since STID has a 1-year jump
between the climax and the finale — does skip over a lot of that growth
process.
But you’re right that the “captain right out of the Academy” nonsense of
the first film badly hurt the series’s credibility. I’ve always thought
they could’ve fixed that problem quite easily just by putting a time jump
of at least 4 years between the Academy scenes and the attack on Vulcan,
enough time for Kirk to gain experience and rank and be somewhat credible
as a starship second officer. (I chose 4 years because that would align
Chekov’s age with the TOS version.)
Still, I don’t agree that the Kelvin movies show Kirk as a Chosen One,
because his arc in the first two films is largely about him overcoming his
own ego and learning to rely on Spock, Uhura, and his crew. The “Chosen
One” in the Kelvin formulation is the entire 7-member team, which triumphs
when it comes together. Kirk only earns the right to be their leader when
he humbles himself enough to trust them and listen to them.
Indeed, it could be argued that Kirk’s self-sacrifice in STID is similar to
Pike’s arc in SNW — it’s his moment of recognition that he doesn’t have to
be the chosen one, that his role can be to sacrifice himself for others.
Although it isn’t handled nearly as well, of course, and is badly
undermined by being such a blatant ripoff of The Wrath of Khan. (Although I
realized not long ago that Spock’s sacrifice in TWOK is essentially the
same as Pike’s sacrifice, exposing himself to deadly radiation to save a
crew of cadets. Which is probably not what TWOK’s makers had in mind, but
it’s a heart-rending resonance.)
@8/JAK: “The difference is that Kirk took Spock’s advice and analysis
seriously in “Balance of Terror” to create the prime timeline while Pike
ignored Spock’s advice and started a war.”
Thats an interesting point, and it ties into “Quality”‘s conclusion that
Spock is the one most important to the future. Although it’s striking how
it contrasts with “Arena” and “The Devil in the Dark.” In those episodes,
Kirk saves the day by choosing to listen to Spock’s urging for peaceful
communication and understanding over Kirk’s own reflex for violence. In
“Balance,” though, Spock is the one urging an aggressive response, and he’s
still right.
@9/7and7: I think the key difference between the Kirk of TOS and the Pike
of SNW is that Kirk did see himself, in his own words, as a soldier. He was
an explorer too, a diplomat sometimes, but he had the outlook of a military
man. SNW’s Pike is more of a diplomat and explorer in the vein of Picard, a
man whose overriding trait is his empathy. Taking a military stance when
necessary doesn’t come as easily to him.
Ironically, even though Pike is supposed to predate Kirk, he’s written more
like the gentler, more emotional male leads of ’70s TV, like Hawkeye Pierce
and Barney Miller.
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21. 11. chieroscuro
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 4:08pm
* 1 Favorite [+]
> @9/7and7: I think the key difference between the Kirk of TOS and the Pike
> of SNW is that Kirk did see himself, in his own words, as a soldier. He
> was an explorer too, a diplomat sometimes, but he had the outlook of a
> military man.
On that note, I always felt that the intersection of the Kirk as studious
captain from TOS and Kirk as renegade hero from the movies has its
intersection in Wrath of Khan.
KIRK: By the book! Regulation forty-six A, ‘If transmissions are being
monitored during battle…’
SAAVIK: ‘…no uncoded messages on an open channel.’ …You lied.
Kirk ‘cheats’ by having a comprehensive understanding of the rules, his
ship, and his crew. Which only comes from putting in the time to learn
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23. 12. 7and7
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 4:26pm
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#10
Good point.
Stepping back to look at the broad picture, it really is a unique situation
that I can’t recall ever happening before in television, or any other
medium. Characters from an early draft, essentially, from over 50 years ago
are resurrected and interacting with their later, more successful
counterparts, and now they must find ways to make them distinct from one
another.
I also wonder what they’re going to do with Una to make her more than an
early version of what would become Spock (competent, emotionally distant
first officer, etc.). The Illyrian angle was a decent start, but only that
so far. Maybe an old-fashioned trial episode will be a good way to explore
her character fully, finally. The Measure of a… Woman?
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25. 13. H8eaven
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 5:09pm
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I chalked up Captain Pike ignoring Spock’s advice as him having no
information as to what started the war between the Federation and Romulans
when he suddenly found himself in future. All AltPike told Captain Pike
that his decision to send those letters led up to very costly war for the
Federation. This may have been what AltPike wanted Captain Pike to do. As
it was the same thing AltPike did.
As for Sam Kirk’s opinion of his brother. It’s how he views his brother.
It’s AN opinion.
The Jim Kirk we meet in season 2 is NOT going to same person we saw in 7
years in the future.
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27. 14. ChristopherLBennett
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 5:35pm
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@12/7and7: “Stepping back to look at the broad picture, it really is a
unique situation that I can’t recall ever happening before in television,
or any other medium. Characters from an early draft, essentially, from over
50 years ago are resurrected and interacting with their later, more
successful counterparts, and now they must find ways to make them distinct
from one another.”
Intriguing thought. Have there been any other instances of fictional
characters interacting with their own rejected prototypes? There have been
cases of characters interacting with their inspirations; for
instance, Batman and the Shadow have teamed up, and there have been a
number of pastiches pairing Sherlock Holmes with C. Auguste Dupin. But
that’s not the same.
The closest thing I can think of: Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s first
character named “Superman” was a bald, telepathic villain who appeared in a
1933 fanzine story. The first supervillain battled by Superman in the
comics, created by Siegel & Shuster in 1939, was the Ultra-Humanite, a bald
villain with a supergenius intellect. Not quite the same character, but
maybe partly a recycling of the same ideas by S&S.
Then there was that gag in The Simpsons where they briefly encountered
their more crudely designed prototypes from The Tracey Ullman Show. But
that was just a throwaway bit, not an ongoing thing.
“I also wonder what they’re going to do with Una to make her more than an
early version of what would become Spock (competent, emotionally distant
first officer, etc.).”
They’ve already done that by dropping the “emotionally distant” part
altogether and making her fun and witty. Giving her a close friendship and
history with La’an helps individualize her as well.
@13/H8eaven: “As for Sam Kirk’s opinion of his brother. It’s how he views
his brother. It’s AN opinion.”
Sure, we can choose to interpret it that way. But what worries me is that
the writers chose to put those words in Sam Kirk’s mouth in the first
place, and why would they have done that if it wasn’t the way they think of
Kirk?
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29. 15. jaimebabb
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 5:43pm
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In general, I’ve found that Star Trek, throughout its history, has kind of
walked a strange, zigzagged line along the border between collectivism and
individualism. On the face of it, it’s a very collectivist franchise; the
heroes (for the most part) are heroes because they’re doing a job in
service to a state that is (again, for the most part) noble, and the
virtues that they stress tend to be things like cooperation and teamwork
and so forth. And yet, whether intentionally or not, the heroes tend to
become larger than life as they go: first-season TOS tries to be about a
crew; by the final season, it’s become about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. TNG had
a captain who became the favourite of a god over the course of the series;
DS9 had a captain who literally became a god over the course of the series;
and Voyager simultaneously framed individuality as an inherent virtue even
as it imagined a crew that always dressed in uniform even when off-duty,
always dined together, and always observed a military command structure
even when it made no sense for such a structure to hold-up. And then, of
course, there’s the omnipresent conflict between the text (“No being is so
important that it can usurp the rights of another”) and the subtext
(redshirts exist to die for our heroes).
One of the things that initially turned me off from Star Trek: Discovery
was that it felt like it veered too far onto the individualist side of the
equation: Michael Burnham had to be the one to do almost everything because
she was the Great Person of History, and, by the end of the second season,
because it was predestined by temporal causality. Picard similarly focused
mainly on an individual hero. So I’ve found it very interesting to see how
the Secret Hideout era has now kind of swerved back towards
collectivism–indeed, sometimes even moreso than earlier series. Discovery
has gradually moved into more of an ensemble format. Picard has taken the
scary collectivist villains from the TNG era and rehabilitated them into
good guys. On SNW, as mentioned, Captain Pike is essentially there to walk
so that the TOS crew can run, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s not out
for individual glory. And then there’s Lower Decks, whose entire thesis is
that the working class grunts behind the scenes are not any less worthy of
praise than the “heroes” who make their names into the history books. It’s
an interesting, and I think, socially relevant, turn
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31. 16. jaimebabb
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 5:49pm
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@14/CLB:
> Have there been any other instances of fictional characters interacting
> with their own rejected prototypes?
I’ve never played it, but the video game Epic Mickey features Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit resenting Mickey Mouse for stealing his act and becoming
famous.
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33. 17. gwangung
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 5:52pm
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Another close instance of ictional characters interacting with their own
rejected prototypes are the Earth One and Earth Two team ups of the Justice
League and Justice Society in the Silver Age, though they avoided having
the duplicated members be involved in the team ups.
Maybe any Power Girl/Supergirl team up?
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35. 18. 7and7
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 6:17pm
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#14
Unfortunately though, fun and witty is repeating what Ortegas and Chapel
are in the show. I mean, Ortegas is that to the point of being almost a
caricature.
My point is they still have work to do making Una a distinct character all
her own. Even the new details about her past are somewhat derivative. She’s
a human/alien who has repressed her alien side? Interesting. But, well,
that’s still Spock.
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37. 19. 7and7
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 6:21pm
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I mean, Spock’s alien side would be his human side to him… bah, you know
what I mean.
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39. 20. ChristopherLBennett
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 7:38pm
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@17/gwangung: I wouldn’t count Golden and Silver Age versions of
superheroes, because the earlier versions weren’t rejected prototypes, they
were successful characters that ran for decades. Also, they were the same
characters with the same names, whereas the name change from Pike to Kirk
allowed them to be portrayed as separate characters despite one being the
prototype for the other. So it’s more analogous to Spider-Man: No Way Home
than Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
One sort-of almost example: When Martin Caidin’s novel Cyborg was adapted
as The Six Million Dollar Man, Caidin wanted Monte Markham to play Steve
Austin. Lee Majors got the part instead, but he later clashed with “The
Seven Million Dollar Man,” a failed bionic man played by… Monte Markham.
@18/7and7: I don’t think Una’s style of wit is anything like Ortegas’s or
Chapel’s. My point was that they haven’t portrayed her as cold and stoic,
so we already know how they’ve differentiated her from Spock. Just watch
the Short Treks episode “Q & A,” which is literally just Spock and Una
trapped in a turbolift and getting acquainted. The contrast between them
was made immediately clear.
Also, she’s not a human/alien hybrid, she’s a full-blooded Illyrian who
passed as human.
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41. 21. 7and7
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 9:17pm
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Also, she’s not a human/alien hybrid, she’s a full-blooded Illyrian who
passed as human.
Oh well, that makes all the difference. ;-) But the repressed part of her
is my point. It’s even more Spock than Spock, come to think of it. He never
had to hide the fact he’s half human.
—
Anyway, really, and I’ll probably catch hell for this, but I don’t think
this show really needs Una, just like it doesn’t really need Kirk. That’s
not to say I dislike the character or the actor. Spock, though, could be
easily plugged into just about every scene she’s in. She’s largely
redundant. Or he is. Take your pick.
Does that mean they should write her off? Oh no, no no no. I think the
solution is for her to have her own command and her own spinoff. I mean,
why not? They’re making a hundred Trek shows anyway to keep Paramount+
going. Might as well have Star Trek: Una while they’re at it.
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43. 22. Frank Urban
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 9:31pm
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People also need to realize James Tiberius Kirk was the only one in
Starfleet history to beat the Koybayashi Maru because he cheated. Sam Kirk
in the original series was by nature cautious, but Jim Kirk was an arrogant
tactical genius with several disciplines that he was proficient at which
the Abrams movies touched on. in the Strange New Worlds, Kirk shows that
arrogance. Also both the TOS and Abrams movies the unbeatable test was
originally programmed by Spock at his time at the Academy before becoming
the Science Officer on the Enterprise under Pike. And McCoy replaces the
doctor that just died on Strange New worlds who also went to the Academy
with Kirk. Eventually before the Incident that cripples Pike is after he
becomes an Admiral. In the series so far, He is still just a captain. I do
believe he becomes an admiral after conflict with the Klingons and a
skirmish with the Romulans.(That skirmish is what this episode covers.)
That skirmish was resolved and a minor war with the Romulans ensued but
called off as the Klingons attack both the Romulan Empire and the
Federation which then was resolved by another neutral zone treaty. This
episode puts in an alternate reality where that didn’t happen, as the
Klingons are still licking their wounds from the war with the Federation
that was started in Discovery Season 1. I do believe in the reimagining,
they will try to continue along the lines of TOS where kirk eventually
takes over for Pike as Captain of the Enterprise on its second five year
mission of exploration. so Strange New Worlds might be the Pike but
eventually transfer over to Kirk with Spock as Kirk’s First Officer and
Science Officer. Fans know McCoy and Scotty come on board the same time as
Kirk, yet they might change that now since the Chief Medical Officer and
the Chief Engineer died in the last episode. Somewhere, Scotty and McCoy
will be brought on the enterprise before Kirk officially becomes Captain 5
years down the road and before the episodes where Spock commits treason to
help his old captain, (I do believe Pike’s final rank was Commodore if I am
not mistaken) So the entire episode is a what if. Instead of Kirk defeating
the Romulan Ship as Captain of the Enterprise, it was Pike, yet the STRANGE
NEW WORLDS also retracted the original series where Kirk’s father and
Admiral Pike were friends and colleagues. Christopher Pike knew who Jim
kirk was before he took over the Enterprise.as the second Captain. The only
thing that was kept from the original series was that Number One as Pike
termed her, was a genetically enhanced human that was arrested for lying to
Starfleet and after serving a prison sentence, was removed from Starfleet.
Genetically enhanced humans were still banned from serving in the TNG era,
due to the attacks from enhanced human terrorists in Earth history(Khan)
and other attacks by enhanced humans in later years between TOS and TNG on
Starfleet which was also touched upon in Picard where they had to reset the
timeline due to Q who was dying for some reason. It will be interesting as
the timeline has been altered already to see where this goes. But we do
know Pike is eventually promoted to Fleet Captain or Commodore, and Jim
Kirk takes over the Enterprise.
44. unread comments
45. 23. ChristopherLBennett
* Mon Aug 8, 2022 10:04pm
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@21/7and7: “But the repressed part of her is my point. It’s even more Spock
than Spock, come to think of it. He never had to hide the fact he’s half
human.”
Which… actually goes against your point, because it means they’re entirely
different. Spock was not a member of a persecuted minority “passing” as an
acceptable type of person. On the contrary, he was constantly treated as
different and emphasized his own differences by choice. That’s the complete
opposite of Una.
@22/Frank Urban: “People also need to realize James Tiberius Kirk was the
only one in Starfleet history to beat the Koybayashi Maru because he
cheated.”
Yes, and that assertion in TWOK was the main source of the myth that Kirk
was always a renegade. But that was a retcon from the very by-the-book
captain of TOS.
There have been a few prose and comics stories depicting versions of Kirk’s
Kobayashi Maru, and my favorite was the one in one of the Strange New
Worlds anthologies (no relation), in which Kirk didn’t reprogram the
simulation to guarantee that he’d win, but rather reprogrammed it to be
fair, so that he wasn’t guaranteed to lose and could earn a victory
legitimately. In his view, it was the programmers who cheated by making it
impossible for anyone to succeed, and so he saw it as an unfair and
unrealistic simulation, one that he simply made more fair to make a point.
“Sam Kirk in the original series was by nature cautious”
Sam Kirk was only seen in TOS as a corpse. We learned nothing about his
nature, except that he was a civilian with a family.
“Jim Kirk was an arrogant tactical genius”
I don’t understand where the myth of Kirk’s arrogance comes from. I think
people are confusing Kirk with Shatner. Watch TOS, and you’ll see nothing
arrogant about Kirk. He’s actually quite humble. Confident, yes, but in a
way that’s entirely earned, and he doesn’t hesitate to admit his flaws and
limitations.
“Also both the TOS and Abrams movies the unbeatable test was originally
programmed by Spock”
No, only in the 2009 movie. No such thing was asserted in The Wrath of
Khan. In fact, Spock said he never took the Kobayashi Maru, presumably
because he wasn’t a command-track cadet.
“And McCoy replaces the doctor that just died on Strange New worlds”
Dr. M’Benga was fine as of the season finale. I think you’re confusing him
with another character.
“the Incident that cripples Pike is after he becomes an Admiral.”
Fleet captain.
“I do believe he becomes an admiral after conflict with the Klingons and a
skirmish with the Romulans.”
No, the Klingons weren’t invented until more than ten episodes after “The
Menagerie” established Pike’s fleet captaincy and his accident.
“a minor war with the Romulans ensued but called off as the Klingons attack
both the Romulan Empire and the Federation which then was resolved by
another neutral zone treaty. This episode puts in an alternate reality
where that didn’t happen”
Uhh, that’s completely backwards. I give up.
46. unread comments
47. 24. srEDIT
* Tue Aug 9, 2022 10:05am
* Edited Tue Aug 9, 2022 10:10am
* Favorite This
mods, a couple belated correx for you:
how Kirk’s read on the situation might effect his reaction [change effect
to affect]
and then
we know that that Jim Kirk is meant [delete one instance of the word that]
48. unread comments
49. 25. Moderator Staff
* Tue Aug 9, 2022 10:42am
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@24: Updated, thanks!
50. unread comments
51. 26. JAK
* Tue Aug 9, 2022 1:28pm
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“Thats an interesting point, and it ties into “Quality”‘s conclusion that
Spock is the one most important to the future. Although it’s striking how
it contrasts with “Arena” and “The Devil in the Dark.” In those episodes,
Kirk saves the day by choosing to listen to Spock’s urging for peaceful
communication and understanding over Kirk’s own reflex for violence. In
“Balance,” though, Spock is the one urging an aggressive response, and he’s
still right.”
While that’s true, I think context bears him out. Especially since in
“Terror” he’s drawing from his own knowledge and history to figure out the
Romulan motivations while in the other two examples there wasn’t enough to
go on, so he urged less aggression. Spock’s default is less aggression, but
he’s ruthless when he thinks logic dictates it.
52. unread comments
53. 27. ChristopherLBennett
* Tue Aug 9, 2022 1:49pm
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@26/JAK: Yes, that makes sense in-story, but I’m thinking more of how
different writers approached the character as the series evolved. “Balance
of Terror” was an early episode with, arguably, a more militaristic
approach than would later become the norm for the series. Much like how
“The Man Trap” has the crew ruthlessly hunt and kill the last member of a
sentient species when later episodes would’ve gone for a more empathetic
approach. I think it shows the influence Gene L. Coon had when he took over
as producer.
54. unread comments
55. 28. JAK
* Tue Aug 9, 2022 3:28pm
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@27/Christopher L. Bennett –
Oh for sure. I mean, if you asked me to pick one episode out of the entire
franchise that defined what Star Trek is all about, it would be “The Devil
In The Dark,” which I think is pretty much Trek distilled.
Thinking out loud a little more – there’s an interesting flip in that
episode. Spock does urge compassion until he thinks Kirk is threatened by
the Horta and Kirk has to tell Spock to stand down. Which is just a lovely
character beat.
Thinking out loud a little more, “The City on the Edge of Forever” is
another example where Kirk, at Spock’s urging, makes the less immediately
compassionate call for the greater good by letting Edith Keeler die when of
course Kirk’s instinct is the oppose.
56. unread comments
57. 29. ChristopherLBennett
* Tue Aug 9, 2022 4:16pm
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@28/JAK: “I mean, if you asked me to pick one episode out of the entire
franchise that defined what Star Trek is all about, it would be “The Devil
In The Dark,” which I think is pretty much Trek distilled.”
Funny… I’d say “The Corbomite Maneuver.” It stresses that their mission is
to explore and make peaceful contact, that the unknown is something to open
yourself to rather than react to with fear or hate, and that even that
which appears threatening can be befriended. It shows the crew solving
problems with their minds rather than their weapons. And it’s a good
example of the ensemble flavor and grounded, humanistic character interplay
that the series aspired to in the early episodes. It was the first Trek
episode I saw as a child, and I can’t think of a better introduction to the
series and what it stood for.
58. unread comments
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