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#first Paul wesley kirk…
male--wife · 2 years
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sibling of the year
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spirkbitch · 8 months
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the spock poll was so decisive (and correct) now i have to do it for all of them
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chiefnooniensingh · 8 months
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I can't even begin to describe to you how much I adore SNW!Kirk
This is the first Kirk I really vibe with
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onwegolove · 2 years
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star trek really is my newest brainrot because i woke up and the first coherent thought that came to me was my brain going like hey what if with all of the modern recasts they’re collecting in strange new worlds they’re planning to eventually remake the original series
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ichayalovesyou · 8 months
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I am so GRATEFUL that there’s pretty much no Kirk Drift at all in the writing or in Paul Wesley’s version of Kirk! He’s just the right level of cocky and DEFINITELY the right level of kind! He’s so nice and respectful to Uhura, even tho she punches him within like, the first hour of meeting him. Also the offering to split a limited amount of REAL cookies lol 😭 and his weird sort of “it’s not a competition why u mad 😉” dynamic with Sam. Man, I’ve got NO notes!
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ham103me · 1 month
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I’m currently watching Paul Wesley in History of Evil. Finally we’ll have an answer to the age old question, would Jim Kirk survive a horror movie without Bones or Spock to keep him in line?
Actually, let’s put it to a vote!
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sylasthegrim · 8 months
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I am a kelvin spirk fan- i support all spirk but i don't think anything can replace the 2009 casting for me, especially the chemistry between chris/zach.
as exciting as snw seems, it breaks my heart because it feels like the kelvin timeline will be forgotten. i'm just sad
I know exactly how you feel about AOS, because I feel the same.
A little backstory, if you don't mind. I used to watch TOS with my father when I was a child, but I was too young to ship Spock and Kirk. I understood they were close friends - and I loved Spock so much, with all the excited and tender love a child can have for a fictional character.
When the Kelvin timeline started in 2009, I was reluctant at first. I couldn't see another actor than Leonard Nimoy play Spock. But I was hooked - the chemistry between Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine was off the charts 💙
I could go on and on about what makes this particular couple work. I love how they share that same restlessness, the brashness of youth, even though Spock's is more contained and operates within regulations. "Kelvin Spirk" was my sole hyperfixation for years on end in my early twenties.
I started watching Discovery when it came out - and stopped as soon as I learned Spock would make an appearance. I still wasn't over Leonard Nimoy's death, and while Zach Quinto had the privilege of having his guidance to play this iconic character, Ethan Peck wouldn't.
A few weeks ago I decided to give Strange New Worlds a chance, but to me Peck's Spock is an entirely different character. He isn't Spock, the character I grew up loving and who then became one half of my favorite ship ever - he's just another Vulcan named Spock.
He's good, and SNW is good in others ways TOS and AOS were good. We all have a favorite series, and for me it will always be the Kelvin timeline. I will never stop loving them.
Chris Pine and Zach Quinto have a chemistry that resonates with me. I love them as a ship - and to me they represent a part of my young adult life, getting involved into fandom more seriously.
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy 💔 are my childhood, and I love their love like a child loves their parents' love.
But I'm ready to give Ethan Peck and Paul Wesley a chance. From the little I've seen so far, I don't feel any particular chemistry - but that doesn't mean I won't enjoy seeing them interact. I probably won't be shipping them, but that's okay.
Live long and prosper, my anonymous friend. Please know that your ask made my day, I deeply enjoyed answering it while sipping my morning coffee 💙
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anotheruserwithnoname · 9 months
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Star Trek SNW finally settles decades-old canon issues (spoiler commentary for S02E03)
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(Image credit: Startrek.com)
I say spoiler right in the headline, and I mean it. Read no further if you have yet to see Star Trek: Strange New World’s latest episode, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. (The image above is a publicity image and is also in the trailer, so it’s not really a spoiler.)
The TL;DR is: one single line of dialogue fixed nearly 30 years of canon issues. I am not exaggerating. More under the break. And this will be a long one:
To “cross the streams” a moment, it is undeniable canon (not shipping wishful thinking) that not only did the Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who have feelings for Clara Oswald, he even considered her not his companion, but his girlfriend. That was made undeniable canon in a couple lines in “Deep Breath” when the Twelfth Doctor said “Clara, I’m not your boyfriend,” Clara replied, “I never thought you were.” and Twelve said “I never said it was your mistake.” That was in stark fact. One line of canon dialogue confirmed what many speculated and the show hinted at. This is separate from what came after, any retcons later writers did, and all that.��
Well, one line of dialogue from a guest character in last night’s episode of Strange New Worlds put into canon something I and many others have felt not only about SNW, but the current breed of Trek shows and indeed there were signs of this going back to both Star Trek DS9 and Star Trek Voyager in the 1990s.
The Romulan time agent, Sera, played by Adelaide Kane who some may remember from playing Mary Queen of Scots in Reign, states that the Eugenics war involving Khan was supposed to happen in 1992, but was delayed 30 years due to temporal wars and other interference from the future. (To be precise she’s likely referring to Khan’s birth since he was in his 30s or 40s by the 1990s, the time TOS established the Eugenics Wars took place; here he’s a kid - possibly even a Canadian kid!  The war itself is still some years away.)
That explains a lot. Why since DS9 the Eugenics Wars were redated to the mid-21st century. Why SNW’s pilot episode last year confirmed the Eugenics Wars were part of WW3, not a separate conflict.  Why the Voyager episode where they go back to Earth on 1996 featured no mention of the Eugenics Wars. Why Kirk and everyone else already knows the name Noonien-Singh (even if La’an hadn’t introduced herself by name to “Prime” Kirk at the end, he would have seen her testimony about being Khan’s descendant at Una’s trial. There is no way in this timeline that Kirk, Spock or anyone else would not recognize Khan’s name instantly when the events of Space Seed happen. Heck, even the fact the SNW Enterprise doesn’t match up with the 1960s designs that were also featured in TNG, DS9 and Star Trek: Enterprise. Or even stuff like people like Uhura knowing who T’Pring was years before they were supposedly first introduced to her in “Amok Time”. It even gives wiggle room for the fact this time-travel episode actually breaks canon with the time-travel-based episodes of Picard Season 2! (Laris would have known about Sera and stopped her, right? Sean at TrekCulture had a gripe about this in his Youtube review)
Sera basically admitted that because of people farting around with time and the temporal wars (recall that it was strongly implied in Enterprise that the Romulans were involved if not responsible for that) that the timeline has been changed. 
It can’t be denied anymore and it’s such a liberating thing. Now, SNW is free to truly tell reimagined stories (like the retelling of Balance of Terror last season, albeit that was another alternate timeline), to make T’Pring a vital character and build her, to accelerate the Spock-Chapel romance that was only hinted at in TOS. To truly let Paul Wesley develop his own version of Kirk, not to mention Ethan Peck’s Spock and whoever next plays McCoy (you know they will bring him in eventually and if SNW avoids the fate of Prodigy and lasts a few years, they’re going to have to start getting lined up for a new TOS-era series). Hell, the door is now open for Kirk and La’an to establish a “prime-era” romance - imagine a retelling of Space Seed with La’an in the picture (or at least Kirk remembering her).
This will be a hot take for some. But my rebuttal comes from Doctor Who: “Time can be rewritten.” Finally, nearly 30 years after what was thought to be an erroneous dating of the Eugenics Wars in a throwaway line in an episode of DS9 (I believe the producers even said it was a goof back then), and 22 years of people griping about how the prequel series were not lining up with what came before, either esthetically or storyline-wise (Enterprise, Discovery, SNW, and Picard S2 to a degree), we have a firm, canonical explanation. People will still gripe about politics, general quality, casting, whatever, of shows - that’s a separate argument - but at least in terms of canon, this has changed everything. In a good way.
I only wish they hadn’t killed off Sera. I got very strong Sela vibes from her (Sela/Sera? Coincidence?) and I would have liked to see her become a recurring nemesis. Then again, as I just said, time can be rewritten. 
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obi-wkenobi · 8 months
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okay so I haven't been watching strange new worlds but the spirkie inside me is currently screaming because I adore that first meeting. understated? yes. and exactly how I imagine a friendship and bond that lasts decades and changes the galaxy would start. think I'm going to be binge watching the show over the next week. bravo snw, I'm now committed because of one thirty second scene involving a handshake and Paul Wesley perfectly encapsulating what I call James Tiberius Kirk's 'Spock gaze' i.e. nothing but utter affection and intrigue for his Vulcan
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anewstartrekfan · 8 months
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So I rewatched the scene I didn’t like from lost in translation a few times and I need to give credit where it is due…
I have to give it to Paul Wesley. I didn’t pick up on it the first few times cuz I was too pissed Jim was talking about his past, but now I see he’s actually extremely uncomfortable during most of the scene. Like, first he’s clearly uncomfortable after she psycho analyzes him.
“And you’re the type who can’t look past someone in need.”
Kirk legit didn’t have a response to this he just stood their awkwardly.
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Then, when she’s pressing him, asking simply “what?” he’s shocked. No one ever asks him because his confident facade is usually flawless or no one bothers to notice or care if he has something on his mind. They just think he’s the perfect guy at his job. I think because of this, Jim expected the conversation to just drop.
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He also has to think about it, like either “what’s bothering me,” and, “do I share this?” And I bet he rationalized it was okay because it centered on why he helped Uhura despite barely knowing her, and that why is why he’s in Starfleet. It all connects back to the job which he cares about more than (almost) anything.
Next point for when La’an finishes his sentence, Jim has this confused, pained look on his face. He doesn’t understand why she gets him so well, or he doesn’t know if that’s how he felt at the time, like this is the first time he’s considered this out loud. But also he doesn’t want to continue talking about this, so he nods jumps into “and that’s why I chose this job.”
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Also, the sentence she finishes is describing how Jim felt about a given situation. Which was also a good touch because it not only shows how much La’an understands him despite barely knowing this version of Jim, but it also keeps it in character for Jim because he would never talk about his personal feelings this openly. As I said before he just kinda nods and moves on.
I still think it’s ehhhhh that Jim shared any of this, I must stress that this is more than kirk ever admitted in the whole of tos. But at least it works on some levels.
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im-all-out-of-ideas · 9 months
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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds s2 ep3
oh my god.
yeah this one was completely out of left field for me. i never expected that Wesley's Kirk would be good, nor any attempt at a Kirk romance to be any good, OR for nuTrek to do a good time travel story, OR that they could handle the Noonien-Singh legacy. somehow, by a fucking miracle, they jumped every single hurdle i had in my mind about this entire concept.
La'an was utterly brilliant. zero complaints. played to perfected by Christina Chong and the final moments in the episode were heartbreaking. no notes.
Kirk managed what Peck's Spock had done before him. it is a kirk of a different time, before his five-year mission, and in a different time from the character's debut, so it was always going to be different. but the heart of the man was there, the man who loves food, the man who seems to hold such a tragic veil just beneath the bravado, the man who while professional and competent, can be more than the rules and regulations he follows. it is a different Kirk, one not yet settled into confidence and command like shatner's, but he IS Kirk. Paul Wesley convinced me this time.
the time travel was handled well. it dived in without needing to linger on introducing this trope more than necessary, and the actual plot was as good as it needed to be. i did like Pelia being the Guinan to this Enterprise crew just like i predicted she would be. the romulan agent was also fine, but she was definitely more in service to the REAL purpose of the episode.
khan. oh, the tyrant we loved since Wrath and haven't gotten the bad feeling out of our mouths about since Into Darkness. it's rather unfortunate. if he weren't nearly so important to Earth's history in the Eugenics Wars, he would be an incredibly unwarranted legacy character. none of that applies here. this story was about La'an and her utterly abhorrent legacy, and how to come to terms with it. it was a story fit for Trek in the best way, and it was one only capable of being done by this team and this production. they proved the worth of making La'an a Noonien-Singh.
the matter of canon was absolutely how it should have been handled ever since Voyage Home and First Contact. time travel has been mucking up the details for a long time and i am and have been fine with this. they acknowledged the discrepancy and justified it all in a single line of dialogue. it frees all the other series up for following the newer canon with this new justification too.
all around excellent episode. just as the last was one for the history books of courtroom episodes, this one is fit to sit next to "City on the Edge of Forever" and "Past Tense".
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mai-komagata · 5 months
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ok but when you think about it
So obviously in the real world of star trek in its various incarnations we have actual actors and actors age at normal rates (or in the case of SNW, cast at ridiculously old ages, like you want me to believe Paul Wesley is what ridiculous young age? you guys know he isn't literally a vampire?), so like Leonard Nimoy always looks the same age as William Shatner in the movies, but like, that is not how Vulcans work. Spock in The Wrath of Khan is younger than T'Lyn and T'pol in their respective series. He probably looks pretty much the same as he did when Kirk first met him. Kirk obviously will look older, and comments on how he is aging (like needs reading glasses and whatnot). But Spock isn't old at all. So married Spirk is even more hilarious when you realize old man Admiral Kirk has this hot young Vulcan as a husband until he disappears in Generations.
i mean it is possible Spock ages somewhere between a human and a Vulcan, though, so maybe not so ridiculously young looking the whole time. But it is still funny to imagine Admiral Kirk and his trophy husband.
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dgcatanisiri · 7 months
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Among the "canon will have its say" elements about how the characters of SNW and their fates that I do kinda worry about is how Sam Kirk is going to end up leaving Starfleet. There's the possibility that whatever is happening to the captives on the Gorn vessel will be part of what has him decide to walk away from the fleet.
If that is where he's heading, I do hope that it gets to be an ongoing and processing arc, bare minimum something that acts as his character focus in season three, rather than just "that experience was too much, I'm out" through just the next season premiere and maybe its aftermath in the following episode.
Mostly because we haven't really had Sam get his development in, considering he's not main cast (and, y'know, we're still seeing Ortegas not being given her full due at this point, two seasons in - the downside of ten episode seasons). So if this ends up being the catalyst, I hope it's not a 'one and done' kind of thing, but something that weighs on him and leads to more time and focus.
After all, Sam Kirk occupies this strange place in canon - he's connected to the character many consider "the first" Star Trek captain, "appeared" in one episode (in quotes since he was already dead and just portrayed by Shatner with a mustache, so I don't know if I'd consider that an appearance properly), but before SNW came along, all we knew about him was that he was James Kirk's brother, had a wife and three kids (maybe? McCoy calls Jim Peter's only surviving family in Operation: Annihilate!, but the earlier What Are Little Girls Made Of? said that Sam had three sons, so minor muddle there), and that he dies on Deneva. That's really about all we knew for certain about him for fifty-five years, until he showed up for Strange New Worlds. Novels and comics and games had various tidbits thrown out there, but they were never considered 100% canon and could be contradicted without a care by canon.
So I would like to see more development of this character while we have him. Obviously, I don't want to short anyone else in the cast either, but there are plenty of ways to incorporate him with these other characters, to have him paired up with them and develop him alongside them.
And for the record, I don't think they'd go in the "one/two episodes and he's out" route next season anyway, considering that one) they haven't really used him that much after going out of their way to involve him in SNW (since that short appearance in O:A just spoke about him as a colonist on Deneva, no mention of him having a Starfleet career), and two) there did seem to be some seeds planted for an ongoing arc during Lost in Translation, of him trying to work through his issues about his father's expectations.
Also it gives a way for them to keep bringing Paul Wesley's James Kirk back in, which... I somehow doubt that they're done with James Kirk in SNW at this point.
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antimatterpod · 9 months
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Anika and Liz find themselves stranded in 2023 Toronto, and over some Tim Hortons and poutine, catch up to discuss the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”…
FIRST we are very angry and sad about the cancellation of Star Trek: Prodigy
SECOND, we were extremely nervous going into this episode, and then … we loved it? 
Introducing Paul Wesley’s Kirk via a set of AUs is really smart
Is this the best episode of Enterprise or the sequel to “Time and Again” we didn’t know we needed? Yes. Is it a problem that SNW keeps revisiting old stories? Yes. Did we love it regardless? Yes
Okay FINE we’re shipping La’an/Kirk BUT IN THIS TIMELINE ONLY
An actual Secret Romulan that we didn’t make up? A GIFT FOR US! (Also, again, aliens among humans, THERE’S A THEME)
The UNIT Dating Controversy of it all
It took three goes, but finally Khan Noonien Singh is played by a South Asian actor!
Anika calls it: we’re gonna see Brent Spiner in the finale
“Progress requires trauma” – does it, though? Does it really?
Are we the first Star Trek podcasters to talk about Pete Davidson?
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epistemophagy · 9 months
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I just watched SNW: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" for the first time
Moderately good. 3.5 to 4 out of 5. I think my opinion of it might improve over time.
Spoilers under the cut.
Kirk
(Since the alternate James T. Kirk is the primary Jim who appears in this episode, and Prime!Jim's role is inconsequential, the alternate Jim is referred to here simply as Jim, or Tomorrow!Jim where disambiguation is needed.)
I was going to say it doesn't make sense that Jim, a United Earth officer, has never heard of Starfleet, since Archer served in Starfleet under United Earth, but then I remembered that this is a completely different United Earth. The one beta-canon story I've read which had an independent United Earth in the TOS era placed the point of divergence (POD) during or after Enterprise. This isn't that. Tomorrow!Jim's POD is right now. Nothing is guaranteed.
"Jim is sufficiently unfamiliar with Toronto that he thinks it's New York City" worked on several levels.
The meta level that I'm absolutely sure was intentional is that, of course, Toronto is a common and often unsubtly deployed location double for basically any other city in sci-fi, but particularly NYC, so "NYC"-but-very-obviously-Toronto turning out to actually be Toronto was cute. (Third-generation Trek has a taste for this kind of humour; note Raffi in Season 1 of Picard living at the Vasquez Rocks, which in the real world derive a significant part of their fame from TOS filming there.)
There's another meta level I'm not as certain was intentional: Jim is, of course, from Iowa. Bill Shatner is Québécois. Paul Wesley is from New Jersey, specifically a town called New Brunswick ... which is also a Canadian province which does not contain Toronto (which is in Ontario). Neither the one man nor his two actors have any reason to know offhand what a random part of Toronto would look like, although Shatner or Wesley would be less likely to mistake it for NYC.
There's also a tragic implied character aspect. We know this Jim is an alternate whose Earth is an unlivable ruin. There are two equally sad possible reasons why he'd confidently identify Toronto as NYC.
One is that Jim thinks Toronto is NYC because his only knowledge of either city is from stored media in which Toronto doubles for NYC — which also implies that popular culture in his timeline has been basically static since the point when Earth became uninhabitable and thus it became impossible to film in Toronto.
Another is that Jim thinks any sufficiently large city with electronic billboards is NYC, because humanity simply can't build large civilian settlements or non-essential electronic displays any more; everything has to go to the Fleet.
I didn't 100% buy Paul Wesley as Jim in the "Quality of Mercy" timeline, but this episode won me over by about 15 minutes in. I think he's got it, whatever "it" is. In particular, I thought his facial and physical acting reflected that he'd made really extensive study of Shatner's work on TOS, but that he wasn't letting his performance slide toward either rote imitation or insistent, out-of-place novelty.
"Was it always this freezing on Earth?" works because it suggests that Jim is used to a higher median temperature. If his humanity's sense of a "normal" temperature is based on something like uncontrolled anthropogenic climate change, that would make a lot of sense.
Given the whole setup to the episode was "Pike has been replaced by Jim due to time travel," it would have been funny if they'd had Paul deliver the "Space" monologue, rather than Anson Mount, just to fuck with us. (See note 1 below.)
La'an got the immortal "Jim Kirk's love interest" experience of seeing Jim with his shirt off in places where it shouldn't be, a duty which in TOS is almost always reserved for Spock.
Seems like David Reed (the writer) and Amanda Row (the director) respect canon, because they gave that Dodge Challenger an automatic transmission and neatly avoided addressing the question of whether Tomorrow!Jim knows how to drive stick (Prime!Jim clearly doesn't, per TOS: "A Piece of the Action").
I really like the idea that Jim is a chess prodigy who considers normal chess to be "idiot's chess". I hope that's true of Prime!Jim too. It would explain how in TOS it can be true both that Spock is a sufficiently masterful chess player that a computer he taught to play chess suddenly becoming beatable indicates the system is being fucked with ("Court Martial"), and that Jim can occasionally beat him.
Jim is immensely cute when he's sleeping.
I knew Jim was dead from the moment La'an said "What if you could come to my timeline?"
The line "Yes, I know Hawthorne and the Old Testament" was a bit personally disappointing for me because I'm passionate about Erin Horakova's analysis in Kirk Drift of Jim as a specifically Jewish man, and Jim's use of "Old Testament" seemed to weigh against that. However, I'm not qualified to investigate that further.
I thought it was cute that Prime!Jim got to turn on the charm. It struck me as exactly what TOS Jim would have done.
La'an
Christina Chong is my blorbo. I've wanted her to do well ever since Halo: Nightfall. I hope she's having a nice day.
La'an's fade is really nice.
"You come from a line of axe murderers?" "Oh no, we never use axes" was a hall-of-fame exchange. If I ever write TOS fic featuring Khan I'm going to have him briefly consider an axe and then ignore it.
I thought it was nice that they gave La'an more character depth than "angry". I won't say she had the wrong amount in Season 1, but I liked that she got to solve problems with talking as much as punching.
I thought La'an bursting into tears at the end, face crumpling, breathing shaky, was basically exactly how I'd have felt about what she went through, and I think it's brutal that DTI doesn't provide her with any way to process the trauma she went through.
Sera and the Romulans
Sera feels like a slightly more sympathetic and tragic version of Nero, right down to trying, in her case successfully, to kill James T. Kirk (Nero was more concerned with Spock, but he still let Ayel try to kill Jim). I also think it's interesting that there are apparently a fair number of Romulans wandering around 2020s Earth in holographic disguises — Tallinn is busy stalking Renée and then getting murdered in Los Angeles around the same time.
Sera's line about "the seams in the bunny suit" is a Donnie Darko reference. Which means a Romulan temporal agent has watched Donnie Darko. And, come to that, she knows about dial-up, forums, memes, and ACAB. The knowledge base accumulated by the Tal Shiar(?) through decades of reports from temporal agents must be absolutely incredible. Do you think they like mudkip?
I enjoyed that Sera casually admitted the Romulans' motive in Toronto was to slow progress, not least because literally several hours before I watched it I came up with a separate hare-brained theory about the Romulans trying to use the Vulcans to slow human progress in the pre-ENT era.
Khan and the Noonien-Singhs
I thought it was interesting that while they established in the episode that Khan's birth involved genetics somehow, they didn't (as far as I recall — my memory is not good at the moment) do anything to confirm TOS' unfortunate assumption that eugenics works, and left open the possibility that Khan might have become what he was through nurture and nothing else.
I'm very interested to know more about the Noonien-Singh family. Khan is presumably no more than 10–11 (Desmond Sivan's age) in this episode, so he clearly didn't found the Noonien-Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement. Who did?
Desmond Sivan did a lovely job. Tangentially, I'm glad they cast someone who is actually Indian to play the canonically Indian Khan. To his individual performance, I thought it was really interesting that the way Sivan used his face was incredibly similar to Montalbán's. That's sophisticated work for a 10-year-old.
There's also the small matter of Khan's (and, by extension, La'an's) name. Previous media has analysed it in a variety of ways — IIRC (haven't checked), Greg Cox's The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh novel series from the 1990s analyses "Noonien Singh" as his full name and "Khan" as a title he took on to signify his dictatorial ambitions. SNW seems to be going with "Khan is a personal name, Noonien-Singh is a two-part surname" and possibly with "Augments use double-barrelled surnames, of which 'Chin-Riley' and 'Noonien-Singh' are both examples".
Sidebar: The Eugenics Wars
I'm a reconciliationist: it is more interesting to come up with ways to reconcile conflicting canon than it is to just say "I have top-level canon authority from the IP owners, I can retcon whatever I want". I have voiced my annoyance in the past with production staff remarks to the effect that "maybe Spock was wrong, maybe the Eugenics Wars happened in the 2030s instead". This is partly because I find the previously beta-canonical "secret Eugenics Wars" hypothesis immensely fascinating.
I am, however, going to take this canon change with good grace. I'm going to do that because I'm a Doctor Who fan, and the SNW writers' room have clearly heard of Doctor Who's attitude to canonical compliance; they're even using the same excuse off-camera ("ripples from the Time War," "ripples from the Temporal Wars"). I'm also going to do it because I believe strongly that a sliding point of divergence is fundamental to the original morality-play spirit of Star Trek: it's not "the future of the Star Trek alternate timeline, which we can dismiss as separate from us," it's "our own future, except where noted".
I also, frankly, believe that Khan is a character whose time has come. If we want to tell stories about eugenics, fascism, and genocide, those stories are going to be a lot more complex and a lot better-informed if they're written from the ground up by people who live now, in a time where those things are immediate, pressing concerns, than they are if those people are forced to write from the priors left behind by people working in a time where it was more permissible to consider those things historical or abstract.
Adam Soong
Why does Jim assume that La'an's name is "Noonien-Soong"? The episode establishes that he's not familiar with the name "Noonien-Singh," we know that, but is he familiar with the name "Soong"? Or "Noonian Soong," for that matter? We know he's not from the Confederation of Earth timeline, where Adam Soong was ascendant, because as far as we know Q wiped that timeline from existence altogether once he was done with it, but even an alternate Jim's familiarity with the name suggests Adam Soong or his family might yet have a role to play.
This would, of course, make sense, given this is a Khan episode and Prime!Adam's final appearance in Picard, presumably around the same time, has him reviewing the possibility of relaunching Project Khan. Presumably Sera's reference to an "original" version of events in 1992 and Adam's prop mentioning an abortive "original" Project Khan in 1996 are connected.
(In the Prime Timeline, by Prime!Jim's era, there would have been two Soongs he could conceivably have heard of, Adam and Arik. I'm assuming Tomorrow!Jim is thinking of Adam Soong, because we know Adam is already an adult who has done a fair amount prior to the point of divergence in this episode, whereas we don't know that there's even a Tomorrow!Arik at all.)
Spock
It's very funny that Spock would be the subject of a noise complaint. "Same brain" moment for me because I had a scene in a post-TOS fic I was writing where Spock was absolutely blasting classical music at 11 pm and didn't get a noise complaint. (In this episode, I did get the vague vibes that La'an was the one complaining but didn't have the confidence to say so to Spock's face. Buzzkill.)
I thought Tomorrow!Spock was going to feature more but honestly maybe it's nice if they're letting Spock take a back seat, especially given the apparent push across the media spectrum toward "no homo". If Jim and Spock's shared screentime is going to be used to decisively no-homo them then I want them to have as little shared screentime as possible.
Other
I thought the remarks about the comparative economics of 21st-century Earth and the 23rd-century TOS-era Federation were really well-managed. For a few years now my view has been that the TOS-era Federation is, in Marxist terms, a primary-stage socialist society — moving away from capitalism, further from it than we in real life have ever gotten, but not quite the classless, moneyless utopia of the TNG era. The dialogue carefully avoided committing the TOS era to either lingering capitalism or ahead-of-time highest-stage communism. That was nice.
The episode gave me the impression that David Reed is online a lot, but it didn't get to the point that it was obnoxious or got in the way. To clarify, I don't mean "online" in an "I'm relatable, please buy me" Denny's-tumblr, brand-Twitter sort of way, but in a "the writers spend more time doomscrolling than they should" sort of way.
I thought the fact that they decided to try to solve a modern-day time travel episode by building a tricorder was a nice nod to "The City on the Edge of Forever". I was also amused that they subverted it by having Jim be sceptical of the plan, and by having it not, ultimately, be the solution.
M'Benga was only in this episode briefly, but he's getting some interesting expansion of his character. I hope they play that out over time. (I am a little sore that they made him abandon Rukiya in Season 1. I think they have that to make up for.)
Pelia is a darling, and growing on me.
Note
Doctor Who did this a couple of years ago. During the Twelfth Doctor era, the eyes of the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) were a prominent part of the title sequence. In the final episode of Series 8, at the end of the cold open, Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) was pretending to be the Doctor, so they swapped in her eyes in the title sequence to half-jokingly fuck with the audience.
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doublechocolate · 6 months
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okay so personally, i think both Chris Pine and Paul Wesley did a great job as Jim Kirk. the only difference is that Pine's Jim took 10mins to convince me, while Wesley's Jim did take a while - both of which are on me, not on them.
essentially, they are are portraying two different types of Kirk. at the start of Star Trek AOS, particularly in Star Trek 2009, Jim is still a cadet and is put through a life and death situation where he has to earn everyone's trust. he gets thrown in the captain's seat with zero experience and no one is convinced he can get the job done until the end. this Jim lost his dad and still has that rebellious streak in him - something that Pine captured very well.
while in Strange New Worlds, the Jim we meet is already a First Officer on Farragut and has seemingly gone through the ranks. We get a Jim who genuinely wants to be friends with everyone, who hasn't lost his dad and had time to develop his skills outside of the Enterprise. Wesley's Kirk takes time to grow on you cause the first two times you meet him, he's supposed to be a different version of Jim. It's not until Lost in Translation that we see The Real Slim Shady Jim Kirk. And Wesley did well.
and in terms of his relationship with Spock and how they bonded;
AOS: the world is about the end and we have got to work together if we want to save our asses.
SNW: Sam's a dick, isn't he
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