The powers that be that are in charge of the Star Trek franchise are busy planning a new Star Trek TV show that will feature a young James T. Kirk in his early days as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise starship. This version of Kirk would be portrayed by Paul Wesley, who appeared frequently in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and the proposed show would be a sequel to Strange New Worlds called Star Trek: Year One. It’s a great idea since Kirk is still one of the most popular characters in Trek. But should there be another TV show based on Kirk?
Let’s put aside the acting chops of Wesley or the idea of Kirk being recast, which has always been a challenge that producers had to deal with since William Shatner, the original actor to play the role, is ingrained with many fans who have a hard time accepting someone else playing Kirk. Just look at the trouble the production team behind the 2009 Star Trek film went through to cast Chris Pine as Kirk. People have to accept that Shatner will never play the role again, especially since Shatner is in his 90s and the budget to digitally de-age him would be prohibitive for an ongoing TV show.
In Wesley’s defense, he does a good job playing a young Kirk without resorting to Shatner’s unique method of acting that gave lots of fodder for comedians. To get an idea of how Wesley would have aped Shatner, take a look at the season three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “A Space Adventure Hour”. It was one of those by-now obligatory holodeck malfunctioning episodes where Wesley as Kirk played a parody of Shatner’s Kirk. The point is if any actor tried to act like Shatner, he would not be taken seriously, which would doom the show.
Getting back to the idea of a young Kirk TV show. On paper it seems like a natural, do a TV show about a young Kirk settling into his command, making mistakes and learning from them, and seeing how he formed his bond with the famous Enterprise crew. It would be fairly easy to create the show since it would be a sequel to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and the standing sets and design are already done, so that would save money and time. Plus, many of the actors from Strange New Worlds like Ethan Peck would just transition over to Star Trek: Year One since Peck would be playing Spock, who became first officer of the Enterprise during Kirk’s command. The proposed Star Trek: Year One could also remake some of the more famous first season episodes like “Space Seed” (which would give us a recast of Khan) or “City on the Edge of Forever” but with better production and effects. This is very tantalizing.
The problem is that we saw Kirk’s early adventures in the original TV show. When Star Trek first aired, it featured Kirk when he first commanded the starship Enterprise. The implication with the first season of Star Trek was that the first season took place during the beginning of the ship’s five-year mission. On the other hand, there are signs that there was a time gap during the very first episodes and the later episodes. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Corbomite Maneuver” had the crew wearing slightly different uniforms than what was shown soon after. In fact, Doctor McCoy was not even around in the pilot episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. More importantly, there are implications in the early episodes that the crew of the Enterprise had been on their mission for some time. So, this leaves room for a Star Trek: Year One.
There is a headache that the writers of the proposed TV show would have to deal with and that is with continuity. This has plague all the Star Trek TV shows and films as they had to make sure the continuity established in the original Star Trek and later shows and films remained intact. Unfortunately, this did not work out many times and the recent Trek shows received a lot of flack from angry fans, such as with the look of the Klingons, the Gorn and with the early history of Star Trek. For example, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds established that there was a Klingon War which was never implicitly mentioned in the original Star Trek, yet it happened close to the era of the original Trek. In the Star Trek episode “Arena” the Gorn looked radically different than the species shown in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and in the original show, the Enterprise crew acted as if they never heard of the Gorn, who were an ongoing threat in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. This is an issue that long-running TV shows and films have to grapple with and Star Trek is not unique to this situation. As long as the basic history is adhered to, then fans should be willing to give the writers a pass.
One way out of this would be to do what the 2009 Star Trek film did and establish that the recent Star Trek shows are set in another reality. The trouble is that it has been shown already that the recent Trek shows are set in the so-called Prime Timeline.
The most pressing problem for a so-called Star Trek: Year One has to do with whether or not there is any demand for it. Not everyone is thrilled with Wesley’s performance or the fact that the character has hijacked Star Trek: Strange New Worlds by appearing in practically every other episode. This was supposed to be a show about Christopher Pike not Kirk and we already have an idea of how the early years of Kirk went. Do we need to see it play out? Why not create a new Star Trek adventure with new characters? There are many time periods that have never been covered that are ripe for presenting like the time period between the original Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In fact, a TV show about a young Picard sounds more interesting. Ever since Star Trek: Picard concluded, fans have been begging for a Star Trek: Legacies show featuring the crew of the Enterprise-G with Picard’s son, but it seems like the powers that be are hellbent on ignoring fans and plowing ahead with a young Kirk show. This is a sign that the current showrunners do not truly understand Star Trek. Over the decades, the franchise has proven repeatedly that it was rich enough to provide new characters and situations set in the franchise. It allowed Trek to reinvent itself and not rely on Kirk and his crew to generate interest.
To date it’s not known if Star Trek: Year One will get the green light. A lot depends on studio politics and budgets since modern Trek shows are very expensive. If the show goes through, we’ll have to give it the benefit of the doubt that it will be a worthy addition to the legacy of Star Trek.
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