star trek spock and kirk

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• How Kirk and Spock’s Relationship Held <i>Star Trek</i> Together

How Kirk and Spock’s Relationship Held Star Trek Together

Excerpted from TIME’s Star Trek: Inside the Most Influential Science-Fiction Series Ever . Available at retailers and at Amazon.com .

Leonard Nimoy and I certainly didn’t start our journey as close friends. Rather, like the other members of our cast, we were colleagues, feeling each other out, learning our professional strengths and weaknesses and trying to bring our A game to the show. The friendships that developed initially were in the scripts: the relationship between Kirk and Spock held the show together. The two of us were onscreen in almost every scene. Leonard described the relationship between these two characters as a “great sense of brotherhood. Spock was tremendously loyal and had a great appreciation for the talent and the leadership abilities of Kirk. He was totally devoted to seeing to it that whatever Kirk needed to be done got done.”

Conversely, Kirk relied on Spock unfailingly for his advice, knowing it would never be encumbered by any thoughts of personal gain or tempered by emotional constraints. But he also depended on him to share the burdens of command. With the exception of Dee Kelley’s McCoy, Kirk had to maintain the distance of command from the rest of the crew. That can be a lonely place if there is no outlet, and Spock provided that outlet for Kirk.

The first week we were on the air, there was one bag of mail. People were writing that they loved the show and asked for autographed pictures. That was encouraging. The second week we got three bags of mail. That was interesting. And then the deluge started, and in fact, it still hasn’t ended. We had not the slightest idea what we were creating; we were always fighting to stay on the air one more season, one more week.

What was surprising to me was that rather than Capt. James T. Kirk, the character who received the most attention, and the most fan mail, was Mr. Spock. This was long before Leonard and I became friends, and honestly, I hadn’t expected it, and I was not especially thrilled about it. I was being paid the largest salary, I was out front for the publicity, I had the most lines, my character’s fate carried the story line, my character got the girl and saved the ship. The natural flow of events should have been that Kirk would receive the most attention, not some alien with strange-looking ears.

But the spectacular performance Leonard gave occupied all that attention in the beginning. Mr. Spock fan clubs were formed. Newspapers and magazines ran features on this extraordinary new character. Gene Roddenberry, the show’s creator, got a memo from the network suggesting that Spock be featured in every story. My future was on the line, and that line seemed to be getting shaky. And so, for a few weeks, I was quite jealous. It bothered me so much that I went to Gene Roddenberry’s office to discuss it with him. Gene was the voice of good reason in this case. “Don’t be afraid of having other popular and talented people around you,” he said. “They can only enhance your performance. The more you work with these people, the better the show is going to be.” In other words, the more popular Spock became, the better it was for everyone, including me, and I settled down to that lovely fact.

Spock evolved as Leonard explored all the possibilities of the character. It was a considerably more complex task than usual because there were no recognizable hallmarks. This was a brand-new character in American culture; he was carving out the path. There was no traditional right or wrong; the audience would tell him what was true. So Leonard took great care to protect Spock. He explained to me once, “No one else is going to provide that consistency and continuity. If the writers gave me the line ‘Let’s make hay under the Vulcan moon,’ it was up to me to remind them that three episodes earlier Spock had mentioned that Vulcan had no moons.”

Most of the hallmarks that became associated with Spock, in particular the Vulcan neck pinch and the Vulcan salute, were entirely Leonard’s creation. In one of our first episodes, Kirk’s personality was split into good and evil, and evil Kirk was about to kill good Kirk. In the script, Spock was supposed to sneak up behind evil Kirk and knock him out by hitting him over the head with the butt of his phaser. Leonard wasn’t comfortable with that; brawling, banging someone in the head somehow seemed below Spock’s evolved personality. It was too 20th-century. So he suggested to the director that Spock had a special capability that allowed him to put enemies out of action with little physical exertion. The director was open to the concept.

Leonard and I sat down, and he told me what he had in mind: he would pinch my trapezius muscle, and I would collapse in a heap. I have no idea where that concept came from, but I was a professional actor; I knew how to fall down. Of course, it fit Spock perfectly: an advanced civilization would know where the vital nerves are located and have the physical strength to take advantage of that knowledge to incapacitate their enemy. We did the scene: Spock came up behind evil Kirk and pinched his trapezius, I dropped to the floor, and the Vulcan nerve pinch was born. For those people counting at home, fans of the show saw the Vulcan nerve pinch being used 34 different times. I wonder how many kids since then have had to suffer through the real pain of a Vulcan neck pinch.

The Vulcan salute has become recognized literally throughout the world. In this salute, the right hand is held up with the pinkie and ring finger touching but separated from the middle finger and forefinger, which also are touching, in a modified V-for-victory salute. It was created for the first episode of our second season, by which time Leonard had a strong understanding of Spock. In this episode, “Amok Time,” Spock has to return to Vulcan to fulfill a marriage betrothal that was arranged when he was a child. If he doesn’t return, he will die. This episode was written by the great science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon. This is the first time we have seen Spock on Vulcan, among the people of his race. In the script, he is greeted by the woman who is to conduct the marriage ceremony. Leonard suggested to the director that there needed to be some type of Vulcan greeting that would be appropriate. It would be the Vulcan version of a handshake, a kiss, a nod or bow, or a military salute. When the director agreed, Leonard had to create it. It was not an especially easy thing to envision. It needed to be unlike any traditional greeting, but it couldn’t be at all comical. As he often did, Leonard drew on his own life to find it.

There is a gesture he had first seen when he was 8 years old, when he went with his grandfather, father and brother to an Orthodox synagogue, and he had never forgotten it. In Jewish Orthodox tradition, during the benediction, the Shechinah, which very roughly means the feminine counterpart to God, enters the sanctuary to bless the congregation. The Shechinah is so powerful that simply looking at it could cause serious or even fatal injury. So worshipers use this gesture, in which their fingers form the shape of the Hebrew letter shin to hide their eyes. The gesture always intrigued him. “I didn’t know what it meant for a long time,” he said. “But it seemed magical to me, and I learned how to do it.” Not only did he use it as the basis for the traditional Vulcan greeting in the episode, many years later he published a controversial book of naked glamorous women wearing religious symbols, titled Shekhina. The gesture immediately caught on. Fans of the show started greeting him with it on the street—without realizing they were blessing each other.

Several of Spock’s phrases also have become part of the general culture, but none of them are as widely known as the four words said when giving the Vulcan salute that have come to have such deep meaning: “Live long and prosper.” They were written by Theodore Sturgeon for the same episode and are now known by the abbreviation LLAP—which was the way Leonard ended all his own tweets.

Spock eventually became a lasting archetype for an unemotional person. Even decades later, when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wanted to make the point that President Obama was dispassionate and distant, she referred to him as Spock. Spock’s lack of emotion became a central theme of the show. In fact, a lot of the humor in the show came from the constant sparring between the very human Bones McCoy and Spock. In one episode, for example, Spock comments, “He reminds me of someone I knew in my youth.” To which the surprised Bones responds, “Why, Spock, I didn’t know you had one.”

It is difficult for people who aren’t actors to appreciate the talent it took to create a character that has become a part of American cultural history, the enigmatic Jay Gatsby of the 23rd century, destined to be played and interpreted by other actors. In less capable hands, it could have been a very one-dimensional role, but Leonard was able to create a dynamic inner life for Spock.

It resonated with audiences. Kids began wearing Spock ears, and Leonard received piles and piles of fan mail, far more than any of the other cast members. When he was out in public, people would greet him with a raised hand or wish him, “Live long and prosper.” On a different level, I experienced the same thing. People began addressing me as “Captain” or “Kirk.” That was a new experience for me. I’d had professional success, I’d played a role in some major movies, people recognized me, but I had never before been called by my character’s name. It was odd, and in some ways, it made me uncomfortable. I’m not quite sure why, but it did. I wondered, What is that all about? It’s crazy. So often I didn’t acknowledge it, or I disparaged it.

Perhaps the strangest thing was that eventually Leonard became somewhat ambivalent about his relationship with Spock. Spock made Leonard’s career. In each of the three years the show was on the air, Leonard was nominated for an Emmy for best supporting actor. TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest characters in TV history. Leonard became well known and in demand because of the original series. But the new fear, replacing “I will never work again,” was that he was so strongly identified as Spock that he could never escape him.

For someone who proudly described himself as a character actor, being so strongly typecast he could not play other roles was a terrifying possibility. His first autobiography, published in 1975, was titled I Am Not Spock. The title, he explained, came from a meeting in an airport in which a woman introduced him to her daughter as Spock—although the child was never convinced. It also came from the publisher’s desire to profit from the popularity of Spock as well as create a little controversy. It was not, Leonard always insisted, meant to be a statement about his feelings about Spock, and he said if he ever had the opportunity to portray any fictional character, without hesitation he would choose Spock. And several years later, when he did write a second autobiography, it was titled I Am Spock. He had come full circle.

Adapted from Leonard , by Willam Shatner with David Fisher. Copyright 2016 by the authors and reprinted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, LLC.

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58 Years Later, Star Trek Finally Reveals How Two Legendary Characters Met

Ethan Peck, Paul Wesley, and Strange New Worlds DP Benji Bakshi unpack that big Episode 6 ending.

When did Kirk and Spock meet? Although we saw the famous sci-fi pals get to know each other in the 2009 J.J. Abrams reboot movie Star Trek , the Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto versions of Kirk and Spock weren’t the same ones from the so-called “Prime Universe.” This means, that prior to the 1965 episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” we have never seen, in an episode, or film, the canonical first meeting of Kirk and Spock. Or, Kirk and Uhura for that matter!

But now, Strange New World s has changed everything. In the Season 2 episode “Lost in Translation,” Kirk (Paul Wesley) partners with Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) for the first time, and in the final scene of the episode, meets Spock (Ethan Peck). Here’s how the Strange New Worlds team made this iconic moment so special. Spoilers ahead.

Note: These interviews were conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk and Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , Season 2, Episode 6, “Lost in Translation.”

Primarily, “Lost in Translation” is first, and foremost, an Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) episode. While the Enterprise and the Farragut are assisting in the construction of a Deuterium refinery near Gorn space, Uhura begins receiving telepathic messages in the form of hallucinations and waking dreams. Is she going nuts? Nope! It’s a classic Star Trek case of non-corporeal aliens trying to communicate the only way they know how. Through flashbacks and visions, this episode features the warm return of Bruce Horak as Hemmer — who told everyone last year that he would return in another guise .

But the person who assists Uhura the most in this episode is Lt. James T. Kirk of the USS Farragut . After seeing Paul Wesley’s Kirk in two different alternate universes — Season 1’s “A Quality of Mercy” and Season 2’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” this is the first full-length episode in which Wesley appears as Kirk throughout. At this point in the timeline, he’s the first officer of the Farragut , a fact that annoys Kirk’s brother, Sam Kirk (Dan Jeannotte), who feels like Jim is just showing off. But for Paul Wesley, playing Kirk meant he was stressing out, not showing off.

“Unlike Kirk, in my head, I wasn’t casual about this,” Wesley tells Inverse . “ I was over-analyzing it on set going, oh my God, can you believe this? But Ethan [Peck], was much more cool about it and the director was much more cool about it. They had me chill out.”

Wesley is mostly referring to the fact that the episode ends with Kirk and Uhura hanging out together in the mess hall, and then, Spock joins them and the two men shake hands for the very first time. For the director of photography, Benji Bakshi, doing a shot of the actual handshake was a big deal.

Ethan Peck (Spock) and Paul Wesley (Kirk) fistbump at San Diego Comic-Con, 2022, as Celia Rose Gooding, Christina Chong and Anson Mount look on.

“I’m glad you brought up the handshake,” Bakshi says. “The presentation of that moment was entirely intentional. The director, Dan Liu, and I talked about this a lot. We wondered if it was too obvious to do the handshake. But I think we both decided let’s just have it, right? I think it was a really strong punctuation of the moment, that Uhura gets to witness this. She almost gets to be us, the audience saying ... huh, I’m glad these two finally met.”

For Peck, he was very aware that he was filming a retroactively very historical moment. But, he attributes his calm and cool approach to the scene as “the character [of Spock] really rubbing off on me,” and points out that “I didn't wanna overthink and was really careful not to as well.”

In-universe, Spock, Uhura, and Kirk have no idea, at this point, in 2259, that they’ll be ride-or-die for each other literally until the late 2290s. “Because we're a prequel series, we always have to try not to tip the hat too much,” Bakshi explains. This is why the final shot, in which the camera pulls away, just shows Uhura, Kirk, and Spock as one more table of people in a crowded room. This was just another day. It wasn’t special necessarily. At least not at the time.

Spock and Kirk meet for the first time in Strange New Worlds .

“That disappearing into the crowd was sort of making the statement,” Bakshi says. “If you were there a fly on the wall, you just see these people in the corner and you wouldn't know what it would become. Uhura doesn’t know who she’s going to become. We, as the audience, get to play with that drama. It’s gonna be awesome because Spock is going to save the galaxy and do all this stuff. But they don’t know this, so we get to revel in their journey.”

Peck says that at this moment, there’s no way Spock can know how much affection he’ll end up having for Jim Kirk. “I recall having a lot of skepticism for Kirk, from the perspective of Spock,” Peck explains. “But, there’s also that spark of chemistry between the two of them that I think, I hope we captured.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Paramount+.

• Science Fiction

How Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Stars Felt About That Major Kirk And Spock Moment In ‘Lost In Translation’

A major event in Star Trek history unfolded in front of our eyes.

Warning: SPOILERS for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Lost in Translation” are ahead!

While each Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode is notable in its own way, Season 6’s sixth episode, “Lost in Translation,” featured some especially big moments. For one thing, Celia Rose Gooding’s Nyota Uhura experienced strange visions of Bruce Horak’s Hemmer, the Enterprise’s former chief engineer who died in Season 1’s penultimate episode. Uhura helped during this stressful time by the First Officer of fellow Federation ship Farragut, James T. Kirk, with Paul Wesley finally getting to play the character in the main Star Trek timeline . While Uhura and Kirk meeting was certainly meaningful, it was an arguably an even bigger deal when Kirk and Ethan Peck’s Spock were introduced to one another, and Peck and Gooding reflected to CinemaBlend about how they felt shooting that major moment.

Ever since Star Trek: The Original Series premiered in 1966, James Kirk and Spock have been cemented as one of pop culture’s most famous duos, with the characters originally being played by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy , respectively. However, The Original Series started off with Kirk and Spock already having a working dynamic together, so with Strange New Worlds taking place over half a decade before the show that kicked off this franchise, it was the perfect platform to show how they met. Starting off, Ethan Peck said the following to me when I asked him ahead of “Lost in Translation” premiering to Paramount+ subscribers (and prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike) about what it was like taking part in this scene:

For me, I never think of how a scene is going to be perceived externally, or really anything I’m doing on that show, because it brings too much pressure, it’s too distorting. So for me, it was just meeting this guy. Paul and I have a great rapport off camera, so he and I get along, we catch up and are friends off-camera. It was fun to load that moment with that chemistry. I would argue… I read a great article in The New York Times, I wish I could remember the name of the author, that was celebrating the occurrence of love at first sight platonically, and I think it’s a platonic love at first sight. I felt that there was an immediate respect and curiosity and skepticism and fear too, because these are just two very capable and incredible people, and I feel that moment was filled with that. And I just had the experience of that, and I didn’t think too much more of it. But yeah, it was nuts.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Star Gia Sandhu Tells Us Why She Sympathizes With T’Pring, Despite How Things Ultimately End With Spock

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Showrunners Discuss That Big Khan Surprise, And What Makes It Special For All Audiences

While 2009’s Star Trek did show Chris Pine ’s James Kirk and Zachary Quinto ’s Spock crossing paths for the first time, that movie and its sequels took place in the alternate Kelvin timeline. Strange New Worlds , on the other hand, operates in the same universe that all the other TV shows and the first ten theatrical movies take place in. And granted, Wesley and Peck did share some screen time in the Season 1 episode "A Quality of Mercy,” but that was in an alternate future where Pike was still captaining the Enterprise and Kirk was in charge of the Farragut during a different take on The Original Series ’ “Balance of Terror.” So once James Kirk stepped foot on the Enterprise in “Lost in Translation,” it was only a matter of time that he’d see Spock.

As Ethan Peck explained, while he didn’t dedicate a ton of thought to Kirk and Spock’s meeting in terms of it being an important event in Star Trek history, he did enjoy working with Paul Wesley and acknowledged that these two characters make for an excellent pairing. The meeting did have added significance for Celia Rose Gooding though, as it was Uhura who introduced the two after Kirk had previously seen Spock play three-dimensional chess with Christine Chapel. Here’s what Gooding said about their character being the catalyst for such a major moment in this franchise:

It felt so right. It felt so good [laughs]. Especially after going through such an intense episode, it felt like a real gift for me and for Uhura to… after going through such a deep emotional moment… not even a reminder in the moment, but it gives her an opportunity when she’s older to look back and say, ‘I was the person who got these two together.’ It almost makes all of that emotional journey worth it. Especially for her, it makes it worth it, because she knows that she can do it and she knows that that’s not going stop her or break her emotional nature. As an actor, those moments of the reason why we had to have those dark moments was to make those light moments shine even brighter. And so to have that Spock and Kirk meeting in Uhura’s deep emotional episode I think was very purposeful and also very just beautiful and wonderful to have a piece of. I think we’re establishing a lot of wonderful canon for Trekkies to have and to look back on, so the timing of it… I enjoy it. I think it’s lovely.

Of course, it takes more than one meeting to establish familiarity, so although James T. Kirk and Spock now know about one another, we’re a long ways off until they have that unique dynamic on display in The Original Series . Still, between his brother Sam serving as one of the Enterprise’s life science officers and his new connections with Uhurua, Christopher Pike and La’an Noonien Singh (with the latter two having already versions of Kirk from other realities), it’s only a matter of time before he finds his way back on the Enterprise. The more that happens, the more he and Spock can get to know each other and build that friendship Star Trek fans love so much.

There are four episodes left in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, with next week’s being the long-awaited Lower Decks crossover guest-starring Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid as Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler, respectively. Strange New Worlds has also already been renewed for Season 3, so keep visiting CinemaBlend for updates on the series’ future and other upcoming Star Trek TV shows , as well as to peruse our 2023 TV schedule .

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Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.

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Star Trek history was made and Strange New Worlds barely cared (which is great)

Spock finally met Kirk and it was... quiet

by Dylan Roth

[ Ed. note: This post contains material from an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike against the AMPTP went into effect.]

In the closing scene of Thursday’s new episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , a group of Starfleet officers socialize in the mess hall of the USS Enterprise, unpacking the events of their latest adventure. In the course of a relatively uneventful conversation, Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) takes a moment to introduce her new friend, Lieutenant Commander James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), to her shipmate Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck). It’s an entirely casual encounter, far from the monumental event that one might imagine from the first meeting of two people with a lifelong friendship ahead of them.

That, however, may be exactly the point. Ever since these new interpretations of Kirk and Spock debuted on Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Discovery , respectively, they have been permitted to establish themselves as individual characters, complete people rather than components of some prophesied “one true pairing.” By denying Kirk and Spock the expected cosmic meet-cute, viewers can be treated to something far more satisfying: organic growth befitting a real, lasting relationship.

While the Star Trek canon has never previously specified how and when Kirk and Spock came to know each other, the idea of spinning their first encounter as a grand adventure has always been an easy sell. The notion has inspired two licensed novels ( Enterprise: The First Adventure by Vonda N. McIntyre in 1986 and Star Trek: Academy: Collision Course by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens in 2007), but more notably became the centerpiece of the 2009 film reboot, set in its own alternate timeline. Here, the rebellious young Cadet Kirk (Chris Pine) is caught cheating at a Starfleet Academy exam, which puts him at odds with the exam’s designer, Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto).

The two immediately become adversaries, until this alternate Kirk has a chance encounter with the classic Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Kirk is baffled that any version of his rival would be so happy to see him, but Spock Prime assures him that the friendship between them will come to “define [them] both.” With that, Kirk’s attitude toward his own timeline’s Spock changes on a dime, granting their interactions an immediate gravity but robbing us the chance to actually see them become friends. We are told that their friendship is important, and we accept this because almost everyone watching already knows that Kirk and Spock are best friends.

Where 2009’s Star Trek frames Kirk and Spock’s early lives as a mere prelude to their shared destiny, the modern Trek series have never treated them as a matched set. To begin with, Spock was reintroduced as a foil to a totally different character: his foster sister, Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), on Star Trek: Discovery . We first meet Ethan Peck’s Spock in the midst of an emotional crisis, sporting a scruffy beard and a bad attitude. Spock’s story here is about the origins of his rejection of human feeling, here explained as a consequence of his fraught relationship with his human foster sister.

“My onboarding has been much longer,” says Peck, “and I’ve had a lot more time to develop my character than Paul has. I have the luxury of this very established inner world with Spock.”

Discovery ’s only allusion to Spock’s future comes in Michael’s final words of advice before she is propelled a millennium into the future, never to see him again: “There is a whole galaxy out there full of people who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find the person who seems farthest from you, and reach for them. Let them guide you.”

At the time, this felt like it foreshadowed Spock’s future friendship with the all-too-human Kirk. However, after a season and a half of Strange New Worlds , it feels as if Spock has already let Michael’s words resonate in his daily life. He has a human mentor in Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), and is currently exploring a romantic relationship with Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), who’s even more of a rambunctious wild card than Kirk. We’ve now seen Spock wrestle with his emotions, deconstruct the human/Vulcan binary, and try his hand at starship command before sci-fi’s favorite Iowan even enters his life. He’s already a complete and compelling character in his own right, and his role on this series is distinct from the one Leonard Nimoy’s version performed on The Original Series .

Similarly, Strange New Worlds has deliberately kept distance between recurring guest star Jim Kirk and his future better half. Two of Paul Wesley’s four appearances on Strange New Worlds to date have been from parallel timelines in which he, pointedly, has never met Spock. His first appearance, the season 1 finale “A Quality of Mercy,” is designed to contrast an alternate Kirk against Captain Pike, not against Spock (though they do share a scene together). It’s an introduction to Kirk as an agitator, someone whose guiding star is instinct, versus Pike’s empathy. His next appearance explores him as a romantic foil to Lieutenant Commander La’an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong). This is Kirk the everyman, Kirk the charmer, the side of him that flirts and hustles chess. (This Kirk, too, has a brief meeting with an alternate Spock over a video conference, another light tease toward the idea of the two proper versions of them meeting up.)

“Ethan and I didn’t chemistry-read together,” reveals Wesley, “which is kind of surprising. I think [the writers] are just allowing it to grow naturally, and just trusting the process.”

Finally, in this week’s “Lost in Translation,” it’s Uhura, not Spock, with whom the “real” Kirk bonds aboard the Enterprise. It’s through Uhura that we finally get to know what makes Jim tick, as the ever-curious communicator coaxes out the earnest, selfless side of him that will one day make him a great captain. Their small misadventure together leads Uhura to introduce him to Spock in the ship’s mess hall, with no intent behind the gesture aside from basic politeness.

“Paul and I have talked a lot about their first meeting,” says Peck, “and for Spock, Kirk is just another Starfleet officer.”

“I think a lot of times in life, we do things without thinking about them,” says Wesley. “I think a lot of times, our instincts draw us to people when we’re missing something that we think the other person can fulfill, but it’s super subconscious.”

While this quite incidental first meeting between Star Trek’s most famous duo might seem like a missed opportunity, the truth is that the narrative did not need to make Kirk and Spock’s handshake into an important event — we, the fans, were always going to do that. Profundity is baked into the very image, thanks to 55 years of real-life baggage. Instead, the storytellers behind Strange New Worlds have done us a far greater service — making Kirk and Spock interesting enough separately that connecting them feels like a piece of their journey, rather than the beginning or the end.

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Interview: Paul Wesley & Ethan Peck On Starting Kirk & Spock’s Friendship In ‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 2

| June 8, 2023 | By: Anthony Pascale 49 comments so far

TrekMovie joined a virtual group press interview with two of the stars from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in advance of the impending debut of season 2. Paul Wesley (recurring role as James T. Kirk) and Ethan Peck (series regular as Spock) talked about what’s new for their characters in season 2 and how they relate to the canon established in The Original Series . Ethan Peck also talks about that Lower Decks crossover.

Note: The interview contains some minor spoilers and has been edited for brevity and clarity.  

What did you appreciate most about your own character’s trajectories this season?

Ethan Peck: I love so much the earnestness that Spock brings to his journey. There’s such a childlike vulnerability in the way that he explores himself and certain situations. Because he is so young as a human being, right? He’s half-and-half and his human side is nascent and I think that makes for a lot of really great comedic opportunities as well because he’s always the odd man out, sort of the strange one in the room. And that’s really fun to play.

Paul Wesley: In many ways, I think Kirk is still boy, at least in the version that I sort of have been playing. I’m not sure he understands how to be a captain yet. I think he’s still a lieutenant. And I think he’s not ready to be a captain yet. And I would like to slowly begin to portray him as someone with a deep confidence and an unwavering sort of sense of who he is. But I don’t think he’s quite there yet. And I think that’s sort of what makes it sort of special to watch.

Paul, you are portraying a different version of Kirk in season 2, compared to the season 1 finale. Was there a particular touchstone or throughline you looked toward when portraying these different versions ?

Paul Wesley: Season 1 is based on “Balance of Terror” and I watched that episode multiple times and Kirk is very serious. Then as you watch TOS, there are moments where he’s incredibly playful. And I think every episode speaks to a different characteristic and quality that Kirk has. And I think season 2, episode 3 was very playful. But also, the one throughline is that he’s very heroic, and he has a really good moral compass. And he always trusts his instincts. So I think that is sort of the pillar and that’s something that is not movable.

What elements of Kirk and Spock were you two most excited to explore?

Ethan Peck: I think I was most excited to explore the sort of adversarial component of the relationship, which maybe we will maybe we won’t.

Paul Wesley: Thus far, it’s obviously the genesis–it’s still the beginning of this friendship that we all know so well. But I think what’s great is that they don’t know what their friendship is going to be, yet. They really don’t know what it is about one another that is alluring or intriguing. I wanted to sort of portray a little bit of that hint of intrigue, but it’s subconscious. You don’t really understand why Kirk is drawn to this guy and why he finds him compelling.

Paul Wesley as Lt. Kirk with Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura in season 2 trailer

In the challenge of playing a prequel character, how mindful are you of where you are going to in the canon that has been established before?

Ethan Peck: From a performance perspective, it’s so difficult to keep all that in mind, because we are so far from the beginning of The Original Series . I would really task the writers with that job. I think that we will see a Spock go through many different types of exploration of himself and they may appear more human at times or more Vulcan at times, or who knows how else? We’ll see. But yeah, I don’t think about it too much.

Paul Wesley: I certainly think about it. But I think it would be a mistake to sort of automatically be that version of the Kirk that is part of the canon we know. I think he’s still sort of trying to figure himself out. I think part of the fun of playing this character, pre the Kirk that we all know, is to slowly evolve and to slowly develop the mannerisms or characteristics or the cadence. I think that we can sort of slowly get there. And I think if we get there from day one it’s a little bit less interesting to watch. So I wanted to keep it sort of a little bit unique and different. But of course, I think about it.

Ethan, can you talk about what it was like working on the Lower Decks crossover, and especially with Jack Quaid, as it appears Boimler has a special relationship with Spock. And did you join him in any improvising? And Paul, please jump in if there is anything to add.

Ethan Peck: I met Jack a few years ago at a convention and we had such a nice connection right off the bat. And so I remember thinking at that time, I’d love to work with this guy. He’s also from LA. We just share a lot of similar context. And it was so much fun working with him. Jonathan Frakes, who directed the episode, coined us “Spoimler,” which is a hybrid of our names Spock and Boimler. That just made me so happy to have this joke with Jonathan Frakes, who I so revere. I didn’t do much improvising as I stay on my rails as Spock. It’s quite difficult to improvise when he’s speaking about some matters of science. But Jack had a little more leeway with that and he did improvise, which was really fun.

Paul Wesley: I wasn’t a part of the episode, so I’m going plead the fifth.

Ethan Peck as Spock says goodbye to Boimler (Jack Quaid) from the season 2 trailer.

What has the positive reaction to season 1 been like for you as you step into season 2?

It’s been so relieving. We were mid-production on season 2 when the first episode of season 1 premiered. So we were well on our way into the second season. To not know how you’re doing was kind of insane. Personally, when I saw the first two episodes at the premiere in New York, I was really taken aback by the high level of quality that I was suddenly a part of. I didn’t know what to expect because we do our job; we carry the baton for the time that we’re there on set and you just kind of never know how it’s going to turn out. And so I’m just so thrilled and excited to be part of an amazing production and team of creatives.

Paul Wesley: I came in the season finale of season 1. These guys have been shooting it, and Ethan, of course, was part of Discovery . And so I came in and shot a few scenes and the next thing you know season 1 premieres, and everyone’s in love with the show. It has all these brilliant reviews. I think it’s very hard to create a version of a show that is so beloved. And I think it’s a huge, huge undertaking. And I think these guys did it so brilliantly. I’m not going to take any credit for it, because I wasn’t a part of it until the very, very end. So you know, I’m just grateful to be a part of this fantastic series with these really brilliant actors and brilliant writers, and frankly, more importantly, nice people.

Ethan, can you tell us something that you like about how Paul played Kirk? And Paul, can you say something that you’d like about how Ethan played Spock?

Ethan Peck: Paul, as the actor approaching the role, he was so careful and really took it very seriously. It was very measured in his approach, which I really love to see because I think all of us in the show really accept the burden of these iconic characters and are excited about it. And he showed up to the party with much the same approach and strategy. And then in terms of his embodiment of Kirk, I think he just brings so much charm, and magnetism. He’s devilish. And I love being on the other side of the camera from him when we’re doing these scenes.

Paul Wesley: I echo everything that Ethan just said. It’s extremely difficult to play Spock. I can’t even imagine. He does such a wonderful job of paying homage to those mannerisms, the cadence, the voice. I think the stoicism with little hints of humanity and vulnerability that he’s so desperately trying to find is so well portrayed in Ethan’s version of Spock. Yeah, I’m quite in awe of it, actually.

Ethan Peck as Spock from the season 2 trailer

More to come

We have more interviews from the press junket coming up so stay tuned. Check out the earlier interview with Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn .

Season 2 will premiere Thursday, June 15 on  Paramount+  in the U.S, the U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The second season will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in South Korea, with premiere dates to be announced at a later date. Following the premiere, new episodes of the 10-episode season will drop weekly on Thursdays.

Find more stories on the  Star Trek Universe .

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Although I’m still skeptical of Wesley being Kirk (and I don’t think he should be around this early in the timeline regardless) I am really looking forward to seeing him and Peck together. I’m hoping we get a real spark of that relationship and the beginning of what made that friendship so iconic.

And I can see Spoimler printed on T-shirts lol. I think we are in for a really fun episode and season overall!

As i’ve been saying since last season, I remain skeptical… But I keep reminding myself that the Kirk we saw last season was an alternate timeline Kirk and never met Spock or McCoy and wasn’t supposed to resemble to Kirk we ever knew. So while I am skeptical I also remain hopeful going into next thursday.

Yes agreed. It would be unfair to write him off after one episode and that is supposed to be an alternate version at the same time. So maybe he will be a better (and authentic?) version next season.

I’m on the fence about having Kirk there at all. But now that he’s there, I’m rooting for him just like I did Pike who I also originally questioned being on Discovery.

I totally agree about having him there at all. Frankly I originally envisioned Kirk coming in for the last season of SNW. But hey here we are right? hopefully he will be in an ep or 3 and not like the majority of the season. The guy needs to be spending his time on the Farragaut and not the Enterprise.

Shatner and Nimoy had just amazing chemistry. I hope that Wesley and Peck will, too. Did the showrunners test their potential Kirks in a test scene with Peck? I remember that the reboot folks hired Quinto first, then tested potential Kirks with him…

The chemistry of Shatner and Nimoy is so hard to replicate tho. NOt only do they have the strongest chemistry of any pair in Star Trek, you’d be hard pressed to find another duo that had stronger bro chemistry in hollywood. IMO I’d a big part of what made the end of TWoK so powerful, not just the scene and the writing themselves. You just can’t replicate that which is why STID failed so hard.

“NOt only do they have the strongest chemistry of any pair in Star Trek…”

Alexander Siddig and Colm Meaney (or, for that matter, Siddig and Andrew Robinson). Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan (and, to be clear, I’m a certified Voyager hater.)

To be sure they have strong chemistry. But not nearfly as much as Shatner and Nimoy. And Mulgrew and Ryan hated each other during the original VOY run.

Yeah, Shatner and Nimoy are amazing together. There’s an interview they did together after not having seen one another for years, and they just click instantly, to the interviewer’s amazement.

I thought Pine and Quinto had excellent chemistry — Abrams hired Quinto, then tested potential Kirks with him, to make sure — I thought the ending of STID failed because the characters hadn’t EARNED that ending yet. TOS’s Kirk and Spock had been in 79 episodes and one movie together, so they really did have a profound relationship. Reboot Kirk and Spock had been in a single movie together, so they had a superficial relationship and hadn’t earned the emotional death scene.

My head-canon is that Spock went apeshit when Kirk died, not because he was so fond of Kirk, but because it was the last straw. He’d lost his mother and his entire freaking PLANET, and he couldn’t lose one single thing more.

“ My head-canon is that Spock went apeshit when Kirk died, not because he was so fond of Kirk, but because it was the last straw. He’d lost his mother and his entire freaking PLANET, and he couldn’t lose one single thing more.”

I detest that movie, but this is an absolutely fair reading of that (and is very kind to Abrams.)

Oh, I hate STID, too; I think it’s a cheap and cynical attempt to capitalize on the popularity of TWOK, without having earned TWOK’s emotional resonance. But I love the TOS characters enough that I want their reboot counterparts to make sense to me, so I think about them, anyway. :-)

PIne and Quinto did have good chemistry. I won’t say great but I did see thim in interviews together and they did seem like a genune good fit. But as you said in STID it wasn’t earned yet. But that wasn’t just in universe but IRL too. We didn’t get a chance to grow with these esentially new characters which, lets be honest, they were.

I agree Spock lost his planet and then Kirk and then it was like *SNAP*! But it’s like throughout that trilogy Spock was ironically the most emotional peoson of the crew by far and that just made me snap lol. I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

I really want Spock to be a restrained and logical Vulcan scientist, not an emotional guy who happens to have pointed ears. But reboot Spock watched his entire planet implode and saw his mother fall to her death inches from his hand. I think the guy must have severe PTSD, which results in reboot Spock’s having WAY less control over himself. I hate it that the writers did this to a character named Spock, but I think his post-implosion emotionality does have a reasonable explanation.

Leonard Nimoy was so good that he looked restrained and controlled even when you saw him from the BACK; he just had this visible aura of containment about him. That’s what I want to see in any Spock; unfortunately for Zachary Quinto, he can’t play that, because the writers aren’t writing him that.

Thank heavens the SNW writers are talking about giving Peck’s Spock a journey that will have him end up where we know Spock is supposed to be. I really think taking Spock’s behavior in the failed first pilot as canon is a mistake, but that ship has obviously sailed, so now I’m just hoping for a good story reason for him to become ever more Spocklike.

Yeah I know. Quinto Spock had every right to be as sad as he was. He lost his entire world, literally. But for me it just wasn’t TOS trek after that and it took me out of the story. I know they made it a soft reboot for a reason so they could do what they want and more power to them for that. It just didn’t resonate with me personally is all.

Oh, no, I agree! If Spock isn’t a restrained Vulcan scientist, then he’s not MY Spock! :-)

Wesley is great in S2. Really warming to him. Since they teased it here, I really like their first meeting. Understated.

Thanks for the nonspoilery confirmation.

It’s great to know that Paramount has learned from success of the wide distribution of screened for Picard S3. Getting more episodes to more than just the pro critics seems the way to build buzz.

Maybe there is hope for Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk. We shall see.

AHHHHH 1 week and counting!!!!

YES! Soon, oh, soon!!

I wish we could have a viewing party!!!!

I wish that, too! They can’t invent the transporter soon enough!

I remember a long time ago, like over a decade ago, there was a network, like scifi (back before it was syfy) that aired a Star Trek TOS marathon and at the botom of the screen was an Internet live blog stream where fans could post in real time about the episode(s) that were airing. That was fun!

I can’t help but wonder if “alluring” means what it sounds like…

I noticed that, too. A hint of K/S there… :-)

Paul Wesley seems like a nice guy and a solid actor. I will go into this season open-minded, but I just don’t like the idea of a young Jim Kirk on this show and think he was miscast.

But I AM very excited for the Lower Decks crossover. I love funny Star Trek along with serious Star Trek and hope this is a good one!

I wouldn’t mind a new TOS series with Paul, Ethan, and Celia after SNW.

I wouldn’t mind if it was year 4 and 5 of the 5 year mission. Just don’t retcon TOS.

Well, we only saw 79 episodes within that 5-year mission, so that leaves roughly 1700-odd potential stories left untold. They could weave a lot of new content between the existing canon waypoints, without touching them. At best, we might get some extended content that answers questions left dangling, sheds new light/context, etc, and that’s fun.

Ya thats true. They could intermix. But tbh that makes me more nervous. But ya that could also be fun with in universe references and stuff! Like a follow up ep to Balance of Terror and such

Like Kirk’s first mission and the final mission, where Spock and McCoy resigned.

Agreed there.

Although I’ve long thought that Paul Wesley is way too old to portray a Kirk in his 20’s, I really like his thinking here! He’s clearly an intelligent and thoughtful man who cares a lot about getting it right, and that goes a long way with me.

I still wish he were 28 instead of 40 and had light brown hair instead of dark brown, but this interview is making me want to overlook those things. Good job, Mr. Wesley!

It definitely eases my mind a bit going into Season 2. He doesn’t seem at all cavalier about the role he has stepped into. I’m excited to get to know Lieutenant Kirk , I just hope his presence doesn’t override what SNW is supposed to be. If he’s in a couple episodes this year, fine, but I’d be totally okay if they excluded him from Season 3 completely.

Yes, I really want this to be PIKE’S show, not Kirk’s. Anson Mount is doing a fabulous job as Pike, and I don’t want him to be overshadowed by anyone. There’s plenty of time to bring in Kirk once Mr. Mount gets tired of the role. It sounds as if Kirk might be only in one episode, though.

Most of the actors in SNW have sounded as if they really GET it. Mount, Peck, Romjin, Wesley, Navia, Gooding … they all sound like they know what they’ve been entrusted with. It’s heart-warming.

Right for the part or not, he seems to genuinely care about the part. And fun fact, he used to be neighbors with William Shatner and knows him! So I’m betting he has him on speed dial lol

LOL ya, he is way too old… But to be fair this has always been a hollywood thing. How many times have we seen a show about a bunch of high schoolers played by people in their 30’s :)

I think that’s a little different, though. It takes time to learn the craft of acting, so there aren’t that many 15-year-olds who are great actors, so showrunners hire people in their 20’s. But Kirk is supposed to be like 28 at this point, and there are plenty of good actors within five years of that age; they don’t have to go TWELVE years older.

Thats true. Fair

I just hope there’s a reason why Kirk seems to have captains stripes. He should be a lieutenant. That is not a nit pick. It’s way too early for him to be captain.

Wesley says in this interview that Kirk is a lieutenant here.

He has lieutenant’s stripes in another episode.

We know there’ll be time travel at some point. So, let’s not get ahead of what we’ve seen.

Yeah, I have a feeling that the scene with him and La’an involves some sort of time jump where Kirk is Captain and Space Seed has already happened.

My hesitations about the casting of JTK aside and his appearance at all already, I’m kind of bummed this is even a thing at this point. I really like Mount as Pike, and was hoping/expecting/was led to believe this was to be Pike’s story,, which would also get into why Spock was so loyal to him as to disobey direct orders in ‘The Cage.’ Bringing JTK in so early and prominently, I don’t know. He and Spock seemed practically strangers in WNMHGB. Ahh, prequels.

As always dude, we fully agree. Of course it’s cool to have Kirk back and the ratings upside alone makes it an easy decision once you went back to that era and on the Enterprise. I just wish they had a little more restraint and pushed it off a few more years. Five years before he even becomes captain seems like a ridiculously long time. We have to believe he knew Uhura for that long too and she basically just felt like a subordinate in the first season of TOS. But of course we also have to believe both her and Spock was close with his brother as well since he literally worked on the ship. Sigh

Yeah…prequels.

Though the episode starts off with a friendly game of chess between the two, their interplay after that is so fraught that many have assumed over the decades that Kirk and Spock’s friendship doesn’t really begin until the tag of “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” where Spock admits to feeling regret over Mitchell’s death and Kirk wryly allows that there might be some hope for him after all. So if their friendship is evident in this season of SNW, some could say that’s a bit of a retcon, but not a serious one.

I like it. The friendship starts when Kirk beats Spock in a game of 3D Chess and Spock is intrigued because no human, Pike included has ever been able to acomplish that before. Kirk is a genius and known for being a walking stack of books at the academy after all :)

This is the first interview where Wesley didn’t come across like an arrogant @ss. JTK should never have been brought into this show, but now that we’re stuck with him, I hope Wesley’s portrayal is more true to what he says here instead of his earlier comments.

I noticed that. I’m wondering if he’s seeing the comments on himself.

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In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.

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• Trivia In the hallways of the Enterprise there are tubes marked "GNDN." These initials stand for "goes nowhere does nothing."
• Goofs The deck locations for Kirk's Quarters, Sickbay and Transporter Room vary (usually between decks 4-7) throughout the series.

Dr. McCoy : "He's dead, Jim."

• Crazy credits On some episodes, the closing credits show a still that is actually from the Star Trek blooper reel. It is a close-up of stunt man Bill Blackburn who played an android in Return to Tomorrow (1968) , removing his latex make up. In the reel, He is shown taking it off, while an off-screen voice says "You wanted show business, you got it!"
• Alternate versions In 2006, CBS went back to the archives and created HD prints of every episode of the show. In addition to the new video transfer, they re-did all of the model shots and some matte paintings using CGI effects, and re-recorded the original theme song to clean it up. These "Enhanced" versions of the episodes aired on syndication and have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
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The Simple Feeling and Beyond: Kirk and Spock’s Place in Queer History

The modern understanding of queerness and fandom, in all its myriad forms and complexities, owes the lion’s share of thanks to James T. Kirk and Spock. They were the genesis of the phrase “slash fiction” (that’s romantic fanfic between same gendered characters, for those of you who are very sheltered), were featured in zines that formed the basis of modern communal fanfiction and fanart sharing, and were some of the only intimately close male characters not to get paired off with paper-thin female love interests out of panic. Though of course, the last one might’ve been because Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was fully on board with implying that they were queer.

Sorry, should I maybe explain that a little more?

People have been dissecting the subtext embedded in Star Trek for decades now, from Henry Jenkins (who was more or less the pioneer in writing about fandom from an academic perspective) all the way to web series like The Ship’s Closet. That is its own brand of important, since reinterpreting media to create space for the unseen has been one of the few recourses of marginalized voices for many years. But those fine individuals are too often dismissed as delusional or ridiculous, “projecting things that aren’t there” (or “recognizing things that I do not personally relate to my life experiences and therefore it isn’t a thing). So instead, let’s focus on the proponents of queerness behind the scenes.

As most good discussions of Kirk and Spock must, let’s take a moment to delve a bit into Theodore Sturgeon. Star Trek had an amazing rap sheet of famous sci-fi writers, and this guy was no exception: he wrote some of the most influential works in the genre in addition to coining the eponymous “Sturgeon’s Law”—that 90% of everything is garbage, but the remaining 10% is brilliant. He was also responsible for writing a story called “The World Well Lost,” which was then far and away the most sympathetic portrayal of queer characters in sci-fi (and many a comment has been made about how the two main characters of that story resemble, in broad strokes, our Starfleet officers).

And while Sturgeon might’ve written one overtly queer work, he was also more or less the master of subtext. The two scripts he contributed to the Star Trek universe? “ Shore Leave ” and “ Amok Time ,” the former of which contains the infamous backrub scene and the latter of which might be the single most homoerotic episode of television ever produced (but this is by far my favorite bit ). “Amok Time” particularly is a downright Romeo & Juliet of a story, if we replace “families” with “cultures.” And more besides, it’s one of the show’s most instantly recognizable episodes, moving its placement from “nice nerdy fact” to “quite significant indeed.”

As for the actors, things veer from the neutral to the positive. Leonard Nimoy made no mention of the perception of the relationship as romantic in either of his autobiographies nor any interviews I could find (frankly I imagine he had enough on his plate with all the pearl-clutching outcry about Spock’s ears looking “demonic” and so forth). He was an astonishingly progressive man, however, from his beautiful fat-acceptance photography work to playing a gay character right around the time Star Trek was airing (that was 1966’s Deathwatch , and while it might not seem like a big deal now that was the kind of move that could tank an actor’s career). Shatner was a bit more open in making teasing sorts of comments about it, from the ’70s all the way up to more recent stuff . I confess this is no damning evidence, but part of a larger cumulative effect I wanted to create.

The most important player of all, at the end of the day, is Gene Roddenberry himself. Which is both the crowning achievement and the waffling difficulty of the whole affair (but more on that in a minute). The first thing to know is that Roddenberry was inspired by Alexander the Great and Hephaestion when he imagined the relationship between Kirk and Spock—he discusses it in an interview that can be found in the William Shatner biography Shatner: Where No Man . What’s notable about that (hold on history buffs, I know you’re way ahead of me) is why those two were on his mind. Roddenberry notes that he’d read the biographies of Alexander the Great written by Mary Renault, which had been published recently. Renault’s biographies, it is also worth noting, were among the first to discuss the sexual/romantic relationship between Alexander and Haphaestion (and also she had to flee the States eventually to be able to write about queer characters without fear of censorship). So that’s our creative starting point.

Star Trek as a show was—is—famous for how progressive it was at the time, more often than not hidden under layers of allegory to distract the censors: it commented on race relations (and featured TV’s first interracial kiss despite the censors’ damndest efforts to quash it), the Vietnam War, sexism (albeit with a few…time period hangups of their own), and wrapped all of it up in a thick cloud of optimistic humanism that’s become rarified air in the decades since. But they were always limited in what they would do—Roddenberry himself commented that if he’d actually given the characters 23rd century values, he’d have terrified his audience.

I bring up that little comment to discuss a far more famous one, perhaps the most famous in regard to our besotted officers. I’m even going to quote it in full, for a change. This was likewise in Shatner’s biography, in the same interview as the Alexander tidbit.

Yes, there’s certainly some of that—certainly with love overtones. Deep love. The only difference being, the Greek ideal—we never suggested in the series—physical love between the two. But it’s the—we certainly had the feeling that the affection was sufficient for that, if that were the particular style of the 23rd century.

The last line is his ticket out, and possibly the craftiest bit of sidestepping I’ve ever seen. This is a man who knows he’d recently gone through hell in attempting to show a kiss between Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner. This book was published in 1979, when there was still time a-plenty for unholy hell to come down on his head were he to suggest a physical relationship between Kirk and Spock. So he demurs, as a man who must’ve known damn well that by the time a future that’s abolished capitalism and apparently solved (human) racism comes around they’re probably also okay with the queer community.

And if we take that to be true, then we can also acknowledge that he’s given the round-about confirmation of the romance—as direct as we’re likely to get, anyway, given the issues of censorship and societal pressure that even such a staunch progressivist would’ve had difficulty. 1979 is where we’re going to cap things off for the most part, by talking about the last project Roddenberry had major control over.

If you can’t believe this was cut from the original theatrical run to
make room for more VFX, clap your hands!

I speak, naturally, of the largely reviled Star Trek: The Motion Picture . While we can all agree that that film had a crippling amount of baggage, from its origins as a failed pitch for a new series (hence the often cited “small screen” feel of it) to its pained desire to ape the success of 2001: A Space Odyssey, there is one thing it does very well: it is an almost pitch-perfect resolution of Spock’s anguish over his human heritage. That subplot is engrossing stuff, and Nimoy works through it with great dignity in spite of the limitations of the script and production (it may help that he doesn’t have to wear that ridiculous space suit).

Of course, the actual details of why Spock has chosen to purge himself of all emotion are on the vague side in script and novelization, but whatever it was seems to have happened quite suddenly and left an enormous, painful emotional rift between himself and Kirk. This unspoken “whatever it was” sits heavy at the center of the film and comes to a climax in the famed “ This Simple Feeling ” scene, after which Kirk and Spock reconcile, are always together, and have no significant outside love interests in the ensuing five films.

But let me not be coy. I can lay quite the convincing picture that the unnamed “simple feeling” was in fact romantic love. I’d better, because the script pretty much depends on that fact. A fragmented plot synopsis: the moving mass known as “V’Ger” is coming to Earth because there is something it fails to understand, and in search of that answer it might well destroy anything in its wake. The Enterprise—headed by new captain Decker and a very midlife crisising Kirk—go out to try and stop the incoming threat, where they run into Spock attempting to do the same (hold that thought).

V’Ger absorbs one of the Enterprise’s new crewmembers to use as a mouthpiece—Ilia, who was Decker’s lover before she went off to purge herself of all emotions. Meanwhile, Spock risks his life to contact V’Ger’s mind directly, only to find that an existence composed purely of logic is a barren and joyless one. That would be when he declares the importance of that “simple feeling,” clasping Kirk’s hand. Eventually the crew makes their way to V’ger’s core, discover it to actually be the probe Voyager, and stumble upon a solution: Decker offers to be absorbed by the probe so that it can be whole, and so that he can be together with Ilia again. It works because science-magic, and V’ger evolves to a higher state of being because of its new, complete knowledge.

Did you catch all that? So, by absorbing a bold, adventurous Starfleet captain and his logical crewmember—who were intimately involved but had a falling out because said crewmember purged herself of emotion—V’Ger is able to understand “this simple feeling” and become a complete being. The feeling between Ilia and Decker? Romantic love. So then, shall we not read the same emotion into our other adventure Starfleet captain and his logical companion, reconciling over the finally recognized importance of a certain unnamed feeling? There’s subtext, and then there’s “we wrote these two stories so perfectly paralleled that we can’t believe that literally everyone hasn’t pointed it out.”

That brings us to the snag I mentioned earlier. While the film itself is the great clincher of the subtext going on in the TV series (unresolved feelings, if you like), the novelization is often held up as the equally great disclaimer—it contains a footnote, told from Kirk’s perspective, that seems to say that he and Spock were never involved. I say “seems,” because a professional lawyer took that little chunk of wording to pieces in a truly glorious way, until what is often propped up as the shield against the Space Gay comes out sounding like little more than another one of the good captain’s storied attempts at smiling and dodging giving information about himself.

It bears mentioning in the same breath that this is the same novelization that revealed that Spock was unable to complete his Kolinahr because he sensed, from all the way across the galaxy, that Kirk was in distress; and likewise introduced the descriptive term T’hy’la (used by Spock in reference to Kirk), a Vulcan word meaning “friend, brother, lover” (there is a great deal of lingual fun to be had with that word, not least to the idea that a logical people such as Vulcans would be unlikely to have a word with multiple meanings if all were not meant to be applicable in some form, but others have done more complete work on the subject).

So the denial’s not really a denial, the script supports it thematically and in the performance of the actors, and even as they moved into other films without Roddenberry at the helm Kirk and Spock were each other’s most important bond for the rest of their lives. What a world. What a team. What a win for queer geeks.

We aren’t going over  Star Trek III: The Most Romantic Movie I Have Ever Seen ,
 but I couldn’t resist Kirk’s expression.

A final note: while I’m quite the fan of Death of the Author as an interpretive practice, it hasn’t fared queer Star Trek fans so well in the past. Death of the Author meant reams of thoughtful, beautiful interpretive work being swept under the rug in the name of mischaracterizing Kirk as a womanizer among other things (though he was in fact a fine specimen of a feminist ). The general cultural osmosis of Star Trek as “the thing with phasers and Vulcans in space” post-Voyager has slowly eroded the franchise’s progressive mission until we’re left with a former helmsman who freely and happily admitted that he hated the original series and created a reboot in the 21st century populated pretty much entirely by cis heterosexual white people and severely reduced roles for the female cast (not to mention squandering a neat AU concept and talented cast on The Worst Script and a general slack-jawed air to the thing); a (thankfully now defunct) successor director who didn’t see the point in bothering to try for inclusivity in Star Trek , and the feeling of a slow death of the heart of a great thing. So I’ll appeal to authority. I’ll keep supporting those hard working folks in fandom, too. Otherwise the greatest triumph of censorship then will be that people look back and think those exclusions were just plain old decisions.

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Vrai is a queer author and pop culture blogger; they boldly left 20 minutes ago, JJ, you should’ve been ready. You can read more essays and find out about their fiction at Fashionable Tinfoil Accessories , support their work via Patreon or PayPal , or remind them of the existence of Tweets .

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Published Jun 25, 2014

FIRST LOOK: Fun with Kirk and Spock

Are you ready for a fun Star Trek book? One that's ideal for both longtime adult fans and kids, too? Then, get ready to beam up Fun with Kirk and Spock , a Fun with Dick and Jane parody book due out July 29 from Cider Mill Press. The 64-page hardcover is a Prime Directive primer, written by Robb Pearlman, that sends Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of The Original Series crew, along with Klingons, Khan, Romulans, Andorians and the Gorn, through a series of laugh-filled adventures. StarTrek.com has an exclusive First Look at pages from Fun with Kirk and Spock , and we also recently caught up with Pearlman -- a veteran author and editor who has also worked on Stuck on Star Trek and the Star Trek calendar program -- for an interview. Here's what he had to say.

PEARLMAN: I've never lived in a world without Star Trek , so there was never a time when I wasn't aware of and drawn to it in some way. When I was a kid, I loved watching it for the aliens, adventures, and action. And all that tech was fascinating. Carrying a phone on your belt or talking to someone on a screen? The future was going to be crazy. As I got older, I really came to appreciate the movies and the different series on entirely different levels. The layered storytelling, the interesting characters, and of course the allegorical and groundbreaking statements it made over the years about class, race, age, gender, the environment, and, well, I'm sure I'm leaving something out. Nothing's perfect, but I'd be hard pressed to think of another pop culture property that's tackled so many issues over so long as Star Trek . I’m a fan of what Star Trek says as much as how it says it. As someone who works in the publishing industry, it was a huge thrill for me to edit the Stuck on Star Trek book and oversee the Star Trek calendar program. Fun with Kirk and Spock is the first time I actually get my name on a Star Trek project, though, and I can't help but smile every time I see my name on the cover. I mean, set phasers to stunned, how cool is that?

PEARLMAN: I came up with the idea. I was meeting all these people at ComicCons and book and comic book stores and just in every day life who had these deep personal connections with Star Trek . How the show had gotten them through a tough time, or how they related to one character or another or even just loving a certain episode or movie. So many of these stories started in childhood, and I was really struck by the idea that Star Trek , like a beloved children's book, could be a formative force in children's lives. I thought that in their own way, Kirk and Spock were like Dick and Jane- each showed kids how to live and explore. Well, those were two great tastes that tasted great together, and I started writing little stories for my own enjoyment, just to see what I could do with the concept. A year or so later we have a book.

PEARLMAN: It's a Star Trek -set parody of the classic Dick and Jane stories. So instead of seeing Spot go, we see the Enterprise going boldly, and instead of seeing Sally look at a something, a well or a turnip or whatever Sally looked at, we see Scotty look at a Jefferies tube. It’s a new, simplified, and fun look at some iconic moments and characters from The Original Series . I don’t mean to sound like marketing copy, but it’s great for fans of any age, and a totally accessible introduction for kids new to Star Trek .

You've done plenty of amusing books before, including 101 Ways to Kill a Zombie and Nerd Haiku . How much fun did you have parodying some of Star Trek 's most iconic bits -- and which bits, like Vulcan stoicism, the fate of red shirts or the Prime Directive -- did you get the biggest kick out of poking fun at?

PEARLMAN: It was a blast. I wanted to make sure that I was celebrating the series, but also acknowledging some of the sillier aspects of it, so I watched and rewatched each season of The Original Series to come up with different ideas for each of the episodes and the characters themselves. One of the challenges in writing the book was figuring out what not to include. I never heard a red shirt joke I didn't like, and I even slipped one into my 101 Ways to Kill a Zombie book, but too much of a good thing can be too much and that’s not a good thing, so I had to limit the amount of red shirt peril. It was great playing with the rest of the crew and some of their key traits. The show wouldn't have been the same without Bones, Uhura, Scotty, Chekov, Sulu, and Chapel. Even Pike, Rand, and M’Benga are important to me, and I couldn’t leave any them out.  There was too much potential in talking about Rand’s hair or Sulu’s swordsmanship. And though it took a lot of rewriting, I was really happy finding my own take on Bones’s grumpiness and classic “I’m not a blank...” line. But I have to admit that one of my favorite stories is about the Gorn. Love him or hate him, he made quite an impression in his one episode and it was a lot of fun taking my own swipe at him.

You started to touch on this, but how challenging was it to craft the book in such a way that it could appeal to young kids/fledgling Trek fans and also their parents, who we'll assume are major Trek fans?

PEARLMAN: I figured if I, and my inner child, laughed at the same thing, then readers of all of those ages could, too. This is a parody, sort of a children’s book for adults, so the biggest challenge was to distill an episode, character, or situation that had so many different things going on into a brief story that would also fit within that style. I've written some children's books before, and my first drafts are always way longer then they should be. I spend a lot of time whittling and pruning the drafts down into something that still retains the central ideas and story beats, but in a language that kids can understand. But since Fun with Kirk and Spock needed to get picked up and bought by adults as well, I was able to add back in some broader humor and subtle winks at the reader. Some of the stories, like the one based on " The Savage Curtain " episode, work on a few levels. Kids may think it's just a silly conversation between Uhura and Abraham Lincoln, but adults will understand, in a completely different way, what's being said, and not said. And people of all ages will relate to some of the stories, like the one about Trelane, or the one with the ensign who’s trying to wrestle his fingers into the traditional Vulcan hand gesture. There’s something universal about those that everyone can identify with.

If this book takes off, could you imagine a Next Generation follow-up, a la Fun with Picard and Number One?

PEARLMAN: Absolutely. The “See the Borg. See the Borg Assimilate.” story is already written.

Fun with Kirk and Spock will cost $14.95 in the U.S. and $16.95 in Canada. Click HERE to pre-order the book.

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Why Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Producer Blames William Shatner For The Film's Failure

Going back to 1966, "Star Trek" co-stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy had what was called a "favored nations clause" in their contracts. The clause ensured that whenever one actor got a raise, or perhaps input into a script, the other one would get the same. This was done to comfort two actors who were constantly butting heads as to who the real "star" of "Star Trek" was. The favored nations clause made sure that neither actor could "pull ahead" of the other.

The clauses were still in place by the 1980s, so when Nimoy was hired to direct "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" (1984) and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (1986) , Shatner was able to pull rank. Thanks to a pay dispute on "Star Trek IV," Shatner could contractually elbow his way into the director's chair for 1989's "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier." Not only that, but Shatner was also allowed to dictate story ideas and write treatments; Shatner has a story-by credit on "Frontier" as well. Patience, dear reader, as we shall describe the story in a moment.

Many will hasten to point out that "The Final Frontier" is often considered the worst of the extant 13 "Star Trek" movies. The script was clumsy, as it was constantly being re-written to placate the cast (the bulk of the film's $33 million budget went to talent). Moreover, the 1988 writers' strike cut into pre-production and Paramount couldn't afford its usual team of visual effects wizards from Industrial Light & Magic, forcing the studio to hire a cheaper technician on the fly. Constant budget cuts also made the film look cheap. There were myriad other production troubles besides.

According to a 1993 interview with Star Trek Explorer Magazine , "Frontier" producer Harve Bennett blames every problem directly on Shatner (who had final story approval). Bennett felt that Shatner's ultimate decision to make a "Star Trek" film about finding the physical location of God (!) was foolhardy. Shatner's decisions, Bennett argued, were bad from the start.

The story of Star Trek V

The story of "Star Trek V" is a little strange for the franchise. A hippie-like Vulcan cult leader named Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill) has the ability to psychically reach into the minds of his followers, erase their pain, and turn them into loyal followers. Sybok stages an elaborate scheme to lure the U.S.S. Enterprise to a certain planet where he will be able to hijack it and take it on a personal mission. Spock, we later learn, is unable to stand up to Sybok as he is Spock's half-brother.

And what was Sybok's personal mission? It seems he learned that the very center of the Milky Way galaxy is the physical home of the one true God. He aims to sail to the galactic core (in reality, a supermassive black hole) and speak to God in person. This contradicts "The Magicks of Megas-tu" (October 27, 1973), an episode of "Star Trek: The Animated Series," which depicted the Devil living at the center of the galaxy, but only deep-cut Trekkies are bothered by that. "Star Trek V" climaxes with Kirk, Sybok, and several others actually meeting God, or at least an alien claiming to be God.

To Bennett's eyes, this was a poor story from the jump. He was quoted as saying:

"I would say that 'Star Trek V' was the weakest of the pictures, both in terms of coherency and its box office, and [what] I would say without shirking responsibility is that the problem was Bill had story approval. [...] He knows this, so I'm not ratting on my friend, but basically, we got to a point where I said, 'Bill, we cannot make a movie about finding God!' I said that from the beginning."

Bennett also felt that there was no way "Star Trek" would actually introduce God as a character, so the search for the Divine, he felt, had an ending everyone could predict.

Kirk vs. God

Bennett was succinct: 

"I know that if you say in a TV logline, 'Tonight on 'Star Trek,' the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise goes to find God,' everybody knows we're not going to go there. So as a storyteller, it gets to be a shaggy joke!"

It's worth stating that "Star Trek" takes place in a post-religious, wholly secular world where humans no longer appear to worship or believe in a God being. Show creator Gene Roddenberry was openly atheist and wanted "Star Trek" to rid itself of any notions of God. "Star Trek V" didn't start with a bad idea, thematically — a conflict between two men with very different views of infinity — but the actual physical search of God seemed silly and overblown to Bennett. 

The producer also recalled Shatner's blood-minded insistence on the idea, though, stating he eventually had to wash his hands of the entire affair:

"He wanted to do it, so after much aggravation, I said, 'All right, we're going to go find God, but we're going to make it the best trip we possibly can!' [...] It was doomed by its premise. [...] I learned long ago, if it ain't in the premise, it ain't there, but Bill felt if we worked hard enough and dazzled them with enough stuff, we could do it, and I don't think we pulled that off [...] I think a faulty premise results in a flawed picture."

The premise was flawed and, unfortunately, there wasn't enough money on the table to dazzle audiences either. "Star Trek V" hasn't undergone any sort of fan re-litigation since its release in 1989, and it remains the worst of the "Star Trek" movies. Was it Shatner's fault? It's easy to point fingers in his direction. To his credit, Shatner has apologized .

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The Star Trek Movies and TV Shows That Never Happened

We've had a lot of great Star Trek movies and TV shows over the years. But here are some interesting ideas that never trekked their way to the screen.

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Exploration. Discovery. Evolution.

These core concepts are not just at the center of Starfleet, but of Star Trek itself. The Original Series harnessed the optimism of the 1960s and projected it on screen. That ethos has allowed Star Trek to explore many new ideas through different series, films, spinoffs, and even a reboot on the big screen.

But as vast as the world of Star Trek already is, it could have been so much bigger. The story of Star Trek is, in part, the story of fits and starts. For every project that makes it to screen, there are two Trek projects that never came to fruition. Below is a list of some of the most interesting Star Trek ideas that never made it out of development.

Star Trek – The (Original) Original Series

Even non- Trekkies know that William Shatner’s James T. Kirk wasn’t the first choice as Captain of the USS Enterprise . Instead, Jeffrey Hunter plays Captain Christopher Pike in the first filmed episode, 1964’s “The Cage.” Compelled but not yet sold, NBC asked Gene Roddenberry to try again, which led to the show’s proper pilot (but not, strangely, the first episode aired), “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”

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But before Pike took command of the Enterprise , the treatment Roddenberry shopped to networks was about Captain Robert April of the USS Yorktown . Aspects of this treatment did eventually make it into the show, as Admiral Robert April appears in both The Animated Series and Strange New Worlds . And the Yorktown did take flight, getting name dropped in Star Trek IV and Voyager .

Meanwhile, although Roddenberry later reworked it into the season one two-parter “The Menagerie,” “The Cage” is different enough from Star Trek proper that it feels like the pilot of a very different series. In addition to Pike, the Enterprise of “The Cage” was operated by first officer Number One (Majel Barrett, who would go on to play Laxwana Troi in The Next Generation and voice the ship’s computer), Pike got his physical not from Bones but from the even older and grouchier Doctor Boyce (John Hoyt), and trusts not in Sulu but in navigator Lt. José Taylor (Peter Duryea). Even Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, the one familiar face, feels very different, laughing in glee at the sight of alien flora.

Odd as “The Cage” was, its elements have been repurposed for books and comics, as well as plotlines in Strange New Worlds .

Assignment: Earth (TV)

With the help of none other than Lucille Ball, Star Trek made it to air and ran for two seasons. But Roddenberry could tell that NBC didn’t like the return they got on their effects budget. Sensing an imminent cancelation, Roddenberry developed a new series to pitch to studios. Assignment: Earth starred Robert Lansing as Gary Seven, a human descended from a line of people taken from prehistoric Earth and cultivated by well-meaning aliens.

The series would have followed Gary’s attempts to prevent changes in Earth’s history, ensuring that humanity reaches its full potential. But no network (by which I mean just CBS , NBC, and ABC ) bit, so Roddenberry reworked his pilot into the final episode of season two, appropriately called “Assignment Earth.”

That episode failed to launch a new series, and while Gary Seven and his sidekick Roberta Lincoln (Terri Garr) do live on in comics and novels, Roddenberry had to save Assignment: Earth ‘s benevolent alien ideas for a little-loved 1974 movie called The Questor Tapes .

Star Trek: Planet of the Titans (film)

“Assignment: Earth” was almost the final episode of Star Trek . But a letter writing campaign led by fan Bjo Trimble convinced NBC to pony up for one more season. Of course, in 1969, Star Trek was canceled for good.

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But then a funny thing happened in reruns. Star Trek became a smash in syndication, something that could finally be measured thanks to the newly-instituted Nielsen rating system. Then, fan conventions happened, bringing the cast back together and proving that an audience for Star Trek still existed.

Paramount wanted to capitalize on the hype, but couldn’t decide on a particular project. The studio considered a second animated show, a live-action series, and a TV movie before settling on a proper theatrical film.

Written by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, and then re-written by potential director Phillip Kaufman, Planet of the Titans would have followed the Enterprise on an adventure to the dawn of history, with Kirk and crew meeting the first humans and even giving them the gift of fire.

Prime Directive violations aside, Planet of the Titans didn’t make it out of development. However, it did get far enough along for Paramount to commission concept art from Ralph McQuarrie. McQuarrie’s designs, which included an Enterprise refit, ended up in Star Trek III and in a few episodes of TNG .

Star Trek: Phase II (TV)

When Planet of the Titans stalled, Paramount saw an opportunity to launch their long-planned TV network (the unrealized Paramount Television Service) with a beloved series. The studio brought Roddenberry back on board for Star Trek: Phase II , to launch in 1978.

As its name suggests, Star Trek: Phase II would have been a legacy sequel to the Original Series . Kirk, Bones, Chekov, and Uhura were all slated to return, with promotions for their characters, as would Chapel and Rand. The only hold out was Leonard Nimoy, who was at that time so adamant that he wasn’t Spock that he wrote a whole book about it.

To take the place of Spock, Phase II planned for a full-Vulcan crew member named Xon. A recent Starfleet Academy grad, Xon struggled with a deep distrust for humans, which added an increased level of tension to the show.

The new crew also featured a Deltan called Ilia and Kirk’s new first officer Willard Decker, son of Commodore Matt Decker from “ The Doomsday Machine .” If those names sound familiar, it’s because the franchise kept them when Phase II evolved into Star Trek: The Motion Picture .

Well, mostly. The intended romance between the empath Ilia and the swashbuckling Decker doesn’t have much premise in The Motion Picture , but Roddenberry used those dynamics as the basis for Riker and Troi in The Next Generation . In fact, the TNG episodes “The Child” and “Devil’s Due” were initially Phase II scripts, rewritten for the new crew.

And what of Xon? Many of the ideas for Xon found expression in Data, and especially T’Pol from Enterprise , where Vulcan distaste for humans was a major plot point for the first couple seasons. Xon himself got his pon farr on with Saavik in a non-canon comic book, but outside of a placard in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Xon’s only in-canon name drop occurred when Boimler mentioned him in Lower Decks , because Lower Decks never forgets.

Star Trek II: War of the Generations

Even the most J.J. hating, “ Discovery is not real Trek ” insisting Trekkie has to admit that Wrath of Khan saved the franchise. By shifting from slow-moving awe and intellectual debates to naval combat, Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer made Trek a movie franchise that could compete during the blockbuster age.

But the first idea for Star Trek II would have gone even further. Star Trek II: War of the Generations imagined David Marcus leading anti-Federation rebels, a sort of forerunner to the Maquis. When Kirk goes to save Carol and confront his son, he discovers that the group’s true leader is Khan Noonien Singh.

Of course, a renegade member of the Marcus family and shady Starfleet dealings show up in the aptly-named Star Trek Into Darkness . Given the gap in quality between that film and Wrath of Khan , it’s clear that Bennett and Meyer made the right decision.

Star Trek: The First Adventure (film)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was originally intended as the end to the Original Series crew’s adventures. After sending the Enterprise to the center of the galaxy to meet God, Paramount decided to go back to the beginning to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Star Trek . A prequel film called Star Trek: The First Adventure— aka Star Trek: Academy or The Academy Years —went into production.

The story would have recast the main characters (as much as Shatner would have certainly argued that he could play young Kirk with the right hairpiece and girdle) to follow their first meetings. The film showed the early rivalry between Spock and Kirk and Kirk giving McCoy his famous nickname. The crew would have teamed up to save the first version of the Enterprise .

Fittingly enough, that version of the Enterprise became the NX-01 on the show Enterprise . And although Paramount shelved The First Adventure , the idea of a Starfleet Academy story stayed at the front of mind. Some of these aspects ended up in the 2009 Star Trek movie by J.J. Abrams , including Kirk’s rivalry with Spock and his friendship with McCoy. A new “origin” movie that could play with these ideas further is also currently in the works from director Toby Haynes and producer Simon Kinberg. Time will tell if that movie ends up on this list at a later date.

Star Trek and Babylon 5 (TV)

Star Trek: The Next Generation sparked a revival of sci-fi television, which led to the production of SeaQuest DSV , Farscape , and Babylon 5 . But before developing it into the TV show we now know, writer J. Michael Straczynski pitched Babylon 5 to Paramount as a Star Trek show. Some have speculated that producers Rick Berman and Michael Piller integrated parts of that pitch into Deep Space Nine , but Straczynski himself has dismissed such rumors, calling any similarities between the two shows pure coincidence.

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Paramount planned for Star Trek: The Next Generation to continue the tradition of TOS in more ways than one, with the crew of the Enterprise -D jumping to the big screen after the series ran its course. We know that the transition happened in Star Trek: Generations , in which the Nexus allows Captains Kirk and Picard to meet.

Originally, however, writer Maurice Hurley wanted to bring the Captains together by borrowing a page from Geordi’s Leah Brahms playbook. In that version of the movie, Picard would create a version of Kirk on the holodeck to help him deal with an inter-dimensional invasion.

Paramount passed on the idea and went with the Generations plot we know. However, with the revelation from Picard ‘s third season that Kirk’s remains currently reside in the Daystrom Institute, perhaps it won’t be too out of the question for a recreated Kirk to appear in the 25th century at some point, especially since Strange New Worlds has its own young Kirk in Paul Wesley.

Star Trek: IMAX (‘short’ film)

Given how much the movies love to show off the Enterprise , an IMAX Trek movie seems obvious. In 1997, Paramount wrote a script for a 40-minute IMAX short film that would have showed off state-of-the-art technology.

We don’t know much about the script at this point, other than the fact that it would have starred Chief Miles Edward O’Brien and Chancellor Gorkon, the Gorbachev-styled Klingon Chancellor who died in Star Trek VI . As much fun as it would have been to see that improbable pair hanging out together, the film never made it past the script stage.

Captain Sulu

George Takei has a famously rocky relationship with William Shatner. Surprisingly, he describes his time shooting the disastrous Star Trek V , directed by Shatner, as “surprisingly pleasant.” Still, Takei was reluctant to join up for one last run with the old crew, which is why Sulu gets promoted to Captain of the Excelsior sometime before Star Trek VI .

When the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Flashback” revisited Sulu’s actions on the Excelsior during that film, fan demand grew and producers began toying with the idea of a Sulu-focused TV movie. Some versions even considered teaming Sulu with his daughter Demora, first introduced in Generations .

However, the idea didn’t get farther than that, letting Takei go on to his true calling as elderly meme machine.

Star Trek: Enterprise Season 5+ (TV)

Even the show’s biggest defenders admit that it was a long road for Enterprise , going from hated (and unnecessarily horny) prequel show to compelling television. But by the time the series hit its fourth season and the Xindi arc really kicked in, Trekkies and casual viewers had come around to the voyages of the NX-01. Ultimately, it’s a shame the show never got to see its plans through.

According to initial plans, season five would have seen a major redesign for the Enterprise and a Romulan war. Other ideas included Alice Krige playing a human science officer who encounters a Borg (leading to her becoming the Borg Queen), and even a return to the Mirror Universe and the further adventures of Empress Sato.

Of course, the fourth season never happened and Trek disappeared from televisions until Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, which did go all in with the Mirror Universe and its evil Empress—but Philippa Georgiou ( Michelle Yeoh ) instead of Hoshi.

Star Trek: Lions of the Night

Before the franchise took the plunge with Star Trek: Prodigy , a different CG animated series was in development in 2003 and would have brought George Takei in as a voice actor. Jimmy Diggs, the writer who created the concept, referred to it as “Captain Sulu takes command of the USS Enterprise-B and must stop a Kzinti (as featured in Star Trek: The Animated Series ) invasion of Federation Space.”

Considering the warm reception of Voyager ‘s “ Flashback” and apparent interest for something Captain Sulu, it’s a massive shame this didn’t happen. Of course, Takei is still with us and could still do something like this. But even if he’s not in, we have Jon Cho’s Sulu waiting in the wings.

Star Trek 11 – Nemesis Sequel (film)

Yes, there could have been a “Justice League-style” team-up film starring all of your favorite Star Trek captains. Brent Spiner and Star Trek: Nemesis writer John Logan pitched a follow-up to the 10th Star Trek film in which Khan, the Borg, Shinzon, and lots of other baddies from Star Trek ‘s movie past return to wage war on the Federation. Of course that means Picard and his crew have to travel back in time to recruit Starfleet’s greatest heroes.

Picard saves Data just before he blows up in Nemesis and then goes even further back and saves Kirk from his death in Generations . Not enough for you? The pitch even brought back Spock and Captain Archer from Star Trek: Enterprise . Later the refitted and upgraded Federation flagship under Captain Picard’s command is joined by Admiral Janeway and the USS Voyager as well as Captain Sisko and the Defiant . A plot device or two results in the Enterprise , Voyager , and Defiant assisting Captain Riker’s USS Titan in Romulan space. Beyond the fact that this would have been the most expensive Trek movie ever made, the failure of Star Trek: Nemesis at the box office killed this all-star team-up completely.

Star Trek (11): The Beginning (film)

As much as we grouch about Star Trek prequels , the concept isn’t anything new. Back in 2005, the movie Star Trek: The Beginning was supposed to bridge the gap between Star Trek: Enterprise and the Original Series . The Beginning would have featured Tiberius Chase, Kirk’s ancestor and the man who originated his hated middle name. The series would have dealt with a war between Earth and the Romulans, which threatened to undo the young Federation.

Given the mixed reception to Enterprise , Paramount deemed it wiser to scrap all connections to that show, leaving space for the J.J. Abrams reboots.

Star Trek: Final Frontier (animated web series)

By the mid-2000s, networks were already experimenting with streaming by creating exclusive content for their websites. But instead of doing something like The Office: The Accountants —side stories from The Office streamed on NBC’s site—Paramount planned to make an entire Star Trek animated webseries for startrek.com.

Star Trek: Final Frontier took place in 2528, almost 200 years after Star Trek: Nemesis . A war with the Romulans has destroyed the Klingon Empire and badly crippled the Federation. Worse, humans have lost their major allies as Andoria was lost in the war and the Vulcans pulled out from the Federation. In this bleak future, Kirk’s descendent Alexander Chase would try to rebuild the Federation with his plucky crew.

Obviously, Final Frontier didn’t happen. But some of the ideas did get repurposed for other projects. One of Chase’s crew was to be an energy-based lifeform called Mr. Zero, who wore a containment suit. That sounds a lot like Zero from Prodigy , a Medusan who also lives in a containment suit.

Discovery ‘s later seasons also dealt with the crew trying to reestablish the Federation after it was decimated in the far future, while the destruction of Romulus resulted in the creation of Ni’Var, the new name for the planet Vulcan, on which Romulans and Vulcans now live together as one.

For those who want to know more about Final Frontier , however, there is a huge amount of archive for this particular lost Trek , with the development team behind it having made it available at www.startrekff.com .

Star Trek: Federation (TV)

The 2000s were a big decade for Bryan Singer, as his X-Men movies earned him a lot of acclaim and most did not yet know about his misdeeds. A massive Trekkie, Singer used his position to pitch a new television series, getting some help from writer Geoffrey Thorne and current Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie .

Star Trek: Federation took place in the year 3000, nearly 500 years after Nemesis , and also dealt with the dissolution of the Federation. Things get worse when a force called the Scourge wipes out several Starfleet ships and Federation colonies.

Alexander Kirk, a descendent of James T. and a survivor of the Scourge attacks, becomes the captain of the newest version of the Enterprise , who goes on a series of adventures, hoping to rebuild the Federation.

Paramount showed great interest in the idea and even penciled it in for a 2008 release. But the project didn’t get further than a full pitch document, and dropped from the calendar when the 2009 movie went into production. A lot of this pitch ended up in the latter seasons of Discovery instead.

Star Trek: The New Animated Series

After writing the screenplay for 2009’s Star Trek , Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman pitched an animated Star Trek to CBS. The duo had some success with the cartoon series Transformers: Prime , which spun out of the Transformers movies they had written, and hoped to replicate that again. But CBS worried that the movies would distract from any TV projects and passed on the show.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Worf Chronicles

Michael Dorn holds the record for the most appearances in Star Trek , having played Worf in TNG , the TNG movies, DS9 , Picard , and even playing Worf’s papa Mogh in Star Trek VI . And you know what? We still can’t get enough of our favorite Klingon/prune juice enthusiast.

Many Worf-focused pitches have been floated over the year, the most famous being a script by Dorn itself. Captain Worf would have seen the Bane of House Duras bringing the Federation and its old enemy the Klingon Empire closer together, while dealing with pressures from all sides. At the same time, Worf would deal with the fallout of the Dominion War and the sudden change in leadership among the Klingons, from Gowron to Martok.

Dorn’s return to the character in season three of Picard hinted at a slightly different version of events, as Worf left the Federation for a while after captaining the Enterprise . However, that run only whetted fans’ appetite for more Worf, hopefully in Star Trek: Legacy .

Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek

One of Quentin Tarantino ‘s most infamous movie ideas that never made it to the big screen involved his desire to make a Star Trek movie , a surprising possibility for the franchise-averse director. In 2017, Paramount announced that they had given a green light to Tarantino’s script, with Abrams set to produce.

Little is known about what Tarantino’s Star Trek would have been, outside of the fact that it would have been inspired by the TOS episode “A Piece of the Action,” in which Kirk and Spock land on a planet that resembled 1920s Chicago.

However, in 2023, co-writer Mark L. Smith shared a few aspects with Variety : “It was just a balls-out kind of thing,” Smith told the outlet. “But I think his vision was just to go hard. It was a hard R. It was going to be some Pulp Fiction violence,” he explained, while assuring readers that there was “[n]ot a lot of the language.”

Tarantino walked away from the film when he decided to do The Movie Critic as his 10th and final film. But since no one but him has said he can only make 10 movies, maybe he’ll boldly go back to Star Trek at some point.

Star Trek 4

Even before the release of Star Trek Beyond , Paramount began working on a sequel, which would have brought back Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk, the father of James, who died at the start of 2009. The film would have involved Kirk recovering his father from a pattern buffer, in the same way that Scotty arrived on the Enterprise -D in the TNG episode “Relics.”

In 2016, Abrams commissioned a script by J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay, and S.J. Clarkson signed on to direct in 2018. The production hit snags because the studio could not come to terms with Chris Pine and Hemsworth about script, salary, schedule, or some combination of the three. Clarkson left the project in 2019 and was briefly replaced by Matt Shakman, who also left to helm the upcoming Fantastic Four movie.

As of this writing, a fourth Kelvin Timeline Star Trek movie is still in consideration, but there’s been no official progress.

Noah Hawley’s Star Trek

With both a Kelvin Timeline movie and Tarantino’s film stalled, Paramount hired Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley to begin work on a different Star Trek film. As with his well-known television series, Hawley planned to take creative liberties with the material, riffing on ideas from established Trek canon while finding his own interpretation.

Hawley’s film would have featured a new crew on a different ship, potentially played by Cate Blanchett and Rami Malek , encountering an alien virus that creates paranoia throughout the Federation. The COVID pandemic slowed the movie’s production and rendered its virus plot unsuitable. Hawley continued to discuss what could have been over the years, but has since moved on to make an Alien series for Hulu .

Star Trek: Legacy

Perhaps we should put an asterisk next to Star Trek: Legacy, because we still have hope that it will happen. The third season of Picard not only brought back together the crew of the Enterprise -D, but also checked in on other characters such as Tuvok from Voyager and ended with Seven of Nine as the captain of the Enterprise -G.

Picard season three showrunner Terry Matalas has been vocal on social media about wanting to continue the story with a new series dubbed Star Trek: Legacy . This show would focus on Seven’s adventures aboard the new Enterprise , while she encounters various people from the era, including looking in on members of Deep Space Nine and Voyager . While Trek heads Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman seem receptive to the idea of Legacy , nothing official has been announced. And with Matalas moving on to make a Vision series for Marvel , it seems like Picard season three is the end of the legacy.

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One of the only ornaments to arrive for ‘Christmas in July’ was The Keeper, paying a lovely homage to the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage.” The Keeper was the magistrate on Talos IV, and wore a necklace with a pendant that distinguished him from the other rank and file Talosians. He’s wonderfully recreated here in ornament form. The veins are nicely sculpted and painted, as is the necklace.

But the real standout for me is the texture of the Talosian robe. I was worried it may look a bit flat, based on the photo on the front of the box. In person though, it looks very cool. I think it’s going to look even better when hung on a lit Christmas tree. At approximately 4.5 inches tall, he seems bigger than some of the character ornaments from years past, settling in nicely between the giant 90s era sculpts of Picard, Janeway, etc. and the much smaller sculpts of Kirk, Spock, etc. from the 2010s era.

The Keeper is available now Hallmark.com, retailing for $19.99. (Thanks to the Hallmark team for sending us out this one for today’s review.)

  The second summer Star Trek  release was the ‘Nexus-Damaged’  USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B), a convention exclusive that debuted at San Diego Comic Con at the end of July. While a more widely-available edition will arrive this October, the  Enterprise- B made this year’s slate to celebrate the 30th anniversary of  Star Trek: Generations … and I have to say, I am in love. Damage has never been more beautiful!

Seriously though, this is so nicely done. I’m still a bit haunted by the battle-damaged Enterprise -C from 2017, which looked a bit like a toddler had gotten a hold of a magic marker and scribbled on it. This time, Hallmark has gotten it so right. Just look at the scorch marks by deflector control! I’m so relieved.

Now I think I’ve said this before, but I am not a hardcore ship aficionado — so please don’t come for me if I miss an inconsistency here between the ornament and the movie version. To my adoring fandom eyes? She’s perfect. I think the glow of the nacelles is especially powerful and it will look so nice on the tree. And let’s be real, there’s no such thing as too many versions of the Enterprise on a Christmas tree. Bring ‘em, Hallmark! I want enough versions of the Enterprise to fill a full size tree.

The ‘Nexus Damaged’  Enterprise -B is a convention exclusive, so if you missed your chance to pick one up at San Diego Comic Con, there will be another shot this October at New York Comic Con — and with only 3200 pieces produced, you’ll need to resort to eBay to find one (likely at significantly marked-up prices) if you don’t make it to NYCC.

For everyone else, there will be a Spacedock-clean wide release of the  Enterprise -B ornament available October 12 through the Hallmark website for $34.99 — so if the Nexus damage isn’t that important to you, this would certainly be the easier way to bring the Enterprise -B home for the holidays.

October will also bring the rest of Hallmark’s 2024  Star Trek ornament lineup, which includes Dr. Beverly Crusher from  The Next Generation , Captain Pike from  Strange New Worlds,  ‘Spock Meets Data’ from “Unification II,” and small renditions of  Spock and the  Enterprise from  Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

What’s your favorite of this year’s Hallmark  Star Trek ornament offerings? Is there one you were really hoping for that didn’t make 2024’s lineup? Let us know in the comments below!

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Star Addresses Possible Retcon of Captain Pike's Fate

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds star Anson Mount discusses a possible retcon of his iconic character's tragic fate.

Per ScreenRant , Mount opened up about the possibility of a return via retcon during a Q & A session alongside fellow stars Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck, Celia Rose Gooding, Carol Kane, and Melanie Scrofano. When asked about his character Captain Christopher Pike's future in the series, Mount responded quite carefully, noting, " I have to preface this by saying what we think doesn't really matter. It's not our wheelhouse. It’s not our department." Mount added, "But I will say, we have not been with ourselves too specific about where we are in that particular timeline."

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Legend of Zelda's Patricia Summersett discusses her hidden cameo on the series finale of the beloved fan-favorite Star Trek: Discovery.

Mount continued, "Nor are we specific about how long a season is in fictional time. So there’s a lot of give and take. So, depending upon what the network wants, which we only find out year-to-year, as a project, for my own… I have much more specific ideas about it, but I don't want to say anything about it. But in general, I think I would like to stick with canon, and just, maybe, from a different point of view . Maybe from Pike's point of view. So that's all I'll say about that."

I have much more specific ideas about it, but I don't want to say anything about it.

Anson Mount's portrayal of Captain Pike kicked off with the series premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in May 2022. The series follows Pike and the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise as they were over a decade prior to the events of 1966's original Star Trek series. Alongside Mount, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stars Jess Bush as Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as La'an Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding in Nichelle Nichols' iconic role of Nyota Uhura, and Paul Wesley as Captain James T. Kirk, a role made famous by original Star Trek star and Hollywood icon William Shatner. The series also introduced Ethan Peck's Spock , originally portrayed by the late Leonard Nimoy.

The Next Star Trek Series Has Officially Started Production

Production officially begins on the next entry in the long-running and beloved Star Trek franchise.

Fans Are Still Waiting for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3

Fans of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are currently eagerly awaiting the release of the series' third season which is set to premiere sometime in 2025 following delays related to the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Mount previously discussed what Season 3 has in store for audiences, noting that he believes it is going to be the show's "best season so far" in terms of storytelling, development, and its more technical aspects. Mount also promised an upcoming musical episode that, surprisingly, "will not be the craziest thing that we did or we have done by the end of this. We’re feeling more ownership over what it is that we’re doing and realizing that it continues to resonate."

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is currently available for streaming on Paramount+.

Source: ScreenRant

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Screen Rant

Spock’s original parents didn't appear together after 1960s star trek.

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Star Trek: The Original Series Cast & Character Guide

I’m glad voyager’s tom and b’elanna are no longer star trek's only successful romance, what happens to every star trek ship paramount plus canceled.

The original actors who played Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) parents, Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard) and Amanda Grayson (Jane Wyatt), only appeared together once in Star Trek: The Original Series and didn't share the screen again. Sarek was the Vulcan Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets, a position he held in the 23rd and 24th centuries. Amanda Grayson was Sarek's first human wife , and she is the mother of Spock. Sarek and Amanda adopted Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and raised her on Vulcan alongside Spock.

Spock's family dynamics are among the most fascinating in Star Trek . Spock and Sarek were not on speaking terms for many years after the son chose Starfleet over his father's wishes that Spock join the Vulcan Science Academy. Ironically, after Michael Burnham graduated from the Vulcan Science Academy but was targeted by Vulcan logic extremists because she is human, Sarek pulled strings with Starfleet to post Michael on the USS Shenzhou. All throughout, Amanda stood by Sarek's side , and gave her children, Spock and Michael, as much love as she could while facing the continuing difficulties of living as a human on Vulcan.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, set in the 24th century decades after Amanda Grayson's death, Sarek was married to another human woman named Perrin (Joanna Miles).

Star Trek: The Original Series features some of the most iconic characters in all of science fiction with the crew of the original USS Enterprise.

Spock’s Parents Only Appeared Together In Star Trek: The Original Series

Sarek and amanda debuted in "journey to babel".

Ambassador Sarek and Amanda Grayson were introduced in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2's "Journey to Babel," and this was the only time the original actors who played Spock's parents shared the screen together. Sarek and Amanda came aboard the USS Enterprise, which carried numerous Federation dignitaries, on a journey to an important diplomatic conference. "Journey to Babel" established Spock and Sarek had not spoken for 20 years, and showed the important role Amanda played in Spock's life .

Mark Lenard's Sarek and Jane Wyatt's Amanda did return in the Star Trek movies , but they did not appear together on-screen. Sarek was in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , and in both appearances, the Vulcan Ambassador was either at Admiral James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) San Francisco home or at Federation Headquarters. Amanda's lone movie appearance was in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Hom e. where she counsels Spock on Vulcan after her son's death and resurrection.

In a vision of Spock's birth seen in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , young Sarek and Amanda were played by Jonathan Simpson and Cynthia Blaise.

Spock’s Kelvin Timeline Parents Appeared Together In J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek

In the film and in a deleted scene.

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009) reboot introduced Ambassador Sarek (Ben Cross) and Amanda Grayson (Winona Ryder). Amanda and Sarek share the screen in Star Trek 's alternate Kelvin timeline. A deleted scene from Star Trek (2009) shows Sarek and Amanda together during Spock's (Zachary Quinto) on Vulcan. Later in Star Trek (2009), Sarek and Amanda are together (for the last time) when Spock tries to rescue them before the Romulan time traveler Nero (Eric Bana) destroys Vulcan. Tragically, while Sarek is beamed to the USS Enterprise, Spock watches his mother and his homeworld die.

Spock's Parents Appeared Together In Star Trek: Discovery

Sarek and amanda finally share the screen again.

Star Trek: Discovery seasons 1 and 2, set in 2256-2258, years before Star Trek: The Original Series , finally showed Ambassador Sarek (James Frain) and Amanda Grayson (Mia Kirshner) sharing the screen again in Star Trek 's Prime Timeline . Both Sarek and Amanda play crucial roles in Michael Burnham's life, counseling her as she regained her Starfleet rank as Commander and redeemed herself after becoming Starfleet's first mutineer. Amanda and Sarek were also important in helping Michael save Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) in Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

Star Trek: Discovery showed the closeness between Sarek and Amanda Grayson.

Sarek and Amanda were together to watch Commander Michael Burnham's speech to the Federation at the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 1 , Flashbacks in Star Trek: Discovery season 2's premiere showed how Sarek and Amanda welcomed young Michael Burnham (Arista Arhin) to their home on Vulcan and introduced her to young Spock (Liam Hughes). Star Trek: Discovery showed the closeness between Sarek and Amanda Grayson that Star Trek: The Original Series only showed once.

Star Trek: The Original Series

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Star Trek: Discovery