Star Trek For a New Generation

During my childhood in the 1970s, I remembered watching the re-runs of Star Trek, now affectionately called Star Trek: TOS (The original series).  Follow the adventures of the USS Enterprise and its crew was captivating. Later, the released a cartoon series based on the show and for a kid that made it even more fun.

The new movies provided a larger perspective.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a good first start in the movie endeavor. I enjoyed the special effects, but the story was fair, not great.  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, often viewed as the best TOS film, really galvanized the movie future for Star Trek.  I usually tell people to watch the even numbered TOS films.  I still think Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country was a decent film.  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was flat out garbage, followed closely by Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

But, I'm digressing.  In the fall of 1987, my first year of college, Star Trek: The Next Generation appeared on the scene.  A new crew, decades after TOS, a new captain, new races, new allies (an alliance with the Klingons), new adversaries (Q notably) and new enemies (The Borg and the Cardassians) and new perspectives for the Federation.  The series spawned more movies and spinoffs, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

In recent years, we experience a reboot of the original series with new movies based on a different timeline.  The new movies captivated a new younger audience, my kids included.  Paramount also release new Star Trek series with Discovery and Picard.  Not to confuse matters, but Discovery and Picard are based in the original timeline.  I know, it sounds like a long discussion of comic book realities, but not as complicated.

Discovery set the stage for a new series released yesterday, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.  Star Trek returns to the original Enterprise, but focuses on the years it was captained by Christopher Pike, the captain before James T. Kirk.

In Discovery, Pike and Mr. Spock were heavily involved in the 2nd season of the show, with the Enterprise only partly so.  With Strange New Worlds we will get to experience more of Pike's adventures.

I like the transition they made from Discovery to Strange New Worlds.  In two episodes in TOS (called the Menagerie), we learned that Pike had been exposed to delta radiation, his body crippled and reduced to using a life support chair to sustain his life.  In Discovery, Pike is a given a glimpse of his future, he sees the event and aftermath that leads him to that future fate.  He continues to see visions of his future self, and that rattling experience makes him consider leaving Star Fleet and the Enterprise forever.

In true Star Trek fashion, impending doom isn't something that can keep a Starfleet Captain down.  When he learns his first officer is missing on a mission of her own, Pike rejoins Enterprise as her captain and races to find his friend.  The new series is a great launching point for a new generation of Star Trek viewers, filled with characters based in the original series: Spock, Uhura (a cadet servicing aboard as the communications officer), and Nurse Chapel (originally played by Majel Barrett, Gene Roddenberry's wife).   

As a tease, Pike had invited Lieutenant Kirk to join the crew.  Many hoped this would be the introduction of the famed James T. Kirk to the Enterprise, but we later learn that this is George Samuel Kirk, James T. Kirk's brother, who is a science officer attached to the life sciences department.  Fans of TOS will recognize the name and his fate from episodes in that series where James Kirk and Enterprise answer a distress call to the colony Sam was stationed, only find him and his wife dead.

I am excited about this new series.  I think it will entice a whole new generation of fans to the Star Trek franchise and allow them to explore some of the previous movies and series as well.  I leave you will the opening credits to the new series.  A great opening to what I hope will be a terrific new series.