Potential Star Trek: Discovery spinoff may feature James T. Kirk

There have been rumors for a long time that Anson Mount will return for a Captain Pike based series but a new rumor claims James T. Kirk could go with him.

There have been rumors of a Star Trek: Discovery spinoff series featuring Captain Pike for a while now. The rumors basically say that Anson Mount will reprise his role of Captain Pike in the spin-off series and now it sounds like James T. Kirk will be coming along with him. No confirmation for the series has been issued, let alone a date when the will start filming; if it films at all.

The current pandemic has many studios reshuffling properties that are currently being worked on and canceling whole ones that are in pre-production. It’s entirely possible that the Anson Mount series never sees the light of day due to issues beyond their control.

Assuming the series isn’t in trouble of being postponed permanently, a reunion of Pike and Kirk could be wonderful. While the J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot era of Star Trek has been heavily scrutinized there have been some wonderful things that were added to the universe. The one being the screen time between Kirk (Chris Pine) and Pike (Bruce Greenwood) in Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness.

The rumor of Kirk joining Pike comes from We Got This Covered;

"The outlet notes that James T. Kirk will appear on the show and that CBS now has their eye on The Mandalorian‘s Jake Cannavale for the role. Apparently, he recently had a screentest with Discovery‘s Ethan Peck and while he’s not the only one in the running for the part, the network is said to be keen on him. No further details were revealed and it’s unclear how he’d fit into the plot and how large a role he’d play in the series, but obviously, this is pretty exciting news."

As mentioned above the son of Bobby Cannavale, Jake is one of those in the running for the role. Cannavale will need to dye his dark hair to a dirty blonde if he’s picked but he should be a fine addition. Obviously no one, not even Pine, will ever live up to the legend of William Shatner, so why bother worrying about that.

It should also be noted, however, that Star Trek’s recent trend of relying on old characters to sell the newer shows and films is one of the biggest issues some fans have with the newer content. Gone are the new shows and concepts, and instead fans are given more re-tellings and reboots; something media consumers, by and large, are fed up with.

So while the idea sounds good on paper, what Trek fans really want are new stories, not more of the same. Does that mean that a Pike lead series featuring Kirk will be bad? No, it might even be pretty good. Only time will tell.