Star Trek: Strange New Worlds turns the Enterprise over to what might be a very different Captain Pike
Though we don’t know exactly when, a new Star Trek series is coming to CBS All Access. This one will detail the life of Captain Christopher Pike, portrayed by Anson Mount, and his journeys as captain of the starship Enterprise. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will take us back to a younger Spock, portrayed by Ethan Peck, and Number One, played by Rebecca Romijn where there is hope for the future of space exploration.
In Star Trek: Discovery, Captain Pike had this sense of hope and a strong dedication to duty. He’s in the running for one of the kindest captains of the Enterprise, possibly neck-in-neck with Jonathan Archer. But season 2 of Discovery may have changed something inside of him, something that will make him a different captain, a different person, altogether. He saw his future.
Any Star Trek fan who has watched the original series knows Captain Pike doesn’t have a hopeful future. Involved in a horrible accident, he is left unable to move or do more than answer yes/no questions. And a younger Captain Pike now knows what awaits him, and even though, in the Discovery episode, Through the Valley of Shadows, he chooses to move forward with his mission in spite of coming face-to-face with his disfigured self, he now must live the ten years prior to the accident with that knowledge.
Knowing life as he knows it is limited, that his time as captain of the Enterprise is limited is bound to have an effect on Pike. So will the captain we see in Strange New Worlds differ from the captain we saw in season 2 of Discovery? How could it not? Having a dark future will inevitably create some type of change within him as it would any of us who knew we were facing a bleak future. It will be interesting to see how he controls the emotions he’s bound to feel and still command the Enterprise. He’ll be facing uncertainties as a captain with one certainty always looming ahead of him.