Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will introduce James T. Kirk in season two.
When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds announced that Paul Wesley had been cast as a young James T. Kirk and would appear in the second season, fans had a lot of questions. Like, isn’t this guy too old to play a twenty-year-something Kirk? Was Kirk going to replace Captain Pike on the Enterprise? And was Kirk going to be serving on the Enterprise?
By now we know there is a Kirk serving on the Enterprise, but that’s Lt. Sam Kirk, the upcoming Captain Kirk’s brother. As for Wesley’s age, well, he does look younger than his forty years, and since there hasn’t been any feedback or responses to those queries, we’ll just have to take that for what it is. One question that has been answered is just where this new Kirk is going to be.
Where will Star Trek: Strange New Worlds take Kirk on his journey?
Showrunner Henry Alonso Meyers told CinemaBlend that Kirk will be an officer on the Farragut, which we all know had a tragic ending because of the dikironium cloud creature at Tycho IV, which killed the captain of the Farragut and 200 other crewmembers on board. There’s no indication we’ll see that horrific moment in Kirk’s history, and honestly, showing it now, after Star Trek: The Original Series’ “Obsession,” would be a bit of overkill. We know how the cloud kills. Do we really need to see it kill Kirk’s fellow crew members and captain?
However the Enterprise and its crew encounters the young Kirk, it would be interesting to see him aboard the ship he will one day captain, and perhaps even have some interaction between him and his brother which we didn’t get to see on The Original Series. Strange New Worlds may give that relationship an opportunity and allow us to see deeper into James T. Kirk and what shaped him before he became captain.