I hope not. You might be enjoying it, but I think it drags the show down. Kirk already has his own show. Let these characters have theirs.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Yep. I find it a distraction. It's a character we all know already and pulls the show toward being a TOS Prequel rather than its own thing. A bit of Kirk and prequel hints and stuff here and there can be good, like the alternative timeline "Balance of Terror" which in many ways was about Pike, but there's some fuzzy "prequel" line and the amount of Kirk, IMO, is starting to cross it.
Spock, Uhura, Chapel, heck even M’Benga don’t make it a prequel, but a lieutenant Kirk does?
Uhura, Chapel, and M'Benga were supporting characters in TOS at best, and were horribly underutilized the first time around. Spock was a main, but one main out of three doesn't feel like much. Kirk makes it two of three mains.
I think the main problem with Kirk, though, is that he kind of distracts from the regulars. Making him a once-a-season character, like Q in TNG, would probably work better than his three appearances during this one season.
I'd go beyond that even.
SNW is kind of a fork of TOS, not just a prequel ... what were to have happened if the first pilot were picked up. And in that sense, the Spock we're getting, up until now at least, isn't just a prequel but a kind of continuation/interpretation of The Cage. Additionally, from The Menagerie, we know Spock had a relationship with Pike ... so it's window of time with an established existence and Spock within it, and, importantly, no real need to depict exactly how and when it transitions into the TOS era ... as it's its own period and can just be.
Kirk is not part of this time, and is very much the center of the TOS period. Adding him is necessarily an act prequel inference that is looking forward toward TOS.
And yea, Uhura, Chapel and M'Benga are different stories. Though I will say I'm not entirely happy that Uhura is in the show for the same reasons, except that in her case she's not nearly the central character Kirk is in TOS and so basically operates as an independent character.
But we've also never really seen the details of how a ship transitions from one captain and crew to a new one. This is an opportunity to depict how Starfleet ensures continuity of command and crew cohesion when something happens to one of their captains.
I like seeing that there's a system of mentoring and intership collaboration in place so that when there's a sudden shakeup in the crew roster it's not an unforeseen calamity but just another eventually they all trained for. Presumably this is happening all across the fleet, and it could well be that Kirk is doing this with several other ships as well as part of his command track.
It only seems strange because we know he's destined to take Pike's chair. He doesn't know that. He's just learning and absorbing all he can about how different crews function.
I'd say Kirk being here for multiple episodes was necessary to resolve La'an's growth as a person. Whether it needed to be Kirk himself, obviously not, but since they started that thread they had to complete it. I do hope he doesn't just continue hanging around next season, though. He has a post on the Farragut to attend to.
Definitely straining plausibility. Also straining canon, which I don't mind so much, but I think the combination makes it worse.
I kind of assume if they have plans for him it's a young Kirk spinoff. If they wanted him to stick around I feel like they wouldn't have closed down the relationship with La'an so forcibly if that makes sense.
Seems to be like a Starfleet mentoring program we just haven't seen in action before. It makes sense to me that they'd want their rising stars to get some exposure to other established captains and develop relationships with other crews beyond their own. I like it.
It’s also something that happens in real navies and the coast guard.
Sending a candidate for captain or first officer to shadow on another ship before a command level promotion is regular practice. In some cases, they are expected to complete shadowing on as many as two or three ships other than the one they regularly serve on.
I like it when the new shows incorporate regular naval or military practice even though many fans, unfamiliar with military service, take unnecessary exception. (This goes for negative fan reactions to Ortegas behaving exactly like many combat pilots in real life.)
I can't remember when but I'm pretty sure we've seen officers shadow others before
does lower decks count? that's the one that's immediately coming to mind
It’s not a coincidence, it’s Pike. Pike’s seen the future and knows the Romulans are coming, and he also knows that Kirk being in command of Enterprise at that point has the best chance of succeeding at staving off the new war the Romulans will want to provoke in TOS: “Balance of Terror”.
He can’t tell Kirk that, of course, and he can’t do anything active to make it seem he’s planning for Kirk to take over. But what he can do is that if an opportunity comes to let Kirk aboard and become familiar with the Enterprise, her crew, and bond with them, he’ll take it. A joint mission with the Farragut and Kirk wants to visit? Sure. XO training with Una? Why not? Work closely with senior staff? By all means.
Eventually Kirk will be Pike’s explicit choice to succeed him, and at that point Kirk will have both the experience he needs and a familiarity and relationship with the crew and ship that will make him a plausible one.
I get the impression that Kirk is not staying in this series. Or if he does likely not on the Enterprise for long.
In the latest episode he mentioned being a person who doesn’t stay in one place for long. Also, mentioning the pregnancy to La’an has me thinking he’s there on the Enterprise to help but not to stay.
I think these are hints that he may pop in on a few occasions but not a fixture.
A little bit of Kirk us enough for this show. I'd really hate to see home become a major character. I also wonder why they cast a Jim Carrey doppelganger as James T. Kirk?