SNW and Captain Kirk

It was only a matter of time?

In terms of Star Trek that’s one of those phrases that can be taken several ways. However the latest from the Kurtzman stable seems to have provided something of a severe look of confusion from Trekkies including myself. (note that the above pic is a photoshopped image of Anson Mount)

Paramount Plus’ hand was forced this week by some set photos to announce that Vampire Diaries’ Paul Wesley will be appearing in SNW’s second season as the legendary James T Kirk. Great news and something that fans were indeed hoping for with the new, episodic series.

But. According to all those fixed points in the Star Trek PRIME timeline, Kirk should not be a captain as is suggested by his sleeve stripes but still a lieutenant on the USS Farragut (see TOS’ Obsession for further details). Might we be looking at a flash forward? A full skip to Kirk era after season one? Time travel? Note also that there's no actual reference anywhere from Paramount that he's Captain Kirk.

As we know, season one of the hotly anticipated SNW takes place a short time after season two of Discovery and the recent trailer reveals Pike has retreated to Mojave and grown himself a fine beard. Kirk only becomes captain when he joins the Enterprise and that doesn’t happen for another 6/7 years. 

So what is going on? Kirk’s emblem on his uniform does look different to the standard delta so that could be an indicator but still… to have him at the rank of captain? Might there be some element of photoshop in the works or have they genuinely cocked this one right up?

There seems to be a lot more people leaning to the second but hey, let’s see what happens. You have to admit that the publicity from a couple of stills and the casting announcement will have done wonders for the PR machine ahead of SNW launching in May.

Might this also be a way of Kurtzman finally admitting that the whole of his Star Trek journey is indeed part of another timeline? I would hate for that to be the case but logically it’s the only way to explain Kirk’s apparent rank unless there’s time travel or that physical jump in the series chronology.

I will admit though that with all of the ongoing storylines there will inevitably be some errors because of the amount of characters and narratives running but the Kirk rank issue would just be too glaring and obvious. Lazy writing? Hope not. 

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