Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 is skipping ahead a bit by putting James T. Kirk in the captain’s seat on the USS Enterprise. The latest trailer for this long-awaited season is packed with action and stunning special effects, but it’s all balanced on a character moment that will have fans doing a double take. It shows Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) sternly warning Kirk (Paul Wesley) that “The choices you make in that chair — they are yours to make, and yours to live with.” It’s an exciting scene for the prequel, but it raises a lot of questions about where this story is going, especially as Strange New Worlds has already been renewed for a fourth season.
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The scene with Kirk apparently taking control of the Enterprise is cued up with a dramatic swell in the music. He stands on the command deck looking awed and excited. After Pike’s line, Spock turns in his chair to deliver more nostalgic dialogue — “We await your orders, sir.” The circumstances of this scene are not clear at all, so we can only speculate about how it happens and how long it lasts.
Strange New Worlds is a direct prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, set in the years before Captain Pike retires and Kirk becomes the full-time captain of the ship. This means many fan-favorite characters are already onboard, including Spock, Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and others. It also means that Strange New Worlds has a clear end point, though there’s no telling when it might get there.
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The transition of power on the Enterprise has not been depicted on screen, except for the “Kelvin timeline” movies starring Chris Pine, which take place in an alternate reality. The Original Series only depicts three years of the Enterprise’s five-year mission, and does not show how it all began. However, if Strange New Worlds is to show us Pike handing the reigns over to Kirk, it’s not likely to happen just yet. There is another season of the show in development, and the ship must return to Starfleet for its new commission to begin.
The scene in this trailer may be a hint of things to come for these two characters, building up to a satisfying climax for this show. We’ll find out for ourselves soon enough, as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres on July 17th on Paramount+. Other titles, including The Original Series, are streaming there now.
