Star Trek built its franchise on the back of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), the intrepid explorer who led his crew into the far regions of space, always carrying with him the mission directive and values of Starfleet – even when those directives and values were put to serious test. The new era of Star Trek television has taken things back to those formative years in Starfleet before Kirk and Spock led the USS Enterprise out on its mission to explore new regions of space and any new lifeforms encountered along the way. Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 delved into Spock’s backstory, as well as the Enterprise’s time under the command of Kirk’s predecessor, Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). Now Pike’s spinoff series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, is coming full circle, by finally revealing the story of Kirk’s first time sitting in the captain’s chair of a Starfleet vessel – and the terrible lesson he was forced to learn about leadership, which would change him forever.
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Captain James T. Kirk of USS Farragut
In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 6, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail”, both the USS Enterprise and USS Farragut become the targets of an ambush by an enormous scavenger vessel that is feared across the galaxy. The Enterprise is captured for power-siphoning and parts-stripping, while the Farragut’s captain, V’Rel (Zoe Doyle), is severely injured in the attack, leaving First Officer Kirk as acting captain. Spock (Ethan Peck), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) all beam onto the Farragut before the Enterprise is captured, leaving them stranded with an overwhelmed Kirk, who must figure out how to rescue the other ship and take out the scavengers before they counter-attack.
The crux of the episode tracks Kirk as he goes from a cringeworthy start at commanding a ship to slowly but surely gaining the advice, support, and respect of the officers we know will one day become his crew and surrogate family. That includes a warming scene of Kirk confiding in Spock for the first time about his doubts as a captain, and Spock being the level-headed and stoic foil Kirk needs for balance. However, the episode throws in a dark twist to break up all the warm nostalgia, as Kirk learns the true price of command and the kind of calls a captain must make.
Kirk’s First Time As Captain Ends In Horror
Eventually, Kirk and the officers left on the Farragut devise a plan to use the scavenger’s ship’s own weapons against it, causing the massive vessel to blow a fuse. The Enterprise is able to escape, while the Farragut goes on the offensive, annihilating the scavengers’ vessel. Kirk is riding high on his first successful mission as a captain – that is, until scans of the wreckage reveal a startling truth: the scavengers, beings who appeared in clunky steampunk-style armored spacesuits, are in fact humans.
Research turns up the startling truth: the scavengers are descendants of a 21st-century space mission that the nations of Earth united for, to help heal the scars of devastation from WWWIII. The mission was meant to underscore a new era of hope, peace, and discovery for humankind; instead, the vessel vanished into space, and the crew was presumed dead. It becomes a haunting mystery for the crew to ponder how an advanced group of humanity’s best scientists ended up being roving savages; it becomes even more haunting for Kirk to know he gave the command that wiped out an entire community of human beings, people whom they’ll never get answers from.
The episode ends by showing the formative mentor-mentee bond taking shape between Kirk and Pike. The latter man informs Kirk that his trauma must become the bedrock of his outlook as a captain: empathy. Always remembering that your supposed enemy may not be that different from you than you think.
As any Star Trek TOS fan knows, that’s advice Kirk would take to heart for the rest of his days as a captain.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is streaming on Paramount+.
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