Logline
When the USS Enterprise investigates an attack on a colony at the edge of Federation space, Captain Pike and his crew face the return of a formidable enemy.
Written by Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by Maja Vrvilo
When the USS Enterprise investigates an attack on a colony at the edge of Federation space, Captain Pike and his crew face the return of a formidable enemy.
Written by Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by Maja Vrvilo
To me it was a TOS prequel from the start, I was expecting characters from the original to be introduced at some point, even if they end up being one or two episode cameos until closer to the end of the series where it has to at some point hand over to kirks enterprise with his crew. They are of course giving Kirk some more time than that as his character needs to be built into the kirk that will take command in a few in universe years, Spock is still young and learning to be fully Vulcan, Uhura is young and still building confidence etc etc etc.
I suspect we will get similar 2 or 3 episode arcs for the other as-yet unseen TOS crew in the next couple of seasons, I don't know how many seasons they are planning on, but I suspect 5 or 6 considering it is the flagship show in the franchise and as a whole is doing increasingly well.
I’m not too dissimilar from you, but expected cameos. Even Kirk in the S1 finale worked for me, because it was mostly about Pike but also a bit meta about the differences between him and Kirk. Continuity is great after all.
My point is that there’s a line beyond which the show leans prequel, and S2 has crossed that line IMO.
Which is fine, if that’s what people want, which I suspect is the case. I also suspect a TOS reboot would go down well and the execs are fully aware of this. But, is this really good for Trek or even good Trek? When was the last time we had new trek that wasn’t a prequel or driven by nostalgia? Lower Decks? I’m not a Discovery fan, but it surely tried, as did Picard S1 I’d say. Otherwise you might have to go all the way back to DS9. Thing is we’re as far from DS9 now as it was from TOS. SNW was something fresh, a true example of Trek being back on track by retaining the core but doing something new. The more it leans prequel, for me, the more I begin to feel all of nu-Trek is a missed opportunity and not worthy of celebration, which honestly saddens me (apart from lower decks, now my definitely fav new Trek!)
I would have it run until Kirk takes over as captain. Then jump forward to just after The Motion Picture.
This not only gives them about a decade of time before TWOK that’s barely been touched by the screen canon, they can do a design revamp to freshen the series up using TMP as a starting point, and they handle the fact that with a series per year the actors are going to quickly age ahead of their characters.