When did James T. Kirk become an actual starship captain? The years between Kirk’s early days in Starfleet and his road to captaincy have slowly been elucidated in the first two seasons of Strange New Worlds. But now, in Season 3, Episode 6, that journey just jumped into high warp. With the stand-out episode “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” Strange New Worlds has written a hugely important piece of Starfleet history, one which probably isn’t quite what fans would have expected.
Back in 1965, when the second pilot episode for Star Trek was filmed, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the idea that Pike was Kirk’s predecessor as the captain of the USS Enterprise was a piece of retcon that had yet to occur. Like 1964’s first Trek pilot, “The Cage,” “Where No Man Has Gone Before” scans as a kind of rough draft of Star Trek, which was only later folded into the overall continuity thanks to plenty of novels and comic books, not to mention the ever-flexible mental gymnastics performed by longtime fans. But, anyway you squint at it, most assumptions about Captain Kirk, or even non-canon stories depicted in the past, have always suggested he did captain at least one ship prior to the Enterprise. And with “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” we actually see that happen for the first time.
Spoilers ahead.
After a run of several tongue-in-cheek episodes, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail” — written by David Reed and Bill Wolkoff — delivers on one of the basic Trekkie promises of Strange New Worlds: to give us an origin story for The Original Series. Because of the TOS episode “Obsession,” we know Kirk served on the USS Farragut in the 2250s, which is why he’s been on this ship throughout his appearances in Strange New Worlds. In TOS, we also knew that as a Lieutenant, Kirk served under Captain Garrovick, but by 2259, and now in 2261, Captain V’rel (Jo-Anne Leach), a Vulcan, is in command of the ship. At the start of “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail,” V’rel is critically injured by a massive scavenger ship, leaving Kirk in command. Years later, of course, Kirk would flip this dynamic: a human captain, himself, with a Vulcan first officer, Spock.
To really bring home the TOS-ness of this episode, Spock, Uhura, Chapel, and Scotty are all part of a relief/rescue team sent to the Farragut to help Kirk fix the ship, and later, save the Enterprise from that scary murder-ship, which looks a bit like a starship version of a xenomorph from Alien. If we look at SNW as 100 percent part of the real-deal Prime Universe timeline, this means this is chronologically the very first time all of these characters have teamed up on the bridge of a starship together. Yes, Kirk’s been around in other episodes, helping out, but not while he’s in command, and never before with Scotty.
While there is a certain argument that SNW is operating in a slightly modified chronology (because of Romulan time travel incursions, Khan’s birthday was moved up by several decades very overtly in the Season 2 episode “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”), we’re still meant to believe that the Prime Universe timeline is unfolding in the 23rd century, more or less, how it should. To put it another way, the Kelvin Universe timeline in the 2009 reboot Star Trek film had Kirk (Chris Pine) go from being a cadet to captain during one mission, set in the year 2258. In the Prime timeline, 2258 was Strange New Worlds’ first season, in which Kirk was only glimpsed and also seen in an alternate reality. But in Season 3, set in 2261, Kirk is now just four short years away from fully taking command of the Enterprise.
Hilariously, the number of different Kirks Paul Wesley has technically played in SNW is staggering: So far, he’s played two different Kirks from two different alternate dimensions; one in “The Quality of Mercy,” and another, totally different Kirk in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” If we count the “actor” and faux captain in “A Space Adventure Hour” as two characters, and add the “regular” Kirk, that’s a total of five Kirks, or maybe four and a half, depending on how you look at it. But what makes “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail” so notable is that it’s Wesley’s most nuanced and realistic take on Kirk yet. This is Commander Kirk, first officer of the Farragut, whose Vulcan captain is almost slain, making him the default boss.
Brilliantly, this episode doesn’t just turn this into a victory lap for Kirk. In contrast to Chris Pine’s Kirk generally just being right about all of his cocky command decisions, in this episode, Kirk makes a ton of mistakes and almost loses the entire confidence of his ad-hoc crew. Scotty, in particular, thinks he’s nuts, and even Uhura, who is buddies with him from Season 2, isn’t so sure that James will make the right call. Smartly, the episode solves this problem with Spock, the only person who realizes that his way of thinking is not only a benefit to Kirk, but that Kirk can be a benefit to him.
Of course, this echoes the extremely famous bromance of Kirk and Spock throughout all other iterations of the characters, but adds a new wrinkle to their origin story. We tend to think of Kirk and Spock as inseparable best friends, men who truly love each other. But, in SNW, at this point, their basically co-workers who happen to fall into a vibe. Spock’s boosting of Kirk’s morale is not only extremely logical in this episode, it’s also touching, because, in this version of the story, we’re meant to think this is the first time they’ve really connected.
It’s a game-changing moment for the entire history of Starfleet and the Federation, and for Strange New Worlds, much more meaningful than Kirk and Spock’s brief meeting in Season 2. If a sequel TV series follows the conclusion of SNW, and sees Paul Wesley, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Celia Rose Gooding, and Martin Quinn continue on as Kirk, Spock Chapel, Uhura, and Scotty, this episode feels like a backdoor pilot episode for that hypothetical series. This might not have been the way we imagined these characters all in an adventure together for the first time, but it doesn’t get much more Star Trek than this.
