It’s been fun seeing so much of Kirk this season, but does that mean he’s now a regular? I don’t see how he could take a position on the Enterprise for years yet, so would that imply he just keeps coincidentally visiting all the time? Starts to strain plausibility after a while.
Definitely straining plausibility. Also straining canon, which I don’t mind so much, but I think the combination makes it worse.
I’d say Kirk being here for multiple episodes was necessary to resolve La’an’s growth as a person. Whether it needed to be Kirk himself, obviously not, but since they started that thread they had to complete it. I do hope he doesn’t just continue hanging around next season, though. He has a post on the Farragut to attend to.
I kind of assume if they have plans for him it’s a young Kirk spinoff. If they wanted him to stick around I feel like they wouldn’t have closed down the relationship with La’an so forcibly if that makes sense.
Seems to be like a Starfleet mentoring program we just haven’t seen in action before. It makes sense to me that they’d want their rising stars to get some exposure to other established captains and develop relationships with other crews beyond their own. I like it.
It’s also something that happens in real navies and the coast guard.
Sending a candidate for captain or first officer to shadow on another ship before a command level promotion is regular practice. In some cases, they are expected to complete shadowing on as many as two or three ships other than the one they regularly serve on.
I like it when the new shows incorporate regular naval or military practice even though many fans, unfamiliar with military service, take unnecessary exception. (This goes for negative fan reactions to Ortegas behaving exactly like many combat pilots in real life.)
I can’t remember when but I’m pretty sure we’ve seen officers shadow others before
does lower decks count? that’s the one that’s immediately coming to mind
It’s not a coincidence, it’s Pike. Pike’s seen the future and knows the Romulans are coming, and he also knows that Kirk being in command of Enterprise at that point has the best chance of succeeding at staving off the new war the Romulans will want to provoke in TOS: “Balance of Terror”.
He can’t tell Kirk that, of course, and he can’t do anything active to make it seem he’s planning for Kirk to take over. But what he can do is that if an opportunity comes to let Kirk aboard and become familiar with the Enterprise, her crew, and bond with them, he’ll take it. A joint mission with the Farragut and Kirk wants to visit? Sure. XO training with Una? Why not? Work closely with senior staff? By all means.
Eventually Kirk will be Pike’s explicit choice to succeed him, and at that point Kirk will have both the experience he needs and a familiarity and relationship with the crew and ship that will make him a plausible one.
I get the impression that Kirk is not staying in this series. Or if he does likely not on the Enterprise for long.
In the latest episode he mentioned being a person who doesn’t stay in one place for long. Also, mentioning the pregnancy to La’an has me thinking he’s there on the Enterprise to help but not to stay.
I think these are hints that he may pop in on a few occasions but not a fixture.
A little bit of Kirk us enough for this show. I’d really hate to see home become a major character. I also wonder why they cast a Jim Carrey doppelganger as James T. Kirk?
