WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 6, "Lost in Translation."

Summary

  • Kirk and Spock's meeting in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is understated and realistic, highlighting the gradual formation of their friendship.
  • The meeting in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie is filled with tension and clashes, portraying Kirk and Spock as opposites rather than close friends.
  • Strange New Worlds prioritizes the importance of Kirk and Spock's friendship and shared interests, setting the stage for their legendary Starfleet partnership to develop over time.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has finally revealed how Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) and Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) met in the Prime timeline, prompting discussion over whether it's better or worse than the meeting depicted in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009). William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's Kirk and Spock are the most iconic pairing in Star Trek history, which is presumably why the franchise has recast them twice in the past 14 years. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto were the first actors to assume the iconic roles for a brand-new audience, and both stars were praised for their respectful, but fresh takes on the characters.

Kirk and Spock's first Star Trek scene established that they already knew each other well enough to play three-dimensional chess together. However, due to the modern entertainment industry's obsession with origin stories, the recasts of Kirk and Spock have allowed Star Trek to depict their first meeting - twice. The first meetings in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie are wildly different in both tone and portent, but which one is best?

How Kirk & Spock Meet In J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Vs. Strange New Worlds

Star trek kirk spock

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek had Kirk and Spock meet during a tribunal at Starfleet Academy, while the former was a cadet. The tribunal was called to investigate Kirk's cheating of the Kobayashi Maru test. It's a functional scene to emphasize that Kirk does not believe in the no-win scenario. Kirk and Spock's clash at the tribunal is also designed to show how their different outlooks make them such an unbeatable Star Trek partnership. The whole scene is about how Spock will ultimately make Kirk a better Captain through his more rational outlook, reminding him of the importance of his responsibilities to his crew over his more impulsive response to the situations they'll later face.

This is in sharp contrast to the way that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds underplays Kirk and Spock's meeting in "Lost in Translation". For starters, Kirk spends the majority of the episode in the company of Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) as they try to get to the bottom of her troubling visions. Spock is a background character in the episode, as Kirk observes his future best friend play chess before being introduced to him in the final scene. This is a very early stage in Spock and Kirk's friendship, and the long-form nature of TV will allow Strange New Worlds to gradually bring the two men closer together.

Why Kirk & Spock Meeting In Strange New Worlds Is Better

Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura, Ethan Peck as Spock and Paul Wesley as Kirk

Kirk and Spock's first meeting in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds works so well because it's so understated. J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie placed Kirk and Spock on a collision course by contrasting their different childhood experiences of being outsiders. Their first experience of each other is an argument during the investigation of Kirk's cheating of Spock's Kobayashi Maru test. They clash again when Kirk has a - correct - hunch about the attack by Nero (Eric Bana) on Vulcan. Both interactions are so heavily imbued with tension, that an audience sees Kirk and Spock as a chalk-and-cheese duo, rather than as close friends.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds avoids all of this by having Uhura introduce Kirk and Spock in the Enterprise bar. It's a realistic portrayal of how friendships are formed, and places Kirk and Spock's friendship and shared interests above their heroic partnership in of importance to the canon. It will be far more satisfying to watch this low-key friendship become a legendary Starfleet partnership, instead of throwing both men together in the heat of battle, forming a friendship through hardship, rather than commonality.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.