star trek canon – Trekking with Dennis

Ten Star Trek Storylines That Should Be Non-Canon

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the Star Trek franchise.

We’ve recently talked about some of my Star Trek “head canon” – i.e. theories and ideas I have about Star Trek that aren’t confirmed on screen, but make sense to me! Click or tap here to check out that piece, by the way… I talk about things like cloaking devices, the Borg, and more. If that article was about things in Star Trek that aren’t canon but should be, then today we’re gonna do the exact opposite! These are ten Star Trek storylines that I fully believe should be non-canon.

Before we go any further, a couple of important caveats. First of all, this is a controversial subject! As Trekkies, we all have different opinions about what makes a fun and successful Star Trek story… and that’s okay. There should be enough room within the Star Trek fan community for differences of opinion and disagreement without spiralling into arguments. Everything we’re going to talk about is the entirely subjective opinion of one Star Trek fan, and I’m well aware that my opinion will be the minority one in some cases. As I’ve said before: no theory or opinion is worth getting angry or worked up over!

Early concept art of the Enterprise-D.
*Image Credit: Forgotten Trek/Frogland Archive*

It should go without saying, but none of these stories or episodes will ever actually be “removed” from Star Trek’s canon. The title is really a tongue-in-cheek way of me saying that I either dislike a particular storyline or feel that its presence in the broader Star Trek universe is a stumbling block for other narratives that I prefer. This isn’t like that awful clickbait article that did the rounds a few months ago claiming that “Discovery is non-canon now!!1!” This is just for fun; a thought experiment for people like us who like to spend a bit more time with the Star Trek franchise after the credits have rolled.

With all that being said, if you aren’t in the right headspace to get into some potentially controversial Star Trek topics, this is your last chance to nope out!

Let’s jump into the list.

Storyline #1:
The destruction of Romulus.
Star Trek ’09, Picard, Discovery, et al.

In Star Trek ’09, the destruction of Romulus was kind of haphazardly thrown in as a way to justify Spock’s involvement in the story and tee up Nero as a villain. And at the time that film was being written, I guess it’s not unfair to say that a full-scale revival of the Star Trek franchise on the small screen seemed beyond unlikely! But after Star Trek was brought back and returned not only to the prime timeline but to the late 24th Century (and beyond), the destruction of Romulus has proven to be a difficult storyline for subsequent productions to navigate.

Picard was the first to pick up this story thread in its first season, showing a few flashbacks to Admiral Picard and his Romulan rescue plan. Romulan refugees also cropped up in Season 1… but the show didn’t really know what to do with them or how to handle the Romulans as a whole after the loss of their homeworld. The character of Elnor could’ve been a great point-of-view character for exploring this post-destruction Romulan Empire… but Picard’s writers had other ideas, and the character was abandoned.

Elnor was unceremoniously dumped before we could spend much time with him.

Discovery brought back the idea of Romulan-Vulcan reunification in the far future, and managed at least one creditable effort with that premise. But again, this story was a one-off and didn’t really go much further, even when Vulcan leader T’Rina became a recurring character. The fact that Romulus had been destroyed – centuries in the past from this vantage point – didn’t really come up in a big way, either, and I reckon Discovery’s Ni’Var storyline could’ve worked just as well without it.

The Romulans are one of Star Trek’s most iconic villains – perhaps in third place behind only the Klingons and Borg. To destroy their homeworld – the core of their empire – for what was essentially a throwaway scene and the backstory of an over-the-top villain… I dunno. It feels extreme, which Star Trek ’09 was in some ways. But any stories set after the late 24th Century are now constrained by this massive narrative beat, and will arguably miss out on one of the franchise’s best villains. The Romulans are certainly one of Star Trek’s most shadowy, clandestine factions, and damaging them so severely that it would take them decades if not centuries to recover, while also impoverishing at least some of their survivors… it places real constraints on future stories.

Storyline #2:
Suspiciously human-like aliens on many different planets.
The Original Series

These are meant to be aliens. From outer space.

When we reach the final frontier and explore strange new worlds… we’re going to meet aliens and totally new forms of life. We aren’t going to encounter an exact duplicate of Earth, a planet where everyone dresses like it’s Germany in the 1930s, or a planet where whose inhabitants – who don’t look even remotely alien – think they’re living in Ancient Rome. In a word… these old episodes of The Original Series (and some from The Next Generation, too) aren’t sci-fi enough!

There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, of course: it was the ’60s, and The Original Series had a limited budget to work with. The show would use stages and props that had been built for other projects, or Paramount’s backlot, meaning explanations had to be found and aliens created to fit with those existing sets. There were also limitations to the prosthetics, puppets, and practical effects that could be designed and built, and with twenty-five episodes per season to write… some liberties had to be taken with the way aliens looked and behaved.

Kirk leads an away team to Miri’s planet: a clone or twin of Earth.

But for me… let’s just say I’ve always been less keen on these too-human alien societies. I think there’s an interesting head canon explanation (that I go into in more detail in a standalone piece that you can find by clicking or tapping here) that basically says that these are lost or forgotten human colonies from the early days of pre-Federation spaceflight. But that only works if you buy into my theory! As presented on screen, we’re meant to take these societies to be Earth-like aliens… and I just don’t think that works if we’re taking Star Trek seriously as a sci-fi universe.

Space is big and space is weird – so there are bound to be incomprehensible things out there for our heroes to encounter. But too often, especially in The Original Series, we’d get these “aliens” that were not only physically indistinguishable from humans, but whose societies and even planetary geography was identical to some part of human history, too. Don’t get me wrong, many of these episodes are a ton of fun and they’re part of what made Star Trek what it is today. But I just don’t think they have a place in the franchise any more… and they haven’t for decades.

Storyline #3:
Most of the mission to 2024.
Picard Season 2

Los Angeles as seen in *Picard* Season 2.

I’ve had a piece in my writing pile for a couple of years tentatively titled “Star Trek: Picard – The Movie,” in which I’m going to argue that Picard’s second season (which I generally didn’t like) would work so much better as a cut-down two-hour-ish movie rather than a ten-episode season. I’d keep the attack on the Stargazer and the arrival of the Borg, I’d keep the Confederation timeline and the Borg Queen’s corpse, and I’d keep Agnes’ assimilation. But after that I’d cut out almost all of the 21st Century stuff, including all the revelations about Picard’s past and Q being on his deathbed, streamline the story by saying Q’s real objective was to prevent the mysterious anomaly from destroying the Federation, and launch Picard and his friends back to the bridge of the Stargazer.

For me, Picard’s second season spent way, way too long wallowing in a boring 21st Century environment that robbed the story of basically everything that feels like Star Trek, and I didn’t enjoy it. There was the kernel of an interesting idea, with Picard having to confront childhood trauma. But that storyline completely fell apart, it didn’t expand our understanding of Jean-Luc Picard as a character in any meaningful way, and parts of it felt almost like “torture porn;” throwing Picard (and other characters like Raffi and Rios) into a series of traumatic events that served no real narrative function. Picard’s story just didn’t give us much of anything, Raffi’s was undone with seconds to spare at the end of the season, and Rios’ story was written in a weirdly contradictory way to facilitate his exit from the series.

So I’d cut out all of that, and I’d streamline Picard’s second season into a much more reasonable two-hour movie. There’d still be time for what I said in my review was one of the best and most frightening presentations of the Borg that we’d seen in decades, there’d still be a way for Q to play a part, and we could hop over to the Confederation timeline for a little while to get a Mirror Universe-inspired alternate reality look at Picard and Earth. But the mission to the 21st Century could be seriously cut back to only a few minutes, with perhaps one objective for Picard and the gang: to ensure the Europa Mission launches on cue.

I really ought to finish writing up my longer piece on this idea, because I can’t fully do justice to it in just a few paragraphs! Stay tuned here on the website, because I daresay I’ll get around to it one of these days! For now, suffice to say that Picard’s random wandering through 21st Century Los Angeles (and a suspiciously California-like France) should be dumped.

Storyline #4:
Captain Archer versus the Borg.
Enterprise Season 2: Regeneration

I genuinely enjoy Regeneration as a one-off episode, and I think it was a fun idea to bring the Borg into Enterprise… even if it was pretty obvious that the reason for doing so was to boost the show’s flagging ratings. But stepping back and thinking about what it means for the history of Borg-Federation contact, Regeneration really screws with a timeline that has already been meddled with!

There are three angles to approach this from, and all of them are bad. Firstly, we have what this storyline says about Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E. First Contact made clear that Picard had ordered his ship hidden so as not to accidentally interfere with humanity’s first warp flight and the Vulcans’ arrival on Earth. But apparently they totally ignored, forgot about, or didn’t think to scan for Borg debris from the ship they’d destroyed. It presents Picard and co. as incompetent at best when it comes to cultural contamination, and given how meticulous we know he is… it just doesn’t track that there’d be all this debris left behind, including fully intact and functional Borg drones.

An assimilated shuttle versus the Enterprise.

Next, the Borg sent a message to the Collective in the Delta Quadrant, basically making the whole First Contact–Regeneration story a time-loop paradox. It also seriously muddles the question of how and when the Borg first encountered humanity. Was it when they received this message? Was it when they assimilated the Hansen family in the 2340s? Voyager had already messed with the Borg quite a lot thanks to Seven of Nine and the Borg Queen, so this additional complication was not helpful! Turning the story of humanity’s first contact with the Borg into this kind of paradox is not what I wanted to see.

Finally, there’s what this story says about Starfleet. Captain Archer encountered a race of cybernetic beings who sent a message to the Delta Quadrant. Years later, the Federation took in El-Aurian refugees whose planet had been attacked by the Borg. Yet for some reason, by the 24th Century, all knowledge of both of these events was suppressed, deleted, or just not taught at the Academy. Given how hard Archer and his crew had to work to stop a handful of drones, you’d think they’d have recorded the details of what they did and what they were up against so that future Starfleet explorers wouldn’t be starting from scratch. This is a typical “prequel problem” of the kind Enterprise created on more than one occasion. For all of these reasons combined, though, Regeneration’s 22nd Century Borg storyline joins this list.

Storyline #5:
Warp 10 as a hard limit on travel.
The Next Generation, Voyager Season 2: Threshold, et al.

Star Trek has been pretty inconsistent with how warp speeds and travel times are depicted. I have a head canon explanation that basically says Starfleet re-designates warp factors as newer and faster engines are created… but that only goes part of the way to plugging some of the apparent plot holes that almost six decades’ worth of stories have accumulated! Long story short, most Star Trek productions from The Next Generation onward present warp one as the speed of light and warp ten as an unachievable goal; a speed that would allow instantaneous travel anywhere in the galaxy. But that doesn’t fit with what we see on screen.

What is “transwarp?” Is it speeds faster than warp 10? The Borg seem to be able to travel beyond warp 10 through their transwarp network, potentially cutting the time needed to reach Earth from the fringes of the Delta Quadrant from decades to hours. Then there’s the notorious Voyager episode Threshold, which saw Tom Paris and Captain Janeway travel faster than warp 10 (though still not fast enough to reach Earth), before mutating into salamanders.

I think it would be so much better if Star Trek dropped this idea that warp 10 is a kind of hard limit. Speeds beyond what we understand as warp 9.9999 are clearly possible, as we see the Borg, the Kelvan Empire, Arturis’ species, and many others are able to travel far faster than Starfleet. So why not drop this idea in favour of new warp factors – perhaps a show or film set in the Picard era could introduce the first warp 12 engine, for example, and Star Trek could grow from there.

Threshold as an episode can pretty much be written off, too! I don’t think anyone will miss it. Recent developments, like the Kelvin timeline’s transwarp beaming and Discovery’s spore drive, can also be used to travel great distances in a short period of time. There’s potential for future stories to pick up these threads, too.

Storyline #6:
The Prophets are responsible for Sisko’s birth.
Deep Space Nine Season 7: Image in the Sand + Shadows and Symbols

A photo of Sisko’s Prophet-posessed mother.

Star Trek has never believed in things like fate or destiny, and for me, this storyline about the Prophets deliberately conceiving Benjamin Sisko so he could one day become their emissary is dangerously close to that idea. It also turns Sisko’s entire arc across Deep Space Nine into a giant predestination paradox; he became the emissary because the Prophets created him. It challenges and undermines really his entire personality all for the sake of having a twist in a couple of episodes.

Part of what was interesting about Deep Space Nine was the intersection of religion and science. The Bajorans worshipped the “gods” of the wormhole, but Sisko and the rest of the Starfleet crew saw them as just another alien race to make first contact with. And Star Trek has always leaned more on the science angle than the religious whenever questions like this have come up; as the audience, we’ve always been on Starfleet’s side, too, seeing entities and aliens like these as another race in the galaxy – not deities who are responsible for guiding the lives of our heroes. Deep Space Nine ventured into spirituality in a big way, and until Seasons 6 and 7 mostly stayed on the right side of that line.

A high-definition render of the Bajoran Wormhole from the documentary *What We Left Behind*.

These episodes kicked off a longer story arc across Season 7 which also involved Kai Winn and Dukat. The conflict between the Pah-Wraiths and Prophets took on this Christian apocalyptic tone, with Sisko akin to an almost Christ-like figure, predetermined from before his conception to play a pivotal role in this struggle. While this story was interesting in its own right, it’s also inherently un-Star Trek in a significant way.

Because the Prophets exist outside of linear time, that gave Deep Space Nine’s writers a lot of wiggle-room. But for me, this paradox was a bridge too far. Star Trek can and should tackle religious themes, but in my view it works best when stories take a more detached and scientific approach to these topics.

Storyline #7:
The Klingon-Augment virus.
Trials and Tribble-ations, Enterprise Season 4, et al.

A Klingon affected by the Augment virus.

I don’t believe that every single aspect of Star Trek demands an on-screen explanation. The Klingons that Kirk met in The Original Series look different from those that we’d later see in The Motion Picture and from The Search for Spock onward – and that’s okay. Fans could make head canon explanations if they wanted, but there was just no need for an in-universe explanation of this change in prosthetic makeup… especially not one so convoluted.

The origins of this can be traced back to the otherwise excellent Trials and Tribble-ations – the Deep Space Nine episode made for the Star Trek franchise’s 30th anniversary. That story saw the crew of DS9 interacting with Kirk’s crew, using newly-developed editing techniques to integrate new characters with old footage. It was an incredibly creative episode and a fun story… but it came with a problem! At one point, a couple of characters make reference to the way Klingons look, asking Worf about it. This was the first on-screen acknowledgement that something had changed.

Worf’s line in *Trials and Tribble-ations* was the first on-screen acknowledgement of the aesthetic changes the Klingons underwent.

Enterprise, several years later, took this idea and ran with it, crafting an intricate (and pretty dumb) multi-epiosde arc that introduced the Klingon-Augment virus: a genetically-engineered creation that infected Klingons with human DNA, physically changing their appearances. In the writers’ minds, this “closed a plot hole,” but I would argue very strongly that it was one that never needed to be closed. Even if it did, and even if we desperately want to find a way to acknowledge the change in makeup used for the Klingons with an in-universe explanation… I just found this particular story to be convoluted and weak.

More recent Star Trek projects have, thankfully, quietly dropped this idea. The Kelvin films and Discovery admittedly had their own issues with re-interpreting the aesthetics of the Klingons, but Strange New Worlds – which is set in the 23rd Century and has featured the Klingons on more than one occasion – has basically reset the way they look. There’s no reason to bring up this idea again – and I sincerely hope Star Trek can continue to walk away from it!

Storyline #8:
The Burn (as part of the prime timeline).
Discovery Seasons 3-5

Discovery’s second season probably had some of its best individual performances, thanks to the inclusions of Captain Pike and Spock. But for me, most of Discovery’s best episodes actually came after the series shot forward into the far future, leaving behind much of what we’re familiar with in the Star Trek galaxy. Unfortunately, though, Discovery’s writers and creatives wanted the show to focus more on Burnham’s increasingly soap opera-like personal relationships and attempts at depicting characters overcoming traumatic events (that mostly didn’t work as intended). As a result, we didn’t spend as much time as I’d have liked with either the Federation or other factions in this potentially-interesting setting.

Another piece I’ll have to write up in full one day is whether Discovery’s “post-apocalyptic Star Trek” idea worked or even came close to working. But for now, I think we can at least make the case that the Burn is a pretty depressing future for the prime timeline, and that pushing Discovery’s far future into some kind of pocket universe or alternate reality wouldn’t be a terrible idea for the franchise as a whole.

*Discovery* never really did anything with its “rebuild the Federation” idea.

I’m hopeful that there will be more Star Trek on our screens in the years ahead – and that at least some of it will return to the 24th and early 25th Centuries. But any show or film using that setting (or really any pre-Burn setting) becomes, by default, a prequel to Discovery’s third season. That means, in the backs of our minds, we know that no matter what our new heroes might do, however they might find creative ways to save the day… the Federation and much of the galaxy is going to end up devastated in a few hundred years anyway. It puts a brake on future Star Trek stories in a way that we haven’t really seen before.

If Discovery had done more with the idea of rebuilding the Federation and restoring Starfleet values to the galaxy, that feeling would persist but it would be somewhat lessened, I feel. But because that didn’t happen, the Burn and its aftermath really are little more than fluff; background details for other, less-interesting stories to play out in front of. Given the sheer scale of the Burn and the devastation it wrought… that’s not good enough for me. I don’t want to remove Discovery’s latter seasons entirely, as there’s some good storytelling in there and some fun episodes. But finding some way to push it out of the prime timeline and into some kind of alternate reality… let’s just say it would be a net positive. Maybe in Starfleet Academy?

Storyline #9:
Neelix’s romance with Kes.
Voyager Seasons 1 & 2

This is an uncomfortable one… but Neelix’s love for Kes in some early episodes of Voyager didn’t have the cutsey or romantic vibes that the writers may have been hoping for. The age gap between Neelix and Kes made the whole thing feel a bit… icky. Thankfully it wasn’t in focus for too long, because if it had been I genuinely think it could’ve ruined Neelix as a character.

Ocampans are a very short-lived species, and Kes was either one or two years old in Voyager’s premiere. The implications of that when considering Neelix’s feelings are just unpleasant, but even if you push that to the back of your mind, there’s no getting away from the fact that Kes is basically a teenager or young adult while Neelix is in the Talaxian equivalent of middle age.

We’d also see Neelix getting possessive of Kes, with episodes like Parturition and Twisted being prime examples of this. The contrast between Neelix’s usual jovial, friendly persona and the jealousy and anger he could feel has genuinely uncomfortable undertones. For anyone who’s ever been in a toxic relationship with a narcissistic or possessive partner, there are parallels in this presentation of the two sides of Neelix that could be triggering.

I wish we’d got to spend more time with Kes; in my view, she was unfairly dumped from Voyager. In recent years there’s been speculation as to exactly what happened behind-the-scenes, informed, at least in part, by actress Jennifer Lien’s struggles and issues. I don’t really want to get into all of that, but suffice to say that I would have happily kept Kes as part of Voyager’s roster if I’d had the option. But I’m glad that this Neelix romance angle didn’t stick around beyond the first couple of seasons – and that it was only present in a big way in a handful of stories.

Storyline #10:
The Borg Collective has a leader.
(And she’s weirdly obsessed with a couple of random humans for some reason).
First Contact, Dark Frontier, et al.

This could be one of my most controversial Star Trek “hot takes,” but… the Borg Queen kind of ruins the Borg. What made the Collective so scary in its first appearances was that it was akin to a force of nature; incomprehensible, unstoppable, and unable to be reasoned with. The Borg operated as one hive mind, with no individuals or individuality, united in common purpose: the pursuit of technology and an unknowable idea of “perfection.”

The Borg Queen was created because the producers/writers of First Contact believed that the film needed a villain for Picard and Data to wrangle with – a unique individual Borg who could have more personality than any drone. But this completely misunderstands what the Borg represented and what made them so frightening. In doing so, it robbed the faction of one of its most important and unique features. The Borg Queen’s apparent obsession with Picard, Seven of Nine, and humanity as a whole developed from this… and really takes a lot away from the original concept of the Borg as this incomprehensible, uncaring, unknowable adversary.

A different depiction of the Borg Queen.

A big part of many Star Trek episodes (so much so that it’s become a cliché) is “they were only trying to communicate!” Many of the franchise’s stories present our heroes with apparently hostile aliens or scenarios, only to learn later that what they wanted was to talk or be understood. Other stories introduce a villain who can ultimately be reasoned with, even if they initially seemed hell-bent on destruction. The Borg’s original presentation, prior to the introduction of the Borg Queen, precluded even the pretense of negotiation, compromise, or really any kind of meaningful communication. The Borg had one objective, and there was no way to dissuade them from it. They viewed humanity and the Federation as a resource, and nothing more.

By introducing a Borg leader, someone who has a unique personality (even though she claims to be a manifestation of the Collective; I’m not buying that based on how she comes across on screen) the most unique trait the Borg had has been erased. And what replaces it is little more than a generic “I’m evil for no reason and I love it” scenery-chewing bad guy. The Borg, prior to the Queen’s appearance in First Contact, were so much better, so much more frightening, and completely unique.

So that’s it… for now!

We’ve talked about ten Star Trek storylines that should be non-canon… at least in my completely subjective opinion!

I hope this has been interesting. It’s certainly been a bit of fun for me to revisit some of these episodes and stories. Some, like Enterprise’s Borg episode, are totally fine in isolation… but start to create problems when you think about them in the wider context of the Star Trek franchise. Others, like Neelix and Kes as a couple, didn’t work from day one and I’d be happy to just pretend the whole thing never happened! None of these storylines will ever actually be “removed” from Star Trek’s canon, though, so if one of your favourites is on the list, don’t panic!

We’ve talked about questions of canon quite a lot in the past few weeks, and I’ve had a lot of fun writing about some of these subjects. My “Borg teasing” theory is something that I’ve been kicking around for literally decades, and I also had fun adding to my list of minor things in Star Trek that bug me! I don’t know what’s next – perhaps a longer write-up of one or two of the points on this list could make for a fun article or essay. Stay tuned, though, because there’s plenty more Star Trek to come here on the website in the weeks and months ahead!

Most of the TV shows and films referenced above are available to stream on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available. The Star Trek franchise is also available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including all episodes, films, and other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Ten More Things That Have Always Bugged Me In Star Trek

Sun 02.02.25Dennis

A Star Trek-themed spoiler warning graphic.

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series Seasons 1 & 3, The Wrath of Khan, The Next Generation Season 1, The Undiscovered Country, Enterprise Seasons 2 & 3, Star Trek 2009, Discovery Seasons 2 & 4, Strange New Worlds Season 1, and Section 31.

Last year, I wrote up a tongue-in-cheek list of some of the little things that have always bugged me in Star Trek! Today, I thought we could have a little bit more fun at the franchise’s expense by talking about a few more. These are incredibly small things that don’t even rise to the level of “nitpicks,” but every time I see or hear them in their respective stories, they bug me! I know none of them will ever be explained in canon – nor do they really need to be – but I hope you’ll forgive an old Trekkie for airing their thoughts!

Star Trek fans have a bit of a reputation – especially on fan sites like this one – for nitpicking and being sticklers for canon and internal consistency, and I’m acutely aware that that’s how this list could come across. For me, this is written with tongue firmly embedded in cheek – it’s not meant to be taken completely seriously. While I do concede that all of these things “bug me,” as the title says, none of them ruined my enjoyment of any film or episode. These are minor things that aren’t worth arguing about or getting upset over – and I share this piece with the fan community in that spirit.

Promotional photo of several main characters from Star Trek: Enterprise, circa 2001. — Several main characters from *Star Trek: Enterprise*.

A couple of important caveats before we go any further. All of this is the entirely subjective opinion of a single Star Trek fan. If I raise points you vehemently disagree with, if none of these things bothered you, if you think I’ve misunderstood something, or if you feel I’m overreacting… that’s okay! There’s room enough in the Star Trek fandom for polite discussion and differences of opinion. And as I said above, none of this really matters anyway as these are all exceptionally minor points.

Finally, I’m not counting out-of-universe explanations. “It’s just a story,” or “because the writer/director wanted to do things that way” do not count! Sometimes, in order to tell a more entertaining story, the minutiae of canon or some element of internal consistency has to get pushed aside – that’s the way it goes in the world of entertainment. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about on this occasion.

Phew. With all of that out of the way, let’s jump into the list.

Number 1:
Why did Khan have a Motion Picture/Wrath of Khan-era Starfleet badge? Where did he even get it?
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Still frame from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan showing a close-up of Khan aboard the USS Reliant. — Khan sporting his famous necklace.

Look at Khan’s outfit when Chekov and Captain Terrell encounter him and his surviving crewmates on Ceti Alpha V. After he takes off his overcoat, Khan is wearing a necklace which appears to be made from a damaged Motion Picture-era Starfleet badge – or a monster maroon belt buckle, perhaps. But how did he acquire this item? Khan and his people have been marooned on the planet since the time of The Original Series – years before either of those uniform styles were in use.

If Khan was wearing a piece of a Starfleet uniform, surely he should be wearing one of the gold, red, or blue shirts that we’re familiar with from The Original Series – or perhaps a pair of Starfleet boots from that era! It’s always stood out to me as a bit of an oddity of apparel; when you look at his necklace more closely, it’s clearly worn and weathered indicating it’s something he’s kept for years – perhaps as a symbol of his quest for vengeance against Kirk and Starfleet. But given that no Starfleet ships visited the Ceti Alpha system in between the events of Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan, it’s an item he simply shouldn’t have had access to.

Still frame from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan showing Khan, Chekov, Captain Terrell, and several augments aboard the derelict Botany Bay. — Khan was already wearing the necklace when Chekov and Terrell arrived.

If Khan started wearing the necklace after his encounter with Chekov, I’d say that he took the piece from him or from someone else on Reliant’s crew. But he clearly converted part of a Starfleet uniform into this necklace during his time on the planet, before his meeting with the crew of the Reliant – so that explanation doesn’t work.

There’s no getting around the simple fact that Khan shouldn’t have this badge or belt buckle. Nothing like it was seen in The Original Series, and even if we extend our search to other 23rd Century shows like Discovery or Strange New Worlds, very generously assuming that another Starfleet vessel visited Ceti Alpha V before the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI, there are still no comparable badges, buckles, or anything with a Starfleet delta of the right shape and size for Khan to convert into a necklace. Unless he used his people’s very limited resources to smelt a perfect Starfleet delta the exact same shape and size… I don’t know where he got it from!

Number 2:
Aren’t the Cherons (or Cheronians) extinct?
Star Trek: Section 31

Still frame from Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3 showing Lokai, a black-and-white alien from the planet Cheron. — Lokai, one of the last surviving members of his race.

In the recent Section 31 TV movie (which you can read a review of by clicking or tapping here) we meet a character aboard Georgiou’s space station who looks very similar to a Cheron/Cheronian. The Cherons were encountered in the iconic episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield – where the final two members of the species met Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise.

I like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, and it’s an episode with a disappointingly timeless message about how racism and division will eventually lead to conflict, war, and extinction. The entire point of the story was that the Cherons wiped themselves out because they couldn’t get over their hatred of one another – even though, to us, they appeared to be the same species. It’s a message that was poignant at the time it was written – with the American civil rights movement ongoing – and has remained so to this day.

Still frame from Star Trek: Section 31 showing the character of Virgil. — Is Virgil from *Section 31* meant to be a Cheron?

Section 31 confused me with its Stardate and therefore its place in the timeline – but no matter whether it was meant to be set in the mid-23rd Century or the early 24th Century, there simply shouldn’t be any surviving Cherons left. If Section 31 takes place before Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, then I guess technically two members of the species remain. But if, as the producers have told us, the film takes place in between The Undiscovered Country and The Next Generation, then the entire species is extinct – wiped out because they couldn’t overcome their hatred for one another.

Of all the things modern Star Trek could’ve chosen to retcon… the survival of the Cherons isn’t one I’d have wanted to see. It serves no purpose to bring in a character like that as a one-off campy joke, and furthermore, it undermines the powerful message of a classic story. My personal head-canon (which I really should write up one day) is that this character at Georgiou’s bar wasn’t actually a real Cheron, but someone basically cosplaying as one. I think that’s actually the least-bad spin I can put on the matter!

Number 3:
Does the Enterprise-D’s saucer section have warp drive or not?
Star Trek: The Next Generation

Still frame from Star Trek: Picard Season 3 showing a close-up of the Enterprise-D's saucer. — Close-up of the Enterprise-D’s saucer section.

According to most sources I can find – including in episodes where saucer separation occurs or is mentioned – the Enterprise-D’s saucer section has impulse engines only. Impulse engines allow for travel at speeds below warp one – i.e. below the speed of light. But this seems to contradict not only what we see on screen in episodes like Encounter at Farpoint… but the entire point of saucer separation as it’s explained in the show.

Except for situations like a warp core breach, where the destruction of the ship is imminent, what’s the main purpose of saucer separation? As stated in Encounter at Farpoint, The Best of Both Worlds, and other episodes, the star-drive section is where most of the Enterprise-D’s heavy armaments are – so the point of saucer separation is to evacuate civilians, scientists, and other non-combatants. The saucer section can be commanded by a junior officer with orders to set course for the nearest safe system or starbase, getting families and scientists out of the danger zone or battlefield. The star-drive section is then free to engage the enemy.

Still frame from Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 showing the Enterprise-D initiating a saucer separation. — Saucer separation in progress.

But at sub-light speeds, this won’t work. Any enemy ship could easily catch up to and overtake a fleeing saucer section travelling at impulse, or hit it with a torpedo or disruptor blast while it’s still in range. And at impulse speeds the saucer section would be decades away from help even if it was relatively close to a friendly base or star system. That’s not to mention that, in Encounter at Farpoint, the saucer section travels an apparently sizeable distance under its own power to reach Deneb IV after the encounter with Q. The Enterprise-D was at warp – apparently not in the Deneb system – yet the saucer was able to travel all that way, either at warp or at faster-than-light speeds, which seems to contradict what we know of the Enterprise-D and its capabilities.

So does the saucer section have warp engines? Or if saucer separation happens at warp, can the saucer cruise at warp for a while before slowing down? I think that contradicts what we know of how warp drive works and how warp bubbles are generated and sustained by warp cores… but there’s at least a degree of ambiguity there, I guess. What still doesn’t make sense, though, is how launching the saucer section at sub-light speeds is supposed to help the ship’s civilian crew escape from danger in a galaxy populated by warp-capable villains.

Number 4:
Why can’t the crew of the USS Reliant count to six?
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Still frame from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan showing the USS Reliant head-on. — The Miranda-class USS Reliant.

I know, I know: we’ve done The Wrath of Khan already! But this one really is dumb if you stop to think about it, so it’s definitely making the list. When the USS Reliant was scouting for planets as part of the Genesis project, it entered the Ceti Alpha system – a system that Starfleet has visited at least once before. The crew knew that there were supposed to be six planets… but no-one aboard can count, apparently.

Somehow – and I have no idea how this could’ve happened in the 23rd Century with all the technology aboard the USS Reliant – the crew mistook Ceti Alpha V for the destroyed Ceti Alpha VI, leading to them running into Khan and his band of augments. But there’s no way a mistake this glaringly obvious should’ve been able to happen at all.

Still frame from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan showing Captain Terrell, Commander Beach, and another officer on the bridge of the USS Reliant. — Three senior officers on the bridge of the USS Reliant.

Upon entering the system – or hours ahead of arriving, using long-range sensors – Reliant’s crew should’ve noticed that, y’know, an entire planet is missing. If nothing else, the debris or dust cloud left behind by the explosion of Ceti Alpha VI – which is unlikely to have dissipated fully in a few short years – should’ve been a dead giveaway. But even if some kind of solar wind blew all the dust and rocks far outside the system, there were still only five planets where there should’ve been six! You’d think someone would’ve noticed this and at least mentioned it to the captain.

That’s to say nothing of Starfleet’s apparent lack of record-keeping. The Ceti Alpha system should’ve been flagged up as containing a dangerous colony of criminals: the augments. We know, thanks to the likes of Strange New Worlds, that Khan and his people were still notorious centuries after they tried to rule all of Earth, so surely Starfleet would want to prevent unwitting starships from stumbling upon their colony. The Talos system is restricted by Starfleet for much the same reason, as we saw in The Cage. But even if Kirk conveniently forgot to record that mission or tell Starfleet what became of Khan… why couldn’t anyone on the USS Reliant count to six?!

Number 5:
Can’t ships just fly over or under the Galactic Barrier?
Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Discovery

Still frame from Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 showing the USS Discovery at the Galactic Barrier. — The Barrier at it appeared in *Discovery*.

Star Trek has, on occasion, exhibited what Mr Spock might call “two-dimensional thinking.” By that I mean that many ships and objects in space appear as if they’re on a perfectly flat plane – but space is three-dimensional. One example of this appears to be the Galactic Barrier – the forcefield-like object that apparently surrounds the edge of the galaxy, preventing spacecraft from leaving.

Even in Discovery, though, which is the Galactic Barrier’s most significant appearance to date, the phenomenon (which doesn’t exist in real life) appears to be a mostly two-dimensional ring around the edge of the galaxy rather than a three-dimensional bubble. Which raises a simple question: why not simply fly over or under it? Starships are obviously capable of manoeuvring in three dimensions, so why fly through something you could easily fly around?

Still frame from Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 showing the USS Enterprise approaching the Galactic Barrier. — The USS Enterprise approaches the Galactic Barrier.

Unless the Barrier is meant to surround the entire galaxy from all possible angles, there’s not really a good explanation for this. The way it’s been depicted on screen makes it seem like it’s something any starship could easily get around, even if doing so would take a bit longer. If this was a one-off visual effect from The Original Series I might be tempted to let it lie, but Discovery brought back the Galactic Barrier in its fourth season, presenting it as a pretty significant hurdle for Captain Burnham and the crew to overcome.

As an aside, I’m not sure that was a great idea! There are some elements of The Original Series, The Animated Series, and even from early in The Next Generation that just about work in context… but wouldn’t really translate well to a story made today. For me, as I think I said at the time of Discovery’s fourth season, the Galactic Barrier is one of them. And the way it’s presented and visualised on screen just kind of hammers home how two-dimensional some of the franchise’s space sequences can feel.

Number 6:
Why is artificial gravity always the last system to fail when a ship is damaged?
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country et al.

Still frame from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country showing a Klingon floating helplessly. — A Klingon officer floating after his ship’s artificial gravity was knocked offline.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times a starship’s artificial gravity has been damaged in Star Trek. The only time it was plot-relevant was in The Undiscovered Country, where the damage to the artificial gravity on the Klingon ship Kronos One was instrumental to the plot to assassinate Chancellor Gorkon. But aside from that… can you think of a single time in the franchise’s 950 episodes and films where a ship has lost gravity?

We’ve seen starships take a real beating sometimes: the Enterprise in The Wrath of Khan, Voyager in Year of Hell, the NX-01 in Damage, and even non-Starfleet ships like the Cardassian vessel in The Wounded, or the Romulan warbird in Balance of Terror, but none of them ever lost their artificial gravity. This system appears to be more robust even than life-support, which we’ve seen fail on a number of occasions while artificial gravity was still operational.

Still frame from Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3 showing the NX-01 Enterprise heavily damaged. — Even serious damage, such as to the NX-01 Enterprise pictured here, doesn’t usually stop artificial gravity from functioning.

You’d think prioritising something like breathable air and a survivable temperature would take precedence over artificial gravity, with ships being designed in such a way that life-support would be the most resilient and sturdy system. I know there’s some ambiguity in the way these technologies work in Star Trek, but artificial gravity must require some amount of power to function – and even if it’s powered by a wholly separate system, anything that disables the entire ship should deactivate artificial gravity. It would also make a logical target during ship-to-ship combat, as knocking out an opponent’s gravity would cripple their ability to operate the ship.

There are even times where disabling artificial gravity would be to the advantage of a crew trying to defend their ship. Perhaps the best example of this is the Borg attack on the Enterprise-E in First Contact, but there are other times where a boarding party, raiders, or pirates could have been at least slowed down and hampered if the crew deactivated artificial gravity on one or two decks. I suppose it’s good for Star Trek that the way artificial gravity works is deliberately vague, and it’s one of those “you’ve just gotta suspend your disbelief” things. But from an in-universe point of view, the apparently indestructible nature of this system, and the overlooked tactical advantages of trying to disable an adversary’s artificial gravity, don’t make a lot of sense.

Number 7:
Shouldn’t Starfleet have persevered with the Spore Drive?
Star Trek: Discovery

Still frame from Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 showing the mushroom cultivation area aboard the ship. — The cultivation bay aboard the USS Discovery.

After the loss of the USS Glenn and the apparent destruction of the USS Discovery, we’re led to believe that Starfleet abandoned its Spore Drive programme – even though the technology was proven to work and would be beyond useful to the organisation. For Starfleet, with its dual military and scientific missions, the Spore Drive was a phenomenal leap forward with so many applications. I genuinely cannot believe that they’d just abandon it after a few setbacks – especially after the Klingon Empire had come to learn of its existence.

We would later see, in Discovery’s third season, that basically any empathic race could – in theory – interface with the Spore Drive. That doesn’t seem like such a huge leap that Starfleet couldn’t have figured it out over time, especially with races like the Betazoids and Vulcans on hand. But even if using an empath as a navigator wasn’t possible, it still seems like such a ridiculously overpowered and useful piece of kit that Starfleet – and Section 31 in particular – would want to continue to develop it.

Four still frames from Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 depicting the USS Discovery at the Battle of Pahvo. — The Battle of Pahvo (pictured) proved the Spore Drive’s worth as a military tool.

Look at the Spore Drive’s capabilities. Two of its biggest achievements were cracking the Klingons’ cloaking device – becoming basically invulnerable to attacks in the process – and leaping tens of thousands of light-years across the galaxy to the planet Terralysium. For Starfleet’s military, the Spore Drive’s ability to jump so fast that attacks from disruptors and torpedos are ineffective is huge – it could redefine starship combat in the Alpha Quadrant. And for the organisation’s mission of exploration, being able to jump to literally anywhere in the galaxy renders warp drive obsolete and would mean Starfleet can investigate any interesting-looking phenomena with ease – while still being back home in time for tea.

The Spore Drive is an example of a “prequel problem;” if Discovery had been set years or decades after Nemesis – in the same period as Picard, for example – then it wouldn’t be an issue. We could simply say that the Spore Drive would become Starfleet’s new method of travel. But because Discovery was set before The Original Series, I don’t think there’s any way to create a satisfactory explanation for why Starfleet, Section 31, or other factions didn’t continue to develop and refine it.

Number 8:
Why would the Xindi fire a small weapon at Earth months ahead of their main attack?
Star Trek: Enterprise

Still frame from Star Trek: Enterprise Season 2 showing a small spherical Xindi weapon firing. — The Xindi’s first weapon.

Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese general, wrote two-and-a-half thousand years ago that a good commander should “always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy if possible.” And throughout history – from the ancient world to the Second World War and beyond – surprise attacks and misdirection have been incredibly powerful tools that successful generals and strategists have employed. So why would the Xindi – backed up by a faction from the far future, no less – launch a minor attack that alerted Earth and humanity to their much larger upcoming attack?

If the Xindi needed to test the range and abilities of their weapon, they could pick another target in a different system. This target would be a comparable distance away from where they planned to launch their weapon, and could also be a planet of roughly the same size and mass as Earth. This would give their scientists and engineers the data they needed without compromising the secrecy of their operation. All they achieved by targeting Earth with their initial, much smaller weapon was alerting humanity and Starfleet to their existence – which ultimately set the stage for their defeat.

Still frame from Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3 showing the Xindi weapon arriving at Earth. — The much larger second Xindi weapon approaches Earth.

This is a military blunder so exceptionally basic that, if I were the Sphere-Builders, I’d have cut all contact with the Xindi and written off the entire operation. The miniature version of the weapon wasn’t designed to deal the kind of damage that the larger version was, but it was still damaging enough to put all of humanity and Starfleet on full alert – kick-starting a chain of events that led to Captain Archer confronting and stopping the Xindi and their Sphere-Builder allies.

All the Xindi would’ve had to do was pick a different target for their weapons testing. A planet the same size as Earth in a system roughly the same distance away would be ideal – or an unarmed probe sent to Earth if scouting that route was deemed necessary. Even if the Xindi and Sphere-Builders were so cocky and arrogant that they considered themselves to be unstoppable, it was still a catastrophic, primary school-level mistake to send the small weapon directly to Earth months before the larger weapon was ready.

Number 9:
How did Nero’s trip back in time create an alternate reality instead of changing the prime timeline?
Star Trek (2009)

Still frame from Star Trek (2009) showing a close-up of Nero. — Nero.

The way it’s explained on screen in Star Trek, Nero travelled back in time from 2387 to 2233 via an artificial black hole created by Red Matter. Somehow, though, the changes Nero and later Spock would go on to make to the past didn’t overwrite the events of the prime timeline, but exist in their own separate universe. This doesn’t seem to gel with what we know of time travel and temporal paradoxes in Star Trek.

Starfleet vessels have encountered all kinds of temporal phenomena over the years, none of which led to the creation of a parallel universe. Even in cases where ships got caught up in time-travel shenanigans, the end result was either a permanently altered timeline – as in stories like The Voyage Home or Past Tense – or overwritten events that no-one remembered – as in stories like Cause and Effect or Year of Hell. None of these led to the creation of a permanent alternate reality that persisted after the phenomenon that created it had been dealt with – so why did the Red Matter black hole do so?

Still frame from Star Trek (2009) showing the Narada emerging from a black hole. — Nero’s ship, the Narada, arrives in the 23rd Century.

The best explanation I can come up with is this: Star Trek exists in a multiverse. Along with to the prime timeline, the Mirror Universe, and others that we’ve seen, there must be multiple additional parallel universes – some of which are identical to or indistinguishable from the prime timeline. Somehow, Red Matter creates a portal between universes, allowing for travel from one to another. Nero and Spock entered a parallel universe identical to the prime timeline – but it’s a parallel universe that already existed before they arrived.

That’s a pretty convoluted explanation, and it isn’t explained that way on screen. Instead, the alterations to the timeline that Nero perpetrated – from the destruction of the USS Kelvin to the attack on Vulcan and beyond – should have permanently altered the prime timeline based on what the characters told us and what we already know from other iterations of Star Trek.

Number 10:
Couldn’t Captain Pike just retire and live as a hermit?
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Still frame from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 showing Captain Pike at a diplomatic dinner. — Captain Christopher Pike.

I found Pike’s arc in Discovery and the first season of Strange New Worlds to be interesting and relatable. I’ve been in a similar position to Captain Pike: being told that my health was going to get dramatically worse and knowing that it’s inevitable. It made Pike an incredibly sympathetic character, and one whose story brought a tear to my eye more than once. But… is Pike’s devastating accident and disability genuinely unavoidable?

The more Pike comes to learn about the future, the more he seems to uncover ways to avoid his supposedly-inevitable fate. In the fantastic Season 1 episode A Quality of Mercy, Pike learned – thanks to a time-travelling version of himself – that if he avoided his fate but remained in Starfleet, he’d accidentally trigger a chain of events that led to a devastating war between the Federation and Romulans. This conflict was something only Kirk and Spock could prevent, but Pike’s place on the bridge and Spock’s serious injury would keep the war going and prevent any hope for peace in the future. This seemed to strengthen Pike’s resolve and set him back on course for the accident that would leave him disabled.

Still frame from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 showing a future Captain Pike in a 'monster maroon' uniform. — Pike in an alternate future.

But… couldn’t he choose a radically different path? Sure, remaining in Starfleet after he was supposed to suffer the accident led to a horrible alternate future. But if Pike resigned his commission the day before the accident and went to live in a cave somewhere, what would change? Nothing, right? Pike could remain alive and relatively healthy, enjoying a well-earned retirement without the need for Talosian mind-games, and the rest of the galaxy could continue unaffected.

Maybe we’ll find out, in Seasons 3, 4, or beyond, why that kind of scenario couldn’t work. But it seems to me that, as long as Pike kept his head down and stayed away from Starfleet and galactic affairs, there wouldn’t be any harmful side-effects. Furthermore, knowing what he knew of the Romulan incursion, he could’ve even reacted differently in that situation to prevent the conflict from escalating. I guess the point of A Quality of Mercy was to hammer home that there’s no way to predict how any changes to the timeline could affect the Federation – and that’s a fair point, I suppose. But on a personal level, I could forgive Pike for trying to wrest back control of his destiny from the Klingon time crystal that doomed him.

So that’s it… for now!

Still frame from Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3 showing Commander Scott in the captain's chair of the Enterprise. — It’s Scotty!

I hope this has been a bit of fun! Some of these things are more irritating than others, but to be honest with you, none of them are really that big of a deal. They only matter to folks like you and I – people who spend a bit too long thinking about Star Trek!

This might be a subject I’ll revisit in the future, so if your favourite little inconsistency or goof didn’t make the list this time, it’s possible I’ll get to it on another occasion. And if you want to check out my earlier list to read about ten other little things that bug me in Star Trek, you can find it by clicking or tapping here.

Still frame from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 1 showing Commander Sisko aboard the Enterprise-D. — Commander Sisko looks rather grumpy…

Stay tuned, because there’s more Star Trek content to come here on the website as 2025 gets underway. Later this year we’ve got a new season of Strange New Worlds to look forward to, and if you missed my review of Section 31 you can find it by clicking or tapping here. I also wrote up my recollections of Voyager to mark the series’ thirtieth anniversary, and you can find that by clicking or tapping here.

Until next time… see you out there!

Most of the Star Trek shows, films, and episodes referenced above can be streamed now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available, and may also be available on DVD and/or Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including all shows, films, episodes, characters, and other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Uh, Guys? Star Trek: Discovery Is Still Canon…

Thu 26.12.24Thu 20.03.25Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Lower Decks – including the series finale.

Just a relatively short piece today. First of all, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas! Yesterday was the big day, and I had an enjoyable time stuffing my face with a bit too much turkey and Christmas pudding! However you chose to celebrate, I hope you had a fantastic day.

Now, on to the weirdest piece of Star Trek “news” that I’ve seen in a while!

I’m not fully caught up on Star Trek: Lower Decks, but apparently one of that show’s final episodes contained a kind of crossover or “multi-verse” story. As part of that storyline, at least one Klingon character appeared to “transition” from the more familiar Search for Spock/Next Generation style to a style closer to that seen in Discovery’s first season.

Three cropped frames from Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 showing a Klingon appearing to transition from one visual style to another. — The sequence in question.

I’ve touched on this before, but the fairly extensive redesign of the Klingons became a sore spot for some Trekkies – particularly those who were already inclined to dislike Discovery. I don’t feel that, on its own, the Klingon redesign ruined Discovery for anyone, nor turned away potential viewers. But it became one piece of a bigger conversation about how Discovery was playing fast and loose with Star Trek’s internal consistency and “canon.”

A writer for the website Giant Freakin Robot has decreed that “Star Trek just erased an entire series from canon,” citing the aforementioned appearance of a redesigned Klingon as evidence. Let’s clear that up right now: that is not true! Love it or hate it, Discovery remains an official part of Star Trek’s canon – and with a brand-new spin-off series set at Starfleet Academy featuring several Discovery characters being well into production, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

So let’s repeat that, in case anyone missed it: Star Trek: Discovery has not been erased from canon!

Promo photo for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 showing the main cast in costume. — The main cast of *Discovery’*s fifth season.

I’m not Discovery’s biggest fan, to be honest with you. Take a look at my recent review of the show’s fifth season, or my critique of the decision to set the show in the mid-23rd Century when it was first being put together as examples of how critical I can be of the series. But Discovery wasn’t awful across the board; the show got a lot of things right, and even if you don’t enjoy every character or every storyline, there should be at least something for most Trekkies to find interesting or entertaining across the show’s sixty-five episodes.

But even if there isn’t, and even if you hate Discovery and everything it stands for as a series… that doesn’t magically make it “non-canon.” By all means, criticise Discovery. And if you want to go so far as to say it’s not part of your personal head-canon… go for it. Trekkies have been doing that since The Next Generation and even The Animated Series were airing. Heck, there’s still a contingent of fans today who subscribe to the idea of a “Roddenberry canon,” only considering films and seasons that Gene Roddenberry personally worked on to be part of their unofficial head-canon. So you’ll have company if you choose to disregard an entire series!

Still frame from What We Left Behind showing Deep Space Nine in HD. — Some fans may not consider anything after *The Next Generation* to be “canon.”

This argument seems to hinge on a few frames from a single episode – the briefest of clips which showed a Klingon changing from the more familiar visual style that began in The Search for Spock to the newer look from Discovery’s first season. That is simply not “evidence;” certainly not enough to declare than an entire five-season TV show is “non-canon.” It’s wishful thinking at best – and a clickbaity lie at worst.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t cover something like this, but unfortunately the original article has been picked up and cited by numerous other blogs, websites, and social media channels, leading to a kind of snowball effect. People I know who don’t even watch Star Trek have asked me about Discovery’s status, and I’ve seen too many people taking it at face-value and assuming it’s true – even though it clearly isn’t, and simply reading the original article would’ve told them that! I felt a need to push back against this spiralling story and make sure that the truth is out there… even if it’s just on this one tiny corner of the internet.

A cropped article claiming Star Trek: Discovery is non-canon. — A crop of the original clickbait article.

There could be a larger conversation to have here about whether, in time, every Star Trek story should be considered canon. With the franchise closing in on 1,000 episodes and films, Star Trek can feel incredibly dense and convoluted for new fans, and that’s an issue that can arise. Trying to figure out how to get started with a franchise like Star Trek can end up being offputting, so there’s a case to be made for either removing some of the older stuff or just starting with a clean slate.

And that’s exactly what the Kelvin timeline films tried to do, if you think about it. They stripped away much of what had come before with the aim of rebooting Star Trek for a new audience after several years of declining viewership. Your mileage may vary when it comes to enjoying those films… but they brought in a bigger audience than Star Trek had ever seen at the box office and turned a massive profit. So there’s something to be said for a reboot, sometimes! But that’s probably a longer conversation best had on another occasion.

Promo photo for Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 showing L'Rell and T'Kuvma carrying a torch. — Two of *Discovery’*s redesigned Klingons in Season 1.

If you desperately wanted this news to be true and for Discovery to have been cancelled, overwritten, and officially stripped out of the Star Trek franchise… well, sorry to burst your bubble! But there’s a lesson here in fact-checking things we read online, not getting swept up in a snowballing news story, and not trusting a random article written by some guy on the internet! And yes, I’m aware of the irony of me making that kind of statement!

So Discovery remains an official part of canon. As Star Trek continues to grow, some parts of Discovery will simply be rolled into the broader lore of the franchise, while others may simply be left by the wayside. That’s the way it’s always been, quite frankly, and you don’t have to look far to find characters, factions, and entire storylines that were tried in one episode or film and never revisited. If you don’t like some aspect of Discovery, I’d say don’t worry – there’s a reasonably high chance that it will never be so much as mentioned again!

And to the original writer of the clickbait article, as well as to everyone else who jumped on it without bothering to check if it was true: please try to do better. The Star Trek fan community doesn’t need nonsense like this!

The Star Trek franchise – including Lower Decks, Discovery, and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

The Canon Conundrum

Sun 14.01.24Tue 16.01.24Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek Beyond, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Rise of Skywalker.

Where do you stand on questions of “canon” in works of fiction? That’s the thorny issue we’re going to grapple with today!

The term “canon” as it’s applied to franchises and fictional universes today comes from the realm of theology, surprisingly enough. The first “canon” referred to the Bible, specifically to which books of the Bible were considered sacred and authentic. It has its roots in Latin, and is etymologically distinct from “cannon” – the large gunpowder weapons that we often associate with pirate ships.

A stock photo of a cannon. — No, not *that* kind of cannon!

In the context of fictional universes and modern entertainment franchises, the word “canon” has kind of taken on two meanings. Firstly, we have the authoritative list of which stories are the accepted ones in a particular series. And secondly, we have the meaning that we’re looking at in more detail today: how the word “canon” has been applied to individual story threads, narrative elements, and the minutiae of a fictional setting.

As more and more films and television shows have grown and been turned into ongoing franchises by their corporate overlords, the question of canon in its secondary meaning has come to the fore in fan communities. It’s worth noting that some fandoms have been wrangling with questions of canon for longer than others: Star Trek fans, for example, have been caught up in these kinds of debates for literally decades, as have fans of some comic books. Other franchises and fictional settings are new to the debate, prompted by new additions to their series, or in some cases, by corporate decisions that overwrite what had been previously established.

A still frame of Encounter at Farpoint, the premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, showing Captain Picard and Worf on the bridge. — The Star Trek fan community has been caught up in these debates for decades!

Very few people would dispute that a film or television episode produced officially as part of a franchise is “canon.” That’s not really what we’re looking at today – though there are certain exceptions, such as how Star Trek: The Animated Series was “officially” considered to be non-canon for several years. Debates instead tend to focus on smaller story elements – the background of a character, how a fictional technology works, or whether Event A clashes in an irreconcilable way with Event B.

Some television shows – particularly comedy, but not exclusively comedy – tend to play very fast and loose with matters of canon. If a good joke requires a character to act completely differently, or even for an entire setting to be transformed, then these kinds of shows will do it. Why waste a good joke, after all? But other shows and films like to take themselves seriously, presenting their fictional worlds as big, persistent alternate realities in which audiences are invited to lose themselves. It can be jarring for some viewers when a new film or episode comes along that seems to challenge or even “violate” some aspect of what had been accepted as canon.

Still frame from Season 31 of The Simpsons featuring Moe and Homer at Moe's Tavern. — Questions of canon and consistency matter far less in a comedy series.

In fan communities – or at least, in those of which I’m aware – folks tend to fall into one of two rather rigid and well-defined camps.

On the one side are the “purists.” These people insist that the tiniest minutiae must be respected at all costs, and any perceived violations of canon must be given a satisfactory explanation. Overwriting or undoing an element of a story that had been previously established doesn’t usually sit well with canon purists.

Opposing the purists are the “don’t cares.” As the name suggests, these folks are completely uninterested in whether a story fits with the rules and backstories that have been established; as long as the story itself is entertaining, they’re happy to ignore such criticisms and concerns.

Still frame of Star Wars: The Force Awakens featuring the character of Rey. — Some characters and storylines attract more criticism than others…

Canon purists will often argue that a story falls apart if the newest chapter doesn’t “respect” or fall in line with everything that has been previously established. On the other side of the debate, the don’t cares will argue that none of that matters and that they’re happy for the writers of a new chapter to take them on a different and unpredictable journey.

So where do *I* sit? What’s my answer to the canon conundrum?

The answer, as you’ve probably guessed, is that it’s a bit more complicated! I don’t buy into the black-or-white nature of this argument, and my position tends to be a bit more nuanced.

A cartoon depicting people fighting in front of an abstract background. — There’s no need to get into a fight…

Let’s define one more term: internal consistency. In the context of works of fiction, internal consistency has a fairly literal meaning: within the confines of a setting or fictional universe, basic rules are established that don’t change, in a fundamental or transformative way, from chapter to chapter or story to story.

Internal consistency is, for me, one of the essential pathways to suspension of disbelief. To give a couple of examples: if a fantasy universe establishes that magic works because magic users are born with innate magical power, the writers can’t arbitrarily change that later on to say that magic is actually something that anyone can learn from spellbooks. In a sci-fi setting, if we establish that a machine can travel backwards in time because it uses black hole technology, that also mustn’t be changed later to say that the time machine works by fusing together time-mushrooms in its engine.

Still frame from Context is for Kings, Star Trek: Discovery 1x03, showing a CGI rendering of a mushroom garden. — The cultivation bay aboard the USS Discovery.

In short, canon matters because basic internal consistency matters. The fundamental building blocks of any fictional setting or world must remain consistent from one story to the next, and can’t be changed at the whim of the writers simply to force a particular story beat to fit. If that story beat can’t fit with what’s already been established because it clashes in an irreconcilable way with one or more of those building blocks, I believe it should be changed or even abandoned outright.

But that isn’t all there is to say.

When it comes to smaller things, like designs and aesthetics, I’m much more forgiving. If characters in a fictional organisation used to wear blue jackets, but in a new story they’re wearing red jackets… that’s not a “violation” of canon in my book. And that extends to smaller story beats, too. If a couple of lines of dialogue two seasons ago established that an event happened “200 years ago,” but a brand-new flashback shows the event happening 100 years ago – and it fits better with the story – then I’m content to let it slide. There are many, many cases where stories have technically “overwritten” something that had been hinted at or even explicitly stated, but the outcome ends up being positive.

Still frame from Star Trek Beyond showing the USS Enterprise-A. — Things like redesigns and visual overhauls don’t phase me.

These debates can often be incredibly subjective. Fans can be willing to overlook a change or disruption to canon if they like the outcome or if it takes place in a story they enjoy, even if they’d otherwise consider themselves to be sticklers for internal consistency. Likewise, fans who might otherwise have a more relaxed approach to canon might find themselves calling out inconsistencies or retcons if the story is unenjoyable to them for some other reason.

And it’s worth acknowledging that some changes to canon or retcons have just… worked. Although some Star Wars fans didn’t like it at the time, you’d struggle to find many folks in 2024 who are adamant that Darth Vader being retconned to be Luke Skywalker’s father is a bad thing that “ruined” The Empire Strikes Back. Or Trekkies who’d argue that the way the Borg changed in between their first and second appearances was to The Next Generation’s detriment.

Still frame from Lego Star Wars: Terrifying Tales featuring Luke and Darth Vader. — Darth Vader’s revelation in *The Empire Strikes Back* is an example of a popular and well-received retcon.

Time is also a great healer. I wasn’t wild about Enterprise when it premiered, and some episodes in that show tripped over what had been established in Star Trek episodes set further along the timeline. Many Star Wars fans in the late ’90s and early 2000s felt that the prequel films messed up the franchise’s internal consistency… but those arguments have fallen by the wayside in the intervening years. Don’t get me wrong, you can still find fans who are bitter about these things, but the passage of time has paved the way for many folks to accept the changes that were made.

Speaking of the passage of time, it isn’t just modern entertainment franchises that have had to deal with this issue! Going all the way back to the end of the 19th Century, some readers of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were mortified when the character was resurrected after his supposed “death” at the Reichenbach Falls. If these arguments have been raging for more than a century, what hope have we of resolving them now?

Illustration of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty's fight at the Reichenbach Falls, published in 1893 by Sidney Paget. — Sherlock Holmes’ survival proved controversial with fans in the 1890s…

At the end of the day, I’m happy to admit that I fall somewhere in between the “purists” and the “don’t cares.” Canon is important because a fictional setting needs to be basically consistent from one story to the next. Too many overwrites and retcons erode the fundamental building blocks of a world – bringing the whole story crashing down. I also don’t believe that new writers coming in to a long-established setting can or should have totally free rein to do whatever they want; they are, whether they wish to be or not, constrained to an extent by what has already been set up. If they can’t create a story within reasonable limitations… then they aren’t a good fit for that franchise, and their story should probably be discarded.

Having said all of that, though… I’m also not someone who’s a stickler for the minutiae of canon. If a new writer comes in with new ideas for a fictional world, I’m happy to give them the chance to tell their story and add to our understanding of that setting and its lore. Just because a particular character or event hasn’t been mentioned before… that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, and there are ways to interpret many stories that can include new additions without feeling like something has been entirely cancelled or overwritten. Retcons and changes can also work incredibly well, representing an improvement on the original story or idea in many cases. We don’t have to look far to find great examples of that.

Still frame of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds featuring the character of Una Chin-Riley. — The Star Trek franchise has some great examples of how changing canon can work.

At the end of the day, I want to be entertained. I return to a familiar fictional setting in part because I’ve enjoyed what writers and creatives have built and want to see more of it – so it can be jarring if a new story changes too many things too quickly, or seems to overwrite something I particularly enjoyed. But at the same time, a strong script, fun ideas, and high production values can win me over before too long. A new story that strikes out in an unexpected direction can keep me on my toes, challenge my expectations, and prove incredibly fun and engaging.

There is a time and a place for canon. Basic building blocks that are key to the functionality of a fictional world, or well-established origin stories for major characters are the kind of things that I feel either shouldn’t be challenged or that have a very high bar to overcome. But smaller things involving secondary characters, or the likes of designs and aesthetics, are absolutely fair game in my book.

A stock photo of a bricklayer using cement to construct a wall. — Canon represents the “building blocks” of a fictional universe.

I hope this has been an interesting look at “canon.” This is a subject that I’ve touched on in other reviews, articles, and essays over the past few years, and it’s one that I’ve been meaning to delve into more deeply for some time. In fact, it’s been in my writing pile since I first set up my website more than four years ago. I’m glad to have finally been able to get around to it and try to explain where I stand!

Hopefully I’ve been able to get my point across as clearly as possible. This is a big topic, one that could easily be a whole series of articles with dozens of examples and anecdotes! I’ve tried to keep such things to a minimum this time, instead taking a “big picture” look at canon as a whole. But there may be time in the weeks and months ahead to dig a little deeper using some specific stories from across the world of entertainment.

Still frame from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier showing the character Sybok. — And there’s no shortage of examples!

It’s been fun for me to finally put (metaphorical) pen to paper and tackle this question. Canon is a big deal for a lot of folks in fan communities, and I get that. There have been times over the years where I’ve felt that a story could’ve benefitted from staying true to canon a little more… and other times where I’ve felt that a story played it too safe, or that a retcon wouldn’t have gone amiss!

But I confess that I get a little tired of this black-and-white argument, with “purists” and “don’t cares” caught in a seemingly endless back-and-forth argument that never makes progress. We won’t always agree on what makes a good story – nor even on what the basic needs of a story are. That’s okay, and I share this piece with the world in that spirit. This is my subjective opinion on questions of canon – and nothing more. A lot of folks can and will disagree, and I’m totally fine with that. It’s up to all of us as individuals to decide what’s important and how we wish to approach entertainment franchises and fictional worlds.

All properties discussed above are the copyright of their respective company, broadcaster, distributor, or studio. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Six Star Trek “hot takes”

Fri 20.05.22Sat 21.05.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the following Star Trek productions: Picard Seasons 1-2, Discovery Season 3, Strange New Worlds, the Kelvin timeline films, Deep Space Nine, and The Next Generation.

Today I thought we could have a bit of fun! There are many so-called “hot takes” about the Star Trek franchise flitting about online, and I thought it could be a change of pace to share a few of my own. These are – based on my limited engagement with the wider Star Trek fan community, at least – opinions that aren’t widely held or especially popular. I’ll do my best to explain why I feel the way I do about each of the six subjects we’re going to consider below.

More than ever, I ask you to keep in mind that all of this is subjective, not objective! I’m not saying that these opinions are factual and unquestionable; this is just my singular perspective on a handful of very complex topics. As with everything in media, there are going to be a range of views, and while I’ll try to justify my opinions below, I know that a lot of people can and do disagree. And that’s okay! There’s room in the Star Trek fan community for respectful disagreement about all manner of things.

With all of that out of the way, this is your last chance to jump ship if you aren’t interested in some potentially controversial Star Trek opinions!

“Hot Take” #1:
Star Trek: Picard transformed Seven of Nine into an enjoyable character for the first time.

Star Trek: Picard hasn’t been perfect across its first two seasons, but one thing that it absolutely got right is Seven of Nine’s characterisation. Seven was an unexpected character for the series to introduce – she’d never interacted with Jean-Luc Picard on screen before, and the pair hadn’t even the barest bones of a relationship to build on. In that sense, I was surprised (and maybe a little concerned) when it was made clear that she’d be featured in a big way in the first season.

Perhaps I should explain myself before we go any further. Seven of Nine was introduced midway through Voyager’s run in the two-part episode Scorpion. At first she seemed to be a character with a lot of potential, and I enjoyed what she brought to the table in early Season 4 episodes such as Scientific Method and The Raven. But Seven very quickly became repetitive. Week after week she’d learn some lesson in “how to be more human” from the Doctor or Captain Janeway, but she’d seem to forget all about it and revert to her semi-Borg self by the next episode. This was exacerbated by the fact that Voyager’s latter seasons seemed to include a lot of Seven-heavy episodes and stories, making her a prominent character.

Publicity photo of Seven of Nine during *Voyager’*s run.

That’s how episodic television works, and I get that. Most other Star Trek characters up to that point in the franchise’s history also “reset” in between episodes, and we could talk at length about how characters like Miles O’Brien could go through some horrible trauma one week only to be happily playing darts at Quark’s a few days later as if it never happened. But with Seven of Nine, a combination of her prominence and storylines that often revolved around learning and taking to heart some aspect of what it means to be human and exist outside of the Borg Collective meant that her week-to-week resets and lack of significant growth really began to grate. Toward the end of Season 7, Seven was given an arc of sorts that threw her into a relationship with Chakotay – but I’m hardly the only person who feels that didn’t work particularly well!

So by the time Voyager ended, I was burnt out on Seven of Nine. Out of all the main characters from Voyager, she was perhaps the one I was least interested to see picked up for a second bite of the cherry – but I was wrong about that. Where Seven had been static and repetitive in Voyager, Picard gave her that development I’d been longing to see, and it was incredibly cathartic! Even though Seven’s post-Voyager life hadn’t been smooth, it had been human, and seeing her experience genuine emotions like anger, betrayal, and later through her relationship with Raffi, love, was something I didn’t know I wanted. Having seen it now, though, there’s no way I’d want to lose this element of Picard.

The death of Icheb, which was shown in one of Picard Season 1’s most gory sequences, became a key part of Seven’s character arc. His loss devastated her – and the idea that Seven of Nine could be devastated was already a colossal leap for her character. That it spurred her on to one of the most human of desires – revenge – is even more significant for her. And this growth continued across the rest of Season 1, with Seven coming face-to-face with the Borg and even becoming a leader (of sorts) for the liberated ex-Borg on the Artifact.

Even though Season 2 was a mixed bag (at best) with some lacklustre storylines, Seven of Nine shone once again. Her relationship with Raffi added a whole new dimension to her character, and after seeing her experiencing anger and negative emotions in Season 1, Season 2 gave her a chance at love. Season 2 also saw Seven revelling in a new experience, having hopped across to a new timeline and found herself in a body that had never been assimilated. That set her on an arc to accepting herself for who she is – including her Borg past.

Seven without her trademark Borg implants.

Seven’s journey has been beautiful to see, but also cathartic. To me, her journey in Picard feels like it’s righted a twenty-year wrong, finally giving Seven of Nine genuine development and an arc that stuck. While I’m sure fans can and will debate individual plot points (like Icheb’s death or Seven’s off-screen involvement with the Fenris Rangers), taken as a whole I’ve really enjoyed what Picard did with what had been one of my least-favourite characters of The Next Generation era.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for more from Seven of Nine – and if you’d told me in 2000-2001 that I’d write those words I wouldn’t have believed you!

“Hot Take” #2:
I don’t like The Inner Light.

Often held up as an example of The Next Generation at its best, I’ve never enjoyed The Inner Light. It’s an episode I usually skip over without a second thought when re-watching The Next Generation, but I put myself through the chore of viewing it recently; it’s part of what inspired me to put together this list!

The Inner Light steps away from the exciting adventures of the Enterprise-D to show us a pre-warp civilisation living on a random alien backwater planet, and while exploring strange new worlds is part of the gig, the way this episode in particular does that is just not interesting or enjoyable in the slightest. It’s certainly “different” – and I will concede that point. Star Trek has never been shy about experimenting, after all! But this particular experiment didn’t work, which is probably why we haven’t really seen another episode quite like it.

I don’t like to say that something “doesn’t feel like Star Trek,” not least because that vague and unhelpful phrase has become associated with a subgroup of so-called fans who use it to attack everything the franchise has done since 2009. But to me, The Inner Light feels about as far away from what I want and hope to see from an episode of Star Trek as it’s possible to get.

By spending practically its entire runtime in the past, with Picard taking on the role of an alien blacksmith in a pre-warp society, The Inner Light abandons not only the entire crew of the Enterprise-D, but also many of the fundamental adventurous elements that are what makes Star Trek, well… feel like Star Trek. Its deliberately slow pace doubles-down on this sensation, and The Inner Light seems to drag as a result, coming across as boring.

I’m not particularly bothered by the way the Kataan probe operates – that seems technobabbley enough to get a pass. But after Picard has been hit by the probe and the majority of the episode is then spent on Kataan with Kamin and his family… I’m just not interested. Sir Patrick Stewart is a great actor, and what happened to the Kataan people is both tragic and a timely reminder of our own burgeoning environmental catastrophe (something that we haven’t even tried to fix more than a quarter of a century later). But despite all of the elements being in place, the story just doesn’t grab me like I feel it should. At the end of the day, I can’t find a way to give a shit about Kataan, nor about Kamin or anyone else.

There are many episodes of Star Trek with races and characters who only appear once, and yet very few of them manage to evoke that same “I just don’t care” reaction. Just within Season 5 of The Next Generation we have characters like Hugh the Borg and Nicholas Locarno, or aliens like the Children of Tama and the Ux-Mal, all of which manage to hook me in and get me invested in their storylines. I’d generally consider The Next Generation’s fifth season to be one of its best, with many of my favourite episodes. But The Inner Light isn’t one of them.

Picard/Kamin overlooking the village of Ressik.

There are points to The Inner Light that did work. The Ressikan flute theme, for example, is a beautiful piece of music, and Picard’s flute-playing ability (which he learned during the events of The Inner Light) would become a minor recurring element for his character going forward, notably appearing in episodes like Lessons. And the underlying premise of a probe that transmits a message in this way could have worked; it feels quite Star Trek-y in and of itself.

But for me, The Inner Light just isn’t fun to watch. It’s boring, uninspiring, and I can’t find a way to get invested in the story of Kataan and its people – despite good performances from Sir Patrick Stewart and the other actors present.

“Hot Take” #3:
Modern Trek needs to pick a single era (and timeline) and stick to it.

Admiral Vance and Captain Burnham in the 32nd Century.

Star Trek, perhaps more so than any other major entertainment franchise, is convoluted. As Trekkies, we love that! The fact that modern Star Trek can explore different timelines, different eras, and broadcast different shows that are entirely separate from one another makes for a diverse and interesting presentation. It also means that we can simultaneously step back in time to before Captain Kirk’s five-year mission while also seeing what came next for Captain Picard twenty-five years after the events of Nemesis.

But try to look at Star Trek from the point of view of a newcomer. Every single one of the five shows currently in production is set in a different time period and location, and just figuring out where to start with Star Trek – or where to go next for someone who’s enjoyed watching one of the new shows – is the subject of essays, articles, and lists. It’s beginning to remind me of Star Wars’ old Expanded Universe – a combination of games, books, comics, and so on that had become so convoluted and dense after decades in production that it felt offputting.

In order for Star Trek to successfully convert viewers of one of its new iterations into fans of the franchise, it needs to simplify its current output. A fan of Strange New Worlds might think that their next port of call should be Picard or Lower Decks – but they’d be completely lost because those shows are set more than a century later.

The lack of a single, unified setting also prevents crossover stories – and these aren’t just fun fan-service for Trekkies like us! Crossovers link up separate Star Trek outings, bringing fans of one show into close contact with another. Just as The Next Generation did with Deep Space Nine (and DS9 did with Voyager), modern Star Trek should make the effort to link up its current shows. There are links between Discovery and Strange New Worlds – but any crossover potential has evaporated due to Discovery shooting forward into the far future.

Beckett Mariner and Jennifer the Andorian in the late 24th Century.

This also applies to alternate realities, most significantly the Kelvin timeline which is supposedly being brought back for a fourth film. The Kelvin films served a purpose in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but as I’ve argued in the past, is it really a good idea to bring back that setting – as well as its presentation of characters who have recently been recast for Strange New Worlds – with everything else that Star Trek has going on?

In 2009, it was possible for new fans to jump from the Kelvin films to other iterations of Star Trek and keep up with what’s going on. But we’ve had more than 100 new episodes of Star Trek since then across several different eras, some including recast versions of characters who appeared in the Kelvin timeline films. I’m not so sure that a new Kelvin timeline film serves its intended purpose any more.

I wouldn’t want to see any of the shows currently in production shut down before their time. We’ve only just got started with Strange New Worlds, for instance, and I’m hopeful that that series will run for at least five seasons (to complete Captain Pike’s five-year mission!) But as the current crop of shows wind down, the producers at Paramount need to consider their next moves very carefully. Where should Star Trek go from here, and where should its focus be?

Discovery’s 32nd Century is certainly a contender, and setting the stage for new adventures years after the stories we know provides a soft reboot for the franchise while also opening up new storytelling possibilities. But it would also be great to see Star Trek return to the late 24th or early 25th Centuries of the Picard era, picking up story threads from The Next Generation era – Star Trek’s real “golden age” in the 1990s. Setting all (or almost all) of its films, shows, miniseries, and one-shot stories in a single, unified timeline has many advantages, and would be to the franchise’s overall benefit.

Stay tuned, because I have a longer article about this in the pipeline!

“Hot Take” #4:
Far Beyond The Stars is an unenjoyable episode, albeit one with a very important message.

Benny Russell in *Far Beyond The Stars*.

This is my way of saying that “I don’t like Far Beyond The Stars” while still giving credit to the moral story at its core. Star Trek has always been a franchise that’s brought moral fables to screen, and Far Beyond The Stars does this in a very intense – and almost brutal – way, shining a light on America’s racist past and present.

But as I’ve already discussed with The Inner Light above, the way in which this story is presented doesn’t really work for me. I find Benny Russell’s story sympathetic… but because what’s happening is so far removed from the events of Deep Space Nine, it’s difficult to turn that investment over the course of a single episode into anything substantial. The “it was all a dream or a vision” explanation also hammers this home; whatever was happening to Captain Sisko was taking place outside of the real world – perhaps inside his head, perhaps as a vision from the Prophets – and thus it doesn’t feel like it matters – in the context of the show – in the same way as other, similar stories.

Far Beyond The Stars is comparable to The Inner Light insofar as it steps out of the Star Trek franchise’s fictional future. In this case, the story returns to our real world a few short years in the past. While there are occasional flashes of Star Trek’s signature optimism, the darker tone of the story combines with its real-world setting to feel different; separate from not only the events of Star Trek, but its entire universe.

“But that’s the whole point!” fans of Far Beyond The Stars are itching to tell me. And I agree! Far Beyond The Stars knows what it’s trying to be and knows the kind of story it wants to tell and goes for it, 100%. I’d even say that it achieves what it set out to. But that doesn’t make it a fun watch, an entertaining story, or an episode I’m keen to revisit. As with The Inner Light, I almost always skip over Far Beyond The Stars when I’m watching Deep Space Nine.

Perhaps if I were an American, more of Far Beyond The Stars’ real-world elements would hit closer to home. But when I first saw the episode in the late ’90s here in the UK, I confess that at least parts of it went way over my head. That’s perhaps my own bias showing – but the whole point of this exercise is to discuss parts of the Star Trek franchise beginning with my own biases and opinions!

Having re-watched Far Beyond The Stars after spending time living in both the United States and South Africa – two societies which continue to wrangle with legacies of structural and systemic racial discrimination – I definitely felt its hard-hitting message a lot more. In fact, Far Beyond The Stars could be a great episode to use as a starting point for a broader conversation about race and structural racism. But having a moral message – especially a very on-the-nose one – doesn’t always make for the most interesting or enjoyable story.

Sisko sees himself reflected as Benny Russell at the end of the episode.

I don’t find Far Beyond The Stars to be “uncomfortable” to watch. The racial aspects of its story have purpose, and even with the progress that America has made since the turn of the millennium, many of the racial issues that Far Beyond The Stars highlights are just as relevant today as they were twenty-five years ago. But I guess what I’d say about the episode is that it doesn’t deliver what I personally find interesting and enjoyable about an episode of Star Trek.

Taken as a one-off, I can put up with Far Beyond The Stars. It didn’t become a major recurring thing in Deep Space Nine, and while Captain Sisko would recall the events on more than one occasion, it didn’t come to dominate the latter part of Deep Space Nine’s run in any way. So in that sense, I’m content to set Far Beyond The Stars to one side, acknowledging what it brought to the table in terms of allegory and morality while being content to rewatch it infrequently.

“Hot Take” #5:
Canon matters – up to a point.

There seems to be a black-and-white, either/or debate in the Star Trek fan community when it comes to the franchise’s internal canon. Some folks are adamant that the tiniest minutia of canon must be “respected” at all costs, criticising things like the redesign of uniforms or even the recasting of characters because it doesn’t fit precisely with what came before. Then there are others who say that “it’s all just a story,” and that canon can be entirely ignored if a new writer has an idea for a story. I don’t fall into either camp!

Canon matters because internal consistency matters. Internal consistency is – for me, at least – an absolutely essential part of the pathway to suspension of disbelief. If I’m to believe that transporters and warp cores exist, the way they work and the way they’re presented on screen has to be basically consistent from one Star Trek story to the next.

The same applies to characters. If a character has a background as an assassin and that’s a central part of their characterisation in one story, the next episode can’t arbitrarily change that and make them into a marine biologist because the plot demands it. Characters need to feel like real people, and the world they inhabit needs to operate by its established rules.

Luckily for Star Trek’s writers, there is a lot of flexibility in those rules! Most of the specifics of how individual pieces of technology work have never been delved into in any detail, and there’s a lot we don’t know about even the most basic of things within the Star Trek universe. So new writers find themselves with considerable leeway if they want to make a change or do something differently for the sake of a story.

But there is a limit to that – or at least there ought to be. And the Star Trek franchise has tripped up by introducing new elements that seem to tread on the toes of what has already been established, even if they don’t technically overwrite anything. Spock’s family is a case in point. The Final Frontier gave Spock a half-brother who had never been mentioned, and then Discovery came along and gave him an adopted sister as well. Neither of these additions overwrote what we know of Spock’s family history… but they definitely came close.

On the other side of things, I’m quite okay with Star Trek making changes and updates to its visual style. The redesign of the USS Enterprise that debuted in Discovery and has been expanded upon for Strange New Worlds is a great example of one way that the franchise has modernised its look without really “damaging” established canon. All that’s required to get around the apparent visual changes – for anyone who feels it’s necessary – is to say that the Enterprise must’ve undergone some kind of retrofit in between Pike’s command and Kirk’s.

Sarek and Michael Burnham in *Discovery’*s premiere.

Where canon matters to me is in terms of characterisation and story. If we’ve established, for example, that the Vulcans and Romulans are related to one another, then future stories must remain consistent with that; there can be no “Romulan origin story” that tries to say that they evolved separately, for example. Likewise for characters. We all love a good character arc – but if a character’s personality and background are established, changing those fundamentals in an arbitrary manner should be off the table.

So to the canon purists, my message is going to be “loosen up a little!” And to the canon ignorers, what I’d say is “internal consistency matters.”

“Hot Take” #6:
The Kelvin films got a lot right – and could be textbook examples of how to reboot a franchise.

Spock, Kirk, and Dr McCoy in *Star Trek Beyond*.

Even today, more than a decade after 2009’s Star Trek kicked off the Kelvin timeline, I still have Trekkie friends who have refused to watch them. Other fans who showed up at the cinema were unimpressed with what they saw, and the Kelvin films can feel like a controversial part of the Star Trek franchise sometimes. For my two cents, though, although the Kelvin films were imperfect and certainly different to what had come before, they managed to get a lot of things right. I’d even say that Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness could be used as textbook case studies in how to reboot a franchise successfully!

Modern Star Trek – from Discovery to Picard and beyond – would simply not exist without the Kelvin films. When Enterprise was cancelled in 2005, it really did feel as though the Star Trek franchise itself had died and wouldn’t be returning. Even as someone who hadn’t been a regular viewer of Enterprise, that still stung! But if there had been doubts over the Star Trek brand and its ability to reach out to new audiences and bring in huge numbers of viewers, 2009’s Star Trek shattered them.

Into Darkness eclipsed even the massively high numbers of its predecessor and remains the cinematic franchise’s high-water mark in terms of audience figures and profitability, so it’s not exactly shocking to learn that Paramount hopes to return to the Kelvin cast for a fourth outing next year! These films took what had been a complicated franchise with a reputation for being geeky and nerdy and skimmed off a lot of the fluff. What resulted was a trio of decent sci-fi action films that may just have saved the franchise’s reputation.

The Kelvin films also gave Star Trek a visual overhaul, modernising the franchise’s aesthetic and visual style while still retaining all of the core elements that longstanding fans expected. Transporters were still there – but they looked sleeker and prettier. Warp drive was still present – but a new visual effect was created. Many of these aesthetic elements have remained part of the franchise ever since, appearing in the various productions that we’ve seen since Star Trek returned to the small screen in 2017.

By establishing an alternate reality, the Kelvin films found scope to take familiar characters to very different places. We got to see how Kirk and Spock met for the first time at Starfleet Academy – a premise that Gene Roddenberry had considered all the way back during The Original Series’ run – but with a twist. Star Trek reintroduced us to classic characters, but put its own spin on them, providing a satisfactory in-universe explanation for why so many things were different.

But at the same time, the inclusion of Leonard Nimoy’s Spock from the prime timeline anchored the Kelvin films, providing a link to what had come before. This reboot wasn’t about erasing anything; it was an expansion of Star Trek into a new timeline, one that had basically unlimited potential to tell some very different stories. The trio of films took advantage of that, and while I would argue that there’s no pressing need to revisit the Kelvin timeline right now, I absolutely do appreciate what they did for Star Trek.

As a reboot, the Kelvin films succeeded in their ambition. They reinvented Star Trek just enough for mainstream audiences to discover the franchise – many for the first time. Some of those folks stuck around and have become big Trekkies all off the back of what the Kelvin films did. They updated Star Trek without overwriting anything, and they set the stage for further expansion and growth. By every measure, the Kelvin films were successful.

That isn’t to say they’re my favourite part of the franchise! But as a fan who wants Star Trek to stick around and continue to be successful, projects like the Kelvin films are essential.

So that’s it!

I hope that this was a bit of fun rather than anything to get too seriously upset about. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions about the episodes, films, characters, and storylines that Star Trek creates, and whether I’m thrilled about something, hated it, or have mixed feelings, I will always try to explain myself and provide reasons for why I feel the way that I do. But at the end of the day, all of this is just the subjective opinion of one person!

We’re very lucky to have so much Star Trek content coming our way in the next few years. It seems like the franchise will make it to its sixtieth anniversary in 2026 with new films and episodes still being produced, and there can’t be many entertainment franchises that could make such a claim to longevity!

There are definitely points on the list above that I could expand upon, and I’m sure I could think of a few more “hot takes” if I tried! So stay tuned for more Star Trek content to come here on the website as we move into the summer season.

The Star Trek franchise – including all properties mentioned above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.