‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Casts Paul Wesley as Captain Kirk

Even though ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ promises to show us the adventures of the USS Enterprise before the time of the original ‘Star Trek’ series, it appears that the most famous ‘Trek’ starship cannot entirely do without its most iconic captain. Yes, the show has now cast someone to play James Tiberius Kirk.

William Shatner.

Of course, these days, there are also audiences who identify J.J. Abrams movies as Kirk, though Shatner will probably remain the most recognizable example.

“Paul is an accomplished actor, an astonishing presence and a welcome key addition to the show,” executive producer Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers said in a t statement. “Like all of us, he is a life-long ‘Star Trek’ fan and we are excited by his interpretation of this iconic role.”

Quite how Kirk will fit into the story is being held behind deflector shields for now, but here’s the wrinkle: he’s not showing up until Season 2, which kicked off shooting shortly after the series was renewed in January.

Season 1, meanwhile, will still focus on The Cage’, famously rejected by the network and re-tooled into two-part episode ‘The Menagerie’, which showed Pike’s fate to be critically injured and forced to spend time in a life- mobility device.

That tragic destiny also played into Pike’s story in Season 2 of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’, where he briefly took command of the ship and, upon learning of what lay ahead, decided to quit Starfleet.

Yet because watching him ride horses and hang out in a wooden cabin doesn’t exactly scream “thrilling space adventure”, he’ll be pulled back to duty for this first run of ‘Strange New Worlds,’ which involves a spatial anomaly initially, but seems to promise more episodic storytelling, “alien/planet of the week” in keeping with the classic ‘Trek’ shows.

Mount’s Pike is ed by Rebecca Romijn as first officer Number One (whose actual name we’ve since learned is Una Chin-Riley).

The rest of the crew is a mixture of established characters played by new actors and team we’ve not yet met in the history of ‘Trek’.

Booker Bradshaw in a couple of episodes of the original series.

Zoe Saldana.

Majel Barrett played after Number One was rejected following that original ‘Trek’ pilot.

Christina Chong appears as La'an Noonien-Singh, a relative of Kirk nemesis Khan Noonien Singh, who the Enterprise crew won’t encounter until Kirk’s era in charge, so it’ll be interesting to see how she fits into the story.

Bruce Horak is Hemmer, An Aenar officer part of the albino subspecies of the normally blue Andorians, who are also usually blind. And Horak makes Trek history by being the first partially blind actor to star on one of the shows.

Finally, we have Lt. Erica Ortegas, about whom very little is known right now.

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ will launch on Paramount+ on May 5 with the first episode, and releases episodes weekly.