Logline
La’An travels back in time to twenty-first-century Earth to prevent an attack which will alter humanity’s future history—and bring her face to face with her own contentious legacy.
Written by David Reed
Directed by Amanda Row
Note: This is a second attempt, as technical difficulties were preventing people from seeing the original discussion post. Apologies to the people who were able to comment in the original.
I liked Wesley in “A Quality of Mercy” but hot damn, he nailed it here. He is easy to recognize as Kirk and yet is borrowing very little from Shatner’s performance. Wesley has managed to “echo” Kirk in a way that Peck and Gooding haven’t quite dialed in yet for their characters.
It’s funny—given that in both appearances he has depicted an “alternate” Kirk, he’s had some built-in leeway to miss the mark and still be credible. He doesn’t need it. This man can play Kirk.
I included this in the Discussion Thread 1.0, but I agree - Wesley brought a unique charisma to Kirk that worked really well without being Shatnerian.
Yep. As someone that didn’t like the news that Kirk was going to be in the show, as it seemed a distraction and even a little like fan service, the approach they’ve taken with alternate timelines and the actor’s non-shatnerian but faithful take on Kirk has really worked out for me. If you watch the recent ready room interview with the actor, you’ll note that they’re a TOS fan, which makes sense. They’re purposefully doing it all this way, including taking leeway both from alternate timelines and it being a younger Kirk.
It’s working quite well at introducing the character IMO! Even having this new angle where he means something very special to La’an, is just a really effective way of organically rooting the character in this world.