I’ve been trying to think of what they might call a Star Trek series with Pike as Captain of the Enterprise (aka the spin-off from Discovery that I want more than air) and it’s tough. They can’t call it Enterprise because that’s been done. My thought then went to their five year mission but there has already been a series called Voyager.

My next thought was a follow-on because it’s not just exploring the stars but also reflecting on themselves – Pike knows his future now after all, but Star Trek: Exploration, or Star Trek: Reflection didn’t sound right. Thesaurus kicked back Reverie when I put reflection in but the definition is all about day-dreaming rather than learning about one’s limits and learning to value oneself, so while it sounded better, it wasn’t appropriate.

Right now I’m toying with Star Trek: The Lost Years, or something of that ilk, because in the UK there was a TV show called Dad’s Army, and the BBC lost/recorded over a few episodes, and they became known as The Lost Episodes. Well Trek was supposed to be Pike initially but the pilot was rejected and anyway it became Kirk and a legend was born. So a series following Pike pre-the Kirk years, it’s like we’ve heard whispers of this story but never got to see it – these are the Lost Years.

Then of course thematically, Pike knows he’s a marked man, he’s living on borrowed time. These are ‘found’ years but knowing what he does, how can he make promises to people, or fall in love, or make any kind of future plans, when he knows that at some point the time crystal vision will come true. So in some respect those are Lost Years, as he can’t live them as he would have before he knew his fate – he has lost himself. It circles back to my thought about reflection and learning about ourselves and not just the stars.

That could pick up from Star Trek: Beyond, with the quote:

It isn’t uncommon, you know, even for a captain, to want to leave. There is no relative direction in the vastness of space. There is only yourself, your ship, your crew. It’s easier than you think, to get lost. 

Enterprise is on a five year mission, lost in the vastness of space, pushing back the final frontier. I don’t know, I think it works on a few levels, but I’m sure if they do make it (and I really, really hope they do but I also want to be realistic and acknowledge they might not, even though they did build a proper set for the Enterprise bridge gah). Anyway, I’m sure that if they do make it, then they will come up with a better name. For now though I think I’m going to refer to it like this in my head 🙂