Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Note– Some folks apparently have been complaining that they “bent canon”. The producers themselves have said they will bodycheck canon if they have to. But also, they insisted that staying within canon is a very fun exercise. So did they completely screw things up?
Well… not really.
I decided to check out what could have been a big plot hole. Kirk, long before he was captain, meets a security officer named L’aan Noonien-Singh, descendant of the infamous Khan Noonien-Singh. And he connects with her (no… not in THAT way, for reasons which are spectalurly delightful).
So doesn’t that meet-cute contradict the episode where he meets Khan? Wouldn’t he have acted differently meeting L’aan’s great-great-great grandfather?
Well… I watched “Space Seed” again. I was delighted to find there was nothing in the episode that contradicted him having met L’aan. In fact, his actions become vastly more satisfying and understandable when you add in this retcon. It addresses a criticism that I’ve seen people have that Kirk treated Khan with more deference than he should have, given Enterprise’s history with meeting domineering folks.
So many, many kudos to the writers who managed to write something that expands canon without violating it and makes past TOS episodes even more enjoyable.
For an added bonus, there’s a meme running around about how the historian on the ship was absolutely all-in for fascism and Kirk was so done with her even before Khan appears on the scene. It’s so damned funny to watch the episode with those two things in mind.