Review

Culture

Film & TV

Leading

8 August 2025

6 min read

Great storytelling elevates this Star Trek hero to messiah status

Before Captain Kirk, came a compelling commander

Giles Gough

Giles Gough is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast.

The other captain.

Last month saw the release of the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the prequel series that follows the crew of the USS Enterprise before one James T. Kirk took the captain’s chair. Not only does the show have the heady mix of fun and serious subject matter, it also has something quite rare for Star Trek; a messiah figure.

Ever since its first airing in 1966, Star Trek has presented a utopian view of the future. The show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry created a world where humanity had grown up and had moved past its petty squabbles. In Roddenberry’s twenty-third century, prejudices around race, class or sex were non-existent. There were, however, some groups that could not get a look in. One topic that got very little representation was sexuality, the other was religion.

Representation of differing sexualities would become something that Star Trek would eventually excel at depicting. Religion, however, has not fared quite so well. Star Trek’s staunchly secular universe is clearly a reflection of Gene’s views. What is interesting though, is the way that in a franchise so resistant to even the idea of God, is how concepts related to him seem to seep into the storytelling. The use of a Messiah figure, specifically a character who sacrifices their life to save others is hardly new in Star Trek. At least two captains come to mind. But there is something particularly novel about Captain Christopher Pike.

For those who are in need of a bit of trivia, Pike, not Kirk, was the first captain of the Enterprise to be depicted. In an unaired pilot, Captain Pike is portrayed by matinee idol, Jeffrey Hunter. This captain is seasoned, world weary, and very serious. Perhaps a little too serious as the network at the time didn’t like the show in that form. They did however, take the unconventional step of ordering a second pilot, which was lighter, and more colourful in tone. Reports differ wildly as to whether Hunter quit or was fired, but one way or another, he did not return to reprise the role of Captain Pike when the show went to series. Instead, the character of Pike was replaced with James T. Kirk, played by a young William Shatner.

This then presented the show with a problem. The production company had an entire episode’s worth of footage costing $645,000 (around $6.5m today) that was unusable in its current state. The novel solution to this problem was to write a framing story where Spock mysteriously commandeers the Enterprise and kidnaps now Fleet Captain Pike. When Spock turns himself in for court martial, he presents video footage in his defence. Footage which just so happens to be selected shots from the unaired pilot. There was just one problem with this. Jeffrey Hunter was unavailable for filming, so they had to cast another actor in the role. As the episodes would show Jeffrey Hunter’s Pike on screen, it would make the recasting look obvious. So actor Sean Kenney was slathered in burns makeup, put in a restrictive wheelchair and only able to communicate through a series of beeps, with Roddenberry writing in an explanation of how Captain Pike had been seriously injured in an explosion on a ship saving some cadets, and was now suffering from ‘locked in syndrome’.

When Star Trek: Discovery’s second season came around, they chose to include characters such as Captain Pike (now played by Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) to serve as a backdoor pilot for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Rather than steering clear of the convoluted backstory, they leaned into it, having a confident, able-bodied Pike receive a premonition of his own terrible fate. He is told at the time that he can escape if he gives up, but if he goes ahead in completing the mission, it will seal his fate. In that moment, Pike rallies himself by saying:

“You’re a Starfleet Captain, you believe in service, sacrifice, compassion and love. No, I'm not going to abandon the things that make me who I am because the future…it contains an ending I hadn't foreseen for myself”.

Discovery simply had too much plot in it to resolve Pike’s story satisfactorily, so when Strange New Worlds launched, it gave Pike the chance to fully unpack his trauma.

The first episode of Strange New Worlds sees Captain Pike considering retirement from Starfleet. After all you can’t have an accident in space if you never go on a spaceship right? However, he’s drawn back into captaining the Enterprise in order to rescue his first officer, Una, who is trapped on a primitive planet. After saving her, Pike resumes command of the Enterprise. Una is aware of Pike’s vision of the future, and is desperate to dissuade him of walking into a situation that will leave him so disfigured. At which point, Pike tells her he knows the names of all the cadets he saves on that day. “Stay the course, save their lives” he tells her.

In the season one finale of the show, Pike meets a young boy, Maat, who is eager to join Starfleet, and Pike realises he is one of the cadets that he is unable to save. He is about to write a letter to the boy, trying to tell him about his future, when a future version of himself arrives. Throughout the course of the episode, Pike learns that if he avoids his fate and stays in command of the Enterprise, he will inadvertently start a war with the Romulans that will result in Spock’s death. “Every time we change the path, he dies” his future self tells him. This furthers Pike’s resolve to stay the course.

When viewed through this particular lens, Captain Pike’s story in Strange New Worlds is in effect, one long extended Garden of Gethsemane scene. In both cases we see a man, fully aware of the impact his sacrifice will have for the future, but at the same time, still feeling nervous, scared, and wanting to reject the bad hand he’s been dealt. But in both cases, both Jesus and Captain Pike recommit themselves to their mission and their fate. There are no shortage of heroes in sci-fi/fantasy, who sacrifice themselves in the heat of the moment. But a character who has multiple chances for escape, one who has time to consider the torturous weight of his own destiny, and still decides to go through with it? This elevates the character from a simple ‘hero’ to a ‘messiah figure’.

As a result of this, watching Strange New Worlds has now taken on an experience similar to watching The Chosen, the multi-season show centred around Jesus and his disciples. Both shows have an effortlessly charismatic central character who leads those around them with grace and humility, and the more you fall in love with these characters, the more you’re reminded that something absolutely horrendous is going to happen to them. Whilst we know it must happen, it still makes us anxious at the thought of going through it.

Over thirty years since Gene Roddenberry’s death, it’s hard to tell what he would have thought about the evolution of one of the first characters he wrote for Star Trek. On the one hand he might have rejected it out of hand for its parallels with the story of Jesus, a religion he disdained. Or he might just love it for what it is; really, really good storytelling.

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Article

Culture

Generosity

Virtues

4 June 2025

6 min read

We need to rescue volunteering

Our use of the word now reflects unwanted obligations, rather than a deep desire to serve.

Julia Kendal

Juila is a writer and social justice advocate.

Two small lifeboats raft together on a river rescue.

Lifeboats on the River Thames.

x.com/rnli_teddington

It’s a hot summer evening and there are 30 of us sweating in our dry suits. Tuesdays usually mean lifeboat training, but this night is a little different. An intermission from the usual intensity of a team-building exercise: racing two lifeboats across the river Thames. Allocated into teams of two rowing in a knockout tournament, we are going to be here for a while. Our cheers provide the soundtrack for the BBC radio crew recording a programme on volunteering. The mood is convivial; the competition is fierce. None of us have to be here; all of us choose to be. We are a lifeboat crew, and we are all volunteers.

Around 25 million people in the UK do some form of volunteering. And they are celebrated during Volunteers’ Week, which has been running for 41 years. The benefits are well documented these days. The mental and physical health boost. A sense of purpose. The chance to learn new skills. A route to forging connections with other people.

Despite this, though, the number of people volunteering has been on a twenty-year decline. One in three organisations are struggling to retain volunteers, in part due to the cost-of-living crisis making people’s time and capacity more precious than ever.

Beyond that, our use of the word seems to have shifted to reflect unwanted obligations, rather than a deeply held desire to serve. ‘I suppose I better volunteer to put out the chairs’ we might pronounce with the deathly weight of Katniss Everdeen’s ‘I volunteer as tribute,’ glancing to the left and the right in case anyone saves us from the undesirable task. It seems the very idea of volunteering needs rescue.

It wasn’t on my radar to be lifeboat crew, but an unexpected new job in an unfamiliar London suburb unlocked this possibility. When I considered ‘Why wouldn’t I?’, I couldn’t find a strong reason. So, one autumn evening I trekked down for my first Tuesday night at Teddington lifeboat station. It was time to fill in the paperwork: I was officially a volunteer.

Over the months that followed, I found myself wondering why other people gave their time, energy and skills to complete the nearly 50 training modules and to be available 24/7 when someone on the water was in need. I hungered for people’s stories, to know why they kept answering the call when their beds were warm and the night was unknown. So, over the four years that I was on the crew, I asked them. I spoke with teachers and students, company directors and full-time parents. I heard stories of multiple generations on a crew, their family’s blood running orange and blue. One woman spoke of overcoming her fear of heights to scale the side of a boat; another had an unexpected tale of a dolphin attack. Each time, I had the same question: why do you do it?

And I was struck by the fact that none of them gave an answer that fully added up. They could name parts of it: care for people, teamwork, a love of the sea. Sometimes of the reasons they started (‘Dad did it’) were not why they stayed on (‘I could make a palpable difference’). I didn’t meet anyone who didn’t enjoy being on the water. Play and peril can co-exist – and we need to have moments of joy along the way if we’re going to be in it for the long haul. But in each case, the answers always seemed to come up a little short. If I was looking for something neat and complete, I wasn’t finding it.

This is, perhaps, the difference between volunteering and having a hobby. At some point, volunteering will cost you something.

Back on the river, the knockout races are suddenly interrupted. A call from the coastguard: there’s a person in difficulty in the river. The mood switch is instantaneous; the action swings from contesting to collaborating to get a boat headed upstream as fast as possible. Somewhere, someone is having a very bad day. This is what we exist for.

The RNLI was born out of a need. In the early nineteenth century, nearly 2,000 ships – and their crews – were being wrecked on British and Irish coasts every year. Sir William Hillary saw this loss firsthand from his home on the Isle of Man, joining with others to rescue as many as possible – but it wasn’t enough. People continued to perish. So, he rallied other activists and philanthropists, and in a London pub, the charity now called the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was formed. Hillary’s motto, 'with courage, nothing is impossible’, can still be found adorning lifeboat stations around the country.

None of the lifeboat crew members that I met seemed to think of themselves as anything but ordinary. They were full of admiration in the stories of fellow crew mates, but saw themselves as entirely human, naming everyday needs and familiar comforts. Writing about courage, Andrew Davison recognised that,

‘The willingness of a courageous person to forgo ease, safety, the comforts of home, and even to risk life and limb, does not spring from hatred of any of those things’.

This is, perhaps, the difference between volunteering and having a hobby (also commendable for its health benefits, sense of purpose, opportunities for connection). At some point, volunteering will cost you something. That sacrifice is needed demonstrates the level of care; otherwise, it’s simply another act of self-actualisation in the service of the volunteer themselves.

It’s dark on the river and the boat crew is still out. The BBC’s team has packed up for the evening. We have tidied the station, no evidence of the antics of hours earlier. We depart. Close to midnight, those of us who can, return. We bring the boat in from the water, and make it ready for the next call, which will inevitably come. One less job for those who’ve been on duty all evening. It’s the least we can do.

In the origins of the term is a spirit of offering. The Latin voluntaries carries a sense of ‘to give of one’s free will’. This, perhaps, is where we’ve lost our way with the whole idea. For there to be a sense of duress in volunteering is to strip the generous act of its power. Where there is obligation on one side and self-interest on the other, we can find the middle ground marked by devotion, by having chosen to serve and therefore having the commitment to see it through. This is the invitation that volunteering can offer us, and that I glimpsed from people who had been volunteering on the lifeboats for decades.

Writing to the sea-faring city of Ephesus in ancient Greece, the church leader Paul encouraged people to ‘submit to one another’, which is another way of saying sacrificially help each other. In smaller coastal communities, a lifeboat crew might be called out to save a family member. In London, a city of millions, it will always be a stranger. But either way the decision was the same: to show up. The reasons why we do it don’t always add up. There are flavours of compassion, of wanting to be useful, to be part of something bigger. But there seems to be something else as well. A dedication to meeting a need. Put another way, we might call it love.

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Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free.
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If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

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