Warning: SPOILERS For Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds established that one version of Captain James T. Kirk, played by Paul Wesley, has an ability that William Shatner’s Captain Kirk lacked in Star Trek: The Original Series.
In Star Trek’s Prime Timeline, Paul Wesley plays the younger version of the future Captain Kirk defined by William Shatner in Star Trek: The Original Series. Wesley has also played alternate versions of Kirk from different realities, each of whom lived very different lives from Prime Kirk.
Jim Kirk is a Lieutenant Commander and First Officer of the USS Farragut in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, which takes place in 2261. Kirk is about four years from his destiny of becoming Captain of the USS Enterprise.
Kirk’s eternal friendship with Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck) also begins in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3. Although they met in season 2, James and Spock truly bonded in Strange New Worlds season 3. Yet despite growing closer to Spock, Kirk doesn’t gain an ability his alt-reality counterpart has.
Paul Wesley’s Alternate Reality Captain Kirk Could Do A Vulcan Nerve Pinch
In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 3, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” Captain Kirk from an alternate reality could do the Vulcan nerve pinch, which William Shatner’s Kirk could never do.
Kirk and Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) were sent back in time to 2022 Toronto to stop Romulan temporal agents and reset Star Trek’s Prime timeline back to its proper course. Captain Kirk used the Vulcan nerve pinch to subdue a car owner and steal his vehicle.
Kirk learned the Vulcan nerve pinch when he was held in a Denobulan prison with a Vulcan cellmate.
This Captain Kirk, whom La’an fell in love with, lived in an alternate timeline where Earth was eternally at war with the Romulans. Kirk learned the Vulcan nerve pinch when he was held in a Denobulan prison with a Vulcan cellmate. Kirk also knows how to make plomeek soup.
William Shatner’s Captain Kirk Never Learned Spock’s Vulcan Nerve Pinch
Star Trek: The Original Series season 1, episode 4, “The Naked Time,” saw Captain Kirk admit that he doesn’t know how to do the Vulcan nerve pinch.
When Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) used his Vulcan nerve pinch to subdue Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), who was afflicted with the Psi 2000 virus, Kirk told his Science Officer, “I’d like you to teach me that sometime.”
However, there’s no evidence in any episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, or the Star Trek movies that followed, that Spock ever taught Kirk the Vulcan nerve pinch.
Ironically, Lt. Spock taught the Vulcan nerve pinch to La’an in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, which made Spock’s ex, Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), envious since she could never master the move.
