This week the Star Trek community got some amazing news, the announcement of a series that focuses on the captain of the Enterprise before James T. Kirk, Christopher Pike as played by Anson Mount. It’s titled Strange New Worlds, and also features Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock.

I’m beyond excited about this because Christopher Pike is my favorite captain. (In case anyone is wondering the ranking is: Pike, Sisko, Janeway, Picard, Archer, Lorca, Kirk. I haven’t ranked Georgiou yet because we haven’t seen too much of her as captain.) He became my favorite in Star Trek ’09, then I read all of the novels where Pike was the focus, watched “The Cage” and “The Menagerie” too many times to count, and was always bothered that this Captain who was supposed to be one of Starfleet’s greatest, never got a chance to show us how great he was. I mean, he has a medal of valor named after him!

Then Anson Mount put on that command uniform and we got a taste of why he was so great. He was compassionate. He was a little bit of a goofball. He was adventurous. He and his crew were going to be the foundation of the new Federation if the Klingons won the war and when he warped off screen in the last episode of Discovery Season Two the fans wanted more.

Sure, we got a few Short Treks, but even that didn’t satisfy us, we wanted more. There was a petition. The constant questions of the actors and the producers ‘When is the Pike series going to happen?’ We still don’t have the answer to that question, but we do know it IS going to happen and that’s enough for me.

That naturally leads to the next point, what is going to happen on this series? We know it’s going to be more episodic; we know it’s going to be optimistic; it’s going to feel like Star Trek used to and that makes me happy. I love Star Trek: Discovery and I love Star Trek: Picard but considering the current climate I think we can use something a little happier. Beyond that, what do I want to see? Keep reading for my 10 Things I hope to happen in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

1. Away Missions!
It’s Star Trek. Get the cast outside and do some away missions. You can’t have a show called Strange New Worlds, and not actually get out there and explore them. Bonus points if Pike gets to ride a horse.

2. Number One Being Awesome.
Una is supposed to be one of the most experienced officers in the fleet. (Which is why her inability to understand Detmer in Discovery bugged me.) Show her in command of the ship. Show her firing phasers, thinking strategically, and being a counterpoint to Pike and Spock. She had to wait 50+ years for a first name, don’t make her wait that long for actual character development

3. Characters from Pike’s Enterprise, namely CMO Phil Boyce and Chief Engineer Caitlin Barry.
Through out the books, two main characters that are brought up over and over again are Boyce and Barry and I think leaving them out would detract from the story. Something the previous Star Treks had was a well-balanced senior staff that played well off each other and helped solve the problem of the day. You see that Boyce is respected during “The Menagerie” and “The Cage” I hope to meet Caitlin Barry, as she would be the first female Chief Engineer on screen.

4. More on the Bridge Crew
Discovery’s been pretty good about this, so I don’t see why Strange New Worlds wouldn’t be. Everyone on the bridge has a name, and we’ve seen them all do their jobs well and even some off duty scenes. I want to see something similar for Amin, Colt and the others. They’re people too, not just scenery.

5. The Mirror Universe
I know, I know. Discovery used it. Deep Space Nine used it. Enterprise used it. TOS used it. But there is one person on board that knows about The Mirror Universe and that’s Pike. I want to see Mirror Pike, Mirror Una, and Mirror Pre-TOS Spock. I think it would be interesting.

6. L’Rell
The Klingons are headed for an interesting time in their own history. How does this effect the Federation? How does Pike’s somewhat friendly relationship with the Klingon Chancellor effect the Klingons? Also Mary Chieffo is probably one of my favorite actresses in the franchise, so I’d love to see more of her.

7. Merchandise
Real Pike merchandise. Where is that action figure?

8. No Kirk until the end.
No Kirk until the end. Kirk says he only met Pike once, at the transfer of command ceremony. Keep it that way. Let Pike stand on his own. Don’t let his character be minimized because of the legendary status we know Kirk has but hasn’t earned at the time of this series.

9. But I would be totally on board for a visit from Robert April.
He was Pike’s former CO and we have only seen him in the Animated Series. Let all the past captains of the Enterprise get a little live action screen time.

10. Pike being the first captain to know he can’t die…just like the audience does.
This is something that no other Star Trek Captain has experienced. Pike knows, just as well as we do, that he can’t die. We saw a bit of this at the end of Discovery with Admiral Cornwell. How is Pike going to deal with this knowledge? Is he going to be less careful because he knows that the alien of the week is not going to take him out? Will other people dying because he can’t weigh heavily on him? How is all of that going to play out? This is perhaps the most interesting thing about this series to me. I can see how it has a lot of potential for stories and character development and I hope they use this in the show