Emblematic image of Kirk, from the home page of Startrek.com
There need be no competition among the captains of Star Trek through the decades and the different series. But call to mind (or view an image) of Captain Pike, from the pilot episode, “The Cage,” of 1965; Captain Picard, from The Next Generation (1987-1994), and Captain James T. Kirk, in the original series (TOS), 1966-1969.
When you think of these men, what strikes you?
What strikes me without thinking much about it is how warm, gentle, and often amused Kirk’s face looks. More than either of the other men, he smiles. He smiles when he’s being sympathetic, when he’s reassuring someone, when he’s telling an enemy to “go climb a tree” (the Klingon captain Kor in “Errand of Mercy”). He smiles when he’s being romantic. And it’s an expression of his character, not an act.
Sure, the other men smile, but think of Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter: when he’s doing the job of captain, he looks so intense, you imagine that anyone within his line of sight has suffered radiation, whether they know it yet or not. He has an almost constant Spockian upturn at the far edges of his eyebrows. He’s not a man to be messed with at any time. He’s all serious business, and he takes himself very seriously indeed.
Picard seeking the truth from Captain Riker, in “The Pegasus”
Then there is Picard, played by Patrick Stewart. His face, captivating to watch, has a suggestion of mind-reading power to it — as if he is not only listening to his interlocutor but trying to divine the truth about that person at the same time. He is slightly otherworldly.
Finally we have Kirk — and we all know who plays him! Kirk’s face so often conveys attention and focus but not eye-lacerating intensity; awareness of others but not telepathic powers of perception. Kirk in many good ways is an ordinary man — a man with ordinary capabilities so combined and well-directed as to make him extraordinary. But what perhaps stands out most in his personal demeanor is his good humor, his readiness to see the absurd for what it is and to take it in stride. Even when he is not actually smiling, that smile is just waiting, any moment now, to make an appearance. When he is quite serious, as when trying to learn what ails a desperate Spock, his face has an openness, a tenderness even, that is almost feminine in its approachability. This is partly a matter of his physical features, but not entirely.
Kirk talks privately to Spock in “Amok Time”
Pike observes and commands with dutiful sincerity; Picard watches and confronts with penetrating rigor. Kirk challenges you to persuade him, and himself has the charm to persuade. And always with that love of life shining out from his face. And that good-hearted, genuine, unbanishable smile.