A (potentially) unpopular opinion

[VSAFaculty]

I'm going to start by saying that I know that there will be some disagreement about this.

Here goes:

I believe that TOS covered all 5 years of James Kirk's 5 year mission on the Enterprise (NOT just the first 3 years). Hear me out: going by the stardates given in most episodes, the stardates at the beginning of the series are in the 1xxx/x range, at the end of the series they are in the upper 5xxx.x range. Theory (mine): the first digit corresponds to which year of the 5 year mission. Therefore we have actually seen all 5 years of Kirk's famous tenure.

Here I have listed all 79 episodes in stardate order, broken down by year:

First Year (2265)
1312.4 Where No Man Has Gone Before
1329.1 Mudd's Women
1512.2 The Corbomite Maneuver
1513.1 The Man Trap
1533.6 Charlie X
1672.1 The Enemy Within
1704.2 The Naked Time
1709.1 Balance of Terror

Second Year (2266)
2124.5 The Squire of Gothos
2534.0 Patterns of Force
2712.4 What Are Little Girls Made Of?
2713.5 Miri
2715.1 Dagger of the Mind
2817.6 Conscience of the King
2821.5 The Galileo Seven
2947.3 Court Martial

Third Year (2267)
3012.4 The Menagerie, Part I
3013.0 The Menagerie, Part II
3018.2 Catspaw
3025.3 Shore Leave
3045.6 Arena
3087.6 The Alternative Factor
3113.2 Tomorrow is Yesterday
3134.0 City on the Edge of Forever
3141.9 Space Seed
3156.2 Return of the Archons
3192.1 A Taste of Armageddon
3196.1 Devil in the Dark
3198.4 Errand of Mercy
3211.7 Gamesters of Triskelion
3219.8 Metamorphosis
3287.2 Operation: Annihilate!
3372.7* Day of the Dove
3372.7 Amok Time
3417.3 This Side of Paradise
3468.1 Who Mourns for Adonais?
3478.2 The Deadly Years
3497.2 Friday's Child
3541.9 The Changeling
3614.9 Wolf in the Fold
3619.2 Obsession
3715.3 The Apple
3823.7* Mirror, Mirror
3842.3 Journey to Babel

Fourth Year (2268)
4040.7 Bread and Circuses
4202.9 The Doomsday Machine
4211.4 A Private Little War
4272.5 Elaan of Troyius
4307.1 The Immunity Syndrome
4385.3 Spectre of the Gun
4513.3 I, Mudd
4523.3 The Trouble with Tribbles
4598.0 A Piece of the Action
4657.5 By Any Other Name
4729.4 The Ultimate Computer
4768.3 Return to Tomorrow
4842.6 The Paradise Syndrome
Year 2268 The Omega Glory
Year 2268 Assignment: Earth

Fifth Year (2269)
5027.3 And the Children Shall Lead
5031.3 The Enterprise Incident
5121.0 The Empath
5423.4 The Mark of Gideon
5431.4 Spock's Brain
5476.3 For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
5630.7 Is There in Truth No Beauty?
5693.4 The Tholian Web
5710.5 Wink of an Eye
5718.3 Whom Gods Destroy
5725.3 The Lights of Zetar
5730.2 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
5784.2 Plato's Stepchildren
5818.4 The Cloud Minders
5832.3 Way to Eden
5843.7 Requiem for Methuselah
5906.4 The Savage Curtain
5928.5 Turnabout Intruder
5943.7 All Our Yesterdays
5978.2* That Which Survives

*The stardates with asterisks were gathered from beta canon sources


Also the highest stardate being in the mid 59xx range fits with Star Trek: The Motion Picture being set on stardate 74xx and Scotty saying in the movie "we have just spent 18 months redesigning and refitting the Enterprise". And before anyone says anything, yes, I know that Stardates are used differently in the movies.

Having seen all 5 years of Kirk's mission in the 3 seasons of TOS makes more sense to me then the common opinion that we only saw 3 years. Why even have a two year gap there in the first place.

Your thoughts?

Wow. I never noticed that before. I just thought it was randomly numbering, but the fact that it goes from 1 through 5 really changes my opinion on this subject.

 

[VSAFaculty]

I don't like this notion that the older shows somehow need "permission" from the new shows to be considered valid. Why should the Kurtzman shows have more of a say about what it's canon and what it's not? TOS and TAS came first, they were created by Roddenberry, and more or less the same core staff. That should be enough reason to consider them canon. You don't need any "official definition", or ask Paramount constantly about what it's canon and what has been de-canonized this particular month. It's just common sense that the original is the original. When in doubt, I'd doubt the spin-offs, if anything. Specially when those spin-offs are made by people completely unrelated to the original creators, who aren't even around anymore, in most cases.

This! I actually don’t consider anything past TOS, TAS, and STIV as canon (I have my reasons). Makes my universe a LOT less complicated.