Warning! SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 2 "Children of the Comet."
The problem of knowing Captain Christopher Pike's (Anson Mount) ultimate Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Pike was almost erased from Star Trek canon when Gene Roddenberry's original pilot "The Cage," starring Jeffrey Hunter as Pike, was rejected by the studio. After a successful second Pike-less pilot, production on Star Trek began, but they struggled to meet their deadlines with the network. With that, Gene Roddenbery conceived the 2-part story "The Menagerie" as a time-saving exercise that would allow them to reuse the footage from Star Trek's unaired pilot.
In "The Menagerie," a critically wounded Pike is kidnapped by Spock (Leonard Nimoy), who risks his life to bring him to Talos IV, the planet they visited in "The Cage." Strange New Worlds has already added an extra emotional layer to this story by that revealing Spock (Ethan Peck) knows of Pike's vision of his accident. In returning his former captain to an idyllic, but illusory life on Talos IV, Spock is rewarding Pike for his heroic sacrifice.
In Strange New Worlds' "Children of the Comet," the Enterprise crew encounter The Shepherds, an alien species that guide M'hanit, a comet and so-called arbiter of life. Realizing M'hanit is on a collision course with Persephone III, Pike and his crew lead the effort to set it on a different course. When they eventually succeed, Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) suggests that the Enterprise's planet-saving encounter with the comet was always destined to happen. This positive outcome suggests Pike can avoid his fate in Star Trek. However, the lesson of the comet is not that Pike can avoid his tragic accident, it's that though his future is fixed, this knowledge allows him to be the best captain he can be with the time that he has left, fixing any dramatic issues that result from already knowing how a character's story ends.
Pike's actions so far in Strange New Worlds have been those of a man who's aware of his own mortality. In season 1, episode 1, "Strange New Worlds," Pike realizes that he has been responsible for a pre-warp planet developing a devastating weapon. He defies Starfleet protocol to beam down to the planet, teaching them about Earth's World War III to help both sides avoid destroying each other. This is a man who wants to make a difference in the time that he has left, he's not, as Number 1 fears, throwing his life away. It's also clear in how much he relishes the prospect of redirecting the comet from destroying Persephone III in "Children of the Comet" that he's in Starfleet to make a positive impact on the universe, and this awareness of his own mortality only fuels that drive.
Number 1 is both right and wrong when she suggests that Pike was shown the vision of the accident to "save those kids and that's it." In accepting the outcome of his own tragic Star Trek timeline, Captain Pike will become more determined to save those kids. It's like the comet's prior awareness of the Enterprise's efforts in its redirection, Pike sees that he saves the students from their accident, so he becomes an even more brave and heroic version of himself to eventually become the man that risks his life for those kids. In telling this story of Christopher Pike, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has already fixed the potential dramatic problems with knowing his ending, shifting focus to how he comes to with his fate and uses it to be a great Enterprise captain, instead of throwing his life away in chasing an alternative solution.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.