Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Why don’t Captain Kirk and Spock remember the Gorn? 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds brings the Gorn back into the timeline before Captain Kirk’s famous fight in “Arena,” and that return raises a question:

If the Enterprise crew met the Gorn earlier, why do Kirk and Spock act as if the species is new to them in The Original Series?

The show offers a nuanced, in-story explanation that preserves the significance of earlier episodes while allowing the prequel to introduce fresh layers of detail. The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episode that matters most here is “Terrarium,” which centers on Lieutenant Erica Ortegas being stranded with a Gorn pilot on a hostile moon.

Ortega’s scenes show the Gorn as more than the clunky suit from 1967. In the finale, an advanced alien race intervenes and erases specific memories of the incident, a narrative device the show employs to explain how public perception of the Gorn could shift before Kirk’s later encounter.

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The showrunners’ explanation and how it fits the timeline

Showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have said the episode deliberately addresses continuity concerns. Their point was to let the series show an earlier brush with the Gorn while also offering a plausible reason why later characters might not recognize them the same way.

In public comments, they framed the Metrons’ interference as a tool to reconcile Strange New Worlds scenes with the image of the Gorn that fans first saw in “Arena.”

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What do the Metrons do on screen?

The Metrons are shown as an older, powerful species with technology that can bend perception or memory. In “Terrarium,” they erase or alter human recollection about parts of the encounter while leaving Ortegas with a changed view of the Gorn. That single plot choice gives the writers a way to say, yes, humans have met the Gorn earlier, but key details may have been forgotten or shifted in people’s minds.

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Why do appearance and memory both matter?

Two practical reasons help the retcon hold up. First, the modern Gorn design in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds differs from the original rubber-suit version; that visual gap means someone who has heard stories might not immediately match the old description with what Ortegas saw.

Second, if an advanced species tampers with memory, eyewitness reports can’t be fully trusted. The show combines these two ideas, ensuring the timeline does not collapse into contradiction.

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On-set challenges and what they add to the credibility of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ story

Actors and crew of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also treated the Gorn scenes seriously. Melissa Navia (Ortegas) has described how difficult it was to act against a heavy practical suit and how the production used the prop selectively. Those production limits influenced how much of the Gorn’s behavior the episode could show and made the final moments where memory is altered feel earned rather than tossed in as a quick fix.

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The combination of a new visual take on the Gorn and an explicit plot device, the Metrons’ memory alteration, is the series’ answer to the continuity question. It lets Star Trek: Strange New Worlds show earlier contact without erasing the meaning of Kirk’s later encounter in “Arena.”

For viewers who track canon closely, that approach avoids a clean overwrite and instead offers a story reason for why characters in later shows might not remember the earlier meetings.