Maybe someday I'll finish the Kirk Drift essay lurking in my drafts but for now here's my basic opinion on the phenomenon (under a cut because this is longer than I intended, despite the lack of formality. It's basically an outline that needs sharper editing and formatting of points.)
1. The (Classic) Kirk Drift was always inevitable thanks to memory recall and the passing of time.
There are 78 episodes of The Original Series that feature Kirk. That's a lot of source material to remember much less to actively watch and think about. A lot of people watch TOS to have fun and unwind, not to write a dissertation on it. Forgetting or misremembering details will happen, even for a character like Kirk. The films could have never happened, and maybe the character wouldn't have become so lampooned or known to more people who have no context of TOS, but people would still be getting him wrong based on these two factors alone. (Look at the Himbo Kirk thing, Kirk Drift #3. I've seen enough of it around and it is centered on TOS Kirk, not AOS Kirk / Will the real Jim Kirk please stand up?)
There are at least 4 episodes that contain two Kirks: season one's The Enemy Within (transporter malfunction splits Kirk's personality in two) and What Are Little Girls Made of (android Kirk), season two's Mirror Mirror (alternate universe Kirk), season three's Whom Gods Destroy (Garth takes Kirk's appearance in order to try to steal the Enterprise and escape the asylum) and season three has Turnabout Intruder in which Kirk and Janice Lester swap bodies. That's 5 episodes of Kirk acting outside of his norm while looking exactly like Kirk. Given how rare this is, it makes sense that some of these are more memorable compared to the bulk of the episodes. (Whom Gods Destroy also has Marta the Orion, the only Orion Kirk is shown with in all of TOS. How does he "love his green women" when he has only met one and she tried to kill him? Rarity = more memorable / as a sidebar, yes, I understand the reboot films play into this very thing. I do wonder if "Kirk loves his green women" may very well be an example of what a joke mutates to with time because Marta trying to kill Kirk is the farthest thing from love.)
Then there's the episodes where Kirk is brainwashed (Dagger of the Mind, Elaan of Troyius) or drugged (A Private Little War, although it is left open-ended by Kirk's own words; The Cloud Minders owing to the toxic dust of the mines). Same principle as above: the rarity makes it memorable. (And I know episodes like This Side of Paradise and And The Children Shall Lead have him brainwashed but he either breaks it quickly or Spock is able to help him overcome it. Those are very short instances compared to what the other episodes depict, although Dagger of the Mind is also a shorter instance so why I'm counting it as different is subjectivity in action.) Edit as of 8/9/2025: completely forgot about Return to Tomorrow and the hosting of Sargon, whoops.
Add on the cuts made in the 1970s syndication for commercial time, something which is still happening to this day from what I've noticed myself. This will likewise alter the experience of an episode, even if the cuts are deemed to not be obtrusive:
And once I saw the unedited episodes, I couldn't watch the series on actual television anymore because I felt the cuts they made really hurt the majority of the episodes I really liked (like for example TOS S2 "Amok Time", Where they started to cut out part of the dialogue between T'pau and Spock where Spock is telling T'Pau that he will do what he must, but not with Kirk.
I remember watching it and syndication one time, and the line from T'pau where she says:
"Thee has prided thyself on the Vulcan heritage. Art thee Vulcan or art thee Human?!" (And her voice was dripping with disgust when she asked that final bit.)
^^^
That an editor could decide that bit of dialogue is something that could be cut to fit 15 seconds of commercial time just really pissed me off; and I could understand why a fan of TNG who had never seen TOS before it had gotten to this heavily edited state, would think TOS isn't all that great by comparison. A lot of times the edits really hurt the episode in which they occurred. [from Trek BBS] / I am aware one could argue that this could also be something that is the result of misremembering. The OP goes on to say H&I is one of the few channels not cutting episodes during syndication, yet I could've sworn my own experience of "Hey, they cut a small bit there" happened on H&I. (Isn't memory recall such a fun thing to think about?)
Add also the difference between catching syndicated reruns versus the modern era of binge-watching and how that will feed into the memory recall issue. Can't notice the discrepancy that Vulcans were spared the dubious benefits of alcohol versus the fear of a drunk Spock if an entire season separates the two episodes. Some station has (had?) the opportunity to craft the funniest schedule ever, The Continuity Error Watch.
Likewise, the way people swear by watching the Production Order or the Original Broadcast Order for first-time viewers in order to have the best experience is something that is only possible for our current era of home media and streaming. If that leads to a change in how the show is experienced, then a syndication that left the schedule open to the stations themselves and whatever episodes they bought to air would mean the experience is different, right? / Caveat: TOS was created as an anthology series so watch orders don't matter. I do point this out, however, because I feel that modern fans forget their experience of the series is different than the bulk of the fandom's prior to the release of Star Trek on home media.
Add also the amount of people writing episodes over the years of production (~4 years for the Kirk episodes) and how Season 3 saw the departure of D.C. Fontana as story editor, Robert Justman as producer mid-season, and Gene Roddenberry himself keeping a low profile around NBC after all the fights with them. People have noted that Season 3 feels different and these changes behind the scenes is why. Look into any episode's production and you will find that Roddenberry and the producer (be it Robert Justman or Gene Coon, who left the position in season two) and Fontana had a hand in the rewrites. For Season Three to lose such a chunk of the core crew and be moved to the Friday 10 PM Death Slot, no wonder quality control went with it. (The least of Season Three's problems is opening with Spock's Brain. We see Spock melee fighting, people entering and exiting by previously established walls, and Kirk being so lovesick over an android he just met, he literally fights another man for her. Requiem for Methuselah is Kirk Drift 101 for me. I've tried to give the episode so many chances. I cannot unsee it, no matter how many times I've rewatched it. There's also that damning quote about Arthur Singer who replaced Fontana: "[Singer] wandered onto the set and asked our set decorator, "By the way, what does that transporter thing do again?", at which point most of the crew gave up caring.") / As an aside, I am not completely knocking Season Three. It has some of my favorite episodes and Is There No Truth In Beauty was my introduction to Star Trek (given I have sideblog and use my free time to make vids and other things... I think its obvious how I reacted to it). It has its own strengths but these behind-the-scenes issues definitely impacted it.
2. A lot of the Kirk Drift phenomenon also strikes me as the result of bad media comprehension. This seems to occur by two forms:
To go back to the issue of memory recall, people only remember the visuals but forget the details that create the context. Again, this is normal and inevitable.
People take in the visuals but miss or outright disregard the context of them (in order to fit headcanons, theories, etc. I don't believe anyone does so on purpose to destroy the character, but it happens. The way various K/S spaces talk about Kirk blowing up the Enterprise is a great example of this point specifically and I go into detail about it below). There is a kinder way to phrase this point but for the life of me, the words aren't wording right despite sitting on this for a few days, so I do apologize for how blunt I am.
As an example of these claims, look at all the big kisses Kirk has throughout the series. How many are from a need to survive and distract? How many are made under the influence of a drug or mind control? How many are earnest and genuine? Context matters. Without it, every big kiss is the same. In Mirror Mirror, Kirk uses the existing relationship with Marlena in order to stay in the role of the captain and gain information so he and the landing party can safely get back to their universe. In The Paradise Syndrome, Kirk loses his memory, is stranded, believed to fulfill a prophecy, and lives among the inhabitants of the planet, falling in love with Miramanee in the process. Big kisses happen but the context is entirely different between the two episodes.
3. In regards to the films, while it may not have helped that the audience base was widened and that pop culture stepped up with lampooning the character as the years went on (SNL skits, Futurama, the affectionate parody that is Galaxy Quest), I will go to my grave arguing that, for someone who has watched TOS, the Kirk in the films is still that same Kirk from the series but changed from his time out of active service and the doubts that has created in him. In my opinion, the issue arises in having to accept that Kirk would choose to leave the captaincy and remain in the admiralty (as of TMP to TSFS; I still haven't seen TVH or onwards. What am I waiting for? I could use the humor and heart of another Nimoy-directed film), much like one must accept that Spock would return to Vulcan and go to Gol after defying his father, breaking his engagement, and the rest. (It is funny to me that there's no Spock Drift phenomenon despite episodes of him acting out-of-character, either due to the plot or being drugged by something, and his own plot line in TMP looking more like a regression from his slow behavior change in TOS. But another pet theory is his character design helps prevent that. Vulcans must act only in x way (do they really or do we just like the ease of a stereotype?). Humans can be messy and act however, even captains.)
RIP to Roddenberry, but I didn't need the TMP novel to tell me he was manipulated into it. That's lame! Kirk has made mistakes before in TOS and acted selfishly. It hits far, far more that Kirk is unhappy from his own damn choices and haunted every minute by his own past rather than "Nogura pushed Lori Ciana at him and he fell over." / The differences between the novels and the films are honestly their own issue that doesn't help matters but casual viewers aren't going to be reading the books. Roddenberry especially brought a lot of his own ideas and kinks into it all for TMP, to the point of "Kirk is his avatar." (Or I am super delulu for thinking I know Kirk better than the Great Bird himself, lol.)
Another issue seems to be which Kirk they recall. Space Seed and A Taste of Armageddon were produced back-to-back. In one episode, Kirk openly admires Khan despite the atrocities that Khan committed, despite his own childhood under a dictator. In the other episode, he declares, "We may be killers but we won't kill today" and, despite questionable diplomacy and technically breaking the Prime Directive, he risks a violent war to force peace talks between two groups who have been fighting a proxy war for centuries. Both are the same Kirk but they express opposite opinions about power, leadership, and the use of violence. In other words, I sometimes wonder if people hold a more idealized vision of Kirk, one who didn't tell his only friends to keep out of his business and endanger the crew in a quest for vengeance (The Conscience of the King) or endanger the crew just to show his authority to a man with a rank higher than him (The Galileo Seven; yeah, without the shuttle plot, there goes the episode, but Kirk ignores his orders from the Commissioner to explore the quasar instead. Forget curing illnesses on other planets / terribly ironic for him to do as a survivor of a famine/revolution/genocide). This is the same Kirk who is revealed to be haunted by mere seconds of hesitation from his days as a lieutenant on the Farragut (Obsession, an episode that also has him fighting again with McCoy and Spock and raises the question of his fitness for command owing to selfish decisions needlessly endangering the crew; had they left sooner, would the vampiric entity gotten aboard the Enterprise? But there goes the episode's conflict/plot), the same Kirk who cries out to be punished instead of his own crew members or Shahna (The Gamesters of Triskelion), who offers to explore the amoeba in The Immunity Syndrome instead of having to agonize over sending either Spock or McCoy to do it (and then agonizes some more in order to decide on Spock), who needs both of his friends to reign in his guilt at losing crewmen while exploring a paradise-like planet (The Apple). The Deadly Years showcases Kirk's stubbornness/control issues and his fears that he is not actually the best captain for the Enterprise given his suspicions towards Spock "taking command" from him (There's something to be said that his Mirror counterpart even fears that same point). Yeah, part of it would be from the rapid aging but it fits that larger pattern of a man who tries to do good and overwhelmingly does good but can still slip up and act for himself alone. / "Maybe you're a soldier so often that you forget you're also trained to be a diplomat." from Metamorphosis)
I still believe it is possible to connect Tarsus IV with TMP Kirk even though that was not my focus with my first-time watch. Wouldn't his control issues and need to assert his authority stem from that experience, being trapped in a situation he cannot control and watching a leader abuse his authority and power to harm and kill those he ought to save? Therefore, the desire to take charge of a mission that impacts the fate of the Earth rather than leaving it up to the younger generation, the need to prove he can still lead a crew, that he is still useful?
I still maintain that TWOK works because, as the best sequels do, it ups the stakes of the prior film: Kirk stays in the Admiralty, hesitates about taking command of the Enterprise from Spock and leading a trainee crew on an actual mission because it reopens those earlier questions – can Kirk still be an effective captain after his years out of active service? Is he still capable of that ingenuity and creative thinking that got them out of problems time and again? When Spock dies to save the ship, doesn't it essentially reaffirm Kirk's fears of being too old to lead, a risk to the safety of the crew, a relic of bygone glory days? They escaped death before during the Five Year Mission but now that Kirk is old and has stayed an admiral, now Spock – Kirk's second-in-command and friend – is dead.
The way that the end of the Enterprise from TSFS is remembered in K/S spaces is a great example of missed context. (I say this as someone who primarily ships K/S, I get it, I do, but such a reading misses so much for that tunnel vision.) Had Kirk not stolen the Enterprise, McCoy might not have gotten out of the asylum. Had they not gotten to Genesis, David, Saavik, and the newly regenerated Spock would have been killed, if not by Kruge, then by Genesis destroying itself. Had Kirk not set the ship to self-destruct, the Klingons would have taken her to study her. Which is a good fate for the Enterprise: 1. she stays in dry dock to be used as scrap, being such an outmoded ship no one wants to repair her. 2. The Klingons take her in order to study Starfleet technology, worsening the cold war between the two. 3. Kirk sets her to self-destruct, helping the odds of their chances to get off of Genesis before it explodes and getting McCoy and Spock to Vulcan in order to (hopefully) get McCoy back to himself and grant Spock his final rest, if not attempt the fal-tor-pan. Personally, I think having the Enterprise explode in space to ensure others can survive is one hell of a fitting end for the ship as a whole and a full circle element for how Spock died to save the ship.
Anyways, to end: this is by no means an exhaustive analysis of the Kirk Drift phenomenon but it is a record of my thoughts about it as I compare how I see Kirk to how other fans see Kirk to how casual viewers see Kirk. I still have the notes I took from my first-watch of TMP (yes, I took notes. It was fun, especially to compare to the book later), and I could post them to show it is possible to watch it and go, "Yeah, that is my blorbo 😔 (derogatory). He really messed himself up by going away from McCoy and Spock and choosing to be landlocked and earthbound 😔" But those notes are also highly subjective (as any analysis is) so your mileage will vary. This is also why I will probably never do a series rewatch focused on the Kirk Drift. I already know what my findings will be (points 1 and 2) given this rough outline. Hopefully, this is an interesting read for someone and offers something new to consider.
