The advent of modern fan fiction is credited to the Star Trek: The Original Series fandom. Dedicated fans in the ’60s wrote fan zines with original stories starring the crew of the Enterprise. Now, almost six decades later, Strange New Worlds, a prequel to the original show, is living up to the flagship’s memory in more ways than one.

While J.J. Abrams‘ trilogy of Trek films (and the Zachary Quinto/Chris Pine vocabulary war videos) reminded fans that Star Trek can be sexy, Strange New Worlds is upping the ante. The spinoff series centers on the pre-Captain Kirk era of the starship Enterprise, with Captain Pike (Anson Mount) attempting to outrun a devastating destiny and a young science officer Spock (Ethan Peck) still learning to quell the half-Vulcan, half-human storm inside of him.