Star Trek: Section 31 takes place in a very specific point in the franchise's complicated timeline. The early 24th Century, about thirty years' after the end of the original crew's final adventure together, represents a rare blank spot for the producers to take advantage of. Colloquially referred to as "The Lost Era," the era contains just a tiny handful of canon events, leaving it well-positioned for further development. Section 31 has struggled since its release, but its embrace of that potential carries important lessons for Star Trek.

The strongest example entails Philippa Georgiou's club manager, Virgil, who helps her run the Star Trek equivalent of Rick's Café in Casablanca.He's a reference to a very specific episode of The Original Series, whose species hasn't appeared since for self-apparent reasons. The timeline allows Star Trek to continue to develop such concepts without encountering the continuity issues that have bedeviled the likes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

"The Lost Era" refers to a series of canon novels published by Pocket books starting in 2003. They cover the period of the late 23rd and early 24th centuries, following the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek Generations in the year 2393. The stories tend to focus on either The Original Series characters continuing their adventures (such as Hikaru Sulu leading the crew of the USS Excelsior) or younger characters from shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, such as William Riker's early experiences on the USS Pegasus. Rachel Garrett (one of Section 31's crew), is the heroine of one such novel, 2003's Well of Souls by Ilsa J. Bick.

All of these stories take place after The Undiscovered Country, but before the start of The Next Generation in 2364. Besides those books, however, there is very little concrete information about the era. Most of what fans do know consists of off-screen developments, such as the Khitomer Massacre in 2346 that led to the formal alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. That leaves the franchise with plenty of room to develop all manner of ideas without fear of colliding with previously established canon. It matters more than it may appear.

The Original Series and the first six movies arrived at a vastly different time for the franchise. In the process, many of its ideas have been quietly ignored as being outdated, while others have flourished to become key parts of Star Trek. The Romulans, and their resemblance to their cousins the Vulcans, are a good example of the latter, and Star Trek: Lower Decks (among others) takes great glee in disseminating the former. In the process, the franchise has laid a number of traps for itself that are just now being sprung.

Series like Star Trek: Discovery and Strange New Worlds take place a few years before the events of The Original Series, with Captain Pike commanding younger versions of Spock and Uhura, among others. The problem is that they must factor events of The Original Series into any storylines they develop, lest they create continuity errors that can't readily be resolved. Strange New Worlds is actively playing with fire on that front, with the use of the Gorn as significant villains.

The reptilian aliens technically didn't appear until The Original Series Season 1, Episode 18, "Arena," and the newer show has already done some nimble explaining to justify their presence beforehand. Similarly, Discovery sent its crew into the 32nd century (and a clean timeline) rather than continuing to tangle with existing canon.

Section 31 starts with mostly an open slate, with decades of empty timeline to play with and only a few concrete canon moments to work around. It has a definitive end point with the start of Star Trek: The Next Generation, meaning that those same characters can appear in younger forms. With far more room to develop them, however, it becomes easier to stick to established canon and avoid the kinds of continuity issues that have plagued the likes of Strange New Worlds.

More importantly, it allows concepts that were introduced in The Original Series to grow and flourish without having to worry about continuity. One of the strongest examples is Virgil, a supporting character who briefly appears as a manager in Philippa Georgiou's nightclub. He belongs to an unnamed species from the planet Cheron, noted for their bifurcated black-and-white skin color. Actor Augusto Bitter plays off exceptionally well against Georgiou, and gives a strong impression of their working relationship as he presumably plays the Sam to her Rick.

Virgil serves little role in the plot, but speaks volumes about Georgiou's playground and the kinds of people she surrounds herself with. Cheron's inhabitants have only appeared once before, in one of the most unusual and memorable episodes ever produced by Star Trek: The Original Series. Season 3, Episode 15, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" features a pair of them locked in endless conflict. Bele, whose face is black on the right and white on the left, claims to be an authority figure hunting a fugitive, Lokai, whose skin color is precisely reversed.

Their hatred overrides all other concerns, to the point where they have spent 50,000 years in pursuit of each other. In the interim, their planet was rendered a graveyard by a genocidal war that wiped both sides out. The episode ends with the two beaming down to the planet's surface to continue their battle -- perhaps indefinitely -- surrounded by the bodies of the dead.

The episode works as a heartfelt (if rather heavy-handed) metaphor for racism, with Bele (and Virgil's) "black-right" subspecies actively oppressing "white-right" people solely and only for that difference. The pair's striking visual look and an engaging performance from Frank Gorshin as Bele help it stand out. In addition, it seems to be a narrative dead-end. The two Cheron natives are presumably the last of their kind, possibly immortal, and doomed to extinction on a long-dead planet. Their odd appearance and specificity to the period the show was produced have left them artifacts of The Original Series.

Virgil's presence immediately invites all kinds of questions, opening up venues to explore the Cheron natives in new and intriguing ways. Obviously, the pair in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" are no longer the only survivors of their kind, which makes sense considering their advanced technological capacities and extremely long lifespans. Exiles, explorers, and distant travelers might still be wandering the galaxy. Virgil's presence in Section 31 gives some idea of the kinds of lives they might lead, and the places they might frequent where their striking appearance works to their benefit. The fact that Virgil is a "right-black" member of his species, like Bele, adds even more to the story.

Their subspecies are presented as the politically dominant one in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," with Lokai's people the oppressed. Virgil's appearance immediately puts him in a specific spot in the middle of that conflict. It's unlikely, for instance, that he left his planet to be free, though he might have fled during the genocide which wiped them out. He might have left for political reasons, believing that all of Cheron's people deserved equality and leaving rather than struggle against a system he couldn't change. Either way, it informs his easy cynicism in Section 31, and his status as one of the few of his kind left explains why Philippa Georgiou would take a liking to him.

The same concepts can apply to a huge number of Original Series ideas, especially those that might otherwise be left behind for good. The franchise has plenty of options for when they choose to set a given project, and the tricky placement of Strange New Worlds illustrates the challenges of telling stories too close to Star Trek's genesis. The wild setting of Section 31 -- when paired with a piece of the timeline that could benefit from development -- gives any Original Series idea more than enough room to take shape and grow.

Star Trek: Section 31 is now streaming on Paramount+.