Warning, this article contains spoilers for No Time To Die, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the Bond films generally.

Two years on from Daniel Craig’s bow as James Bond 007 in No Time To Die, we’re seemingly still no closer to a new Bond than we were then. It’s a big decision for Eon-heads Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. The transition from one Bond to the next has always been a crucial one. Its very first instance didn’t go to plan… and yet maybe that was for the best?

Consulting the posters for the first five Bond films, you’ll find that ‘Sean Connery IS James Bond’. Connery, who’d secured the part after leaving an audition in a “panther-like prowl”, had an insatiably charismatic screen presence, but by the series’ fifth installment, the actor had grown disinterested and resentful of his inseparable association with the role. His departure put the entire Eon Productions in jeopardy; there simply was no way of knowing whether audiences would accept a non-Connery Bond.

Eon settled on a choice so far left of field it can be hard to understand, given their precarious situation: the unknown Australian male model George Lazenby boarded the franchise without a single prior acting credit to his name. Criticisms of the film are wide ranging, but most everyone agrees that the inexperienced actor didn’t have what it takes to carry ludicrousness with grace. The studio’s approach to whether Lazenby’s rendition of the character was a continuation of Connery’s was definitive: This was the same Bond. Knowing they’d need a humdinger to win audiences over (the Fleming novels being of greater importance to the series at that time), so they moved to adapt what was considered the pinnacle of literary Bond: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Continuity errors enter the fray here, since we’re introduced to Ernst Stavro Blofeld two films in a row, and so was born one of the key components of Bond’s longevity: a loose and evolving continuity.

Following on from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service the series maintained certain aspects of the James Bond character’s mythology (including passing references to the death of Tracee), whilst weaving in a familiar gallery of supporting players like CIA agent Felix Leiter, or Sharky, the son of fan favorite sidekick Quarrel. The ultimate charm of the series for a long while was in not needing to know anything about James Bond or who he was; you simply showed up to the theatre and whether it was your first or your 15th encounter you understood the fundamentals: a dashing, roguish spy trots the globe, taking on eccentric baddies and beautiful dames. By the time Roger Moore had settled into the role, it no longer mattered that the lead actor was prone to changing or that this agent has been operating on her majesty’s (and now his majesty’s) secret service in spry fashion for decades now; the Bond films forgo the shackles of most film tentpole franchises’ commitment to maintaining an inherent, verisimilitudinous logic.

Daniel Craig’s tenure represented its first true, hard reboot, taking the series in a direction more palatable to modern audiences, who have grown especially accustomed to in-universe excuses for illogical series continuity (you like all three spider-men but can’t handle being taken out of your suspended disbelief by notions like separate productions concerning the same character? Don’t worry, all three are in the MCU, they’re just from ‘alternate dimensions’. Everything is one, you never have to stray from your Disney sanctioned corral to get what you want.)

With that particular chapter of Bondian history concluded, it will be interesting to see the direction the creatives take next. Broccoli and Wilson are a pair of safe hands, though they haven’t made it easy for themselves. Craig’s rendition was injected with an isolating virus, shot and then bombed into infinity (a.k.a. he died-died, no two ways about it), so there’s no chance they’re recasting this timeline’s Bond. Will we see another hard reboot in the vein of Casino Royale, meeting a young Bond as he earns his 00-status (Tom Holland pitched a young Bond story just last year, which sounded truly horrendous)? Or will we join the world’s greatest spy in medias res, just along for another in a never-ending line of thrilling adventures?

Hopefully the pendulum swings back towards the outrageous for the next film.