You know, I remember a time in 1994 when Star Trek: The Next Generation was in its final series, Deep Space Nine was trundling along merrily and the Star Trek fandom was eagerly awaiting the first Next Gen movie and this new show called Voyager. It felt like peak Star Trek, like there was more Star Trek than we could ever need. But that was nothing compared to the veritable tsunami that is currently cresting on the horizon and preparing to sweep us all away. Is it a good tsunami? Is the tsunami made of water or piss? Well, like most tsunamis, I would hope it’s mostly water but can’t disregard the fact that there will almost certainly be some piss in there. Fish piss probably. But maybe some human. Who can say? Where was I?
Oh yes, Star Trek.
So I’m writing this post more or less because I just want to get straight in my head exactly how many potential new shows and movies are floating out there. We’ll start with the concrete stuff that is definitely happening first and move onto the less likely ephemera.
Star Trek Discovery Season 2
What is it?: After a hella troubled production and a good to great (though no means universally beloved) first season, the crew of the Discovery are back and now under the command of Captain Christopher Pike to search the galaxy looking for Spock.
Is this definitely happening?: Yeah. Definitely. It’s already been filmed and everything. There’s a trailer, look.
Will it be any good?: I thought Discovery’s first season was fun, occasionally dumb, visually gorgeous and overall a pretty good time. That has me excited for Season 2 as all Trek series (with the exception of TOS) took at least a season to get going so I’m expecting the show’s sophomore outing to be even better. Also, the Klingons have hair now and I can breathe again.
Ohhh that’s so much better.
Short Treks
What is it?: A series of short, fifteen minute episodes set around Star Trek Discovery and being released periodically over Winter ’18, Spring ’19.
Is this definitely happening?: Yup.
Will it be any good?: No clue. Because it’s not being streamed in Ireland. Because CBS are racist.
Untitled Picard Series
What is it?: A series set 25 years after Star Trek exploring the continuing adventures of a now elderly Jean Luc Picard.
Is this definitely happening?: Looks like. Patrick Stewart is signed up and they’re due to start filming in April ’19.
Will it be any good?: They can’t screw this up, can they? I mean, this is like slamdunking with a step-ladder. This is the series the fans have been crying out for (a look at the post-Nemesis timeline) starring the greatest actor in the history of the franchise playing one of its most beloved characters. They can’t screw this up. Bring back John de Lancie as Q, give them back their balls from the little locker Janeway keeps under her desk, sprinkle with some TNG cameos and boom. Instant classic. They can’t screw this up. They can’t screw this up. Oh God, they’re going to screw this up, aren’t they?
Lower Decks
What is it?: Okay, follow me closely. It’s a Star Trek comedy. Done by one of the creators of Rick and Morty. Taking place on the least important ship in Starfleet. And it’s a cartoon.
Is this definitely happening?: Uh…maybe? Apparently? Yes? Unless I’m being pranked, yes this is a real going concern.
Will it be any good?: Look, it’s not like there’s never been a Star Trek cartoon before. There was. It was weird as balls.
Yup. That’s a regular sized Spock looking up at a giant Spock that they just found on a random planet. Oh this is nothing, NOTHING!
If this is done kinda like Blue Harvest where it’s obviously not taking place in the main series continuity it could be really funny. If they try to make this canon though, I don’t see how that’s gonna work. It means every time I watch an old episode of any other series I’ll be thinking about how weird it is that somewhere out there there’s a ship full of cartoon characters wubba-lubba-dub-dubbing around.
Star Trek 4
What is it?: The next instalment of the Kelvin timeline movies.
Is this definitely happening?: This is pretty much definitely not happening. Both Chris’, Pines and Hemsworth, are apparently unwilling to return which means the series is probably dead. Jim.
Would it have been any good?: Ehhhhhh…the Kelvin films seemed to have a reverse curse going on with the odd-numbered movies being good (well, acceptable) and the even numbered one being bad (well, a festering atrocity on the buttocks of the franchise) so going by primitive Trekker superstition, probably not. Plus, the plot apparently involved Chris Hemsworth returning as Jim Kirk’s father despite being
- Hella dead and
- No seriously. Really, really dead.
So I’m going to say we dodged a phaser blast with this one. Rest in peace, Kelvin timeline. You sure were a thing that existed.
Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek Movie
What is it?: Yup, Quentin Tarantino wants to direct a Star Trek movie and who can blame him?
Is this definitely happening?: Since it was announced that Tarantino would direct in December 2017 things have been quiet so don’t get your hopes up.
Will it be any good?: It’s really fascinating to speculate whether this would have been/will be a Quentin Tarantino Star Trek movie or a Star Trek movie directed by Quentin Tarantino. On reflection I don’t think this will be/would have been what most people imagine with this mash up, with dude massacreing their way through the Federation, dropping F-Bombs and noting how on Qu’onos they don’t call it a gagh with extra tentacles they, call it a gagh Royale. Tarantino’s first and foremost a fan and I’d expect a Star Trek movie that homages the movies that went before it in tone, cinematography, costumes, everything, and absolutely laden down with nods and references to Trek lore. Average Joe probably wouldn’t be able to make head nor tail of it but I’d dig the hell out of that.
Untitled Philippa Georgiou Series
What is it?: Alright, spoiler warnings for the last season of Discovery. Apparently, Michelle Yeoh is in talks with CBS to star in a spin-off series as Empress Georgiou, the evil former ruler of the Mirror Universe Terran Empire who’s currently running around the regular Trek universe having adventures and cackling evilly.
Is this definitely happening?: This is very, very early days and honestly I’ll be surprised if it goes beyond initial negotiations.
Will it be any good?: Think about this for a minute. The Empress is a an absolute hoot and Michelle Yeoh is clearly having a blast playing her. But we’re talking about basing a series around genocidal, cannibalistic space Hitler. It’s…it’s a little removed from Gene Roddenberry’s vision, no? I’m going to guess that this doesn’t come to pass and also remind the execs at CBS that cocaine is a hell of a drug and they should quite while their septums are intact.
And that’s it…that is all the Trek that is currently percolating around out there like nebula-fresh coffee. Am I overlooking anything? Let me know in the comments.
unshavedmouse 
Ah, Trek speculation.
I enjoyed Discovery, like really, really looked forward to watching it every week, so I’m hoping season 2 is at least as good if not better. The Georgiu series, not so much. I like the character, but in small doses (see your reference to cannibalistic space Hitler).
So glad the Kelvin timeline is gone (probably).
Hope Picard series works.
Hadn’t heard about the others. The cartoon is … interesting(?) as a premise.
Is it just me or are they throwing stuff on the wall in the hope that something sticks?
I’m told by a lovely guy named Hector Navarro that the Short Treks have been amazing so far. I hate him.
More Picard is never a bad thing, he said, having only watched a few episodes of Next Generation, Generations, and First Contact.
After Beyond I’d happily watch another Kelvin movie. I liked the time travel pitch for Papa Hemsworth meeting his son, if only because I’m a sucker for ‘can’t tell the time traveller from the past any details about their family’ tropes.
Hell yeah, bonus content
Ah the Philippa Georgiou series. Because apparently CBS realized that you don’t get rid of an actress like Michelle Yeoh even after ignominiously killing off her character in the first couple episodes and then bringing her back as Space Hitler.
Though I love the cast of Discovery, I don’t really trust the company (or the writers for that matter) to best make use of the actor’s talents.
The mid/late 90s were my peak Trek years. It’s sad how far behind I am on everything, but I liked the first few episodes of Discovery enough that it’s been on my list to finish. I really need to get back into the franchise, but doing so properly would probably involve finishing Enterprise…
I found each Kelvin movie to be better then the one before it. Going from totally worthless, to nice fun action film, to best piece of Trek produced since Undiscovered Country.
I feel the same way
I love Star Trek. Once upon a time I was a hard core Trekkie who owned all the cards and went to the conventions and I had all the books and built model replicas ad nauseum. I’m still enough of one that I see all the movies and that one time Patrick Stewart showed up to comicpalooza in Houston I dragged my husband upstairs to the area where he was speaking and stood there until my feet ached just to hear him (and he gave a lady in the audience a hug, I envy the shit out of that lady still).
So having gotten my nerd cred out of the way, I’m going to get on my cranky old lady soap box and say I’m so tired of reboots. I don’t mind occasional fun cameos for funzies and warm feelings. I think the commodore Pike stuff was interesting because the books based on the original series kinda poked around in there but it’s dead now. But I’m tired of “all new characters PLOT TWIST SAREK IS HERE BECAUSE APPARENTLY HE IS AN ETERNAL UNIVERSAL CONSTANT LIKE GOD AND THE SPEED OF LIGHT AND ALSO BY THE WAY BATTLESTAR GALACTICA DID SO WELL WITH FLAWED GRITTY ANTI-HEROES HERE ARE SOME MORE OF THOSE FOR YOU IN AN ENDLESS STREAM OF QUESTIONABLE INTEGRITY.”
#notmysarek
shhhhhhh it’s fine *lensflare*
I still haven’t managed to finish Discovery a there are so many choices it made which I found incredibly jarring. Like, in Star Trek the ADMIRALS are supposed to be the ones who are batshit crazy, not the Captains. And the bat and switch with Captain Michelle Yeoh was downright infuriating.
You mean killing her off or bringing her back?
I’m not there yet, but it should like the original character doesn’t come back?
I guess I was just really looking forward to seeing a star fleet Captain who was hands down awesome and a woman. (They TRIED with Janeway, but the writing was terrible more often than not),
Hey, have you watched Ralph Breaks the Internet yet? If so, what did you think of it?
Not yet, I’m afraid.
I still want that Captain Worf series and SO DOES MICHAEL DORN CBS GOOD LORD CAPITALIZE ON IT YOU FUCKS
I know a lot of hardcore peacenik Trek fans are a little bothered by the idea of violent old Tarantino doing a Star Trek movie, but people seem to be forgetting a very simple fact: We already had that movie. We already had a movie where a punk took the director’s chair, and Star Trek went from laid back to a nightmare where the Enterprise gets trashed, people are screaming, the ship gets set on fire, people’s faces get scorched/burnt off with nauseating makeup work, Kirk has to face down a murderous narcissistic psychopath and screws up badly enough to get his ship wrecked and his best friend killed. Its called Wrath of Khan, and while its not perfect its pretty damn well-regarded.
Cattyness aside even if Tarantino was just going to shot-for-shot remake Wrath of Khan I’d still be interested to see what he would come up with, and after The Hateful Eight I’m pretty sure whatever he does isn’t going to be derivative so I’m looking forward to it if he can get it off the ground.
Aw, I liked the Kelvin timeline 😦
I mean, the first movie was fun and Beyond was a nice step up after the bore of Into Darkness
I too would like to speak up in favour of the “Kelvin” timeline; while that series had its rough patches, on the whole I’d say it does a more than fair job of acting as a Gateway drug for the franchise after more than a few years spent in the doldrums following the fate of ENTERPRISE.*
It should also be noted for posterity that “Enterprising Young Men” is one of the very best themes in a franchise rife with them; I can’t get that tune out of my head because I don’t even WANT to see it go.
*I am an actual fan of that instalment of the franchise too; not quite a timeless classic, but any series that shows the crew of USS Enterprise travelling back in time to dogfight with laser-spitting Nazis has its heart in the right place (“Planet of the Cowboys Vs Aliens” was also a particular favourite; I’m only sorry they didn’t have the inclination to go full bore STAR TREK Vs FIREFLY).