Star Trek has had a huge comeback in recent years…on TV, anyway. Star Trek: Discovery is heading into its fourth season, Star Trek: Picard is readying its second, and Star Trek: Lower Decks is a lighter, animated take on the series. And there are two more Trek shows on the way: Star Trek: Prodigy is a kids show that will premiere in the fall, while Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is an anthology series that will drop sometime in 2022.
That’s five Star Trek shows! Considering that Discovery and Picard are among the most-watched original series on Paramount+, because we can forgive the streamer for going ham on the final frontier, but that still seems like a lot.
And it’s not over! Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman revealed to The New York Times that there are two more shows on the way: Section 31, a series about a rogue intelligence agency starring Michelle Yeoh as Captain Philippa Georgiou; and a new one called Starfleet Academy, about the place where Spock, Kirk and the rest of the Starfleet crew train before voyaging into space. That one is aimed at a younger audience, but we don’t know if it’s animated or live-action.
Each Star Trek show is intended to have “its own unique identity”
So that’s seven Star Trek shows. Seven! All of which will eventually be on at once, we presume. And we’re not counting Short Treks, which are standalone short films set in the Star Trek universe.
Kurztman talked about the justification for having so many series a while back. “There are quite a few, and I think the idea for us is that it isn’t just about expansion for the sake of expansion,” he said last year. “It’s actually about exploring different corners of the universe, in the same way that the Short Treks explore different corners of the world of Star Trek, the idea being that each show should have its own unique identity, and you should not be thinking that you can get from one show, what you can get in another.”
"Everything has to feel different, unique, special and specific, and yet you want it all to be of a piece, and tie into the larger Trek universe. So, it’s been a very coordinated effort, on a lot of people’s parts, to make sure that the shows feel different, and are about different things, and are saying different things, and feel different, and look different, and sound different. So, that’s been really fun and really rewarding."
I like his enthusiasm, but what do you think: is seven just too many shows on at once? I know that cinematic universes are all the rage right now, but who has the time to keep up?
Maybe we just take them one at a time, starting with the second season of Star Trek: Lower Decks on August 12.
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h/t Collider