Every upcoming Star Trek show and movie, ranked by anticipation
By Michael East
5. Star Trek: Section 31 (Season 1)
The introduction of the Section 31, a secretive arm of the Federation, during Deep Space Nine was controversial at the time. Many felt that the organization represented a complete departure from Gene Roddenberry’s vision, showing a more realistic and brutal side to the utopian Federation. However, its inclusion created a more fully rounded and relevant Federation, allowing storytellers to develop plotlines that were far more reflective of our own time. In our world, such organizations work either to defend American democracy or ensure global hegemony in a corrupt and failing system, depending on your point of view. Will humanity truly develop away from these ideals? While optimists in the 1960s thought not, people in the 1990s who’d seen some of the failures of the past few decades disagreed.
The moral ambiguity of the group has always provided fertile ground for storytellers. Starting in 2000, a popular series of novels from Pocket Books covered Section 31’s actions in every era of the show, and the organization had such appeal that Section 31 was one of the first new Star Trek shows discussed before being officially announced in 2019. Starring Michelle Yeoh’s Mirror Georgiou and Shazad Latif’s Ash Tyler, the show will be set concurrently with Discovery.
That said, we don’t have a timeline for release yet. Despite concern amongst some fans, showrunner Alex Kurtzman maintains that Section 31 is still happening, although a Variety interview from March 2021 suggests the show won’t get off the ground until one of the other Star Trek series has ended. Hopefully, that will be soon.
“We actually have a couple of [Section 31] scripts. COVID frankly, just changed the game for everybody and every show,” Kurtzman told a Producers Guild of America panel last year. “We were on a very specific schedule that then got thrown completely into whack because of COVID. Even Discovery season 4 started many months later than originally planned, Picard too. Everything got pushed… So we’re actually on a great track with Section 31, and I’m very optimistic about it.”