With Star Trek: Strange New Worlds now confirmed to be ending after its fifth season, which is still a few years away, mind you, series showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have started to discuss what may come next. Yes, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is on deck with an early 2026 release window, but no one knows what's next for the Enterprise.
At San Diego Comic-Con this past week, Goldsman, Myers and executive producer Alex Kurtzman raised the prospect of a possible sequel series that would follow Paul Wesley's James Kirk during his first year as Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Speaking to the Hall H audience, Goldsman explained his hopeful vision of the future. There's even a proposed titled for the series: Star Trek: Year One.
“We started having this idea of those great lost years that exist in all of our head canon and ancillary canon, but had never really gotten much of a chance to be on screen. So what we’ve tried to do is try to reach back to Pike’s Enterprise and instill in it the kind of storytelling values we have today, and bring us right up to Kirk’s first day on the job. And that is our hope, and that is our plan. And we plan to get you there… and if you like us enough, you just write ‘Dear Skydance and Paramount, we know you still have the sets. Don’t you want to make Star Trek: Year One?'”
Speaking to TrekMovie.com earlier this month, Goldsman revealed that the plan for Strange New Worlds' final season isn't to reboot TOS, but rather run up to Kirk's first day of command of the Enterprise.
“We will take the show to Kirk’s first day of command, which is by the way, not actually The Original Series. The Original Series starts a bit into Kirk’s command," Goldsman explained.
The executive producing trio pretty much reiterated this sentiment to Entertainment Weekly following this weekend's San Diego Comic-Con panel.
"Nothing would make us happier than to be able to continue telling the stories of how Pike's crew transitions to Kirk's crew and how Kirk's crew sets off," Myers told EW. "Obviously, when we come into TOS [The Original Series] it's not the first day of the job.... Fundamentally, there are relationships that already exist. How did they happen? And, obviously, we have the opportunity for Sulu, and we have the opportunity for McCoy in a longer life, and opportunity for Chekov. So it would be awesome to be able to continue."
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is widely regarded as one of the best modern Star Trek series. Its return to classic episodic storytelling, dubbed frequently as a "planet-the-week" episodic structure, has been praised by fans and critics alike for restoring a sense of variety and accessbility to the franchise.
Despite the show's success through two full seasons so far (the third just began earlier this month), the producers know the fate of any future storytelling beyond Strange New Worlds will ultimately determine on how well the ending of the series is received by fans.
"All our dreams of post–Strange New Worlds iterations, [pay]checks notwithstanding, we gotta stick the landing," Myers acknowledged.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is only a couple of episodes into its third season, but Season 5 will be here before you know it. Production on Season 4 of the show has already wrapped and at Comic-Con, the staff revealed a full-blown puppet-themed episode. As for Season 5, production is expected to begin later this year.
Would you watch a Star Trek series that follows James Kirk's first year as Captain of the Enterprise led by actor Paul Wesley?