With Star Trek: Starfleet Academy reportedly canceled after its second season, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds set to wrap up with its already filmed fifth season, the future of Star Trek on TV is starting to feel a bit uncertain.
There was some real hope among fans and even the creative team that the next series might spin out of Strange New Worlds. Right now though, that idea seems less likely.
New reports suggest the sets for both shows are already being taken apart. Crew members have shared photos online showing the teardown in progress, with de-rigging underway.
According to Trek Central, this could be a major blow to Star Trek: Year One, a proposed spin-off that would follow James T. Kirk, played by Paul Wesley, during his first year as captain of the Enterprise.
The idea for Year One first came up last year when executive producer Alex Kurtzman and showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers talked about what could come next once Strange New Worlds ends. Speaking at San Diego Comic-Con, Goldsman shared his vision:
“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 reach back to Pike’s Enterprise and bring it in line with the kind of storytelling we do today, then take us right up to Kirk’s first day on the job. That’s the hope. That’s the plan. And if you like us enough, you can always write, ‘Dear Skydance and Paramount, you still have the sets. Don’t you want to make Star Trek: Year One?’”
As it turns out, the team did officially pitch the series to Paramount and Skydance.
“We’ve brought them a lot,” Myers said last month. “It’s in their hands right now. They’re taking a look and figuring it out. There’s a lot of love for our show over there, and obviously a lot of love for Star Trek.”
Nothing has been announced yet, but the fact that both productions are being dismantled, especially Strange New Worlds, could be a sign that Paramount is ready to move on from the prequel era tied to Star Trek: The Original Series.
What comes next for Star Trek television is still unclear. That includes the future of Alex Kurtzman, who has been overseeing the franchise for close to a decade now.