September 8th is Star Trek Day. This marks the anniversary of the day the first aired episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Man Trap,” originally debuted in the United States, on September 8th, 1966. Fifty-nine years later, Comics Beat’s Star Trek team has come together to share our thoughts about the state of the Franchise in a roundtable discussion.
We wish all Trekkies a Happy Star Trek Day, and hope you get the chance to reflect on what the Franchise means to you today, just one year shy of its sixtieth anniversary next fall.
Cover Image Credit: Brooke Palmer/Paramount+
What do you hope to see in Star Trek’s future in the wake of the Skydance merger?
AVERY KAPLAN: I do think there’s an opportunity here for the Franchise to go in some bold new directions. Don’t get me wrong, I have very much enjoyed the vast majority of Star Trek from this era. I think Alex Kurtzman has done some excellent things for the Franchise.
But I also think that the best things this era has produced – Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Discovery – ended too early. And frankly, a Star Trek: The Original Series reboot doesn’t appeal to me. Like, at all. I want to see new ships and new adventures, not rehashes that are slavishly devoted to canon and “events that we know will happen in the future.” Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has walked this line with varying degrees of success. But the only familiar crews that I need to see more of are from one of the three aforementioned ended-too-early shows (or I’d accept Captain Seven and her Enterprise-G crew). It’s a big universe out there, why not boldly go explore it?
But there’s also something I really don’t want to see from the Skydance merger: a “conservative” Star Trek. Or any kind of Star Trek that tries to appeal to fascists. As I have said before, Star Trek needs to progressively become “more woke,” not go in the opposite direction. I don’t think Strange New Worlds has accomplished that goal, especially with this latest season of compulsive heterosexuality, and I’m not sure Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will accomplish it either.
I think a worst case scenario from the merger would be Star Trek: Space Force or some equivalent piece of propaganda.
OLLIE KAPLAN: I will echo the same sentiment as Avery. I am concerned about the future of the Trek franchise in the wake of Skydance and the company’s settlement with the current Trump administration to ensure that a merger happened. I don’t care if “people from all sides of the political spectrum” watch Trek. If you’re a fan of the Franchise (in any capacity!) and are also a MAGA voter, you are clearly missing the point of Gene Roddenberry’s work.
While I have read studies demonstrating that fictional stories can be used to create “empathy and unity and peacemaking,” as Kurtzman said, I don’t think anyone who is part of Trump’s fascist party after watching old or new Trek is beyond hope when it comes to learning about tolerance, acceptance and inclusion from TV. I don’t want to say they are beyond hope—period—but they probably need more of an intervention than a TV show to change those beliefs. In my previous life doing criminal law, I have worked with the worst of the worst and know that most people can change, but that change generally requires a lot of work and personal introspection that would require more than what Kurtzman can do with a TV show that will be partially produced with an overseer from the Trump administration.
I would probably be less harsh about these concerns, but I feel like we have already seen Paramount/Skydance capitulate to Trek’s anti-woke fans with the most recent season of Strange New Worlds, which, as Avery already said, is aggressively and “compulsively heterosexual.” While I think that queer storylines are an essential part of Trek, especially since Roddenberry was fairly open about wanting to include queer love in his universe, I am also willing to admit that not every Trek series needs a central LGBTQ+ character.
That being said, I think it’s different when a series walks back the queer storylines that it had started, like Strange New Worlds did. The first season of the show established that Christine Chapel (played by Jess Bush) was bisexual and Erica Ortegas (played by Melissa Navia) was queer of some stripe as well. We even had a trans character, Captain Angel (played by trans actor Jesse James Keitel), who gave LGBTQ+ fans a queer villain that they could rally around—because we are tired of having to be perfect on-screen heroes to prove our place in society. But, now that we are in Strange New Worlds’ third season, these diverse elements have faded into the background, leaving fans with the only queer rep being mere nods to K/S fiction.
TAIMUR DAR: It’s likely too much to hope for a revival of Star Trek: Prodigy. But I’d love for a new animated series in the same vein aimed at kids but also appeals to older audiences and Star Trek fans.
The big wish, or at least rumor, is having the Kelvin Universe crossover with the Prime Universe. Let’s be honest, it’s an all too familiar gimmick over the last few years. The MCU is definitely betting the bank on it with Avengers: Doomsday. As obvious and played out as it is, I’d be lying if I said the prospect didn’t intrigue me of seeing Chris Pine reprise playing Captain Kirk after over a decade.
OLLIE: I, too, would love to see Prodigy return. While intended for a younger audience, the series smashed it out of the park with its diverse, compelling characters, moral and complex storylines, and use (very welcomed use) of the Franchise’s Beta canon, making it an instant classic for new and old Trekkies. See Avery and Taimur’s responses above for proof positive that Prodigy did what it intended to do: bring in new fans while appealing to the old ones. Plus, when I attended the Prodigy panel at SDCC 2023, I remember that I walked away with the feeling that the show still had a lot of story to tell—and I was excited for it. In my opinion, Prodigy is the best of shows to come out in the modern Trek era.
What are your hopes for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, arriving next year?
AVERY: As alluded to in my previous answer, I am a little concerned about Starfleet Academy because (from what we’ve seen so far) it seems to be stepping back from the degree of diverse representation we’ve enjoyed in shows like Discovery and Lower Decks. Holly Hunter is an amazing actor and I’m sure she’ll be compelling in the role of the show’s highest Starfleet officer. But demographically, she doesn’t seem to push the representation envelope… and I do think that’s something Star Trek as a Franchise should continue to do.
And of course, I have to reserve judgement until the show actually arrives; maybe there are elements at work that haven’t yet been made obvious from the pre-release material. The fact that Tawny Newsome is on the writing staff gives me some confidence. But at the 2025 Star Trek Universe panel at San Diego Comic Con, Kurtzman made some comments that made me worry Starfleet Academy will embody an attempt to reach across the political aisle.
As I said above, I’m not interested in a Star Trek show that tries to appeal to right wing extremists and/or serve their hateful agenda. And I do not think I’m the only Trekkie who feels that way. Fighting fascism is, after all, a full time job.
OLLIE: Newsome does indeed give me hope for Starfleet Academy. She has wowed me with her work in recent years, and I am excited to see what she brings to the other side of the production table. Also, at SDCC 2023, it was teased that we would be getting more disability representation on the series, as Kurtzman hinted at a wheelchair that was being designed for one of the characters. And with Tig Notaro and Mary Wiseman both announced as returning as their Discovery characters, there is at least hope that there will be some queer representation in the new series. Given that younger generations are more out of the closet than my generation (millennials), I really hope to see a Trek series about young cadets reflect that reality.
I am excited to see how Hunt fits into the franchise.
TAIMUR: As someone who only got into Star Trek late in life, a few years ago, this will be the first proper Star Trek series I’ll be watching from the very start, aside from Prodigy. I’ve somewhat purposely kept myself in the dark about Starfleet Academy, because I don’t want to go in with any prior or high expectations. I like to listen to Word Balloon’s John Siuntres with comic creators and every so often the conversation turns into chatting about current Star Trek. Siuntres has his issues about current Star Trek but is glad that Starfleet Academy didn’t become some sort of tax write-off victim in the wake of the Paramount/Skydance merger.
The currently streaming home for the Star Trek Franchise is on Paramount+.
Keep up with all of The Beat’s Star Trek coverage here.
I’m not Maga, but as Michael Jordan famously said “republicans by sneakers too” and they also watch Star Trek. If they miss Roddenberry’s point or not is immaterial when the most important thing for a TV show is to find an audience large enough to keep it on the air. Representation is important but not the be all and end all. To date I can’t remember seeing a single jew in starfleet, and yet it doesn’t diminish by enjoyment one bit. More important I’d say is can they hire some non-hacks who can write something other than “Hey, remember Trelane? How about Roger? Remember Metron??? Next week is Charlie W, Charlie X’s older brother!” After Section 31 and this recent season of SNW, I’d say ST needs new people at the helm.
Pretty disingenuous characterisation of this season I’d say, and moreover, Jordan said that back when Tom Hanks wasn’t considered too woke for American Nazis.
To be clear, MAGA isn’t the same thing as Republican. The party in office right now has so little in common with Republican ideals that I don’t think they can be considered the same thing. Since this was said in the context of concern about the impact of the Skydance merger on the series: what Republican would be okay with this much oversight over businesses?
As for what you said about Jewish rep on the series, both Nimoy and Shatner are Jewish and brought their heritage and culture to the series. The Vulcan identity is heavily tied to Jewish mysticism: LLAP hands alone are an appropriation of Jewish religion, identity and culture—the Kohanim.
I flatly reject the implication that more representation will equal lower ratings. In fact, recent events with Target, Twitter and Tesla seem to suggest that the phrase should be “Go Woke OR Go Broke.” But I guess reality does have a well-known liberal bias, doesn’t it?
“As for what you said about Jewish rep on the series, both Nimoy and Shatner are Jewish and brought their heritage and culture to the series. The Vulcan identity is heavily tied to Jewish mysticism: LLAP hands alone are an appropriation of Jewish religion, identity and culture—the Kohanim.”
Can you imagine if someone told you and this round table “We have no LGBTQ characters on the show, but a couple of the stars are gay, isn’t that enough?”
Behind-the-scenes representation is pretty important too though. In any case, hopefully Trek can make up for its lack of in-universe Jewish representation someday.
I’d say behind the scenes is more important than on screen. I don’t need to have pointy ears to see myself in Spock’s shoes, or be a doctor to understand Bones when he says “I’m a doctor, not a ___” My initial point was representation is not the big problem this show has, it’s that they boldly go nowhere, opting instead to mine old shows and say “Picard solved a mystery in the holodeck, lets do that this week!” and write serial romances for Spock that are more suited to Smallville. Writers are probably 40 or 50, Buffy was probably a profound experience for them, and so we get “They sang on Buffy, lets us sing too!” TNG and DS9 weren’t perfect, but they did try and created The Borg, The Cardassians, and so on. SNW creates nothing, settling for remaking other people’s stories. So that is when I said that when listing what I am looking for, representation isn’t even third on my list. Everyone can be blonde hair and blue eyed protestants attending church, but can I at least get some original plots?
That’s a weird false dilemma to suggest Ken, given this is the show that famously featured a Black woman, an Asian man, and a Russian at the height of the Cold War. (Also that kind’ve sounds like the premise of the episode Patterns of Force. :D) It’s one thing to critise the show if you feel it’s not original enough, it’s another to keep implying representation isn’t as important, especially as you’ve pointed out Trek’s disappointing lack of in-universe Jewish rep. Perhaps there is something else bothering you? To paraphrase Baldwin, perhaps you are scared of eventually facing that pain of not being represented onscreen in your favourite series?
No, I think my point is representation is great and all, but your round table completely ignored the quality issues and poor writing this show suffered from this year and zeroed in on something that isn’t the top issue this show faces in whether it is good or not. I just wish instead of focusing on who’s gay, who’s republican in the audience and whatnot, you instead asked “what kind of writers are these people, that their idea of a Vulcan is to have Anson Mount imitate Dan Ackroyd playing a clueless idiot?
The beauty of the internet is you can always find someone else who does agree with you about something, instead of trying to argue with people enjoying something you don’t. LLAP.
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