NYCC: Alex Kurtzman Gives ‘Section 31’ And ‘Academy’ Updates, Teases “Exciting” New Star Trek Projects
NYCC: Alex Kurtzman Gives ‘Section 31’ And ‘Academy’ Updates, Teases “Exciting” New Star Trek Projects
At New York Comic Con, the man in charge of Trek TV also talked about what's next for 'Discovery,' and 'Strange New Worlds.'
On one hand, I am glad Trek is still alive and kicking. On the other hand, I am worried all these new shows and spin offs, and spin offs of new shows will cause the franchise to go the way of Star Wars, constantly churning out new mediocre shows leading to viewer fatigue and disengagement.
One thing I think they've done exceptionally well is give each project its own tone and premise - that goes a long way to help prevent that feeling of oversaturation.
I agree. I like the idea that there's a trek for everyone. I love strange new worlds, but (initially) wasn't really into the idea of lower decks, and that's ok because I think it gives everyone something different to look forward to and avoid the problem of oversaturation. You can choose the shows you like and miss the ones you don't.
That being said, I'm glad they did the crossover episode with lower decks because it made me give the show a shot and I ended up really liking it.
@GregorGizeh @ValueSubtracted yeah, I do objectively see the parallels there.
I will politely counter that I do remember a period in the 90s where DS9, TNG and Voyager were all alive and well in the peak pop culture consciousness at the time. Along with a plethora of comics and novels.
Though, I will counter myself that, that peak was followed by Enterprise a few short years later, which lead to the slight death of the franchise. So all of that previous media could have had a disastrous effect, ultimately (much like now, potentially).
It's a complicated situation.
Except to use that analogy, all those star wars spinoffs gave us quite possibly the best piece of star wars media out there (Andor)
Notably, Andor was NOT run by Dave Filoni. I worry that having Alex Kurtzman as the "Star Trek Czar" is going to backfire. He'll get overextended and he'll want all of his projects to interact (please for the love of god please keep series comprehensible as a standalone). You see it happening now with all of the mediocre Star Wars content.
- Section 31 seems to be moving forward - Michelle Yeoh had the chance to move on but I guess she's putting herself behind the project instead of ditching it, as she conceivably could given how her career is going and all the new opportunities she likely has knocking on her door. The show is called a "movie event" in the article.
- Starfleet Academy is going forward - Tawny Newsome (Mariner from Lower Decks) is on the writing team for that.
- The final season of Discovery is coming out next year, and they were allowed to do some reshoots as it's the final season.
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Personally, I really hope that Saru makes the transition to Starfleet Academy. I love him to bits and Doug Jones could do a ton more with his character if given the chance. I also suspect, due to the way Picard ended, that Brent Spiner's Data in some form or another might show up as an instructor, maybe as a guest star. I'd actually really like to see a Lore-influenced-Data bringing the snark in a classroom. Data's earnestness and Lore's sense of humor are especially charming when combined together, and we only saw a bit of it at the end of Picard. And I'd love to see Saru and Data interacting.
Pelia is also long-lived enough to show up, and she was an instructor prior to becoming the Enterprise's Engineer. They've already set her up to be replaced by Scotty, so I could see the actress moving to Starfleet Academy, since we already know her time on the Enterprise is limited.
Unrelated to Starfleet Academy, I do notice there's no word on a post-Picard series starring Seven of Nine--I hope that's mostly because the strikes disrupted early planning or something.
But they set Picard up perfectly to spawn a new series from that and I'd absolutely LOVE to see Seven of Nine as Captain of her own Starfleet ship, and Jack would make an interesting foil to Wesley as the cocky ensign. I think with the topic of AI being a thing now, and all the loose ends with the Borg and with Data's offspring (and Data himself), we could actually really use right now a series that talks a lot about AI. I imagine interaction with Jurati-Borg could be an ongoing arc. And Soji could appear and we could get some interaction with Data to tie off that storyline.
I hadn’t considered Pelia still being alive, but it’s a cool idea.
They could even do a story arc with the cadets joining Kovich and other familiar faces in tracking her down. Bryce and Reno, both engineers, would have certainly had her as a prof at the Academy. Might be a great season two story once Pelia’s moved on from SNW.
I really hope Legacy is picked up as well!
I do not want a Section 31 show using any kind of concepts they developed in Discovery.
S31 is supposed to be a secret clandestine organization, not some fucking advanced bullshit literal massive fleet with TNG tech in the TOS era.
I have zero hope for this one. Section 31 was cool because they were so secretive and had their fingers in so many pies. Giving them a literal fleet is the antithesis of how S31 should work which is: privately, secretly and across the entirety of Starfleet.