Viewers of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ were charmed by the Season 2 introductions of Ethan Peck as pre-‘The Original Series’ Spock, Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, and Rebecca Romijn as Number One, and immediately began clamoring for them to get their own spin-off show. Finally, in May, CBS All Access announced this would become a reality, entitled ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’.
Alex Kurtzman currently oversees the entire ‘Trek’ universe on CBS All Access, and he recently spoke about ‘Strange New Worlds’ during a Deadline Contenders panel:
“I think Strange New Worlds, under the guidance of Henry Myers and Akiva Goldsman, it’s going to be a return in a way to TOS [Star Trek: The Original Series]. We are going to do stand-alone episodes. There will be emotional serialization. There will be two-parters. There will be larger plot arcs. But it really is back to the model of alien-of-the-week, planet-of-the-week, challenge-on-the-ship-of-the-week. With these characters pre-Kirk’s Enterprise. I think what people responded so much to in all three characters is this kind of relentless optimism that they have. And that they are at the young phase of their careers.”
That is one thing about ‘Discovery’ that turned old school fans off was the decompressed storytelling, which is essentially the norm for television now, but this approach had never been applied to a ‘Star Trek’ series before and it was not an easy transition for some.
But with so many ‘Trek’ projects ongoing and on the way, there is room to approach the brand from any number of angles. And since ‘Strange New Worlds’ is set prior to ‘OTS’, it makes sense that it would take a more retro approach.
Obviously, production has not begun on ‘Strange New Worlds’, so there is no telling exactly when it will arrive. But check back for updates.
Are you excited about this new/old approach to ‘Star Trek’?
