Sort of familiar faces on a very familiar ship
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will focus on the trails of characters (more specifically, actors) introduced in Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery. Ethan Peck will reprise his role as beloved side kick Spock, during his time aboard the USS Enterprise before Kirk arrived. Anson Mount will once again take up the mantle of someday-to-be-doomed Captain Christopher Pike, after becoming a fan favourite last year by fully fleshing out a character we know almost everything about, but have never truely met. Rebecca Romijn returns as trusted but seldom seen Number One, Pike's 2IC.
Set between the end of season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek (TOS), Strange New Worlds will attempt to bridge the gap between the two shows. There will be a tonal shift away from Discovery and even Picard, which are seen as darker than TOS or TNG. The showrunners are promising closer to the optimistic approach that Roddenberry originally wanted. One of the main ways to achieve this is to make the episodes self contained, there won't be the ever increasing threat to the characters that Discovery found itself trapped into.
Co-creater and producer Akiva Goldsman told Variety:
We're going to try to harken back to some classical 'Trek' values, to be optimistic, and to be more episodic. Obviously, we will take advantage of the serialized nature of character and story building. But I think our plots will be more closed-ended than you’ve seen in either Discovery or Picard. We can really tell closed-ended stories. We can find ourselves in episodes that are tonally of a piece.
Rumours of a spinoff with Pike started circling almost immediately after his introduction on Discovery, and only ramped up as fans got to know the character, even though for a time it looked like there would be another break in Star Trek cannon and he would be kept aboard the titular spaceship. But at the last minute, the three main characters disembarked, and Disco went off doing what Disco does: getting in trouble at the other end of the galaxy, the multiverse, or even time. Typical.
Ethan Peck got onboard with the fanbase though, and apparently started campaigning and ramping up the fan support for a spinoff show. He seems to have gotten his wish. WHEN it will happen is another twist though, with the current pandemic having shut down the entire industry. If decades old TV shows and multi-million dollar films are on hold, its for certain an early in production series won't have a priority for now.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the latest incarnation in the CBS reboot of the beloved franchise. There are currently SEVEN titles in some form of production, across a range of genres and networks.
- Discovery is due to return for a third season
- Picard was renewed for season 2 & 3 before it started airing
- Section 31, again with characters previously seen in Discovery, was expected to be the next series to be released
- Strange New Worlds now has a title and cast
- A fifth live action series is apparently early in development, but almost no information other than confirmation has arisen as yet
- Lower Decks is an adult animation, set on "one of Starfleet's least important ships"
- An unnamed, younger focused animated series on Nickelodeon