The future of “Star Trek” is right here and it actually is boldly going to some new and undiscovered locations. (Take a look at our rating of each “Star Trek” live-action present). The message from Paramount+’s presentation for the franchise July 26 at San Diego Comedian-Con‘s Corridor H isn’t boundary- and format-pushing alone: It’s clear that they wish to bundle new issues with some heavy doses of the acquainted — main stars, beloved returning franchise vets, and some cutesy gimmicks.
Take a have a look at the teaser for “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.”
There are a ton of new faces there for the thirty second Century-set present, as a lot of the solid is teenage and 20-something newcomers. And it’s set in a time interval, post-“Star Trek: Discovery” that permits for all-new storytelling utterly unrestrained by preexisting canon. However that’s additionally a lot of unfamiliar stuff, and audiences can want a little dose of the acquainted to anchor them.
So “Starfleet Academy” has a couple of prime stars — each Oscar winners, no much less — to lend the suitable gravitas: Hell yeah, Holly Hunter ought to be somebody who leads the following technology into the long run because the chancellor of Starfleet Academy — who wouldn’t belief her along with her college-age youngsters within the thirty second Century or now? And Paul Giamatti provides simply the best edge of menace, whistling the “Star Trek” theme as his “Klingon hybrid” villain, to tell us that Starfleet higher look out.
Then there’s a returning favourite in Robert Picardo’s The Physician, who apparently is not only one other hologram in his collection, however actually the very same Physician from “Voyager” who’s survived greater than eight centuries to have his story proceed on this present. Continuity together with his arc from that present is one thing showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau are promising. (There’s additionally Tig Notaro getting back from “Discovery” as Jett Reno, one thing she advised IndieWire she very a lot needed to do.)
And there are a couple of intriguing callbacks to maintain followers hooked as nicely: There’s a Jem’Hadar Starfleet officer? (A member of the menacing warrior species from “Deep Area 9.”) And one other mysterious “DS9” shoutout as nicely, as a pc show on the title academy appears to have data on it associated to the destiny of that present’s Capt. Benjamin Sisko — did he die on the finish of that collection, or did he stay on? Whether or not that’s simply a throwaway second or a teaser for a deeper exploration on “Starfleet Academy” stays to be seen.
And throughout the “Star Trek” portfolio introduced at Corridor H, this mannequin of some familiarity being combined in with the brand new stuff as a sort of sweetener to make swallowing the unfamiliar extra palatable was all over the place.
For the primary time ever, “Star Trek” is making a push into the audio storytelling house with “Star Trek: Khan,” a podcast concerning the legendary “Trek” villain in his years after his introduction on the “Authentic Collection” episode “Area Seed” when he and his crew are marooned on Ceti Alpha V. Naveen Andrews, the actor fancast for years as Khan (and ought to have been solid in “Star Trek Into Darkness”), will probably be voicing the character.
Andrews will probably be joined by a couple of returning vets: George Takei as Capt. Hikaru Sulu and Tim Russ as younger Ensign Tuvok. Within the years after Khan’s last defeat they uncover extra data that permits Khan’s story to unfold in flashback. That is a canon-friendly manner of presenting this story as we all know from a ’90s “Voyager” episode that Tuvok served with Sulu aboard the USS Excelsior. Take a look at the “Star Trek: Khan” trailer right here:
And eventually, “Star Trek” is nothing with out a good gimmick, and “Unusual New Worlds” teased that in Season 4 there will probably be an episode staged totally with puppets created by the Jim Henson Workshop. One way or the other Capt. Pike has even increased, extra lush hair right here. A bit of felt is the final word volumizer, one supposes. Here’s a sneak peek:
That doesn’t do something to counter our cost that “Unusual New Worlds” is perhaps veering a little too far into the insubstantial, however it exhibits the elasticity of “Star Trek” in permitting for thus many various varieties of stunts. It additionally jogs my memory of how in 2005 as an April Idiot’s Day joke, the StarTrek.com web site introduced that “Star Trek: Enterprise” could be persevering with however solely through marionettes to chop down on prices. For a second, teenage me believed that. However I assume I solely wanted to attend 20 years for some puppet-based storytelling in “Star Trek” to turn out to be a actuality.
