Strange New Worlds' showrunners advise fans to write to Skydance and Paramount if they're interested in a "Year One" Kirk sequel series

[Quinton]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will end with a fifth season circa 2027, but Akiva Goldsman has been outspoken of late about a personal interest in taking the existing sets, certain obvious actors among SNW's own crop, and pushing ahead with a potential continuation show. At San Diego Comic-Con 2025's dedicated Star Trek panel, both Goldsman and co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers got far more specific - and suggested that fans who are interested in the proposed "Star Trek: Year One" should take the time to write letters to both Skydance and Paramount to that effect.

Via TrekMovie:

“We started having this idea of those great lost years that exist in all of our head canon and ancillary canon, but had never really gotten much of a chance to be on screen. So what we’ve tried to do is try to reach back to Pike’s Enterprise and instill in it the kind of storytelling values we have today, and bring us right up to Kirk’s first day on the job. And that is our hope, and that is our plan. And we plan to get you there… and if you like us enough, you just write ‘Dear Skydance and Paramount, we know you still have the sets. Don’t you want to make Star Trek: Year One?'” -Akiva Goldsman

Via Entertainment Weekly:

A lot of things would need to happen between now and that proposed future, including whatever shakes out with the sale of Paramount to Skydance. That's why the showrunners encouraged the fans at Comic-Con to express their interest in the idea.

"We dream it loudly," Myers says. "We like to say vocally that, 'Hey, we have all of these really great sets. You guys own them. You make money off them.'" -Henry Alonso Myers

If more quotes/direct interviews about this pop up in the next few days, I'll add 'em here. But anyway, I figure while I'm making this thread, I'll toss in my own two cents: even if you don't want Star Trek: Year One, it might not be a bad idea to reach out to Skydance/Paramount about Star Trek, anyway. Assuming, that is, that you'd like the current era of show-making to continue. Even if it's a broader statement of appreciation and continued support.

Right now, the incoming leadership is going to be analyzing the heck out of everything that Paramount has been making, and cost-cutting is inevitable. Like, really, really, big cost-cutting. Analysts have been sounding off on where those cuts may come from, and as Puck's David Belloni recently noted in a podcast episode (thanks for bringing it to our attention, @Casas9425) Star Trek is certainly among the possibilities.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I'm down and I will sign any official petition that comes to the attention of this thread, but I'm always skeptical as to the effectiveness as to such movements. Although fan response is what got us Strange New Worlds so you never know.

That said, I still believe that there would be much more story potential and freedom from the canonical connections, that I personally enjoy about Strange New Worlds but others find annoying, in setting it post TMP with the same cast.

 

[Quinton]

I'm down and I will sign any official petition that comes to the attention of this thread, but I'm always skeptical as to the effectiveness as to such movements. Although fan response is what got us Strange New Worlds so you never know.

That said, I still believe that there would be much more story potential and freedom from the canonical connections, that I personally enjoy about Strange New Worlds but others find annoying, in setting it post TMP with the same cast.

I'm with you on that, actually! I'm a bit surprised that it isn't a "Years Four and Five", or (better yet), the post-TMP approach you mentioned. I guess Goldsman and Myers just really like the idea of moving straight from Strange New Worlds' series finale, and building further on Kirk's formative moments as captain. Which is all well and good. But still, haha.

 

[The Wormhole]

I would also prefer a post TMP series, as there's a dozen years between it and TWOK where we know absolutely nothing about, so it's basically a blank slate and might accommodate the actors ages better, but hey, I won't say no to Kirk Year One either. With SNW's writing staff, I'm sure they can make either concept gold.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

I do very much want a new take on the original crew so hopefully this works out.

I know people are tired of debating this but this would be so much better if they'd just abandon the old canon though.

 

[Mudd]

I'm all for it.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm down and I will sign any official petition that comes to the attention of this thread, but I'm always skeptical as to the effectiveness as to such movements.

Agreed.

Although fan response is what got us Strange New Worlds so you never know.

Actually, the idea for a Pike show on the Enterprise was already being discussed near the end of DSC season 1 before the Enterprise even showed up in that last scene. Fan response had little to do with that.

 

[Firebird]

I'd be interested, providing they give us the missions we never saw in TOS. Remaking old episodes would be boring.

 

[Dukhat]

I just hope 'Star Trek: Year One' isn't being cut from the same cloth as 'Star Trek; Legacy.' i.e. that it's just Goldsman's pipe dream and CBS/Paramount have zero interest in producing it. Because that's what this suspiciously sounds like.

 

[Tuskin38]

I'd be interested, providing they give us the missions we never saw in TOS. Remaking old episodes would be boring.

Well he is referring to it as 'Year One', referring to the year before Season 1.

So it would be another prequel. I guess a limited/mini series if it's only his first year of command.

So they probably wouldn't remake any TOS episodes.

Because that's what this suspiciously sounds like.

That's exactly what he's saying, it's pretty clear to me from the article.

 

[Christopher]

I'm a bit surprised that it isn't a "Years Four and Five", or (better yet), the post-TMP approach you mentioned.

The thing is, season 1 of TOS was not intended as year one. According to The Making of Star Trek's "official biography" section (which was written with input from TOS's creators), Kirk was four years into his command of the Enterprise as of the second season or the start of the third (the book came out between seasons 2 & 3). The intent was always that Kirk was an experienced veteran and we were coming in well into his captaincy, with the crew and relationships already established.

Modern dating puts TOS in 2266-69, and Voyager: "Q2" put the end of the 5-year mission in 2270, so that suggests that TOS was years 2-4 of the mission, with TAS as year 5. If we combine that with TMoST, that would mean Kirk was captain for about a year before the TOS 5-year mission, which makes sense, since there's no reason that every starship mission would automatically be 5 years long. (The trip to the edge of the galaxy in the second pilot would've been an investment of months in itself, so logically it would be separate from the general 5-year tour of frontier patrol and exploration. Although I doubt the modern producers would acknowledge that, given that they seem to think every interstellar voyage can be made in less than a day.)

With a show set before "Where No Man," presumably we'd finally get a new version of Gary Mitchell and explore his friendship with Kirk. Indeed, if SNW gives Kirk command of the Farragut, they should ideally introduce Mitchell as part of his crew, since Dehner said that he requested Mitchell for his first command. So they could set up that relationship in SNW and then carry it forward into a Year One series. Perhaps McCoy could also be introduced as part of Kirk's Farragut crew, not unlike how I featured Mitchell and McCoy in my version of Kirk's first command, the novel The Captain's Oath.

Of course, there's also Dr. Piper to consider. Piper in WNM was a complete non-entity, a placeholder who had only eight lines, all of them exposition. But SNW and/or Y1 could develop him into a more distinctive character. Or they could just go with McCoy and handwave Piper as a temporary fill-in, as various novels and comics have done over the years.

There's also the issue of Sulu being introduced as an astrophysicist before ending up as a pilot. Astrophysicist isn't a hobby, it's a field of expertise that would require years of specialized study and a degree. Sulu having that training while primarily being a pilot offers a lot to unpack, if the writers don't just ignore it like most people who've written pre-TOS Sulu in prose or comics. (I touched on it in Oath, but not in depth.)

 

[DigificWriter]

old episodes would be boring.

Unless they're going to make TOS itself Apocryphal and just straight up Remake it, there's literally no reason to retread Kirk's time as Captain of the Enterprise.

 

[Quinton]

The thing is, season 1 of TOS was not intended as year one. According to The Making of Star Trek's "official biography" section (which was written with input from TOS's creators), Kirk was four years into his command of the Enterprise as of the second season or the start of the third (the book came out between seasons 2 & 3). The intent was always that Kirk was an experienced veteran and we were coming in well into his captaincy, with the crew and relationships already established.

Modern dating puts TOS in 2266-69, and Voyager: "Q2" put the end of the 5-year mission in 2270, so that suggests that TOS was years 2-4 of the mission, with TAS as year 5. If we combine that with TMoST, that would mean Kirk was captain for about a year before the TOS 5-year mission, which makes sense, since there's no reason that every starship mission would automatically be 5 years long. (The trip to the edge of the galaxy in the second pilot would've been an investment of months in itself, so logically it would be separate from the general 5-year tour of frontier patrol and exploration. Although I doubt the modern producers would acknowledge that, given that they seem to think every interstellar voyage can be made in less than a day.)

With a show set before "Where No Man," presumably we'd finally get a new version of Gary Mitchell and explore his friendship with Kirk. Indeed, if SNW gives Kirk command of the Farragut, they should ideally introduce Mitchell as part of his crew, since Dehner said that he requested Mitchell for his first command. So they could set up that relationship in SNW and then carry it forward into a Year One series. Perhaps McCoy could also be introduced as part of Kirk's Farragut crew, not unlike how I featured Mitchell and McCoy in my version of Kirk's first command, the novel The Captain's Oath.

Of course, there's also Dr. Piper to consider. Piper in WNM was a complete non-entity, a placeholder who had only eight lines, all of them exposition. But SNW and/or Y1 could develop him into a more distinctive character. Or they could just go with McCoy and handwave Piper as a temporary fill-in, as various novels and comics have done over the years.

There's also the issue of Sulu being introduced as an astrophysicist before ending up as a pilot. Astrophysicist isn't a hobby, it's a field of expertise that would require years of specialized study and a degree. Sulu having that training while primarily being a pilot offers a lot to unpack, if the writers don't just ignore it like most people who've written pre-TOS Sulu in prose or comics. (I touched on it in Oath, but not in depth.)

This is a characteristically great piece of Trekkian insight from ya, Christopher. Much appreciated. I knew some of it, but certainly not enough.

 

[Borgminister]

They've got the right actors to play Spock, Uhura, and Chapel (maybe Scotty), but is the current actor charismatic enough to portray a "new" Kirk? And Bones will be hard to follow as well... But if SNW did it with Pike, why not a TOS remake?

 

[Christopher]

They've got the right actors to play Spock, Uhura, and Chapel (maybe Scotty), but is the current actor charismatic enough to portray a "new" Kirk?

I think Paul Wesley is doing pretty well as Kirk, actually.

And Bones will be hard to follow as well...

After seeing him in Wynonna Earp and Vagrant Queen, I think Tim Rozon would make an excellent McCoy.

 

[Mudd]

They've got the right actors to play Spock, Uhura, and Chapel (maybe Scotty), but is the current actor charismatic enough to portray a "new" Kirk?

Yes. Entirely.