Captain's Log: Four New Star Trek Shows Are Vying for the Big Chair — And the Federation Isn't Done Yet
After weeks of cancellations, set demolitions, and existential dread, Star Trek's future is suddenly looking a lot less bleak. Alex Kurtzman has confirmed talks with Paramount's new Skydance leadership, and four distinct series pitches are waiting for a green light.
Captain's log, supplemental. The readings are… contradictory.
For the past several weeks, we've chronicled what felt like the systematic dismantling of Star Trek's television presence. Starfleet Academy — cancelled. Strange New Worlds — confirmed ending after Season 5. The Enterprise bridge itself — torn apart and sold at auction. For the first time in a decade, no new Star Trek series is in active production.
And yet.
In late March 2026, franchise architect Alex Kurtzman sat down for TrekCore's WeeklyTrek Podcast and confirmed something that should make every Trekkie sit up straight: he has begun formal discussions with Paramount's new Skydance leadership about Star Trek's television future. Not vague "we'd love to do more" platitudes — specific shows have been discussed.
"I've received nothing but support," Kurtzman said, while tempering expectations. He described the current moment as "truly the beginning of the conversation," complicated by Skydance's recent acquisition of Warner Bros., which has created what he called "an inconceivable amount of organizational things to decide." The man described the new leadership as "drinking from ten thousand hoses" rather than one.
But conversations are happening. And four distinct pitches are on the table.
Star Trek: Year One — Kirk Before the Legend
Strange New Worlds co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have officially pitched a series following Paul Wesley's James T. Kirk during his first year commanding the Enterprise — set before TOS's second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
The pitch is deliberate in what it's not: this wouldn't be a retread of existing TOS episodes. "We are very interested in telling stories of Kirk's Enterprise that we might not yet know about yet," Goldsman told ScreenRant. Year One would fill the gaps between the idealistic young officer we met on Strange New Worlds and the confident captain who stared down the Gorn and the Romulans.
Myers has confirmed the pitch is formally with Paramount, noting "there's a lot of love" for both Strange New Worlds and Trek at the studio. The complication? The sets that would have served Year One have been demolished. Whether that's a logistical hurdle or a death sentence remains to be seen.
Star Trek: United — President Archer and the Politics of Federation
Perhaps the most intriguing pitch comes from Enterprise writer-producer Michael Sussman and Scott Bakula himself. Star Trek: United would follow Jonathan Archer — not as a captain, but as President of the United Federation of Planets during its fragile early years.
Sussman has described the concept as a political thriller in the vein of The West Wing and Homeland, with a family drama woven through it. Bakula, who has four children in real life, would play Archer as a man juggling the impossible job of holding a young interstellar democracy together while being a father to four adult children.
The comparison Sussman reaches for is telling: he wants United to bring the same prestige to Star Trek that Andor brought to Star Wars. That's not a modest ambition. An earlier version of the pitch was turned down when Paramount was already building Starfleet Academy, but with Academy now cancelled and Skydance at the helm, Sussman believes the window has reopened.
Bakula has confirmed he'll attend Star Trek Las Vegas in 2026 for Enterprise's 25th anniversary — a reunion that suddenly feels like it could be more than nostalgia.
The Live-Action Comedy — Trek Meets The Office
Tawny Newsome, the voice of Beckett Mariner on the beloved Lower Decks, has teamed up with writer-director Justin Simien (Dear White People) to develop something Star Trek has never attempted: a live-action half-hour comedy.
The premise: Federation outsiders working at a gleaming resort planet discover their daily exploits are being broadcast across the entire quadrant. It's set in the early 25th century, after the events of Picard, on a non-Federation world that — for the record — is not Risa.
Newsome and Simien are co-writing with Kurtzman himself, and the scripts have reportedly been completed and well-received internally. The tonal target is The Office and Parks and Recreation — workplace comedy filtered through Trek's humanist lens. If Lower Decks proved that Trek and comedy aren't mutually exclusive, this would be the ultimate test of that thesis in live action.
Star Trek: Legacy — The One That Won't Quit
And then there's the persistent dream. Terry Matalas's Star Trek: Legacy — continuing the voyages of the USS Enterprise-G under Captain Seven of Nine, played by Jeri Ryan — has never formally entered development, but it has never fully died either.
Picard Season 3 set the table so deliberately that the finale practically had a "PILOT" watermark. The fan campaign has been relentless. The cast has been vocal. And now, with a new leadership team at Paramount evaluating what Trek could be, Legacy's name keeps surfacing alongside the other pitches.
Whether Legacy can finally cross the threshold from fan dream to greenlit series is perhaps the most emotionally charged question in Trek fandom right now.
The Crossroads
Here's what makes this moment genuinely fascinating: these four pitches represent four completely different visions of what Star Trek can be.
Year One is TOS nostalgia channeled through modern storytelling. United is prestige political drama set at the dawn of the Federation. The comedy is a genre experiment that could expand Trek's audience. Legacy is a direct continuation of the TNG lineage that the fanbase has been screaming for.
Kurtzman has been candid that Skydance's leadership is still in "massive transition" mode and nothing will move quickly. But the mere fact that multiple, concrete pitches exist and are being actively discussed is — after the darkness of the past few months — a reason for cautious optimism.
Star Trek has survived cancellation before. It was cancelled in 1969, and it built a franchise. It went dark after Enterprise in 2005, and it came roaring back. The current drought may feel different — more final, more corporate — but the pitches are real, the talent is ready, and the new leadership is listening.
As a certain Vulcan might observe: there are always possibilities.
Live long and prosper.
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