STAR TREK TV

New crew, old enemies and Hannibal helmers – Trek is beaming back to TV

Beyond Beyond… we preview 2017’s voyage.

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND

Boldly going to the strange new world of Video On Demand, Star Trek is threatening to do what it does best – and this time it might actually do it, given that it’s Hannibalhoncho Bryan Fuller running the show and Alex Kurtzman executive producing. The show – coming out in weekly instalments on CBS All Access – will “introduce new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilisations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise”.

VETERAN CREW

While the CBS teaser promises “New crews. New villains. New heroes. New worlds,” there’s Starfleet experience behind the camera. Fuller cut his teeth on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager – writing no less than 20 episodes of the latter – while Kurtzman co-penned JJ Abrams’ Trek reboot. They’ve also filled their new bridge with familiar faces, adding Gene Roddenberry’s son Rod to the production team along with The Wrath Of Khaaaaaaaaaaaan’s helmer Nicholas Meyer in a consulting role. It’s all sounding promising.

ABRAMS ABANDONED

Despite the Abrams connection, don’t expect any crossover with the cinematic reboot, those famous characters or that iconic ship. “Star Trek is such a big universe,” Fuller mused, long before he landed this gig, “and there are so many places to go with it.”

This first season is rumoured to be Stardated somewhere on the post-Kirk, pre-Picard timeline, most likely after Star Trek VI. As Meyer put it, “The one thing I can relate to you is that The Undiscovered Country, according to Bryan, is a real sort of taking off point, or touchstone, for how I guess he’s thinking about the direction of the new show.” Perhaps the show could explore the aftermath of the Khitomer Conference – a theory possibly enforced by the sight of a partially exploded planetoid in the teaser. It couldn’t be obliterated Klingon satellite Praxis, could it?

BADGE OF HONOUR

Is there any meaning to the new-look Starfleet logo in the teaser? It’s “fashionably” distressed, hinting at a more “used”, Star Wars-y vision of space travel than we’re used to in the traditionally clean-cut Federation. And what’s with the split in the badge? Could there be disputes within Starfleet? Or is Fuller about to explore the Mirror Universe?

OPTIMISM PRIME

Don’t expect Trek 2017 to be too heavy though, even with the brain behind Hannibal masterminding things. “I would love to return to the spirit of the old series with the colours and attitude,” Fuller has suggested. “I loved Voyager and Deep Space Nine, but they seem to have lost the ’60s fun.”

ANTHOLOGY OF INTEREST

Fuller’s show is rumoured to be an anthology show, with the following season being set a completely different time and story – maybe even characters – to the one that preceded it. This would also chime with Fuller’s storytelling success with Hannibal, letting him tell a season-long arc as opposed to Trek’s standard more-episodic plotting.

WHEN WILL IT BEAM IN?

January 2017. Filming is set to begin imminently in Toronto so expect a flood of casting news very soon.

DON’T qUOTe me “I MeAN, IT TOOK $800M, SO The KICKING DIDN’T MATTeR, BUT IT WAS SORT OF OVeRSTUFFeD.” Jeremy “Alfred” Irons wasn’t a huge fan of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, either.