With official word from CBS that a new Star Trek series is slated to premiere January 2017, Trekkies everywhere are asking the logical question: what will this new series be about? With six television series, twelve films, and a myriad of books and comics, Star Trek boasts one of the most expansive fictional universes in pop culture, and no matter what path this latest Trek takes, it will have more than enough fascinating material to draw upon. Looking through the possibilities, here are five ideas for a new Star Trek television series.
Captain Worf
One of Star Trek’s most iconic characters, Worf has appeared in more episodes of the franchise than any other series regular. Throughout both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, the Son of Mogh provided audiences with an operatic personal journey worthy of Kahless himself. With his understated humor and unshakeable sense of honor, Worf remains one of the strongest supporting characters in the history of Star Trek, and some of the most powerful storylines of both TNG and DS9 were those which followed him in his struggle to remain loyal to both the Klingon Empire and the Federation. A Captain Worf series would also allow other great characters from the Prime Reality to return – from TNG luminaries such as Picard and Riker to captivating supporting characters from DS9 like Martok and Garak. Actor Michael Dorn himself has expressed interest in reprising the role.
The Far Future of the Prime Reality
When Star Trek successfully returned to television in 1987, it returned as a new series set one hundred years after the original show. This gave the creators of TNG a wonderfully developed backdrop of established history and ideas to play with, while also allowing them enough room to develop brand new concepts and characters. What worked once could very well work again, and with a past already richly defined by its previous television incarnations, a new series set a century after the exploits of Picard, Sisko, and Janeway could breathe fresh air into the Prime Reality, that is the prime universe in which all of Star Trek prior to the 2009 film was set.
Vanguard
The greatest of all original Trek book series, Star Trek: Vanguard was created by writer David Mack and editor Marco Palmieri back in 2005. This series followed the harrowing adventures of the crew and residents of Starbase 47, also known as Vanguard. Set during the time period of the original series, Vanguard weaved the political and military events of Kirk’s time with an intergalactic mystery that the Vanguard crew were tasked with solving. Mack and fellow series writers Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore created an assortment of characters more nuanced and complex than those found in any other Trek series outside of DS9. Their brilliant character work and engrossing storylines could easily sustain seven seasons of successful television.
Department of Temporal Investigations
Another interesting series from Trek literature is Christopher L. Bennett’s Department of Temporal Investigations, which takes a closer look at time travel in the Star Trek universe. Agents Lucsly and Dulmer and their fellow investigators at DTI are tasked with protecting the space-time continuum from threats past, present, and future. Together they must face devastating temporal incursions, ancient alien technology gone wrong, and the recklessness of Starfleet captains, in what amounts to Star Trek’s version of Dr. Who.
The Mirror Universe
The most iconic of all of Star Trek’s alternate timelines, the Mirror Universe presents not an optimistic future of human courage and cooperation, but rather a universe ruled by the savagery and destructive passions lurking within humankind. Introduced in the original series and expanded upon in DS9, this grim world has yet to be introduced in the New Reality, the timeline in which the new Star Trek film series takes place. A show set in the Mirror Universe of the New Reality could provide Star Trek’s rebooted franchise with an unique television counterpart, and perhaps lay the groundwork for a crossover film set in this dark corner of the Star Trek multiverse.
