Star Trek Characters That Must Return (2026)

4. Jonathan Archer

Recent buzz around a potential Star Trek: United series has catapulted Jonathan Archer high on the 'must return' list. As the President of the Federation, as well as the great orator who delivered a speech so important that it was still being taught two centuries later, Archer was a pioneering character in Star Trek history.

Star Trek: Enterprise has gained its following since it arrived on streaming, allowing fresh audiences to see the prequel series with the heart of gold. It also allowed older audience members to give the show a second chance, allowing it to finally get the eyes it so sorely deserved in 2001. 

From this series came the building blocks of the Federation. Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites learned to communicate. They finally came together in a grand alliance, one that held strong for almost a thousand years. At the beginning of that was the foundational persona of Jonathan Archer.

Executive Producer Michael Sussman, along with Scott Bakula himself, has pitched Star Trek: United as a series to Paramount. In a time where the audience feels more fractured than ever, itself a symbol for the world at large, a series that emphasises uniting people seems more prescient than ever. 

Star Trek: United seems to be the very thing that Gene Roddenberry wanted to put into the world in the 60s. Now, in the 2020s, that dream seems as wild as it ever was, though more timely than ever before.