13 Star Trek Pitches Out There (And Where They're At)

8. STAR TREK: LEGACY, aka CAPTAIN SEVEN

On the home screen, the ideas have come thick and fast and wild these past couple of years. 

Remember how the TV Renaissance began? Alex Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout deal paralleled the CBS/Paramount dive into the streaming explosion of the mid-2010s— what became Discovery was first announced in late 2015, remember.  Infant CBS All Access soon echoed the prevailing streaming strategy for subscribers: Stop That Churn! So, it became content Everywhere, Everything All at Once: Non-stop Fresh Trek! Spinoffs getting in the way of spinoffs! Miniseries, movies, audio dramas!

The most beloved Peak Trek moment back in the day had to be Picard’s Season 3: a reunion, yes, but enough new faces to yield the “Seven, Raffi and All the Kids“ spinoff idea, soon tagged Star Trek: Legacy as if it were a formal title to a real pitch.

Really, Legacy was nothing more than the closing scenes and characters of Picard that showrunner Terry Matalas devised, setting up (as often happens) a gimme spinoff in case anyone in the studio C-suite cared. No actual pitch packet or meeting, but before you knew it, boom: fan campaigns, petition drives, marketing, graphics, all based on a love of those characters, trekking aboard a new Enterprise.

There was also the chance to get the Next Generation elders back for the occasional guest spot. Sure, fan demand had led to Anson Mount’s Pike and Strange New Worlds, but that was a streaming eternity ago. Four years later, the Trek tarmac taxiway was already full, just as the runways were being cut back to two series, not five.

And yet, stranger things have happened. Terry and team love the characters even as career moves pull them elsewhere, so: not any time soon for Legacy, but — never say never?

Status: HAPPY TALK