If you’re friends with any Star Trek enthusiasts, you’ve probably been hearing buzz about a project called “Star Trek United.” What is it? Is it real? Or is it just one of those fan ideas that kinda captures the Trek zeitgeist for a little while?
As of this writing, Star Trek United is not in any kind of active development. That being said, it was definitely a real pitch from producer Mike Sussman and actor Scott Bakula, who played Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek Enterprise for four seasons on the UPN network. Sussman was a writer on the show, including the famed “In a Mirror, Darkly” two-parter, which revealed that Jonathan Archer in the Prime universe would eventually become the President of the United Federation of Planets.
Basically, the concept for Star Trek United was to explore this period of Trek history, showing the early days of the Federation and President Archer’s role in uniting the various species into an organized group. Bakula and Sussman pitched the show to Paramount, but it was rejected. However, now that Paramount is quasi-rebooting in the wake of the Skydance merger, everyone is wondering, “What’s next for Star Trek?” This is especially true since Star Trek Discovery is over, Star Trek Picard is over, Star Trek Prodigy is over, Star Trek Lower Decks is over, and Star Trek Strange New Worlds, which just ended its third season, will end after Season 5. There are new Star Trek projects in development, including Starfleet Academy and a still-mysterious live-action show from Tawny Newsome, but we’re definitely approaching a period of major transition for the brand.
Star Trek United & Star Trek Legacy
Star Trek United calls to mind another would-be Star Trek project that has yet to properly materialize. Star Trek Picard ended its third and final season with the introduction of the Enterprise-G, which would be captained by Jeri Ryan’s Seven and feature Picard’s son as one of its officers. The show ended with room to perfectly segue to what Picard showrunner Terry Matalas pitched as “Star Trek Legacy,” the adventures of a brand-new Enterprise. With Strange New Worlds coming to an end in the next couple of years, maybe Paramount would be wise to revive the “Legacy” pitch to keep alive the core premise of the original Star Trek, the adventures of a ship and crew that aims to “explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”
In my opinion, Star Trek should be anchored by a show that feels classic or traditional at least in its core concept, while allowing for other shows to take risks with more high-concept ideas. Deep Space Nine was allowed to experiment because The Next Generation, and later Voyager, focused on cozy (but not safe, never safe, safe is boring, safe is for chumps!) adventures that were instantly recognizable as Star Trek, the “wagon train to the stars.” With that in mind, a show like Star Trek Legacy could “hold down the fort,” as they say, while programs like Starfleet Academy and Star Trek United can explore the far-flung future and early days, respectively, of the Federation itself.
As of right now, neither Star Trek Legacy nor Star Trek United are in active development. They are essentially pitches that haven’t been picked up. They might be in the future, but they’re not currently being worked on. At this point, it’s up to the fan community to keep them alive and encourage the powers-that-be at Paramount to put them into proper production. Letter writing campaigns kept the original Star Trek on the air when it was nearly cancelled, and Star Trek basically created the “Fan Convention” scene that led to the franchise making the jump to the big screen in the 1970s. This is all to say that the fans have the power to move mountains and keep Star Trek relevant, since they’ve been doing it since the very beginning.
Star Trek Enterprise was never fully appreciated during its time on the air, though its third season, which saw Star Trek doing a sci-fi take on a “post 9/11” story, and its fourth season, which contained many prequel arcs to iconic Star Trek stories, have since been fondly remembered as some of the best Star Trek ever made. The legend goes that, had Enterprise gone on for a fifth season and beyond, it would have explored the early days of what would become known as the United Federation of Planets. I don’t know if we’ll ever get a “President Archer” series. Nobody knows. However, a core theme of the modern era of Star Trek has been exploring the Federation’s role in securing humanity’s place in the universe. The time is right for a show that goes back to the roots of the Federation and showing the origins of that “long road, getting from there to here.”
Plus, ya know, I kinda need a show about President Archer to distract me from the real-life President. Not to get political or anything, but GEEZ!
Related: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3: The TV Squad Recap