‘Enterprise’ Producer Has Hopes Scott Bakula Would possibly Return to ‘Star Trek’

Star Trek is in a little bit of an unsure place proper now, because the reveals that created its streaming growth have spent the final couple of years both coming to their finish or saying that they’re making ready to take action—and that’s even placing apart that Paramount itself is controversially about to come back beneath new administration. Past two and a half extra seasons of Strange New Worlds and at the least two seasons of Starfleet Academy, the place Star Trek goes subsequent is unknown. But it surely’s additionally a scenario the place one Trek alum sees a chance for a significant return.

That alum is Michael Sussman, a author and producer who labored on each Star Trek: Voyager and, extra considerably, Star Trek: Enterprise. Chatting with TrekMovie forward of an look on the ongoing STLV: Trek to Vegas conference this weekend, Sussman revealed that in the previous few years he had labored with Enterprise star Scott Bakula (who can be making a uncommon conference look at STLV) on a pitch for a successor collection impressed by an thought Sussman had sown the seeds for within the final episode of Enterprise he wrote, “In a Mirror, Darkly, Half II.”

Set in the Mirror Universe, the season 4 two-parter noticed Bakula taking part in the twin function of each the Prime Captain Archer and his Mirror Universe counterpart. The latter, accessing the pc techniques of the united statesS. Defiant, a ship from a future level within the Trek timeline (however not that U.S.S. Defiant) that had made it to the alternate actuality, pulls up Prime Archer’s personnel file—the place each Mirror Archer and the viewers alike be taught that he’s destined to someday develop into the president of the nascent United Federation of Planets.

“It occurred to me that somebody on the writing workers, not the artwork division, wanted to write down this graphic. Any individual wanted to consider this, proper? This was going to be a graphic that spelled out Archer’s life and profession after the collection ended,” Sussman instructed TrekMovie. “Holy shit, I even have an thought for a collection, going again to that viewscreen graphic that I planted all these years earlier.”

That concept—which, based on Sussman, had been born out of Bakula expressing an curiosity in returning for an Archer-focused present impressed by the success of the then-ongoing Star Trek: Picard. It coalesced right into a pitch Sussman and Bakula labored on known as Star Trek: United, which might’ve revolved round an older Jonathan Archer navigating the diplomatic and political nuances of main the Federation in its early years and brought a extra mature tone. “It’s a political thriller and a household drama set in these chaotic, childhood of the Federation… One among my aspirations can be that the collection might do for Star Trek, what Andor did for Star Wars,” Sussman continued. “It’s a present the place you’ll be able to inform grownup tales about adults and inform them in a really grounded, sensible method.”

Nonetheless, based on Sussman, the pitch for United, whereas within the very early phases of dialogue, didn’t go far. The producer took what he described as a “high-level overview” for the collection to Secret Hideout, Alex Kurtzman’s manufacturing firm that works with Paramount on all of up to date Star Trek. Though the assembly was optimistic and Sussman was growing a extra in-depth pitch, he was ultimately instructed that Secret Hideout and Paramount wouldn’t be transferring ahead in growing, amid a broader cutback by the studio on streaming spending, and because of a possible similarity overlap with the already-in-development Starfleet Academy, which, though set thousands upon thousands of years after the timeframe of United, would even be set totally on Earth.

Issues are certainly about to vary at Paramount, with the $8 billion deal for Skydance to take possession of the studio having closed this week. Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, has already mentioned a renewed focus on premium streaming content. To Sussman, that signifies a possible that—particularly after the quantity of streaming Star Trek has contracted up to now few years—he might take the United pitch, tweaked sufficient to alleviate prior issues about overlap, again to the studio for a brand new appraisal.

“The hope is that Paramount is planning to speculate extra in Star Trek on tv,” Sussman concluded to TrekMovie, “they usually’ve been very clear about how they wish to make Paramount+ an actual participant within the streaming house.”

Time will inform if the likelihood remains to be on the playing cards. In spite of everything, even when Unusual New Worlds and Starfleet Academy are at the moment the one two Star Trek collection in manufacturing in the mean time, we’ve heard loads of rumors about plans to attempt to deliver the franchise again in movie, whether or not it’s Patrick Stewart’s personal hopes for a new Picard film, the perpetual speak of a fourth entry within the “Kelvin Timeline” collection began by J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek film, or—maybe most curiously within the case of the United pitch—a film set in the early days of Starfleet and humanity’s early steps after making first contact with the Vulcans and different alien species, floor already lined partly by Star Trek: Enterprise.

Suffice to say, it’s going to take a protracted highway to get any indication of Star Trek‘s future on this new regular. Whether or not Captain (or President) Archer might be a part of that future stays to be seen.

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