We know that CBS’ new, still-untitled Star Trek series will premiere in January 2017, both on television and CBS’ streaming service All Access. We know after the first episode, one episode will come out per week exclusively on All Access, which costs $5.99 per month. We know the show will be run by Hannibal TV series creator Bryan Fuller, who worked on both Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (DS9) and Star Trek: Voyager. And now, we have our first look of the newest addition to the 50-year-old franchise.
CBS president and CEO Les Moonves debuted a teaser trailer for the series and revealed the new ‘Star Trek’ logo on Wednesday at CBS’ 2016 Upfront, its annual presentation of new and returning shows to advertisers and press.
The video promises new everything: a new crew, new heroes, new villains, and new worlds. That gives Trekkies no information about where or when the series will take place in the Star Trek universe, or even in which universe it will take place (the 2009 reboot and its sequels are set in an alternate timeline from the television franchises).
(Author’s note: CBS only owns the rights to the Star Trek television franchises. The movie rights are owned by Paramount.)
However, there are a few things to take away from the teaser trailer:
The series will have a crew and visit new worlds, so it will likely take place on a ship, not a space station or Starbase like DS9. No word yet if that ship will be named “Enterprise,” as it was in the original series (TOS), Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), and CBS’ last attempt at a Star Trek television franchise, the 2001 prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise. However, a clue may lie in the music.
The music in the teaser begins similarly to that of the new movies, with a pulsing, driven melody as we fly past computer-generated planets and stars. However, it also contains the musical motif that both TOS and TNG share in their opening credits as the shows’ respective captains utter the famous line “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.” That leads this author to believe that the new show will be more similar to those franchises (and maybe even feature a ship named “Enterprise,” as those shows do) than it will be to Voyager, DS9, or Enterprise.
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3. There’s still no word on who will join the cast. According to Wired, Moonves joked with the audience after showing the teaser trailer, saying “You didn’t think we were going to show you the cast, did you?”
Fans of the We Want Worf campaign, spearheaded by TNG and DS9 alum Michael Dorn (aka “Worf“), may be disappointed by the promise of a “new crew.” But a new crew doesn’t mean that the new show won’t feature some familiar faces.
Every Star Trek series since TNG has featured alums reprising their respective roles—Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and DeForest Kelley returned as their characters “Spock,” “Scotty,” and “Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy,” respectively on TNG (William Shatner never appeared on the television series, but he fought alongside the TNG crew as “James T. Kirk” in the 1994 movie Star Trek: Generations.) “Lt. Reg Barclay,” played by Dwight Schultz, started on TNG but became an important character on Voyager as the series progressed. “Worf” himself moved to Deep Space 9, following in the footsteps of TNG‘s “Miles O’Brien,” played by Colm Meaney.
It’s also worth noting that there is a tradition for a Star Trek alum to show up on the first episode of a new series. TOS‘ “Bones” appeared the first episode on TNG, Patrick Stewart returned as TNG‘s “Jean-Luc Picard” in the first episode of DS9, and DS9‘s “Quark” is seen at the beginning of the first episode of Voyager. James Cromwell, who portrayed warp-drive inventor “Zefram Cochrane” in the 1996 movie Star Trek: First Contact, revisited the role in the pilot of Enterprise.1 As long as this new show takes place in the same timeframe and timeline as the other series (and contracts can be agreed upon), old cast members will surely return.
The new Star Trek series will begin production in Toronto, Canada this fall. Are you looking forward to the still-untitled show? Are you hoping for a new crew to learn to love or something with more familiar faces? Tell us who’s in your ideal cast on Facebook and Twitter!
Cromwell is the only one of these actors who didn’t play his character in the series that immediately preceded the Star Trek pilot he appeared in. Enterprise premiered just months after Voyager ended, but was set two centuries before the events of Voyager, which made it nearly impossible for a Voyager character to appear. ↩︎
