By Joshua Tyler and Drew Dietsch | Updated
After the release of Star Trek: Section 31It is worth listening to negative criticism calling for Star Trek a dead franchise. Whether true or not, it is difficult to deny that the science fiction universe formerly has reached a crisis point.
What exactly happened to get Star Trek to this state? Let’s go back to the chronometer until 2017. Star Trek had been on television for 12 years. The last big piece of Media Trek released, Star Trek: Beyondfinished as disappointment at the box office.
SO, Primordial Designed a daring new plan to revitalize Star Trek with a prequel. Well, the franchise had just done it quite recently. The 2009 film Star Trek was essentially a prequel and a time trip Spock The shenanigans are damned.
But it was on the big screen; This time, we were going to get a series of prequel. Well, the franchise had already done that. He was called BusinessAnd Paramount pulled the cap after four seasons.
With these projects put in hindsight and apparently forgotten, Paramount has advanced with a series of prequelle Star Trek which would serve as a flagship spectacle for their new streaming Service, CBS All Access. This third attempted prequel to Star Trek would be the foundation of the new era for the franchise. The third time was not the charm.
This is why the disco era of Star Trek failed.
How Star Trek entered the disco
The disco era of Star Trek did not really start in the disco era, the 1970s, regardless of the bones of The film You may believe. The disco era bears the name of its founding series, Star Trek: Discoverywho made his debut in 2017. He ended, at least spiritually, with the exit of Star Trek: Section 31 In 2025, a film which is now the worst star trek film on Rotten tomatoes According to criticism and users.
Star Trek: Discovery was initially created by Brian Fuller. Fuller was a well -known writer and television producer, who wrote for both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine And Star Trek: travel In the 90s. Since then, Fuller has become a highly sought -after talent in the world of television and was the creator and the renowned series showrunner as Maze and the historical adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal.
He had the right CVAnd Paramount hired him to create a New Star Trek series. His initial pitch was to make a kind of serialized anthology, where each season would tell a particular story at different moments in the story of Star Trek, featuring new characters every season. The first season would be a prequel to The original series, And each next season would move More and more in the future.
Paramount’s reaction was something in the sense of, let’s start with a regular serialized spectacle, then we will see. Fuller started working on Discovery as a showrunner. At the same time, he was also acting as a showrunner for the series American gods.
Paramount clashed with Fuller, hiring a director for the pilot, who, more Fuller, was not good for the project. After these difficulties, Fuller ended up leaving production, but by keeping credit for the show when everything was said and made.
The functions of Showrunner would go to Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts, the writers Fuller had worked in close collaboration with and brought back from his time Maze. Star Trek: Discovery will be presented under their stewardship in 2017.
Although the initial critical response was positive, the program tone and the heavy focus of the show disabled many fans. When it comes to judging or trusting the data from the viewer streaming, you will be much more likely to try to understand the Tamarian language.
Star Trek becomes full Urkel
The first season finally in the world, production would start on season 2 with Berg and Harberts still at the helm, until the two showrunners are dismissed for the first episode of the season on the budget and for an allegedly alleged behavior towards other writers on showing it.
Alex Kurtzman came at the head of the second season. Kurtzman was a creative talent for the centerpiece for recent Star Trek films, including Star Trek: in darkness. If you want to know our reflections on this subject, consult our video, where the title gives it.
Kurtzman has now held the future of all the franchise in his hands. He would remain in charge not only Discovery But would essentially become the Focal Creative Voice of Star Trek.
There have been juice attempts Discovery For more inherited fans. Anson Mount was presented as Christopher Pike, and although there are many fair criticisms to put him pressure, most agree that his cast and his confrontation are some of the light points in the disco era.
Unfortunately, the rest of the show was always the show for which it has always been designed, and the addition of a good character does not save a show. Unless this character is Steve Urkel, I suppose.
Star Trek institutes around forty discovery
With more Trek series projects planned for the Paramount + Now marked streaming service, Star Trek: Discovery ended up not aligning the place where the franchise seemed to be heading. This seems to be the canon answer of the series, the time jump so far in the future that nothing he did would have had an additional impact on the previous chronology of the franchise, effectively sealing Discover Off on its own narrative island.
Finally, Christopher Pike d’Anson Mount is the head of a new prequel series, Star Trek: Strange new worlds. The fourth time seems to have been charm so far. However Strange new worlds is technically an extension of the nightclub, it quickly went to differentiate from the discovery and many errors that show in the eyes of fans. Strange new worlds even corrected the klingons.
Discovery would end up putting an end to his race after five seasons, and it should have been for the disco era. The franchise had moved away from the series, and Paramount was quite determined to work on a number of other Star Trek shows.
Alex Kurtzman continues to push bad ideas Nobody wants
However, Alex Kurtzman had tried to make a Star Trek: Section 31 Spin-off series since the first season of Discovery.
His plan was centered around the nasty version of the Mirror universe of a character played by the actress Michelle Yeoh. A brutal dictator who loved violence, you know, the perfect star trek products.
The fans were not exactly trusted on the idea, and Paramount made it possible to continually prioritize other new series Article 31. He finally obtained the green light, but after the cocovid stop, he was reconfigured to take the history of the planned series and equip it in a feature film. Even then, Kurtzman gave an update indicating that Article 31 was now a low priority with regard to current trek projects.
An Oscar victory advances the disco era
Paramount disinterest Article 31 would change in March 2023 when Michelle Yeoh won the Oscar for best actress. Next month, Star Trek: Section 31 entered production as a feature film. We think you can see why he was able to jump the line for priority.
In January 2025, Star Trek: Section 31 Arrived like a direct movie on Streaming on Paramount +. It was the first star Trek film released in almost a decade. He is now the worst film of the whole barrel of Star Trek.
There are a lot of criticismbreakdowns, And rage-appâtes videos on section 31 if you want to dig into literally bloody details. But just say that Article 31 acts as what seems to be the ultimate point of view of Alex Kurtzman on the franchise, And it’s terrible.
Star Trek did not have to take this path, Requiem for McMahan and Matalas
Which is doubly disappointing about the The disc era is that Paramount had other Star Trek projects which seemed to be much more warmly received by fans. The animated series Lower bridges managed not to Be another prequel project but rather brought back lightness and pleasure to the Trek universe. Unfortunately, the program was canceled after a five -season race, and creator Mike McMahan moved away from the franchise.
Tangential to discreetly payment was the somewhat autonomous Picard-Ver, a vanity project pretending to be a series developed around the character of Captain Picard by Patrick Stewart. This show was a disaster for two seasons and will adapt perfectly to the tonal approach that we had seen in the projects of the disco era until the third season was led by the veteran TV Showrunner and the fan of Star Trek dyed in Terry Matalas wool.
Matalas delivered what is widely considered to be the best Star Trek season in the modern trek. Matalas was put pressure to receive more Star Trek projects, including a lunch for a show called Star Trek: inheritance which would focus on many classic characters of shows such as The next generation. Fans have launched petitions to try to convince Paramount to give him all the franchise.
Instead, Paramount transmitted Matalas. And we have Star Trek: Section 31 instead.
Why the disco era of Star Trek failed
It is not difficult to see why the disco era of Star Trek failed to have had the type of cultural impact that we have seen from the franchise before. He tried to take Star Trek and push him into different skin, never really focusing on the things that fans have found captivating on the previous projects of Star Trek.
Although there is still disco DNA in Strange new worlds, and Paramount tries another prequel to the Starfleet Academy Series, he has the impression that Trek is at the end of this stage in his franchise identity.
