Kate Mulgrew Teases Janeway Spinoff Show On Star Trek Cruise: It's "Being Pursued"
Star Trek fans have not had a lot to look forward to in the Alex Kurtzman era, but more bad ideas abound around the Paramount offices as Kate Mulgrew reveals a Janeway spinoff is “being pursued” similar to how they did a Picard show.
In recent years, Star Trek is almost unrecognizable to the vision Gene Roddenberry presented in The Original Series and through the 1990s iterations of the shows. Discovery turned the series into a generic dark sci-fi focused heavily on identity politics instead of exploring strange, new worlds. Lower Decks turned the show into a parody farce.
Picard seemed like it would be something to get back nostalgic fans, but even that show couldn’t manage to keep Star Trek feeling like Trek in the worldbuilding, and though fans got the TNG reunion they were looking for in season 3, it was too little too late for an already disastrous show.
Once again, Kurtzman and company did far too much to try to “modernize” Trek and make it feel like a dark action-fantasy rather than pursuing the intelligent science fiction that the earlier iterations had to offer. That was the one thing Gene Roddenberry and company were so cautious to preserve, as they hired some of the best and brightest sci-fi writers in the field to pitch them scripts, something that separated Star Trek from sci-fi B-movies and contributed to its longevity.
While actors have had a tradition of pitching their own spinoffs going back to George Takei wanting Hikaru Sulu adventures on the Excelsior, and Michael Dorn wanting to do a Captain Worf show, with Picard airing and Kurtzuman greenlighting the ill-fated Section 31 TV movie, it seems everyone feels they can get a character-based niche program out of current Star Trek.
Kurtzman apparently attempted to get Jeri Ryan to come back for a Seven of Nine spinoff after Picard, which the actress turned down, which was revealed last year.
Kate Mulgrew was recently on Star Trek: The Cruise and spoke to the crowd at her evening panel when she was asked about the possibility about Janeway returning to Star Trek or potentially getting her own spinoff series.
"There is a conversation happening. It is being pursued,” she said according to What Culture.
This is the second time in recent weeks a Star Trek captain started rumblings of a potential spinoff show, as William Shatner opined about a possible return at a recent convention as well. In both instances, the actors insisted they were waiting on the right scripts to proceed. Muglrew voiced she didn’t want it to come across as a “vanity piece” or have a Janeway show fall short of fan expectations.
Janeway already has returned in a pretty heavy role in Star Trek: Prodigy in recent years, the kids’ animated series first introducing a holographic teacher version of the character, and then showing Admiral Janeway proper, even going so far as to give Janeway a new iteration of the U.S.S. Voyager where she took a very pronounced role in season 2.
The series also gave the characters good conclusions for arcs, including for Janeway with her new protégés, and gave extra closure for Chakotay and The Doctor. Mulgrew has mentioned bringing this show back as well, saying, “I'd like Prodigy to be optioned for a third season, so let's fly those planes,” where she referenced a recent fan campaign to save Prodigy using a plane with a banner flying behind it.
With Star Trek about to launch Starfleet Academy, bringing back The Doctor once again in a setting that fans are disinterested in, one wonders what rationale there might be for creating another Janeway series.
What do you think of Kate Mulgrew pitching a potential Janeway Star Trek series? Leave a comment and let us know.
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