Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Showrunner Hints At Original Series Reboot

Last Week, Paramount announced Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wrapping up with a shortened season 5, which might bring the end of the Alex Kurtzman era. Now, Strange New Worlds’ showrunner has hinted they would like to do an original series reboot featuring Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

The last several years of Star Trek have been fraught with turmoil as Alex Kurtzman, through Secret Hideout, has pushed the franchise in directions that ignore continuity and insult classic Star Trek fans. From Picard, which destroyed the legacy of The Next Generation, to Discovery, which, as a prequel, presented a nonsensical look at the Federation, to Section 31, an abomination fans and critics alike hate, it appears as if this group simply doesn’t understand what makes Star Trek great.

Strange New Worlds, another prequel, is about to hit its third season, and though at least the window dressing looks a lot more like actual Star Trek than any of the others so far, the writing has been hit and miss, flirting with some continuity problems with characters as well as doing disastrous parody episodes like the musical episode in Season 2, and a crossover with Lower Decks that hasn’t allowed the Captain Pike era to shine.

However, this show has already introduced some major players like Spock and Lieutenant Kirk played by Paul Wesley that set up a continuation of the show where they could simply redo the original series.

Showrunner Avika Goldsman spoke with TrekMovie, and it’s very clear that they’ve been thinking about a potential TOS reboot down the road, something Star Trek fans would revile as an idea perhaps even more than Section 31, again highlighting the disconnect between those creating Star Trek and what the fan base wants.

He said, “Right now [the characters] are in mid-stage development. How do they become who they are? What happens to some of them? Those are questions that we knew we needed to answer and promised to answer. And so that’s our five-year plan. And then we run into TOS. [Switching to conspiratorial tone] But they’re not dying. And we have those sets…”

They do have the sets and everything set up, but that doesn’t mean a reboot should occur. It seems these companies are always obsessed with doing prequels and reboots. The higher-ups at Paramount must have seen how Star Trek 2009 did well at the box office, and want to recapture that glory because of the current iteration of Star Trek being so costly and performing so poorly in the ratings.

However, most fans did not love Star Trek 2009. The reboot didn’t feel like Star Trek at all, and though there were some rubberneckers at the movie because of a brand name, in 2025, we are not in the same environment where that carries any weight.

While there’s a lot more questions than answers going down with the Skydance merger at Paramount, including whether Star Trek will continue at all beyond a Starfleet Academy second season and the aforementioned Strange New Worlds season 5, even entertaining the idea of a reboot of TOS shows a lack of understanding for the property where some fresh blood is needed to revitalize Star Trek if they want it to continue in any meaningful capacity.

Just because they have the ability to do it with actors cast and sets existing doesn’t mean they should. While Strange New Worlds eventually will come into contact with continuity of the original series, doing a full reboot would be a disaster fans won’t watch.

What do you think of the Strange New Worlds showrunner hinting at a TOS reboot? Leave a comment and let us know.

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