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Geek Tyrant
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Scott Bakula Could Return to the STAR TREK Universe in an Interesting New Spinoff Idea — GeekTyrant
Star Trek: Enterprise seems to have been the black sheep of the Star Trek franchise's TV history. While it was great, it was a show that never got the seven-season run of its predecessors and ended with a finale that left fans disappointed. Now, more than two decades later, Scott Bakula could finally get the chance to give Captain Jonathan Archer the send-off he deserves… by making him President. During a recent interview with TrekMovie, longtime Enterprise writer and producer Michael Sussman revealed that he and Bakula have been tossing around the idea for a new series centered on Archer's later years, a political drama in the Star Trek universe. The concept was sparked after the success of Star Trek: Picard . As Sussman explained, what started as a joking email to Bakula about a potential Star Trek: Archer show quickly turned into something they both thought had real potential. The seed for this idea actually comes from a moment in the Enterprise episode 'In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II.' In it, an evil Mirror Universe Archer pulls up the personnel file of his Prime counterpart. Some fans noticed it outlined Archer's impressive career trajectory after the events of Enterprise — Admiral, Chief of Staff of Starfleet Command, honorary Andorian Imperial Guard, Federation councilman, and, finally, President of Earth in 2184. Sussman said: 'It occurred to me that someone on the writing staff, not the art department, needed to write this graphic. Somebody needed to think about this, right? This was going to be a graphic that spelled out Archer's life and career after the series ended. '[This was after knowing that] the franchise was going into the freezer for a spell. [Archer's future] might be fully visible on the finished episode.' Sussman's working title for the project is Star Trek: United , and he envisions it as a blend of The West Wing and The Diplomat , only set in the formative years of the Federation. 'It's a political thriller and a family drama set in those chaotic, formative years of the Federation. […] We did 98 hours of Enterprise and I think [Bakula] really explored that character, but this was a very different direction for Archer to go in. And I think he was really intrigued by that.' Sussman even drew a comparison to how Andor elevated the Star Wars franchise, hoping Star Trek: United could do the same for Trek. He's already pitched the idea to franchise overseer Alex Kurtzman, and the initial meeting went well enough that Sussman is ready for a longer pitch if the interest continues. Whether it happens is another matter. Paramount's recent merger with Skydance has thrown the future of Star Trek into uncertainty, though the new leadership reportedly includes some dedicated fans. Right now, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the only series actively running, with Starfleet Academy set to arrive in early 2026. Could there be room for Star Trek: United alongside them at some point? Sussman and Bakula certainly think so. I would love to see a series like this get made! I'm a fan of the Enterprise series and would love nothing more than to see Jonathan Archer's story explored further in a new series and I'm totally on board with the concept!
Gizmodo
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
‘Enterprise' Producer Has Hopes Scott Bakula Might Return to ‘Star Trek'
Star Trek is in a bit of an uncertain place right now, as the shows that created its streaming boom have spent the last couple of years either coming to their end or announcing that they're preparing to do so—and that's even putting aside that Paramount itself is controversially about to come under new management. Beyond two and a half more seasons of Strange New Worlds and at least two seasons of Starfleet Academy, where Star Trek goes next is unknown. But it's also a situation where one Trek alum sees an opportunity for a major return. That alum is Michael Sussman, a writer and producer who worked on both Star Trek: Voyager and, more significantly, Star Trek: Enterprise. Speaking to TrekMovie ahead of an appearance at the ongoing STLV: Trek to Vegas convention this weekend, Sussman revealed that in the last few years he had worked with Enterprise star Scott Bakula (who is also making a rare convention appearance at STLV) on a pitch for a successor series inspired by an idea Sussman had sown the seeds for in the last episode of Enterprise he wrote, 'In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II.' Set in the Mirror Universe, the season four two-parter saw Bakula playing the dual role of both the Prime Captain Archer and his Mirror Universe counterpart. The latter, accessing the computer systems of the U.S.S. Defiant, a ship from a future point in the Trek timeline (but not that U.S.S. Defiant) that had made it to the alternate reality, pulls up Prime Archer's personnel file—where both Mirror Archer and the audience alike learn that he is destined to one day become the president of the nascent United Federation of Planets. 'It occurred to me that someone on the writing staff, not the art department, needed to write this graphic. Somebody needed to think about this, right? This was going to be a graphic that spelled out Archer's life and career after the series ended,' Sussman told TrekMovie. 'Holy shit, I actually have an idea for a series, going back to that viewscreen graphic that I planted all those years earlier.' That idea—which, according to Sussman, had been born out of Bakula expressing an interest in returning for an Archer-focused show inspired by the success of the then-ongoing Star Trek: Picard. It coalesced into a pitch Sussman and Bakula worked on called Star Trek: United, which would've revolved around an older Jonathan Archer navigating the diplomatic and political nuances of leading the Federation in its early years and taken a more mature tone. 'It's a political thriller and a family drama set in those chaotic, formative years of the Federation… One of my aspirations would be that the series could do for Star Trek, what Andor did for Star Wars,' Sussman continued. 'It's a show where you can tell adult stories about adults and tell them in a very grounded, realistic way.' However, according to Sussman, the pitch for United, while in the very early stages of discussion, didn't go far. The producer took what he described as a 'high-level overview' for the series to Secret Hideout, Alex Kurtzman's production company that works with Paramount on all of contemporary Star Trek. Although the meeting was positive and Sussman was developing a more in-depth pitch, he was eventually told that Secret Hideout and Paramount would not be moving forward in developing, amid a broader cutback by the studio on streaming spending, and due to a potential similarity overlap with the already-in-development Starfleet Academy, which, although set thousands upon thousands of years after the timeframe of United, would also be set primarily on Earth. Things are indeed about to change at Paramount, with the $8 billion deal for Skydance to take ownership of the studio having closed this week. Paramount's new CEO, David Ellison, has already discussed a renewed focus on premium streaming content. To Sussman, that indicates a potential that—especially after the amount of streaming Star Trek has contracted in the past few years—he could take the United pitch, tweaked enough to alleviate prior concerns about overlap, back to the studio for a new appraisal. 'The hope is that Paramount is planning to invest more in Star Trek on television,' Sussman concluded to TrekMovie, 'and they've been very clear about how they want to make Paramount+ a real player in the streaming space.' Time will tell if the possibility is still on the cards. After all, even if Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy are currently the only two Star Trek series in production at the moment, we've heard plenty of rumors about plans to try and bring the franchise back in film, whether it's Patrick Stewart's own hopes for a new Picard film, the perpetual talk of a fourth entry in the 'Kelvin Timeline' series started by J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek movie, or—perhaps most interestingly in the case of the United pitch—a movie set in the early days of Starfleet and humanity's early steps after making first contact with the Vulcans and other alien species, ground already covered in part by Star Trek: Enterprise. Suffice to say, it's going to take a long road to get any indication of Star Trek's future in this new normal. Whether Captain (or President) Archer will be part of that future remains to be seen. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
