Top 6 ways the Star Trek franchise can move forward

Copyright CBS and/or Paramount – Official Star Trek Deep Space Nine Season One cast image

Sequels

Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can both be considered sequel series, as they follow the timeline of the Enterprise of their day, but do not actually deal with the stories of the flagship of the Federation and her crew, but can easily bring them back for cameo appearances or even different roles as they did with transporter chief Miles O’Brien who became Chief of Operations aboard Deep Space Nine.

Many fans have interest in this route, perhaps even following a face we already know, such as the proposed Star Trek: Captain Worf, Star Trek: Titan featuring the continuing adventures of Captain Riker and Counsellor Troi, or Star Trek: Challenger with the adventures of Captain LaForge.

While following one of these major characters wouldn’t be required, Voyager for example didn’t feature any previously known characters during its run. Unless of course you subscribe to the notion that Tom Paris may as well have been Cadet Nicholas Locarno, and likely would have been if not for the need to pay royalties to the writers of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The First Duty”.

This route appears to be the one they’ve chosen for the upcoming Star Trek: Picard series which is drawing a lot if interest from fans and will likely be a huge success for CBS All Access both in terms of viewership and possibly by acclaim.