It’s time to put Jonathan Frakes in charge of all Star Trek

With there being controversial rumors surrounding Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it’s time to give Jonathan Frakes the reins of Star Trek.

Alex Kurtzman has done a job as the head of Star Trek during their All Access days. Good job, bad job; that’s entirely up to you, the fans, to decide that. There’s no point in adding any fuel that trash fire of a discussion. Yet, when you steep shows in controversy as your selling point, that doesn’t seem like the best way to go about building a long-term, sustainable universe. Which is why fans should be demanding Jonathan Frakes take over.

If using controversy wasn’t enough to get Star Wars over, then it won’t work for Star Trek. Disney fans are not easily swayed from their properties, so it was shocking to see the fans turn on the new films. It’s time to start taking stock in the moment, CBS. The whole “it can’t happen to us” mentality needs to go. It can and it will happen to you.

Star Trek is balancing on the edge of that same Star Wars-line themselves, making ill-advised decisions like putting Jean-Luc Picard into an android’s body that will still die. That is the peak of Mt. Stupid Ideas. Oh look, a Star Wars flag is here. Guess Trek wasn’t the first up this mountain.

That’s not to say the new shows haven’t brought in good ideas. Sonequa Martin-Green is a tremendous actress, but too bad they told her to act like a Vulcan. Anson Mount’s a great Captain Pike, but sticking him with James Kirk is just a dumb idea. Three series running at once? Awesome, too bad that’ll simply cause fatigue.

So we need to look at Frakes now, as Kurtzman has proven he’s more worried about making his Star Trek look just like J.J. Abram’s Trek than anything else. If Abrams has proven anything, it’s that he isn’t too good with the space franchises. An Abrams Space-franchise is like going to McDonald’s and asking for pizza. Once the novelty wears off, you realize you just bought a bun with pasta sauce and melted cheese for $6.00.

Yay.

Frakes knows that when people show up for Trek, they don’t want Beastie Boys and classic cars. They want debates, controversial decisions with no clear right answer, they want characters fighting against themselves as much, if not more than, any alien being. They want the foundation Trek was based on.

Not ’90s rock, motorcycles, and lens flares.

Frakes is the man to lay the Trek franchise onto. He understands the universe, the characters, the way to make the shows, and to frame the conversations. He wouldn’t just shoehorn ideas into the series, or makeup reasons to slam nostalgia down the fans throats. He knows fans want new stories, new adventures, and new characters.

Not three Spocks.

So let’s give Frakes the reigns. He can’t do any worse than Kurtzman.