Jonathan Frakes wants in on potential Short Treks musical epsiode

Star Trek franchise veteran Jonathan Frakes wants in an a Short Treks musical episode if Alex Kurtzman does intend on getting it made.

If Alex Kurtzman wants to do a musical episode on Star Trek: Short Treks, then you can count franchise alum, Jonathan Frakes in. Frakes, who played William Riker for over 30 years, has been integral to the Star Trek universe in recent years as a director. He’s taken the seat in several Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard episodes and is interested in doing more work, namely on any potential Short Treks musical episode.

The musical episode is a high concept idea from series producer Alex Kurtzman and would see the short-form storytelling of Short Treks be used to do a mini-musical of sorts. The short nuggets of Star Trek have already been used to tackle more obscure ideas, like how people not in the Federation react to conflict, as well as how a cadet handle high-stress situations.

As far as interest in the idea, Frakes seems interested.

"Yeah. I was just about to say musical. I’m dying to do something in that world anyway, ever since Maurice Hurley, who was our showrunner briefly on Next Gen, took me to lunch and said, “What do you like?” I said, “I like jazz. and I like baseball and I play the trombone.” The next thing you know there I was in the holodeck with Minuet. I think that a musical, especially in a Short Treks, would be spectacular. I think it’d be wonderful. The dancing in “Calypso” was magical."

For Frakes to get behind the director’s chair for a musical would be interesting. While the idea isn’t going to appeal to many, if not most of the Star Trek fandom it has potential. From a creative standpoint, it seems likely some would like to see how it turns out and how good of a job Frakes can do with it. It’s not the most popular idea and if shows like Psych have shown, it’s not always the most welcomed idea, but if it can be done right it may just be worth trying.