Star Trek has seen a resurgence in the number of properties produced over the last few years. From Discovery to Picard, then there’s Lower Decks, Short Treks, the upcoming Prodigy, and Strange New World series, and a few others in the pipeline, like the long-rumored Section 31 series, as well as rumors surrounding a potential return to Deep Space Nine (though that one is nothing but conjecture at the moment.)
With four shows already out, two more on the way as well as a new film series in development, and countless other properties in the works or being discussed, it’s easy to say that Star Trek is reaching peak saturation. Its part of the reason why no new series will be made until one of the current ones is concluded.
Enter Akiva Goldsman, who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on a variety of topics, including how much is too much for Star Trek.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
"The question of “How much is too much?” is something everybody is grappling with in the streaming era. Does it feel like the Trek output has hit its natural maximum? Does CBS want more?I can’t speak for CBS. Look, we all do the same thing, which is to look at the example that really works — like, you cannot have enough Marvel shows. I’m waiting for Falcon and the Winter Soldier tomorrow, and I watched the Loki trailer 19,000 times. So with that as the example, you can never have enough Star Trek shows. — but we’ve all seen the other side where it doesn’t work. Star Trek has that heart-space for some people, especially now, after the world was revealed for being worse than we thought it was, I’m a big believer in hard-won happy endings. It doesn’t mean it’s not hard getting there, but I’m just going to choose to believe that there can be good outcomes."
Except, you can have too many Marvel shows. It’s part of the reason why the hype around the Marvel franchise has fallen off since Endgame because many fans have gotten a conclusion to the story and feel satisfied with everything.
Now there are all of these extra Marvel shows and while they have a great audience, they’re not pulling in the same market share or online presence that Endgame did. There’s a reason for that and it’s market fatigue.
You can only saturate the market so much with anyone thing before it dries up completely. This is true if we’re talking Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, or some other property. Eventually, fans are going to tire of it and walk away. It happened with the Walking Dead, it happened with the Arrowverse and it’ll happen to Star Trek.
That’s why shows like Strange New Worlds have to hit like they do because you’re not just catering to the established fans, but potential new ones.