Star Trek is working on ways to do a crossover among the current series.
There have been some major changes to the Star Trek presentation since the franchise came back to series with Discovery. Among those changes include the tone of each show, the audience’s target demographic, and of course, a lack of crossovers.
While the series has done some inter-woven narratives between series, it’s largely stayed with Discovery and Strange New Worlds, as the latter spun out of the former, taking several cast members with them when Strange New Worlds launched.
The lack of crossover is widely noticed, and a source of conversation among the fanbase. During the Rick Berman-Era of Star Trek, often cited as the most well-received, each of the four shows had some sort of crossover. The Next Generation’s Jean Luc Picard appeared on the pilot episode of Deep Space Nine, while Quark of Deep Space Nine did the same favor for Voyager.
Various characters and actors have crossed over between the shows, with characters like The Doctor guest-starring on Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation’s Worf transferring over from one show to another, only to return for the Next Generation era of films despite his in-universe transfer.
This is something that has largely been kept from audiences. While fans have had minor cameos, the shows hardly do any actual crossovers. This may change, according to Alex Kurtzman. Kurtzman spoke to Wil Wheaton of The Ready Room (Via TrekMovies.com) and revealed that crossovers are in the works.
"It’s an essential part of the process in terms of the world build, because we want to make sure we’re not smashing into each other. We want to make sure we’re building on each other. So there are things in Picard that are set up to pay off in Discovery. There are things that we set up in Discovery that we can then go back and retrofit in seasons that haven’t been written yet of other shows… It’s very important that each showrunner has their own individual take on what they love about Star Trek, while of course, embracing the fundamentals. But I feel like you want everybody to be different. You don’t want the same thing in every show."
Which Star Trek series make sense for a crossover?
I should also point out that characters from series that have already ended their run don’t count as a crossover. Only two shows in production at the same time are being thought of here.
The first one that makes sense is the two animated series, Lower Decks, and Prodigy, as they’re the closest in terms of a time period of any of the new shows. They’re both animated, which means you’d be able to re-create the character designs of whichever character you used to fit the animation of the show they’re guest-spotting on.
You could do something with Strange New Worlds and Discovery but it would require time travel and let’s face it, time travel largely sucks.
Outside of that, there really aren’t any crossovers that make sense.