Star Trek: Legacy has surpassed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and it doesn’t even exist yet.
Star Trek: Legacy is the spinoff idea that Terry Matalas had for Star Trek: Picard. While Picard featured the crew of the Next Generation in one final romp, Legacy would see their respective children take their turn at the head of the class. It’s nothing more than an idea, with a built-in story arc should the series get picked up.
That arc, of course, would see Jack Crusher, the son of Jean-Luc Picard, dealing with his own sort of trials at the hand of Q, Picard’s long-time “friend-esis” (neme-buddy?) He’d be back by the daughters of Geordi La Forge, the daughter of Will Riker and Deanna Troi, and every other second-generation character we can find.
It’s an idea that fans like and they’re not afraid to shout it. While still short of their goal of 75,000 signatures on Change.org, the petition to get Legacy made has surpassed 57k signatures. While they’re still far short of their goal, it should be mentioned that they passed a similar Change.org petition to get Strange New Worlds’ made, and that only had 30,070 signatures.
Will Star Trek: Legacy get made by Paramount+?
If this were three-four years ago when Strange New Worlds was first announced, then yes. I would think that Legacy would be a shoo-in to be made, but that was a different time for streaming. Since 2020, here’s how things have changed;
- The pandemic screwed up a lot of things in the entertainment world.
- Debtors for streaming services area wanting to be paid back.
- Paramount Global has had several years of down revenue
- Revenue fell 8% in Quarter 1 of 2023 for Paramount Global
- Due to declining revenue and mounting debt, budgets were cut at Paramount+
- Star Trek: Section 31 was amended from a series to a film to presumably satisfy contracts and keep costs low
All of that comes into play now, and it’s fair to say that the folks at Paramount Global and Paramount+ aren’t looking at spending a quarter of a billion dollars on another television series as they’ve done in the past.
The revenue for these high-priced shows just doesn’t exist right now and by the time it might, the hype may be gone. People need to remember that Star Trek: Picard’s third season was filmed two years ago, before all of the financial issues mounted at once.
We’re not sure what a future Star Trek series will look like after all of this is settled and finalized. The special effects will likely take a massive hit, however, to save money, and that may hinder what some creators can do with the brand.