Star Trek Day needs to be the yearly centerpiece of the franchise

Star Trek Day is supposed to be a major event every year for the franchise. The series as a whole celebrates Sept 8 as the day the franchise was born, harking back to the original show's debut in 1966. Since then, the franchise has grown and developed over the years to include more and more shows, and even a few film franchises thrown in.

Yet, when the decision to start celebrating the birth of the franchise in 2019, the "holiday" has really only been such in name only. Very rarely has the actual events of Star Trek Day, or even First Contact Day, been worth talking about.

Last year, the big "get" of the "holiday" was Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airing on CBS and a special hosted by Jerry O'Connell. It wasn't much, but yet Star Trek celebrated it like a sports fandom celebrates winning the league championship.

It doesn't have to be that way either. You can do a proper Star Trek Day. Considering the franchise spends so much time giving hype to other franchises, like the San Diego Comic-Con, you'd think that Paramount and Star Trek would opt to instead lend themselves to their own created holiday. This is part of the reason why Star Trek Day 2024 will only feature a select amount of free episodes.

The franchise is also running a new charity initiative, called "Take the Chair, Make an Impact", where fans are asked to donate money and time to their community. The franchise will also be donating 25% of revenue to various charities for the month. Sure, a noble idea, but for such a vaunted day, it's pretty lackluster.

Star Trek Day should go hand in hand with an official convention that ends (or starts) on the official date of the franchise's birth. Then, during the convention, various interviews, previews, and major news announcements should be made. We're talking about anything and everything; returning actors and actresses, new Hallmark ornaments, trailers and news announcements and so much else.

It should be the day that every Star Trek fan old and young, near and far tune into not just for the celebration of the franchise's birth but also to engage in the series' future while respecting the past. Right now it's little more than a blip on the radar and a cheap ploy to get people to fein interest in not-so-interesting concepts.

But with the right guidance and structure, Star Trek Day could be huge.