Star Trek: Deep Space Nine helped inspire the new live-action Star Trek comedy

As announced at San Diego Comic Con, Tawny Newsome and Justin Simien are developing a new live-action comedy series for Star Trek. Granted, Star Trek has its fair share of comedic moments on every series; however, fans aren't fully onboard with an entire live-action series devoted to comedy. The premise has been defined as a "workplace comedy in the style ofThe Office and Parks and Recreation." Those series have a lot of dedicated fans to this day so that might actually spell good news for this new comedy.

In a SDCC interview with TVLine, Simien shared that the entire premise of the show started because of how much he and Newsome loved the "bottle" shows on Star Trek, which are shows that essentially take place on one set to save costs. And he went on to credit Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for behind the impetus behind the idea. So this sounds more like a day-in-the-life type of comedy. So instead of just a few scenes with a Quark-type character, we get an entire twenty-two minutes (or however long the episodes will be).  

"“I think DS9 is a big, big inspiration. But also… those episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation where it wasn’t plot heavy. Where it was more like you were with a character for a day, and you got to see their perspective on a bigger thing. Those were always my favorite episodes and so we just decided to make a show that was made out of our favorite parts.”"

- Justin Simien

According to Simien and Newsome, the series will be set in the 25th century, and the short tagline indicates the setting could possibly be Risa.

"Federation outsiders serving a gleaming resort planet find out their day-to-day exploits are being broadcast to the entire quadrant."

I'm sure fans will still have their doubts about the series, but now that we know a little more about it, this could actually be successful. There are plenty of moments on the Star Trek series that are laugh-out-loud funny, especially with Worf [Michael Dorn] and Dr. Phlox [John Billingsley]. These characters might not show up on the series, but if it leans toward this type of comedy, it just might work!