Modern entertainment is too afraid to move forward. That is something we've seen across multiple genres and facets of the industry. Be it remixes in music that return a 40-year-old pop song to its former glory, a movie series that has been running non-stop for nearly 20 years with no sign of doing anything new, or franchises like Star Trek continually revisiting the past. We're stuck in what was once good and what may never be again.
Star Trek is one of the biggest offenders of this, oversaturating their modern product with copious amounts of nostalgia all to keep fans invested. Now, this isn't a bad thing if done every once in a while. If a show like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was the only culprit, that would be fine. After all, it's finishing the story the original, unused, Star Trek pilot started.
That's not the case though. Every series that has been created since Star Trek: Discovery has used nostalgia to sell their show. Discovery used Spock, while Picard used its titular character, the rest of the Next Generation crew, and Seven of Nine. Lower Decks was nothing more than a continual callback series to better concepts of the past. Prodigy is a spiritual successor to Voyager and the new upcoming series, Starfleet Academy, will bring in characters from Discovery and Voyager.
It's all Star Trek can do. Yet, the biggest offenders are the IDW comic series. Star Trek: Defiant #26 may have been the worst example of this. The series already features characters like Worf, Spock, Lore, Ro Laren and B'Elanna Torres, but in the 26th issue, the series brought back the Maquis, and The Borg back into the conversation.
Concepts that are 30 years old.
This wouldn't be so bad if the need for more popular concepts to exist across all of the brands at the moment. Every former and active series is embracing the past of the franchise, including the other Star Trek comic. That comic, just called 'Star Trek' features Benjamin Sisko as its head character and also includes a classic lineup of super popular characters from the 1990s.
This is a major issue that has plagued Star Trek since 2009. This idea is that they can continually repeat the success of the franchise by tapping into the same creative well of content for years to come. Eventually, wells run dry and this well will eventually run dry as well.
Star Trek has found limited success following this format. They've ruined several franchises in the process and numerous characters all by refusing to let go of the past. No character was harmed more than Jean-Luc Picard, who in the span of three seasons was shown to be weak, feeble, easily killed, a robot, and lastly an absentee dad. Now, there's more to that last point, but if you're unaware, all you need to know is that Beverly Crusher can never be redeemed due to it.
It's sad to see that characters get constantly nerfed by writers who had no clue what the purpose of them was. While the IDW books have largely generated positive reviews, eventually whatever limited success the comic series is garnering will dry up, and then what?
It's one thing to world build off of what came before, but we're leaning on past concepts so much that the only logical conclusion is the complete and utter collapse of the franchise. If all you do is live off of past concepts, you'll have nothing new to build off of. It's time IDW moved off of the constant attempts to live off of nostalgia.