Star Trek In 2023: What We’re Most Looking Forward To

Apr 10, 2023

| January 1, 2023 | By: TrekMovie Editors148 comments so far

After reflecting back on the year that was, we’re going to look ahead to the next one. There is a lot to look forward to in the world of Star Trek in 2023. Sometimes we know exactly when they’re coming, sometimes we don't so we’re guessing, but we remain, in true Star Trek form, optimistic about what's to come.

In no particular order, here's what the TrekMovie team is most excited about…

After two mixed-bag seasons, Star Trek: Picard is getting revived for a third and final season under new management with showrunner Terry Matalas reengineering the show to give fans the "proper sendoff" for the TNG crew that Star Trek: Nemesis didn't. But star Sir Patrick Stewart cautions us not to call it a "reunion," as his former crew are fully integrated into the story, which promises some dramatic tension. Hyped as a cinematic and emotional season, it's worth being cautiously optimistic the third time is going to be the charm.

It's doubtful that anyone had this on their predictions list: Academy Award nominee Carol Kane will be appearing on SNW in a recurring role to play Pelia, a new engineer on the Enterprise (filling the sad gap left by Hemmer's death in season 1). Kane is an actress who shines onscreen no matter who she's playing and always brings something special to the table—check out Taxi, The Princess Bride, Dog Day Afternoon, Scrooged, Annie Hall, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, just for starters.

Another big highlight for the second season of SNW will be the first major crossover of the new era of Star Trek shows. Lower Decks stars Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome broke the news when they crashed the Strange New Worlds panel at San Diego Comic-Con revealing they will appear in live action as Boimler and Mariner on board the USS Enterprise (and Pike will get animated too). To make it even better, the episode was directed by none other than Jonathan Frakes. Counting the days!

Season 3 of Lower Decks delivered the fun news that T’Lyn (voiced by Gabrielle Ruiz and first seen in season 2's excellent "wej Duj") has joined the Cerritos crew to be part of the senior science offer training program alongside a very enthusiastic Ensign Tendi. Viewed as "unstable" by her Vulcan crewmates aboard the Sh’vhal, she's likely to get the opposite reputation on the Cerritos. Showrunner Mike McMahan said he couldn't wait to write it, and we can't wait to watch.

The first season of Star Trek: Prodigy just wrapped up, with big events setting up a whole new dynamic for season 2, focused on the search for Chakotay on board Admiral Janeway's new ship. Now that the show has moved back into the Federation, season 2 looks like it will have even more canon connections; the producers have told us we can expect "some really wild, fun, legendary characters coming back." Looks like Janeway may have some familiar help guiding the young "warrant officers in training" in season 2.

Assuming Paramount+ can at least get it started sometime in 2023, Star Trek: Discovery looks to be pivoting again for its fifth season. Letting go of the galaxy-ending stakes that have been a hallmark of the previous four seasons, the new one promises a "tonal shift," moving away from all that heaviness for "more of an action-adventure sort of season" focused on a big mystery that is a bit of a quest or treasure hunt… think Indiana Jones in space.

One of the fun surprise announcements of 2022 was from Hasbro, who are planning on releasing their first-ever Nerf product for Star Trek in 2023. The limited edition release actually includes two TNG-era Nerf phasers: The Star Trek Starfleet Type 3 Phaser Motorized Blaster with Lights & Sounds and the Starfleet Type 2 Phaser. Like with the first wave of new Playmates roleplay toys, it's great to have Star Trek stuff you can play with again.

Originally expecting a 2022 release, we are still excited about this upcoming narrative adventure game set in the post-Nemesis era. Coming to PC and Console, Resurgence will be a story-based game designed to be accessible to a wide audience. A preview at Comic-Con 2022 was impressive and the new IDW prequel comic tie-in is setting the stage and introducing the characters.

IDW blew us away in 2022 with their new ongoing series entitled simply Star Trek, and in March, it gets a "dark and edgy" spinoff called Star Trek: Defiant, described as "The Dirty Dozen meets Star Trek." IDW's Star Trek editor Heather Antos said that they have "comics’ biggest Star Trek fans at the helm of the biggest and boldest interconnected comics story ever." If that's true and even more Star Trek comics are coming as part of a "cinematic universe," 2023 is shaping up to be a banner year for comics fans. Plus, with Worf leading a Defiant crew that includes Ro Laren!, Lore!!, and Spock!!!, how could you not be excited?

2023 will see the first novel tie-in to Strange New Worlds with The High Country from John Jackson Miller, who wrote our favorite Trek book of 2021 (Picard: Rogue Elements). The new book is set sometime during the first season of the show and will see the return of Hemmer. We can't wait.

Since the release of Star Trek Beyond in 2016, finding the way forward for the Star Trek film franchise has vexed Paramount Pictures, resulting in a number of starts and stops along the way. 2022 brought exciting news early on with the announcement of plans to start shooting a new Kelvin movie by the end of the year for release in Christmas 2023, but that fizzled out and the director exited. That project could still get going, or maybe the studio will pivot to something tied into the Paramount+ shows, or something different entirely, but Star Trek is too important to Paramount to continue to languish. We continue to optimistically hope that something definitive will be announced about the next big screen Trek.

After wrapping up the TOS movies on 4K HDR Blu-ray in 2022, it is expected for Paramount Home Entertainment to move on to the four TNG movies, with a possible release of Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis coming in 2023. It's been rumored a release could come as early as First Contact Day in April.

Another rollover from 2022, To The The Journey: Looking Back at Star Trek: Voyager is a documentary coming from the same team behind the DS9 doc What We Left Behind, promising the same kind of dive into Star Trek: Voyager. Production continued in 2022 with more interviews being done as recently as November. We’re hoping that this is the year they put it all together for a deep dive into the Delta Quadrant.

We’ve been hearing whispers (sometimes loud ones, at big events) about new Star Trek shows in development. Will it be a Section 31 show with Michelle Yeoh? A Starfleet Academy series set in the Discovery era? A spin-off from Picard featuring legacy stars? A live-action Janeway show? Nothing's been locked in yet, but it seems a good bet that at least one of them is going to get a green light this year.

In 2021, he swam with sharks and went into space. In 2022, he was praised by Rob Zombie for his cover of "The Great American Nightmare." No doubt the ninety-one-year-old will come up with something to surprise us this year too, in addition to writing a book or two and releasing that documentary he's been talking about.

Delayed from last year (supply chain issues, you know how it goes these days), Prodigy toys are on the way from Playmates. A few lucky folks got a small plush Murf at NYCC, but the rest of us will finally be able to join in the fun when we get action figures of Dal, Gwyn, Jankom, Zero, and Murf, and then Rok-Tahk and Holo Janeway before we hit 2024. (Now can we start talking about a plush Rok and a wind-up Zero?)

Season 1 gave us terrific, unique discussions with Nana Visitor, Michael Dorn, Wil Wheaton, Michael Westmore, Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, and many more. This year, she's moving beyond her TNG intimates: Announced guests for season 2 include some captains—William Shatner, Kate Mulgrew, Anson Mount—along with Jack Quaid, Tawny Newsome, John Billingsley, Rosalind Chao, Wilson Cruz, and others yet to be announced.

In 2020, Sir Patrick announced that he's writing his memoir, which he's finally gotten some time to work on now that production on the final season of Picard has wrapped. The most recent update came this March, when he said he’d reached page 310 and had a title: Are You Anybody? There's no publish date yet, but fingers are crossed we’ll be able to read it before the year is out.

Let us know what you’re most looking forward to from Star Trek in 2023 in the comments!

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