Star Trek: Legacy Is The Franchise’s Only Way To Move Forward
Star Trek: Legacy - a series proposed by Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas - is exactly what the franchise's increasingly polarized fandom needs.
This week, Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas — no doubt hoping to get fan reaction on his side — went public on Twitter about his pitch for Star Trek: Legacy. The series would combine the cast of TNG with the younger heroes of Picard, and the idea was quickly endorsed by LeVar Burton on an episode of The View. After hearing the idea, and considering the current state of Trek and its splintered fandom, I’m convinced Legacy is perhaps the only way the franchise can truly move forward.
There is a reason why DeForest Kelley made a cameo as a much older Leonard McCoy in the premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation — as an endorsement from the old guard. While it may now be hard to believe considering the sacred status that series like TNG and Deep Space Nine have since achieved among much of fandom, back in the day there were plenty of hardcore Trek fans who slammed TNG as a “fake” successor to the original. Meanwhile, the guys making TNG didn’t have social media to deal with.
Now there are social media influencers whose entire online persona revolves around one, and only one, concept: hating so-called “NuTrek,” i.e. in particular the Kelvinverse films and Star Trek: Discovery. Saying names like “Alex Kurtzman” or “J.J. Abrams” around such NuTrek-haters is akin to racing into a church and screaming “SATAN” over and over again. Unfortunately, they aren’t the only reason Star Trek: Legacy is so important.
On the other end of the Trek spectrum are fans who have been understandably crushed by the news of Discovery‘s cancellation. The timing of the news came with word that fans and critics were gushing over Picard‘s final season, and that Paramount+ was using the only remaining live action Trek series in production, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, as one of its flagship series in its marketing without any mention of Discovery, Lower Decks, or Prodigy.
If they weren’t already, many of the Discovery fans soon became as incensed as the NuTrek haters, digging deep for any reason they could find to trash Picard and Strange New Worlds. This is why I now believe Star Trek: Legacy is so crucial.
If there is any chance of stopping Trek fandom from looking as divisive as Congress, the old and the new have to find a way to work together, which is precisely the concept behind Star Trek: Legacy. As impossible as it may seem for some fans to welcome new heroes, accepting the new becomes a little bit easier when your old favorites are there as equal partners.
The truth is without Star Trek: Legacy even seeing the light of day yet, we see that this fusion of the old and the new is already working. In Season 3 of Picard, the titular hero’s son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleer), Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), and even the pain-in-the-ass Titan Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick) are already earning tons of fans. Throw in at least some of the TNG cast, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Raffi (Michelle Hurd), and maybe a surprise addition or two from Deep Space Nine, and you’ve got yourself a holosuite ball game.
Not to mention that when I say Star Trek: Legacy is the only way for the franchise to move forward, I’m using the word “forward” both figuratively and literally. We will apparently not be returning to the 32nd century setting after the end of Discovery. That means the only live-action show left from Star Trek — a franchise about the future — will be a prequel series.
Green light Star Trek: Legacy, Paramount.
