Star Trek's Kirk 'Year One' Series Reportedly Falls Apart Before Paramount Ever Ordered It

Star Trek's planned Kirk centered follow up series, often called Year One, appears to be dead, and it never even got the chance to be officially cancelled because Paramount reportedly never ordered it in the first place. I made a video only a day earlier arguing that Year One might not be the right move for the franchise, with no idea that news would break the very next day suggesting the whole thing had quietly collapsed.

Year One reportedly falls apart before Paramount ever said yes

Akiva Goldsman has now admitted that nobody from Paramount ever called about moving forward, that the Strange New Worlds sets are gone, and that the actors have already started taking other jobs. I want to be clear that this is all alleged. It is news circulating online, but it is coming from the source himself, and I am treating it with that caveat rather than as confirmed studio policy.

What makes this distinction matter is that Paramount did not greenlight Year One and then pull the plug. Goldsman and the creative team talked publicly about an idea they wanted to make. Fans and I discussed it as a possible next show. Paramount apparently never committed to any of it, or simply did not listen or care. That is a strange place to end up after everything that had already been built.

Strange New Worlds built a backdoor pilot for Kirk's crew, then let it go

After spending years slowly assembling Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty and the rest, essentially using Strange New Worlds as a backdoor pilot for the original Enterprise crew, Paramount reportedly just let everybody go home. Paul Wesley had appeared repeatedly as Kirk, with Spock, Scotty and the others already on the Enterprise. The ship had been built, the actors were cast, the costumes and the bridge and the whole production infrastructure were already there.

Whether Paramount officially intended it or not, this absolutely felt like a backdoor pilot stretched across multiple seasons. I will say, and this is just my opinion, that the more seasons we got of Strange New Worlds, the less I personally enjoyed it. Still, the setup for Kirk taking the chair was right there in front of us, which is what makes the outcome so strange. Why build a transition that visible and then dismantle everything before deciding whether to continue it, when it was probably the cheapest moment Paramount was ever going to have to make Year One, before sets need rebuilding and contracts need renegotiating.

My reservations about Year One as the flagship going forward

I have genuine reservations about Year One being the primary, anchor series moving forward, even though I said I would have loved it as a secondary show. Star Trek cannot survive always going backwards. The Next Generation worked because it gave us a new crew, and the same is true of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. I do not want the entire future of Trek to become an endless tour through empty spaces between stories we have already watched, since we already know Kirk becomes captain and we already know where those characters end up. There is a ceiling on how surprising Year One could actually be.

Someone could point out that I am advocating hard for a series like United, which is also going backwards in time. That is fair, but it is a different era we have not explored, and it would lean more toward political drama than ship hopping through a universe we already know. Even so, none of that changes the bigger problem. You cannot shut down the current flagship, let its natural continuation fall apart, and then refuse to tell fans what comes next.

Strange New Worlds' final season leaves the TV side of Trek nearly empty

Strange New Worlds is heading into its fourth season with season five confirmed as its final, shortened season. That gives the show barely enough time to complete Pike's journey and transition the Enterprise to Kirk while wrapping up five seasons of character development. After that, the television side of Trek gets extremely thin.

The only confirmed continuation beyond Strange New Worlds right now is season two of Starfleet Academy, which Paramount is promoting at New York Comic Con. That is genuinely the one active live action series with a confirmed future. Starfleet Academy is set in the far future Discovery era and focuses on cadets learning to become officers, which is not the kind of future I have been asking for.

From a full universe to one cadet show: Prodigy, Lower Decks, Discovery and Picard have all wrapped

Laid out together, the pattern is stark. Prodigy ended after Netflix picked up its second season. Lower Decks finished with season five. Discovery is over. Picard is over. Strange New Worlds is about to be over. Paramount has gone from having an entire Trek television universe to potentially having one live action show left, about Starfleet cadets, in the form of Starfleet Academy.

A new movie is reportedly in the works, but I'm not celebrating yet

There is a new movie in development. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are working on a film featuring an entirely new crew, with inspiration reportedly coming from Crimson Tide and Training Day. Honestly, I like the sound of that. A new crew is what I have been asking for, and Crimson Tide style tension on a Starfleet vessel could work well if it is built around command decisions, morality and officers clashing.

A movie being in development is not the same as a movie entering production. Projects have been announced, rewritten, delayed and quietly abandoned so many times that I am not celebrating until somebody is actually standing in front of a camera in a Starfleet uniform. We have heard about a fourth Kelvin movie for years, with different directors, scripts and stories attached, and at one point Quentin Tarantino was reportedly going to make a rated R Trek movie. Until filming actually begins, this new movie is encouraging, but it is not a dependable roadmap for the franchise.

The 60th anniversary passed without a roadmap, and here's what I'd want next

We just celebrated Star Trek's 60th anniversary, and that should have been the moment Paramount clearly explained what the next era would look like. Instead it was dominated by screenings, merchandise, partnerships, game shows, special events and restored movies, all of which was fine, but a 60th anniversary should also celebrate where the franchise is going. Trek Day came and went without an announcement of the next major series, and now Goldsman is saying the most obvious continuation is probably dead in the water.

If any news, leaks or rumors surfaced that a fourth Kelvin timeline movie was actually happening, giving Chris Pine's crew a conclusion, I would take it in a heartbeat, lens flares and all. My own preference right now leans toward a Legacy style continuation built around the Next Generation era, Seven of Nine, Q, and the Enterprise G, alongside something like United. I have also floated the idea of returning to Deep Space Nine thirty years in the future, not as a reboot but as a genuine return to the station, which could feel fresh. There are options on the table. What is missing is anyone at Paramount who seems to be listening.

What would you rather see next: a Kelvin timeline conclusion, a Next Generation era continuation, or something built from Deep Space Nine?