Happy spring, Fangirlish Star Trek Fam! I hope you’ve had a great start to 2024. The Star Trek fandom is shaping up to have a great year. Here are a few Star Trek news highlights you may have missed and a few things to look forward to this spring. We’ve got Star Trek: Discovery, Section 31, Star Trek comics, and more for you here on Fangirlish! Let’s fly!
Trek Talks 3
Did you catch Trek Talks 3 on January 13, 2024? I hope you did, as it was an amazing day of Star Trek panels, discussions, and a great way to kick off Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend by honoring his legacy of community philanthropy. The full telethon is available to watch on YouTube, with chapters to allow you to jump between panels. Highlights from this year’s show include a “Tuvix” Panel, which looked at the controversial episode with Star Trek: Voyager actors and writer Tim Russ, Ethan Phillips, Lisa Klink, and Tuvix himself, Tom Wright. Moderated by Star Trek: Voyager actors and hosts of The Delta Flyers Podcast Robert Duncan McNeill and Garrett Wang, this panel brought insight into the episode not seen before. Another popular panel to watch for is the Star Trek: Picard Season 3 panel, featuring several Picard cast members and showrunner Terry Matalas.
Trek Talks 3 was not just an opportunity to participate in what is effectively a Star Trek convention from the comfort of your couch, but it also helped people facing food insecurity in southern California. The Trek Talks telethon has been a fundraiser for The Hollywood Food Coalition for the past three years. Star Trek fans made this year’s Trek Talks the best yet, exceeding its $50,000 goal by 220% for a total of $110,180. You can still give to the cause, so please consider doing so, especially if you enjoyed the show. Stay tuned here to Fangirlish for more updates on next year’s Trek Talks 4 telethon!
Star Trek: Section 31 Film is Underway!
If you’ve been hankering for more Section 31 stories, more Michelle Yeoh in your Star Trek, or all of the above, keep your hailing frequencies set to Paramount+. Production has begun on Star Trek: Section 31, which will hit Paramount+ sometime in 2025. In addition to Michelle Yeoh, the film will also feature Omari Hardwick, Kacey Rohl, and Ted Lasso’s Sam Richardson.
The film is directed by frequent Star Trek: Discovery director and producer, the brilliant Olatunde Osunsanmi. Writing the film are Bo Yeon Kim, Erika Lippoldt, and Craig Sweeny, all of whom have worked in and around the writer’s room on Star Trek: Discovery. We’ve got a solid team lined up here and I’m eager to see what they come up with for Star Trek: Section 31. I also hope this encourages the folks at Paramount+ to experiment with more Star Trek TV movies. It’s an opportunity to play around, see what works, and then maybe, just maybe, figure out what should be the next Star Trek TV series. What are you looking forward to with Star Trek: Section 31? Sound off in the comments!
Star Trek: Discovery Final Trailer and Premiere
Buckle up for one last ride with the crew of Star Trek: Discovery. I have previously expressed my heartbrokenness at the unplanned cancellation of Star Trek: Discovery. Make no mistake, I am still bummed that this will be the final season of Discovery, but the latest trailer we got has me hopeful that it will be one for the books. Highlights for me are some Saru/T’Rina hints, Michael kicking butt and taking names, my girl Tilly back on Discovery, and what appears to be a quest for some sort of yet-to-be-named object. Watch the trailer, and tell me what you’re most looking forward to in Star Trek: Discovery season five.
Speaking of Star Trek: Discovery season five, the season premiere is coming up quickly on Thursday, April 4, 2024. Episodes one and two are dropping the same day. To whet your appetite for Discovery, we’ve got a real treat for you coming soon. Fangirlish was fortunate enough to be included in roundtable interviews with the Star Trek: Discovery cast and showrunners. The interviews will drop here soon. Set your hailing frequencies to our Fangirlish Star Trek tag here for the interviews and all the Star Trek news you need. The interviews feature Michelle Paradise, Alex Kurtzman, Wilson Cruz, Mary Wiseman, Blu del Barrio, David Ajala, Doug Jones, and of course, our Queen and Captain, Sonequa Martin-Green. You won’t want to miss it.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Premiere Update
So what is next for the Star Trek universe’s exploration into the future? According to a recent interview with Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is halfway through the writing process. Filming is expected to begin in late summer 2024. While casting details are still under wraps, we do know that Tawny Newsome aka Beckett Mariner of Star Trek: Lower Decks is on the writing staff. This means that we are going to have some great Star Trek storytelling coming our way. Nobody knows Trek quite like Tawny does, so having her on the writing staff is sure to combine great storytelling with good humor.
Additionally, Kurtzman noted in the interview that the series will have ten episodes. While we don’t have an exact date yet, he remarked that we may not see the series until 2026. Whenever we do get Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, I hope we get to see more of my girl Professor Sylvia Tilly. Tell me more of what you’d like to see in Starfleet Academy in the comments.
Star Trek Comics Highlights
If you’ve not hit the comic shop lately, you are missing out on a wealth of Star Trek comics. I particularly enjoy the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “Scorpius Run” series that just wrapped. Additionally, there’s a fun exploration of young Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard’s Academy. Star Trek: Defiant focuses on Worf captaining the Defiant, along with Spock and Data. Star Trek: Sons of Star Trek focuses on the sons of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine crew—Jake Sisko, Alexander Rozhenko, and Nog.
Speaking of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the ongoing Star Trek series, featuring the return of Captain Sisko. We’re up to issue #20 of that one, so there’s plenty for you to read there. If you want to catch up on your Star Trek comics, start by picking your favorite Trek series. Then, find the books at your friendly local comic shop. There truly is something for everyone. Have you kept up with any of the recent Trek comics? Tell me your favorites in the comments!
Found: A Lost Star Trek Special
Finally, to wrap my Fangirlish Star Trek news round-up for today, I want to draw attention to a previously lost Star Trek: The Original Series special that originally aired in 1975. The TOS two-part episode, “The Menagerie” was edited into a TV movie with interstitials hosted by Leonard Nimoy. Before this month, there was no record of this special anywhere online. Rob O’Hara discovered the special on a tape he received from a friend, D. Stone. After conferring with the Retroist and Earl Green, two of the foremost authorities on television and science fiction history online today, Rob confirmed that there was no prior record of this special.
Earl Green, science fiction historian extraordinaire, assisted Rob in the clipping of the interstitials. Now they are available for you to watch on YouTube. Treat yourself to a bit of Star Trek history, and take a look back at what we did before we had the wealth of Star Trek shows and films we do today. It’s also a cautionary tale to not throw out all those recorded-from-TV VHS tapes. You never know what previously unknown TV history might be buried there, allowing you to make Star Trek news.
Thanks for reading our Fangirlish Star Trek news round-up. What are you most looking forward to in Star Trek this year? Leave me a comment and let’s talk Trek.
Star Trek: Discovery season five premieres April 4, 2024, on Paramount+.
