Ultimately, Star Trek isn’t going to succeed as a giant billion dollar franchise like Marvel or Star Wars and trying to turn it into one is likely to kill it. What it can be is an ongoing series of shows which are financially and creatively successful. However, it needs is a creative refresh. Too often Star Trek and other tv/movie sci fi is just remixing decades old science fiction concepts.

If I was running Star Trek, I would recruit a collection of great science fiction writers and/or buy a bunch of original science fiction stories to bring in ideas people haven’t seen multiple times. Set the show in a new region with some separation to explain why we aren’t seeing Klingons and Romulans and all the rest and tell some great science fiction stories. Ideas will drive buzz which will bring in new viewers.

Make it episodic again, focus on the story instead of the action, and basically just do TNG, but with even better sets, costumes and make-up. Stop trying to be dark, gritty and edgy. If there is an over-arcing narrative, make it the B or C plot in most episodes, to keep it episodic by nature.

I think the sensibilities of the audience has shifted since the new millennia. Multicam feels claustrophobic to the modern audience and that’s one of the main aesthetics of retro trek.

The other thing is that every Trek series, aside from DS9, depicts a pretty rigid, hierarchical, militaristic environment. Maybe not as much as Klingons or Cardassians but I think this setting, the nomenclature, the general vibe is becoming alienating to a modern audience. Keep in mind, people have become highly cynical toward predominately white and Westernized institutions, and the Federation is very much that. It feels like America with Aliens on board. English is the only language ever really spoken aside from some alien languages.

In my opinion, there needs to be a show that pulls heavily from DS9 while maintaining some of that optimism and sincerity we love from retro Trek. It needs to oscillate between these juxtaposed tones. The show should be told from the perspective of multiple equals that make consensus based decisions instead of a primary Captain like Picard, Sisko, or Janeway who supersedes all decisions. Everyone has specific roles but there is no hierarchy.

Also, remove the white savior element that retro Trek holds over many of the beings they come across in the franchise. The group, whomever they are, would be far more interesting as some kind of nomadic space commune that is extremely removed from federation involvement. If anything, I’d say at most there is one person with ties to the federation but perhaps they left for unknown reasons providing rich backstory and future storylines if they do come across the federation.

This perspective is more akin to the actual lens the average viewer sees the world. We are not making cosmic decisions, we’re just trying to survive. And, when we see the government, we see a dark looming presence hovering over us, trying to tell us the best way to live our lives, and it’s fucking annoying, right?

That should be the New Trek.

They really need to find ways to get Star Trek to an audience beyond Paramount+

Hell, why not put the new shows on normal TV a couple of years after they air online? I know fewer people watch traditional TV these days, but it’s still a way to get the show out to a more general audience

We just need more star trek memes to take over and we’ll save star trek

Star Trek was never a show for kids, so it’s not surprising kids don’t know about it. Star Wars and Harry Potter were for kids

Star Trek has always been more about solving things without violence when possible, which means action sequences don’t happen often, so a significant portion of people won’t find any interest in it.

To me, personally, Trek fails at simply not having “anything really going on”. I don’t know about more recent Trek shows, but there’s never anything that feels like a real threat, or any threat that goes beyond 2 episodes. Some of the exploration feels like “Oh, we’re just fucking bored, I guess, let’s see what we can find over that star system”, everything feels unbelievably safe. Sure, Kardassian assholes might capture you and torture you for shits and giggles, you never know when something with literal godlike powers might decide to show up and challenge the crew out of boredom, but that’s not a risk you’re at while exploring a weird world or solving a Sherlock mystery in the holodeck. For comparison: Battlestar Galactica had a permanent worry about (lack of) resources, being a fleet on the run with a single military ship to protect it against an overwhelming enemy and an “anyone could be a sleeping agent of the enemy” conflict. Not everything BSG did was good, but that overall setting and premise permeated everything.

Put another way, what would be the most common answer to “What is Star Trek about?”

Honestly, the things that made me start to like it again was Below Decks, because it was different and fun and animated, sure, but what made me like Star Trek again was the moments of optimism and niceness that were in the show. Sometimes it was as a joke where you think something is going to be bad and it turned out fine, which is fine, but if reminded me of the thing that separates Star Trek from other shows is that it has this sense of optimism. Optimism for the future, that things are going to be ok, and humanity will get it’s act together and live up to our own ideals.

The edgy remakes don’t feel like that.

I fell in love with Star Trek through TNG and reruns of the original series. I remember watching reruns of both for hours on end. DS9 and Voyager were great as well. What kept me interested and engaged was the network accessibility. I haven’t watched any of the series since Voyager because they weren’t available without a subscription.

You want a growing fanbase, you need to remove the walls.

They had the good idea with the Kelvinverse as a more approachable, mainstream friendly variant to classic Star Trek. Then they made Discovery and killed all momentum, alienating both old and new fans.

My personal experience is that one should be ready to watch star trek.

When I was 20 I simply wasn’t ready and didn’t try watching any of it despite a friend insisting it was worth it.

Two years ago, instead, I was so ready that I could enjoy TOS too

I’m still not at discovery, so I need to see the nuTrek to say more. But I really just think you can’t advertise trek too much.

Either reboot it or let it die. If I wanted to make the effort to dive into such an convoluted world, I’d get into LotR. I will never understand everybody’s fascination with decades old franchises with impenetrable lore. Nothing against Star Trek specifically, I’m just tired of seeing media and thinking “Oh, that looks interesting, I’d like to get into that” just to find out there’s a backlog of 47 years of world building I have to catch up on before I get to enjoy it. This is why I never got into Dr. Who, Star Trek, LotR, Warhammer, WoW or One Piece.

Removed by mod

Un-cancel Lower Decks. 😉

Honestly, though, I feel like most media groups in general forget why the streaming model worked in the first place. They want Office-level hits, but forget that The Office wasn’t immediately successful. Not immediately killing it just because of that gave it time to find a fandom.

Most shows should automatically get 2-3 seasons, and they often aren’t getting that.

As for the whole “none of them knew what Star Trek was” anecdote - I find that a bit exaggerated. I’m a college student, and I wore a Boimler costume for Halloween- most could identify that I was something Star Trek. Around other people my age, they can at least think of Spock or Patrick Stewart.

How I got into Trek as a kid was my mom would be watching it, and she’d let us join even though we were supposed to be doing homework. TNG was the one I saw the most during that.

P.S: As I’ve floated around this forum several times, I think an animated anthology series of strange new crews would be awesome.

There are plenty of good responses here already, but to me the main thing in marketing Trek to new audiences would be stop the frigging nostalgia fest.

• don’t circle back to the TOS characters at the tip of a hat. Yes, JJ Abrams, I’m looking at you, but also every other recent attempt at new Star trek movies.
• All the stories around those characters have been told already. Make something new and current within the same universe.
• Don’t shoehorn canon and continuity onto every new show. Having Bones make a cameo in the TNG pilot was cute. Making Burnham a previously unmentioned lynchpin in Spock’s character was… unnecessary. Don’t get me started on SNW.
• The wealth of continuity from previous shows shouldn’t be a namecheck scorecard, but a backdrop that curious current viewers can track down and explore on their own.

Twenty years ago when the BBC relaunched Doctor Who, they played down all the background stuff for most of the first season, only drip feeding lore to the audience.

• The stories, the characters had to be appealing on their own
• The 26 seasons worth of classic Who wasn’t required watching to keep up, but it gave resonance to the new show.

Star trek needs to learn from that approach to focus on good stories and engaging characters — and to aim outside of the established but dwindling fan group by allowing the almost 60 years of canon to play second violin.

Stop trying to be ‘cool’ (or whatever you think is cool). Star Trek was never cool. Just do Star Trek and the right people will find it.