Star Trek boss Kurtzman: Strange New Worlds will be episodic, “a return, in a way, to TOS”

Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman appears in an interview with Deadline

Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman has confirmed that the upcoming Captain Pike-led series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will return the franchise to its episodic roots with “stand-alone episodes”.

Comicbook.com reported over the weekend that Kurtzman made the remarks in a video interview with Deadline. In the interview, Kurtzman focused primarily on Star Trek: Short Treks, which is nominated for an Emmy award for Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama series.

Shortly after a discussion of the themes of the Enterprise-focused Short Treks episode “Q&A”, interviewer Dominic Patten pivoted to ask Kurtzman what we could expect from Pike, Spock and Number One when we see them again in Strange New Worlds. “I think Strange New Worlds, under the guidance of Henry Myers and Akiva Goldsman, is going to be a return, in a way, to TOS,” Kurtzman said. “We’re going to do more stand-alone episodes. There will be emotional serialization. There will be two-parters. There will be larger plot arcs, but it really is back to the model of ‘alien of the week’, ‘planet of the week’, ‘challenge on the ship of the week’ with these characters pre-Kirk’s Enterprise.”

Kurtzman went on to add that telling Pike’s story in the show will be a unique challenge, since the events of Star Trek: Discovery season two have led him to a place where he knows the tragedy that the future holds for him. “The idea is,” Kurtzman said, “how does a character who knows how he’s going to die live optimistically from that point on and lead a ship? [...] You have to have an inherent optimism in your world view in order to say, ‘I’m going to get up every morning knowing how it is going to end for me’ and still lead everybody to be the best versions of themselves.”

You can watch the full interview for yourself now on Deadline.com, and of course, if you’d like to catch up with the Emmy-nominated Short Treks, you can do that on CBS All Access.