Star Trek horror show in the works

[CharlesPhipps]

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/s ... usive.html

Paramount Pictures is developing a new Star Trek series in the horror genre, in the mode of the Alien franchise of films. According to our trusted and proven sources, Paramount is looking to expand its Star Trek roster of shows into strange new areas, which includes a horror turn for the beloved science fiction franchise. This is a direction that Star Trek has rarely moved into, which makes for the exciting potential of new horror-oriented stories.

In recent years, Paramount has been ramping up its slate of Star Trek shows and moving into some other genres that it previously has not explored. Star Trek: Lower Decks explores the lives of the non-command staff on a Starfleet ship through a comedic lens, while Prodigy is the first child-oriented show in the franchise so far. It makes a lot of sense that Star Trek would be going to the ever-dependable horror well at some point, given the historical crossover of science fiction and scary stuff.

For the most part, Star Trek has usually portrayed a utopian future of exploration and diplomacy or at least one in which humanity is striving for these things (the occasional bleak Picard notwithstanding). It will be interesting to see how Star Trek reconciles that general tone with horror, but, on the other hand, it is a pretty good setup for scariness to have cheerful people encounter terrible, horrible things. In this circumstance, it would just be terrible horrible things, in space.

It will also be very interesting to see how Paramount presents a Star Trek show with Alien-style horror. The Alien franchise is one of the cornerstones of body horror in science fiction, with the titular Xenomorphs famously being inspired by Swiss artist H.R. Giger’s psychosexual nightmares and reproducing via chest-exploding hatchlings. Even describing that is more graphic than Gene Roddenberry’s franchise usually gets, but this could be a bold new step for the series.

Star Trek’s flirtations with horror have usually been with the Borg, the cyborg species bent on universal assimilation first introduced in the Next Generation episode “Q Who.” There has always been an element of body horror to the Borg, most unnervingly displayed in the First Contact film in which the previous pale, black-clad drones were reenvisioned as slimy, corpse-like, and reproducing primarily via injected nano-bots. While there is no guarantee that this developing Star Trek horror show would involve the Borg, it would seem like a prime potential element.

Star Trek has also tended to depict anthropomorphic aliens like Vulcans and Klingons (in part no doubt due to the budgetary and narrative constraints of television), so it will also be interesting to see how it approaches more horror-like aliens. In Strange New Worlds, it was recently revealed that the Gorn species (that’s the lizard guys who Kirk fought in a classic Original Series episode) can reproduce by laying eggs in other species, so that is a gimme for the writers of the show right there.
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Presumably, this new Star Trek show will air on Paramount+ like all new shows in the franchise, and hopefully will have a title and release date soon.

[Madner Kami]

Oh for fuck's sake. How far further do they want to compartementalize the franchise? Soon enough, we'll have reached the level of homeopathy, as if Discovery didn't already water it down enough.

[hammerofglass]

There's a ton of Star Trek episodes that would already be a horror story if the protagonists were everyday civilians instead of Starfleet officers with a capital ship on call. It's not that much of a jump.

[HumanXeroxMachine]

I could see this working well from the perspective of a science team working on some strange planet discovering some kind of eldritch horror or a small ship finding a mysterious artifact leading the crew to die one after another.

If the show is focused on one group going through horror story after horror story or if it's an anthology series about different groups encountering horrific things in different parts of the universe then it could have some good potential. Sci fi and horror is something that isn't often paired together but after watching Event Horizon recently, I'd love to see some cosmic horror in Star Trek.

[CharlesPhipps]

Maybe it'll be how they redo Section 31.

Instead of neo-fascist spies, Section 31 is the part of Starfleet that investigates Jack the Ripper ghosts, Pah Wraiths, and salt vampires.

[Madner Kami]

There's a ton of Star Trek episodes that would already be a horror story if the protagonists were everyday civilians instead of Starfleet officers with a capital ship on call. It's not that much of a jump.

That was my point. You want a horror episode? Write one. Don't make it yet another trope-series within the franchise.

[clearspira]

I'm still pissed at how they butchered the entire point of the Gorn which is one of facing our racist prejudices.

But no. Now they fucking lay eggs in people making all of our fears of them completely justified.

[Frustration]

This is the same way the Stargate franchise ended, only on a larger scale.

The bigger you are...

[TGLS]

I dunno there's something rather different between, "The replacement series has a very different tone" and, "A sixth spinoff has a very different tone."

[Frustration]

Atlantis began before SG-1 had ended, and it had many of the same problems as recent Star Trek - admittedly not as severely, and for all its problems, it had lots of good bits.

I can't help but wonder how long it will be before the goodwill built up by Star Trek will run out. It's become as unrenewable a resource as fossil fuels.