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Is there any reason for no new Star Trek TV series for past nearly ten years?




Next year we will "celebrate" tenth anniversary of airing last episodes of last Star Trek TV series.


Since I'm a Star Trek newbie, and I'm totally out of "surrounding rumors", can someone explain me, what is the real cause for this (if any)? Ten years is a vast amount of time.


Polish (my native) version of Star Trek: Enterprise Wikipedia article have even, somewhat "funny" (though completely outdated now) remark, that with cancellation of StarTrek: Enterprise, season 2005/2006 has become first for past eighteen years, that no new Star Trek TV episode was aried. Now we have eight more seasons like that. I think there should be some reason for that.


Note, that I read this closed question and most of its comments and I don't think mine falls into the same rule. Even, if there will be any new TV series produced and aired soon, thinkt, that my question will remain valid. It is interesting and should be interesting in future (at least to Star Trek newbies, like me): What caused nearly ten years of no Star Trek TV series after eighteen years of uninterrupted trial of series after series?


In other words, this question askes for reasons for current nearly ten years long situation, not if there will be any change to it (which would make the question off-topic and closed as cited one).



Answer



I've yet to hear any official source or information regarding that.


But I think one of the biggest problems for Star Trek is the franchise itself: "We've had that story before."


It's also apparent in the existing series (even TOS). Many stories always follow the same or a similar pattern with some slight variation. Also keep in mind that the three series from the 90's (and 80's) - TNG, DS9, and VOY - all co-existed in some way in the same timespan covering different aspects. In essence, they tried to tell different stories from different parts of space with different promises and settings. That worked rather well.


But at some point there isn't anything new to explore. Should they create a second TNG or DS9? I don't think that will work overall - it might feel too repetitive. And in-universe time goes on too. They can't tell new stories during timespans that got covered already (limits possibilities regarding global things happening). They already tried a prequel (with ENT) and they'd most likely run out of ideas and bad guys in case they create another sequel.



I see the biggest chance in new stories when taking the rebooted movies into consideration. But in the end this won't solve the whole "we've had that before". It just opens the possibility to retell known stories to add some variation (e.g. The Wrath of Khan and the latest movie).


Oh, and what could be interesting for me in some way: Creating a spin-off based on the whole temporal directive/timeship stuff introduced in VOY. It could get hard to find many huge and important problems supporting alterating the time line though. Plus I don't think they'd want to continue two different timelines (pun intended, more or less :)).


Edit: I think it's actually pretty safe to assume that this related question and answer could almost be seen as some kind of duplicate. The only difference, back before Star Trek: Voyager they had that one idea they haven't done before.


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