With Star Trek: Lower Decks wrapping up last month, the franchise is once again out of the comedy business. However, Lower Decks voice actress (and Starfleet Academy writer) Tawny Newsome wants to change that and is developing a live-action Star Trek comedy with writer/director Justin Simien (Dear White People). During the media frenzy around the release of Star Trek: Section 31, TrekMovie was able to get a little update on the Newsome’s comedy project from the man in charge of Trek TV, Alex Kurtzman
“A new area we’re going to explore”
At the Section 31 premiere, Alex Kurtzman gave us a quick update on the live-action comedy, saying “They’re [Newsome and Simen] in the middle of breaking story right now. I’m really excited about it.” In December, Newsome said that since the project was first revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024, the concept has “shifted a little bit,” but she and Justin were still hard at work “finding a way to do Trek in a workplace comedy-type tone.”
And last week at the premiere when pressed on their progress, Kurtzman confirmed he had “not yet” seen scripts, noting “They’re just breaking story.” The executive producer also said he speaks to them about the project regularly, adding “I mean, I adore both of them so much, they’re so fantastic, and I trust them a lot.”
Alex also talked about the idea of Star Trek expanding into another area, and specifically into live-action comedy:
“I think that obviously Lower Decks and Prodigy and a lot of the comedy that we’ve touched on in Strange [New Worlds] and in different shows proves that Star Trek can broaden. As long as you’re maintaining the essential vision of Star Trek, Roddenberry’s essential vision of that optimistic future and that hope, then it actually allows you to go into a lot of different territory, and you know, that’s a new area we’re going to explore.”
The official logline released at Comic-Con said the show is about “Federation outsiders serving a gleaming resort planet find out their day-to-day exploits are being broadcast to the entire quadrant.” More recently, Newsome dispelled the assumption the resort planet in question was Risa, saying “I think it’s going to answer some questions about what non-Federation [worlds] look like.”
Paramount+ has yet to announce the show has a green light, so for now the Star Trek workplace comedy is still considered in development. And Newsome is doing double-duty as Kurtzman also told us how he has already reassembled the Starfleet Academy writers room for the second season, which he expects will begin production around mid-year. The first season is expected to wrap production in Toronto in February.
