Paramount Rejected the Star Trek Series Fans Have Been Waiting For

Star Trek keeps promising us the future, but the present is kind of a shrug. Paramount says the franchise is a priority and there is a new movie on the way, but the TV side is basically on pause. Into that vacuum, Andy Weir just tossed a grenade.

Where Trek stands right now

• Paramount says it is prioritizing Star Trek.
• There is a new Star Trek movie in development.
• No Star Trek series are currently in active production; the only thing happening is finishing out seasons for shows that have already been canceled.
• Starfleet Academy is being canceled at the end of its forthcoming second season.
• It increasingly feels like the Alex Kurtzman era is winding down, with more heat around debates about the shows than the shows themselves.

Andy Weir had a Star Trek show pitch. Paramount passed.

Fresh off the release of Project Hail Mary, Weir went on a podcast and revealed he pitched a Trek series to Alex Kurtzman and Paramount via Zoom, talking with the showrunners and spending a lot of time with Kurtzman. The end result: a no.

"I pitched a Star Trek show to Paramount, and I was in Zoom with the showrunners with all the shows and spent a lot of time talking to [executive producer Alex Kurtzman]. I don’t like a lot of the new Trek. He, as a person, is a really nice guy. But at the same time, those shows are sh*t. He is a nice guy. But they didn’t accept my pitch so, you know, f*ck 'em."

Fans did not take that well

Reddit lit up fast. One person called it "hilarious how dedicated Paramount is to keeping people who love Star Trek away from making Star Trek." Another said the studio "should get down on their knees and thank the heavens that Andy Weir wants to make Star Trek" in the first place.

Weir clearly has strong feelings, but he was not blanket-trashing everything. He has praised some of the modern Trek shows: he likes Strange New Worlds, enjoyed Lower Decks, and did not hate Enterprise (even if he found it weird). As for the rest, in his words, they can go. If you are keeping score, that leaves a few obvious targets for his dislike, which is part of why the discourse immediately went feral.

The pushback on Weir

Not everyone is clamoring for a Weir-led Trek. Some fans argued that unless someone else handled writing women, they would pass. Others questioned whether his voice actually fits the franchise. That rolls into a bigger ongoing debate about his novels: Artemis did not land for a lot of readers the way The Martian and Project Hail Mary did.

So, did Paramount blow it?

This is one of those very behind-the-scenes stories that says a lot about where Trek is right now: a high-profile sci-fi author pitches a show during a content lull, and the studio says no. Maybe they had good reasons; maybe they missed an opportunity. Given how quiet the TV side is, it is hard not to wonder why the idea did not at least make it to a pilot.

If the new regime at Paramount really is rethinking how to handle the franchise, there is a world where they circle back to Weir. Whether that is likely is another question. But for a brand built on bold exploration, this all feels pretty cautious.