Star Trek: Predictions for 2023 – ‘Picard’, ‘Strange New Worlds’, & More
Star Trek: Picard drops in February. But what else is happening in Trek this year? Let’s piece the details together and make some predictions!
Okay, folks. We’re in 2023. There’s one last Star Trek: Picard trailer about to drop at the Super Bowl before its final season starts mid-February. And basically from then onward we’re probably getting at least one new episode of ‘Star Trek’ every week for the remainder of the year. Trust me, I did the math.
For what’s about to be another big year for ‘Star Trek’, all is almost suspiciously quiet along the proverbial western front. Yes, Picard has trailers. And there’s exactly one recent Paramount Plus ad that mentions Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Prodigy. But that’s basically it. Well, that’s almost completely it.
If you dig real deep, there’s exactly enough information out there to make some predictions. So just like Captain Picard in the Star Trek: The Generation episode “Clues” we are going to.. well we’re going to figure things out using clues.
Okay, let’s go! One prediction for every show coming in 2023 (and maybe a little bonus ‘Section 31’ theorizing, too).
Courtesy of CBS Television
Star Trek: Picard Gets A Long Overdue Cameo
In an interview with Den of Geek, Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas makes it clear what he wants to do with the show’s final season. “I think that it’s important to Deep Space Nine fans to feel seen,” Matalas says. “It’s a continuation of Voyager too, of course, with Seven of Nine in our show. If you’re going to be in this time period, there’s such a rich opportunity to honor what came before.”
We can speculate all day about who may appear from DS9 but there’s only one Voyager crewmember whose cameo is already baked in – Kathryn Janeway.
We know Janeway wanted Seven of Nine to join Starfleet because she says so on ‘Voyager’. And we know Seven of Nine is not in Starfleet even though Janeway tried to get her in. But we see Seven in a Starfleet uniform for the Picard Season three teaser trailer. So something is different. And whether Janeway is responsible for Seven’s entrance into Starfleet or not, she probably has strong feelings about it.
Kate Mulgrew is already back as Janeway on Star Trek: Prodigy. And we’ve seen Mulgrew rally a crowd of fans around the idea of Janeway getting her own show. I don’t believe for one moment Mulgrew would do that if she didn’t already know a live-action appearance for Janeway was already a lock.
Other than Picard himself, Janeway is the biggest legacy character in the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard. If Picard gets his family back for this final season, it’s virtually impossible Seven of Nine won’t get the same.
Admiral Janeway. Picard season 3. Bet on it.
Courtesy of CBS Television
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Gets Footloose
Most of the obvious predictions for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ future are a little boring. Yes, its third season will be announced right before the second season begins – just like last season. Yes, Sybok will probably make an appearance. And, yes, the Spock/T’Pring/Chapel love triangle will continue.
There’s got to be something wacky on the horizon so welcome to the wild speculation portion of the program. But first, here are things we know for sure about SNW season two:
Fact the first – SNW will crossover with Lower Decks causing Boimler and Mariner to appear as live-action characters for the first time.
Fact the second – According to Anson Mount, the Lower Decks episode is “not even the craziest thing that we did”.
And Mount gets into the ‘craziest’ episode this coming season a little more. “It required us to work many weekends,” he says. “But we were so excited about it, it was not laborious. We were excited to show up for Sunday rehearsals and all the things we’re having to do to pull together this one episode.”
Weekend work usually means choreography. There’s nothing ‘crazy’ about fight choreography because we see fights on Star Trek all the time. But something we don’t see on Star Trek very often is dancing.
We do see dancing on the original Star Trek. Episodes like “I, Mudd” and “Plato’s Stepchildren” both feature the cast dancing. And since Strange New World has already dipped a toe in Uhura singing, so dancing feels like a natural evolution.
Heck, maybe a full musical episode is on the horizon. I wouldn’t call this one a safe bet, but I would bet, like, 5 slips of gold-pressed latinum there’s at least one big dance sequence coming.
Courtesy of Paramount Plus
Star Trek: Discovery – The Federation Will Not Be Televised
Despite it being around the longest, Star Trek: Discovery‘s trajectory is the hardest to predict. For two seasons now we’ve been in the far-flung future, but, because the focus is always on some specific “the” travesty, it feels like much of the world and characters remain unexplored. We know about “The Burn”. We know about “The DMA”.
But who are the crew of Discovery now? And is the Federation really reuniting, Earth included? I think we’ll get answers to both questions, but the focus will be on one more than the other.
From the trailer, we know there’s a treasure Discovery is hunting after. And we know there are new “villains”. But that’s about all we know. My best guess is that, like with seasons past, there will be a “the” something that drives the season arc. But hopefully this “the” whatever is a positive instead of a negative for once.
And also hopefully we’ll get to see more of the supporting cast as they chase after something good, something that will benefit everyone and perhaps help rebuild the Federation. But actually, seeing the Federation rebuilt? Nah. I don’t think we’ll see that. I think season 5 ends with the announcement of Earth rejoining and then season 6 will skip ahead.
Not enough of a big swing guess for you? Okay, here are two other predictions I have based on nothing more than knowing how serialized TV works.
Prediction the first: Saru will die this season. I know Doug Jones can wear prosthetic makeup well, but five seasons of extensive prosthesis is a long time. I also think Michael Burnham is pregnant and we’ll find out about that at some point this season. And to link these two together, Michael will name her child Saru.
Courtesy of Paramount Plus
Star Trek: Lower Decks and the Robot Rebellion
Star Trek: Picard features a very shocking story element in its first season. After the destruction of the Utopia Planitia shipyards at the hands of rogue A.I. all synthetic life is banned from the Federation. No one asks if maybe there’s someone else behind the attack. There’s no alternate option. One day artificial life exists, and the next it is wiped out.
Leaving aside the question of an android’s right to life that TNG itself introduces in the classic episode “Measure of a Man”, this just doesn’t make sense. Why would the Federation take such a hardline stance? What if there’s an answer and we just haven’t heard it yet? Keep in mind that Star Trek: Lower Decks takes place before Star Trek: Picard. In fact, there are 5 years between the start of Lower Decks and the incident at Utopia Planitia.
There’s a room in the basement of the Daystrom Institute where all the rogue A.I. bent on the destruction of organic life exists. And last season on Lower Decks two particularly evil synthetic lifeforms became prison roomies: AGIMUS and Peanut Hamper. And as they laughed maniacally together a thought occurred to me: they’re going to break out of jail and try to destroy everyone, aren’t they?
So my prediction for Lower Decks is exactly that: AGIMUS and Peanut Hamper will start a robot rebellion and cause a lot of mayhem in the process. In fact, they’ll cause so much mayhem that when androids destroy the Utopia Planitia shipyards in 2385 it will make sense to outlaw all synth life.
Courtesy of Paramount Plus
Star Trek: Prodigy and the Family Reunion
In 1997 an animated series debuted called Extreme Ghostbusters. The series takes place after The Real Ghostbusters and focuses on a group of young ghostbusters. One member of the original team, Egon, stays on to teach the new kids. At the end of the show’s one and only season, the rest of the original Ghostbusters return.
Star Trek: Prodigy is almost certainly about to do something very similar. After all, Star Trek: Prodigy is very much a follow-up to Star Trek: Voyager. They’re both set in the Delta Quadrant. Both crews struggle with getting home. And Prodigy like Extreme Ghostbusters features a former member of the crew in a leadership position.
With Chakotay trapped in the future, my prediction is a full Voyager reunion to get him back, Kes notwithstanding. Yes, it is possible Seven of Nine may need to be left out in order to avoid conflict with Star Trek: Picard, but even that is a maybe at best. Mark your calendars: in December 2023 a new Voyager will emerge from a temporal vortex, stacked to the brim with Voyager’s OG crew, and together they will save Chakotay’s life.
Courtesy of Paramount Plus
Section 31 Will Not Happen (The Way They Originally Planned)
Michelle Yeoh is up for an Oscar for best actress! And she is a lock to win! Congrats! But, uh.. her dance card is about to get very busy. And the idea that Yeoh would still star as Phillipa Georgiou in a full Section 31 series seems pretty far-fetched as a result.
People are speculating that there will be no Section 31 show, but folks at Paramount insist it will happen. But no one seems to be hypothesizing the most likely compromise: a Section 31 mini-series.
Did Benedict Cumberbatch abandon Sherlock because he became a huge movie star? No! But the BBC series did have to bend around Cumberbatch’s success. And we expect a Section 31 show to do the same for Michelle Yeoh. So our bonus prediction is this: Section 31 will come out in 2024 and will run for 3-5 episodes.
Whoopi Godberg was one of the most famous movie stars in the world in the late ’80s and she did TNG anyway. Why? Because she loves Star Trek. We suspect Yeoh has a similar vested interest in ‘Star Trek’ and her character Emperor Georgiou.
And those are our predictions. Feel free to bookmark this article so you can see if we were right or not. And let us know what you expect for Star Trek in 2023.
