Star Trek: Legacy, a potential spinoff series to Star Trek: Picard, is not expected to be greenlit anytime soon. But the recently released high viewership performance of the Star Trek: Picard series finale and the new milestone reached by the Change.org petition for Star Trek: Legacy prove that there’s really a demand for the spinoff series.
Star Trek: Picard finale makes it to Nielsen Top 10
Last week, Nielsen unveiled their Top 10 Streaming Original Programs in the United States for the week of April 17th-23rd, and the series finale of Star Trek: Picard landed on the ninth spot — one place up from the 10th position secured by the show’s penultimate episode the week prior.
Like the Netflix Top 10 chart, Nielsen also uses millions of minutes viewed for its ranking, and as pointed out by TrekMovie.com, Star Trek: Picard season 3 climbed from 276 million viewing hours during the week of its penultimate episode to 400 million viewing hours during the finale week — a whopping 39% increase.
Since Nielsen started to release rankings for TV and movies on different streaming services, Star Trek: Picard and the Yellowstone prequel series 1923 are the only Paramount+ originals that made it to the Top 10 chart.
Star Trek: Legacy petition passes the 50,000-mark
Three months ago, long before the season 3 finale of Star Trek: Picard, the weekly pop culture podcast The Popcast created a Change.org petition calling Paramount+ to greenlight Star Trek: Legacy with Terry Matalas as showrunner.
A week after the finale dropped on Paramount+, the petition passed the 32,000 mark, which, according to TrekMovie.com, was the same level of support received by a previous petition calling for a show with Captain Pike and the USS Enterprise after Star Trek: Discovery season 2 in 2019.
Fast-forward to May 17th, the petition reached 50,000 signatures. On the same day, Jeri Ryan, who plays Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Picard and one of the stars of the potential Star Trek: Legacy, took to Twitter to share the new milestone reached by the petition, all while showing her appreciation for the fans.
Holy crap, over 50,000 signatures and climbing! You guys are unreal…! ????????????????❤️#StarTrekLegacy https://t.co/5cf965SNqB
— Jeri Ryan (@JeriLRyan) May 17, 2023
As of writing, the petition has already earned over 56,000 signatures.
Is Star Trek: Legacy happening?
While Matalas is very much willing to helm Star Trek: Legacy, the decision to order the spinoff series is not exactly his to make. He, however, shared that he is in constant talks with Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman.
“You know, there’s conversations happening all the time. I think Alex has a plan for the Star Trek universe and I think he has to figure out how all these things play out, right? I don’t think he wants to rush into anything,” Matalas explained to CinemaBlend of why Star Trek: Legacy won’t happen anytime soon. “He’s got two great [live-action] shows happening right now, Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy, and the Section 31 movie. So, you know, they’re pretty well stocked.”
But on the other hand, Matalas firmly believes that “there’s a demand” for Star Trek: Legacy. “I would say the fans should be loud and tell the world what they want. And maybe one day we’ll be able to do it,” said Matalas, before pointing out that “the fans are heard, but they should keep doing their thing.”
Matalas shared the same sentiments in a separate interview with SFX Magazine (via GamesRadar), saying: “These shows are expensive to make. They currently have two shows, with Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy [beginning production in 2024] and I think Paramount would have to financially justify a third one. I think the way they look at it is that they’re well-stocked. So unless fans can convince them otherwise, that’s certainly the point of view at the moment.”
For his part, Kurtzman told Fox LA that “anything is possible” in terms of Star Trek: Legacy becoming a reality. “We’ve heard the fans loud and clear. There’s obviously more story to tell. So, we’ll see,” Kurtzman told the news outlet earlier this April 2023.
What will Star Trek: Legacy be about?
If Star Trek: Legacy gets picked up into a series, the show will follow the adventures of Captain Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Number One Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), and the rest of the crew of the rechristened USS Titan, now called the USS Enterprise-G. Terry Matalas told Collider that the potential Star Trek series would start with the newly built crew.
“I think I would want it right there with them,” Matalas said of his ideal starting point for the potential series. “I think the idea of Captain Seven, Jack Crusher, Raffi as Number One, the La Forge sisters (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut’s Ensign Sidney La Forge and Mica Burton’s Alandra La Forge) and Esmar (Jin Moley) and [Mura] (Joseph Lee), I would love to see the crew of that USS Enterprise out there as the next generation, mixed in with a lot of these legacy characters again. I think that they’ve never been better and more interesting.”
Matalas also told Entertainment Weekly that “Jack’s got a lot to do” in Star Trek: Legacy. When asked if he has a specific plan for Picard’s son, who met Q (John de Lancie) in the mid-credits scene of the Star Trek: Picard series finale, Matalas said, “Oh yes, I do”.
