Dark days may be ahead for two of the best-known sci-fi franchises in TV. Are Star Trek and Doctor Who heading for a black hole? We investigate… Two of the greatest science-fiction franchises in pop culture history lie at a turning point: Star Trek and Doctor Who. One decidedly American, one resolutely British. Both have ... Star Trek and Doctor Who | Two franchises facing one similar future
Dark days may be ahead for two of the best-known sci-fi franchises in TV. Are Star Trek and Doctor Who heading for a black hole? We investigate…
Two of the greatest science-fiction franchises in pop culture history lie at a turning point: Star Trek and Doctor Who.
One decidedly American, one resolutely British. Both have in the last few years have undergone something of a shift away from the shows that many fans wanted them to be.
Star Trek appears to once again be heading for dry dock on television. In 2027, the final fifth and final second seasons of Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy respectively conclude, with no further television projects on the horizon. Doctor Who recently cancelled a Christmas special with Russell T Davies quitting the series production company Bad Wolf out too, with the BBC putting the show out to tender.
It’s strange how these two franchises have reached a confluence like this at precisely the same time. While they have never directly crossed over on television, they came close in the early days of Doctor Who’s 2005 revival and indeed more recently (Strange New Worlds has strongly hinted that Pelia, one of the supporting cast, was a former Doctor companion). They are both science-fiction products of a progressive, colourful 1960s embracing allegorical storytelling to reconcile with the traumas of wars and civil societal change.
Both have also been remarkably durable over the last 60 years. Star Trek has gone through 13 distinct incarnations on TV and in film, some more successful than others, but all demarcating three distinct eras. Doctor Who was on life support between 1989 and 2005. It never truly went away, and came back as a more successful, popular and creative show than ever, and was for years the jewel in the BBC crown.
Equally, both franchises seem to have run aground of the challenges faced by the streaming era and a vastly changing economic landscape. Though made in different countries, the issues are connected and speak to a broader problem being faced by the collision of legacy intellectual property with a large fanbase, and the priorities and bottom line of ever-growing corporations who’ve seized culture and media.
Star Trek, many believe, is now a possible sacrificial lamb at the altar of the Trump administration-friendly era of Paramount. It’s now controlled by new owner David Ellison, part of the Ellison family dynasty of old money with ties to the Trump empire.
Under the aegis of Alex Kurtzman, the TV version of Star Trek has continued its commitment to representation and identity, with prominent LGBTQ characters and clear liberal polemic. Right-leaning fans rail that “Star Trek isn’t political!”, suggesting to me they never watched the 1960s Original Series at all. Your belief in this theory may vary depending on where you stand across this gaping cultural divide.
Some suggest the prevailing winds at Paramount are not blowing in the direction of a progressive franchise which platforms ideas that run against the grain of where American political culture currently seems to be, and this may well be true. It could also be an easy excuse for a franchise which, in experimenting with a variety of creative approaches, has been scattershot in quality to say the least, especially post-COVID.
Precise viewing figures are hard to come by, but are enough people watching Star Trek to warrant the sizeable investment? The series has never looked better, but that comes at a cost.
This could explain the unexpected cancellation of Starfleet Academy, which was touted for a long time as possibly the true north star for Star Trek; a concept that stretched back as far as Gene Roddenberry in the 60s, and an apparent slam dunk of an idea.
Yet even before the second season has aired, it’s gone, making it the quickest cancelled spin-off series in Star Trek history, taking Enterprise’s four season crown. It suggests a serious lack of faith in Star Trek going forward, hence perhaps why there are no follow up projects currently announced. The future doesn’t even appear to be approaching on impulse power.
The story of Doctor Who currently is not all that dissimilar. Russell T Davies recently seemed to mislead the fanbase a little on Instagram, whether he meant to or not, by quitting the show in relentlessly positive fashion and suggesting no script for the 2026 Christmas special had ever been written. That appears to be a fib if you dig into it in any way. He had a plan for at least one final episode. Why else would you end Ncuti Gatwa’s truncated run as the Doctor with him regenerating into Billie Piper?
Everyone fully expected an episode or two with a Piper Doctor who looked like his first companion of the rebooted era, Rose Tyler, in a story that potentially would have pulled David Tennant, Catherine Tate, probably Camille Coduri and a few other old hands back for a big transitional special to a new Doctor and new era.
RTD could write that in his sleep, whether it was good or not. Fans of the show know full well the plan for Doctor Who, kickstarted by the big 2023 series of 60th anniversary specials, all went awry. It was meant to be the start of the ‘Whoniverse’ after all, with one of those flashy intro sequences like the one Star Trek has had under Kurtzman. With Disney money behind it, Doctor Who had a bigger platform than ever.
After Sex Education and with roles in mega hits like Barbie, Gatwa was one of the biggest rising stars to play the role in years. RTD had brought the series back to Wales, promising regeneration to an area that made Doctor Who. The future was big, bright and expansive, apparently.
Then reality crashed in.
Disney pulled out fairly early on. Fans have suspected when Disney saw that RTD had planned to craft an era of Who divested from the past, it had second thoughts. This is where he differs from Kurtzman, who was all about Star Trek obsessively replaying the past and filling in canonical gaps. RTD to his credit wanted to shake the Doctor’s pain and angst off and free Gatwa up to dance across the universe, but Disney and fans again accused the show of leaning too heavily into a progressive agenda, even at points a decidedly left wing political one. Whether you think he went too far is a point of debate.
Ultimately, both Disney and Paramount are corporations first and foremost run by figures who are concerned with growth and a bottom line ahead of anything else. They’re almost certainly not as left on the political spectrum as either Kurtzman or RTD, and decided that neither of these properties are a going concern currently. That despite their built in brand awareness, neither are value for money in the same way anymore.
Do they worry that Trek and Who are alienating as many fans or audiences as they’re attracting? Are they cleaving to particularly American political forces who don’t embrace diverse storytelling on television anymore?
We can’t know for sure. The answers are primarily, no doubt, economic. Neither property is one with a successful cinematic franchise behind it. Star Trek has famously, one or two more recent outings aside, never made a sizeable profit outside of the United States, certainly compared to other major genre franchises. Doctor Who has not produced anything directly as a cinematically-released movie since the non-canonical Peter Cushing outings of the 1960s.
Though Trek continues to court the big screen, with a new film finally in production, both franchises originated on TV. They now exist in a landscape where traditional TV drama is overlapping with cinema, social media, YouTube and various strands of media presentation.
So, what happens now?
For Star Trek, no one’s sure. Akiva Goldsman told SFX that he believes ‘Year One’, the proposed follow up to Strange New Worlds which would chart Captain Kirk’s first year of the Original Series’ five year mission, was a pipe dream. The sets for Strange New Worlds have been taken down. There’s a suspicion that if ‘Year One’ was planned, they wouldn’t be.
Other potential projects have been mooted but never pursued. Paramount may now be doubling down on movie success rather than relying on expensive TV shows.
Doctor Who is out to tender, the BBC committed to supporting one of their most iconic properties but unable, in the current climate, to fully fund it themselves.
The irony is that the show looked better during the early 2010s Matt Smith-era when they did fully fund it than at any point in the Disney money era. Nevertheless, they’re looking for partners, and that partner could again be a streamer with resources. HBO Max has been rumoured. It’s early days. The BBC nonetheless seem more outwardly committed to the future of Doctor Who than Paramount does to TV Star Trek.
We could, however, be facing a period we’ve never seen before: year or two where neither Star Trek or Doctor Who are on screen. That hasn’t happened since 1963. They haven’t always aired at the same time, but one of them has always been active on television in those years.
Could 2028 be the first year this doesn’t happen? We hope not. Because as much the quality has wavered in both franchises over the last decade, and it very much has, both Star Trek and Doctor Who remain part of us. TV just wouldn’t be the same without them.
You can find A J. on social media, including links to his podcasts and books, via Linktr.ee here. Don’t miss him on the Film Stories Podcast Network too.
