section 31 future – Trekking with Dennis

Will the Section 31 series get a second chance?

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-2, and Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Michelle Yeoh, who played the roles of Captain Georgiou and her Mirror Universe counterpart on Star Trek: Discovery, has recently won a Golden Globe award. Her role in the mind-bending multiverse adventure Everything Everywhere All At Once has also landed her an Oscar nomination, and with Yeoh’s star rising in Hollywood, some Trekkies have begun asking whether the seemingly-abandoned Star Trek series based around Section 31, in which she was set to take a leading role, might be given a second chance by Paramount. Today I thought it could be interesting to revisit the Section 31 series and reevaluate its prospects.

There’s more than one reason why the original Section 31 pitch didn’t get off the ground, and we should consider why the series has been stuck in development hell for more than four years. Firstly, we have the character of Georgiou herself. This Mirror Universe character was, at the time the series was announced, pretty one-dimensional. Thanks to a solid performance by Michelle Yeoh, she didn’t stray into the horrible pantomime-level over-acting that trips up many other Mirror Universe characters, but there really wasn’t much to indicate that this lover of murder and torture could be anything more than just a bland, one-dimensional Mirror Universe trope – at least, not as of the end of Discovery’s first season.

There are multiple reasons why Section 31 didn’t succeed when it was first announced.

It took multiple appearances across Seasons 2 and 3 of Discovery, and the two-part Georgiou spotlight episode Terra Firma in particular, to begin to soften that hard Terran exterior. By the time Georgiou entered the Guardian of Forever’s portal in the 32nd Century, there was definitely potential in her character, and seeing what would come next for her had finally begun to feel like something fans might be interested in.

Had the Section 31 show been announced at that stage, rather than two years earlier, I daresay the reaction would’ve been a lot more positive. But Paramount jumped the gun and announced the series too early, the predictable result of which was a muted, underwhelmed reaction from both Trekkies and a wider audience. Without significant numbers of fans asking for the show – or even seeming to be anything more than mildly interested in it – Section 31 was, to coin a phrase, dead on arrival.

Michelle Yeoh during production on *Discovery* Season 1.

We also can’t overlook another huge factor: Captain Pike. I don’t think it’s fair to say that Anson Mount’s portrayal of Pike in Discovery’s second season was somehow fatal to the Section 31 show’s prospects, but it clearly played a part. Along with Ethan Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Una, the reception to Captain Pike in Discovery was overwhelmingly positive. In 2019, it was clear which characters fans wanted to see more of – and which they were, at best, apathetic toward.

This seemed to catch Paramount off-guard, with no plans afoot for extending Pike and Spock’s roles on Discovery. The corporation had to spend time in the aftermath of Discovery’s second season bringing these characters back, initially for a few episodes of Short Treks before Strange New Worlds was eventually greenlit. I think this speaks to a broader problem at Paramount, with the people supposedly in charge of the Star Trek franchise clearly unable to tell what will be a hit and what won’t… but maybe that’s a discussion for another time!

The huge success of Anson Mount’s portrayal of Captain Pike in *Discovery* Season 2 seemed to catch Paramount unawares.

Regardless, when Section 31 was announced in 2019, it didn’t win a huge amount of support out of the gate. Then Discovery’s second season came along, and fans were clamouring for more Pike and Spock. Resources may have shifted to planning Strange New Worlds, and Section 31 took a back seat.

Although Terra Firma was a great story – probably the best Mirror Universe story the franchise has ever told – after Georgiou’s departure, we still didn’t really see a huge amount of interest in Section 31. Sure, some folks were talking about it, and it would crop up occasionally in online conversations, but when compared to the constant questions Paramount had been fielding about Pike and Strange New Worlds, it was hardly lighting up the board. Even the teased but still unannounced Starfleet Academy series seemed to have generated more attention.

Burnham, Georgiou, and the Guardian of Forever.

I’m not alone in having speculated that Section 31 might’ve been quietly cancelled sometime in the last couple of years. The total lack of news from Paramount, even during events and panels where the conversation turned to future and upcoming projects, has combined with news from the project’s writers and even comments from Michelle Yeoh herself to paint a pretty clear picture of a project that isn’t going ahead. But will Yeoh’s newfound superstar status change all of that?

It would be a coup for Paramount and for the Star Trek franchise to be able to launch a series with a Golden Globe winner and – potentially, at least – an Oscar winner as its lead. By essentially piggybacking off of Michelle Yeoh’s success and status, the Section 31 series could draw in a wider audience than other Star Trek projects, and expanding the franchise beyond its existing fandom and viewer base has to be something Paramount works on in the months and years ahead. Thinking selfishly and cynically, this could be a way to achieve that objective.

Michelle Yeoh won a Golden Globe earlier this year.
*Photo Credit: NBC*

But unless Paramount had the foresight to lock Michelle Yeoh into a contract back in 2019 that would still be valid, her rising star power will undoubtedly come with a growing price tag. The Section 31 series has already gotten a lot more expensive to create – and it’ll only get pricier if Yeoh wins an Oscar! But as they say, you can’t always put a price on success, and having someone of Michelle Yeoh’s calibre in a leading role would be a huge net positive for the Section 31 series.

We’ve already heard comments from Alex Kurtzman and others involved on the production side of Star Trek since Everything Everywhere All At Once started picking up Oscar buzz. These comments seem to indicate that the Section 31 show’s prospects aren’t completely bleak, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Paramount is now scrounging around trying to bring Michelle Yeoh back and to potentially revive the Section 31 series.

Alex Kurtzman is in overall creative control of the Star Trek franchise for Paramount.

We’ve talked a lot about Paramount’s mishandling and mismanagement of the Star Trek franchise over the past couple of years, and I think the Section 31 series is another example of that. It was announced in early 2019 to try to reaffirm the corporation’s dedication to Star Trek and what was then still called CBS All Access, as well as to generate a bit more attention and interest in Discovery’s second season. But Paramount had had months to process the reaction to Discovery Season 1, and to see that Mirror Georgiou, while not exactly hated by fans and viewers, was not in a position at that time to carry a series.

I have to assume that the broad strokes of Georgiou’s arc had been planned out at the time of the Section 31 series’ announcement, and that giving her some much-needed character development was on the agenda. But looking in from the outside, even as a fan it was hard to see where such a flat, one-dimensional character might go. For the casual viewers who make up the bulk of any show’s audience, creating a spin-off from Discovery based around Mirror Georgiou must’ve seemed utterly incomprehensible.

Georgiou stepping into the Guardian of Forever’s portal.

Higher-ups at Paramount should have realised that they were onto a winner with Pike and Spock, and plans should have been made during production on Discovery’s second season – or immediately after when responses from test audiences were reviewed – to create the show we now know of as Strange New Worlds. Had that project been “shovel-ready” in 2019, and been announced during Discovery’s second season, I think Paramount could have netted an easy goal.

Section 31 should have been announced in December 2020, shortly after Terra Firma had aired. By that point, Georgiou was finally ready to take on the leading role in a new series, and the reaction from fans would have been significantly more positive. By jumping the gun and trying to announce it too early, Paramount did serious harm to the Section 31 show’s prospects. Whether that harm will prove fatal is now, quite frankly, entirely in the hands of Michelle Yeoh.

Michelle Yeoh in *Everything Everywhere All At Once*.

The Section 31 series has several things going for it, as I see it. Of course we have the wonderful Michelle Yeoh in the leading role, and that’s fantastic! But beyond just one actress, there are some genuinely great concepts. Taking the Star Trek franchise in a different direction, with a focus on espionage, would open up completely different storytelling ideas. The franchise has touched on this in the past in more ways than one, but having a series where stealth and spying are part of the foundations would be something new.

Then we have the show’s significantly darker tone. In past Star Trek stories, Section 31 was presented as a shadowy, off-the-books, black ops organisation, the kind of outfit that would do anything to protect the Federation – even violating Federation laws. The potential to tell stories where the question viewers will have to contemplate is “do the ends justify the means?” is truly a fascinating one. Star Trek has touched on this in the past, but to place this idea in focus is, again, a new idea.

Sloan in *Deep Space Nine* first introduced us to Section 31.

The kinds of characters who might make up a Section 31 outfit also have a ton of potential to be interesting. There’s a lot of room for nuance, and also for characters with hidden pasts and deep secrets. We could even see a character from a totally unknown alien race, and have a storyline exploring why this race might choose to remain hidden. There’s a lot that the Section 31 series could do with the characters who might join Georgiou.

If the show were to return to the 23rd Century, as was implied in Terra Firma, it would be possible to cross over with Strange New Worlds. Strange New Worlds currently has a crossover event planned with Lower Decks – and I can’t wait to see it! But a crossover with another live-action Star Trek show would be fantastic, too. The 23rd Century would also allow the Section 31 series to potentially pick up characters like Ash Tyler, who was himself a Section 31 leader, and continue their arcs.

A crossover with *Strange New Worlds* could be incredible.

Whether any of this will happen, though… who can say? Paramount would be stupid to write off the Section 31 series at this time, and if there was some way to re-announce it shortly after the Oscars, perhaps… that could be a great idea!

I was one of the Trekkies in 2019 who felt that this series wasn’t the best idea, and while I’m happy now to admit to being completely wrong about that… Paramount has to take its share of the blame here, too. Announcing the show at a time when its lead wasn’t ready, just after Picard had been announced and with a return to the late 24th Century finally on the agenda… it was just the wrong moment. Not for the first time, I find myself saying to Paramount that serious introspection is needed and lessons must be learned. Why did no one involved in Discovery’s production realise what the reception would be like for Pike and Spock? If plans had been made for Georgiou’s development, why was this not communicated at the time? And why was the show announced weeks after Star Trek: Picard had been?

The renewed interest in Section 31 at Paramount has been spurred on by Michelle Yeoh’s success in Everything Everywhere All At Once, and I don’t think anyone would deny that. Whether that will be enough to revive the series and see it finally enter production, though… I’m not certain. While I firmly believe Paramount should move mountains to try to see it through, they no longer hold all of the cards. It’s up to Michelle Yeoh, newly-minted award winner, to decide what direction she wants to take for her career. If she chooses to stick to feature films, no one will blame her!

The Section 31 series was announced prematurely. By the time it was narratively ready, any hype and attention it could’ve gotten had long since faded, overtaken by Picard, Strange New Worlds, and others. This is Paramount’s fault, and the corporation will need to learn lessons from this episode as it moves forward. The last thing Star Trek needs is a repeat of this kind of mistake in future!

I’ll cross my fingers for positive Section 31 news this year. With Picard ending after its third season, there will be a potential opening in the Star Trek lineup… could Section 31 take that spot?

The Star Trek franchise – including all titles and properties discussed above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

I’m beginning to worry about the Section 31 series…

Thu 29.04.21Sun 13.11.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 and for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.

It’s been a while since the still-untitled Star Trek: Discovery spin-off based around Section 31 was announced. In January 2019, prior to Discovery’s second season premiere, ViacomCBS first told us about the spin-off, which would star Michelle Yeoh as Terran Empress Philippa Georgiou and focus on her new career as an agent of shadowy intelligence organisation Section 31. Since then, we haven’t heard much direct news about the planned series, and some of the indirect news we’ve been hearing out of the production side of Star Trek now officially has me worried for the show’s prospects.

It’s not unfair to say that the reaction from Trekkies to the announcement of the Section 31 series was muted at best. There was excitement at the prospect of a new Star Trek series, of course, but with Star Trek: Picard already in production by this point, many fans were less interested in Georgiou and Section 31. There are a couple of reasons why I think this was the case, and before we go any further it’s not a bad idea to look at them in turn.

Firstly, Mirror Georgiou herself. Michelle Yeoh is an amazing actress, and in many ways Discovery had been lucky in its first season to land someone of her calibre. If you haven’t seen the sci fi-horror film Sunshine, in which Yeoh plays a supporting role, I highly recommend it, and that’s just one example. But the character she plays in Discovery is a Terran, and when the show was first announced it was before any character movement or development that would come later in Discovery’s run. Mirror Georgiou was about as flat and one-dimensional as Terrans get.

Unlike a number of other Star Trek actors and actresses we could mention, Michelle Yeoh’s performance as Georgiou managed to avoid the pitfalls that Mirror Universe characters can easily fall into – namely hammy, over-the-top, pantomime villain performances. While that is a positive, and a further reflection on Yeoh’s hard work and talent, the character of Mirror Georgiou doesn’t offer much room for manoeuvre, or at least didn’t at the end of Discovery’s first season. She was a typical Terran: quick to violence, petty and demeaning toward others, and unpleasant. There seemed to be little room for Mirror Georgiou to be even an antihero; basing a series around this character as a protagonist felt like a mark against it rather than a point in its favour.

Georgiou was a very flat character in *Discovery* Season 1.

Secondly there was Star Trek: Picard’s impending arrival, as already mentioned. Picard had been announced about six months earlier, and many Trekkies were incredibly excited for Star Trek’s return to the 24th Century after such a long time, as well as for the return of Captain Picard himself – and possibly other characters from that era too.

These two factors came together to see the series announced to a lukewarm reception even from Star Trek’s biggest fans and supporters. There was a sense that the show might just be unnecessary with the franchise heading back to the 24th Century and in a different direction, and at best there was mild interest, but no real hype or excitement. Discovery had made some significant investments ahead of Season 2 in anticipation of the Section 31 series, such as constructing a full bridge/operations centre set for the Section 31 starship, and it’s likely – in my opinion as an outsider, at least – that the underwhelming reception to the show’s announcement was disappointing to ViacomCBS and the creative team behind Star Trek.

The announcement of *Star Trek: Picard* a few months earlier arguably worked against the Section 31 series.

Then along came Captain Pike. With the Section 31 series already on the ropes, Discovery Season 2 reintroduced fans to the classic captain from Star Trek’s first pilot episode… and we absolutely loved it! Anson Mount’s excellent portrayal of Pike led to calls for him to get his own spin-off, and even before the season finale wrapped up, Trekkies were signing petitions and doing everything they could to show ViacomCBS that there was a real appetite for more of Captain Pike.

This appeared to catch the production team rather off-guard, and it was more than a year after Discovery Season 2 was over and done with before Strange New Worlds – the highly-requested Pike spin-off – would be announced.

Coming on top of an underwhelming announcement, which was probably done in the run-up to Season 2 to drum up interest and convince more folks to subscribe to CBS All Access, Captain Pike totally stole the Section 31 show’s thunder and pulled the rug out from under whatever plans had been put into place for the new series. If there was room for one Star Trek: Discovery spin-off in ViacomCBS’ plans, it was clear which one fans were clamouring for – and which one they were not.

Anson Mount’s outstanding performance in *Discovery* Season 2 quite rightly led to calls for a Captain Pike series.

So the combination of a disappointing announcement and the overwhelming popularity of Captain Pike evidently saw the Section 31 series drop down the priority list. Discovery Season 3 was announced and went into production. Picard Season 1 came and went, and a second season was announced. Lower Decks Season 1 was broadcast and Season 2 entered production. Strange New Worlds was announced and entered production. Prodigy was announced and entered production. Even Discovery Season 4 entered production, and we heard nothing in all that time about Section 31.

I assumed that, with so many other Star Trek shows on the books, ViacomCBS had simply taken the sensible route by prioritising Strange New Worlds Season 1, since that’s the show fans were really excited about. The Section 31 series would surely follow, right? After all, we knew as far back as 2019 that the show was in pre-production with its stories written and potentially one full set already built.

Georgiou holding a black Section 31 combadge in *Discovery* Season 2.

ViacomCBS’ radio silence on the Section 31 series became apparent over the course of 2020, when several big Star Trek events came and went without any mention of the show at all. I began to wonder at that point what was happening behind the scenes, but then we learned that the series was “still being worked on,” with producers and writers collaborating via Zoom due to the pandemic, and that at least some of the scripts were being heavily edited or re-written. That did not sound like good news for a show that had been supposedly ready to go for more than a year.

The next time we heard anything connected to the Section 31 show it came from Alex Kurtzman, who’s in charge of the overall direction of Star Trek at ViacomCBS. Gone was the notion that the Section 31 series was imminent, and instead Kurtzman explained that there were no plans to produce or broadcast any new Star Trek series until at least one of the current ones – Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy – had concluded. That seemed to mean that Section 31 was officially on the back burner.

Georgiou in *Discovery* Season 3, after a return to the Mirror Universe.

It got even worse, however, for the Section 31 series, when talk of pre-production was nixed. The show’s co-executive producers recently said that they’re still “having conversations” about the series going ahead, which is a big step down from where the show seemed to be in 2019. Those so-called “conversations” feel like a Hollywood euphemism for a show that’s dying or on life-support, and as we’ve recently seen with at least two Star Trek feature film concepts, until a project is officially greenlit and in production, things can change.

Finally we come to the comment that prompted this article. Michelle Yeoh, who plays Mirror Georgiou and who was supposed to star in the Section 31 series, was recently interviewed on The Pod Directive, which is Star Trek’s official podcast. She made absolutely no mention of the Section 31 series or any plans for appearing in it, and could only speak in pretty vague terms about how there’s potential to come back to the franchise “one day,” and even saying at one point “Who knows?” when discussing Georgiou’s future.

Michelle Yeoh recently spoke on the official Star Trek podcast, but made no mention of the Section 31 series.

Those comments are ambiguous and I encourage you to listen to the full interview for the sake of context. But what was striking to me more than what Yeoh said is what she and the podcast hosts didn’t say. Remember that this is an official Star Trek podcast, so there will be a degree of “toeing the party line,” so to speak. I think it’s not unfair to say that if Yeoh had been interviewed by Trekkies outside of an official setting, the Section 31 series would have come up, especially in the context of discussions about Georgiou’s future. The fact that neither she nor the podcast hosts tried to steer the conversation in that direction is, in my opinion, rather telling.

And that’s why I’m officially worried about the Section 31 show’s future prospects. Will it ever see the light of day? Or will we remember it in years to come alongside Planet of the Titans, Phase II, and that weird Lwaxana Troi sitcom as a Star Trek show that was never produced?

I was initially not sold on Section 31 as a concept, and I’m happy to admit to that. But I’ve since come around to the idea, especially following Georgiou’s arc across the third season of Discovery, and I think she would make for an interesting and more nuanced character to follow now than she would’ve done prior to Season 2 when the show was announced. There’s potential in a darker Star Trek series, something akin to some of the episodes in the latter part of Deep Space Nine’s run, showing off some really difficult situations where there is no such thing as a “no-win scenario.” Bringing a character like Georgiou into a setting that allows for morally ambiguous choices could be an interesting and explosive mix.

Will this be the last we ever see of Georgiou?

It would be a real shame if the Section 31 series were cancelled at this stage. There’s a lot of potential in the series, even if it didn’t seem to have much at first. If Georgiou were to return to the 23rd Century, as seems likely following her departure from the 32nd, there would even be the possibility of linking up with Strange New Worlds for crossover stories, like we saw The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine do on a handful of occasions.

Michelle Yeoh’s recent comments – and lack of comments – about Mirror Georgiou and her future in the Star Trek franchise are the latest that have worried me, but the Section 31 series has felt like it’s been on shaky ground for a while now. The fact that no new information has been officially announced about the series in such a long time is concerning for its survival, as are other comments from people involved with its production. I will continue to keep my fingers crossed, and if we get any significant news about the Section 31 series – or any other Star Trek project – I hope you’ll join me again for more discussion.

The Star Trek franchise – including the untitled Section 31 series, Discovery, and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.