star trek section 31 announcement – Trekking with Dennis

Star Trek: Section 31 – Second Time Lucky?

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Prodigy, and potentially minor spoilers for Star Trek: Section 31.

Second time lucky?

Paramount will certainly be hoping so, because this is the second time they’ve tried to get Star Trek: Section 31 off the ground! Originally envisioned as a television series, this latest announcement is something new for the Star Trek franchise: Section 31 will come directly to Paramount+ as a kind of “TV movie.” Reading between the lines, I think we can expect a lower budget than a full theatrical film, but perhaps a higher budget than would be afforded to a miniseries or a couple of episodes of a regular show.

If Section 31 proves to be a success with this format, I wouldn’t be surprised to see other Star Trek projects created in the same mould. As I said last year when discussing Short Treks, there’s a lot of potential in one-off stories – and with the sets having already been built for the likes of Picard and Strange New Worlds, there could also be a relatively low cost of entry, too.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!

Off the back of Michelle Yeoh’s success at the Oscars and Golden Globes, her star has risen significantly. It’s a coup for Paramount to have won her back, there’s no two ways about it. Yeoh could have chosen to pursue other projects – she will have had no shortage of offers after Everything Everywhere All At Once took the world by storm – so it’s significant for both Paramount and the Star Trek franchise that she’s been convinced to come back.

With Michelle Yeoh at the helm, there’s potential for Section 31 to pick up a lot more interest and attention than it otherwise might’ve done – and that can only be a positive thing! We’ve talked before about how Star Trek needs to win over new viewers, and how the franchise needs to get new fans through the door. A project like Section 31 could be a gateway into Star Trek for legions of new viewers – at least some of whom will stick around. The potential for the franchise and the fandom to grow is significant – and growth is the only way to ensure that Star Trek will continue to be produced.

Paramount hopes this project will bring in a large audience…

Over the past couple of years I’ve talked about Section 31 a handful of times here on the website, and my overriding thought has been this: Paramount screwed this up. By announcing the project far too early, and at a time when fans were just about to get excited for the return of Captain Pike, Section 31 was dead on arrival. And it was such a shame, because by the time the groundwork had been properly laid for the project in Discovery’s third season, it was something I’d come around to.

This revival is, let’s be honest here, driven almost entirely by Michelle Yeoh’s success and Paramount’s wish to capitalise on it. I don’t think there’s much of a creative or artistic side to it – this is a commercial decision. As was the decision to dump the original Section 31 concept into development hell. In that case, Paramount saw the appetite for a Pike spin-off and prioritised that idea ahead of Section 31. This time, the board has seen the success Michelle Yeoh has had and has pulled out all the stops to bring her back to Star Trek.

Michelle Yeoh at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards.

But by the time Georgiou departed Discovery in the two-part episode Terra Firma, she’d undergone a significant shift in her characterisation – and was finally ready to take the lead in Section 31. If only Paramount had announced the project at that stage instead of two years earlier!

A TV movie feels like a good compromise for a franchise that’s in danger of burning out. With Starfleet Academy having just been announced as a new series, and growing calls for a Picard spin-off, I’m not sure that another series would’ve been the right call, especially with the Star Trek franchise continuing to have different eras and timelines on the go simultaneously. A TV movie could certainly lead to something more – either in the form of a sequel or a series – if it proves to be a huge hit. But for now at least, this feels like a surprisingly good call from a corporation that has made very few of those over the last few years.

Michelle Yeoh during production on *Discovery’*s first season/

The story that Section 31 will tell is going to be kept under wraps for a long time – and we might not see it until 2025 or even 2026. It’s my hope that Section 31 won’t feel like a re-hash of some of Star Trek’s recent “the whole galaxy is in danger!!!” stories that have been prevalent in Discovery, Picard, and even Prodigy in recent years. The writers need to find a way to take advantage of the secretive organisation to tell a different kind of story – a kind of black ops/spy thriller that might best be summed up as “Star Trek does James Bond.”

Besides Michelle Yeoh, there are other Discovery alumni who could potentially join the cast – though no announcements have been made at this stage. Shazad Latif, who played Ash Tyler in Discovery’s first and second seasons, is perhaps the most likely candidate, and I’d be interested to see what might’ve become of Tyler after his run-ins with Michael Burnham and the USS Discovery!

Could *Section 31* bring back Ash Tyler?

There’s also the potential for Section 31 to cross over in some way with Strange New Worlds, with the TV movie potentially debuting the same year as that show’s third season. The end of Discovery’s second season certainly implied that Captain Pike was aware of Georgiou’s true identity, and bringing him into the story could make for the kind of team-up event that Star Trek really ought to consider doing more of. If Section 31 were to aim for a 2026 release, coinciding with the Star Trek franchise’s 60th anniversary, it could even be billed as an anniversary event.

There’s been far more of a positive reception to the announcement of Section 31 in 2023 than there was to its premature announcement more than four years ago, and that’s good news. The project feels much more solid this time around, and is almost certain to get off the ground and escape the gravitational pull of development hell. Partly that’s thanks to Michelle Yeoh’s newfound stature as an award winner – but it’s also, at least in part, thanks to the development of her character across Season 2 and especially Season 3 of Discovery. The more grounded, nuanced, and dare I say more human presentation of Georgiou toward the end of her tenure on Discovery is what has made her into the kind of antihero that fans can root for.

Star Trek will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary in 2026.

So I can now say I’m genuinely looking forward to Section 31… even though I have no idea when it will be set, who it might include, or what kind of story it will aim to tell! As a standalone Star Trek project it represents a genuinely different format that the franchise hasn’t really attempted before – albeit one that could, perhaps, lead to a more traditional series if it proves a runaway success.

There’s a lot more potential in Section 31 today than there was when its original announcement in early 2019 flopped and failed to get off the ground, and I think you can see that in the positive reaction both within the Star Trek fan community and outside of it. Michelle Yeoh brings a star power to Star Trek that’s unprecedented, at least in the franchise’s modern incarnation, and the effect of that should be to bring more eyes to Star Trek – and to Paramount Plus – than it’s seen in a long time. It may not be an exaggeration in the years ahead to say that Section 31 shored up Star Trek and set the stage for its future success.

Until then, I hope you’ll stay tuned here on Trekking with Dennis! As and when we get more news about Section 31, details about the cast, teasers and trailers, and the like, I’ll do my best to discuss and analyse it all. And when Section 31 is ready, you can expect a full review, too!

Star Trek: Section 31 will premiere on Paramount Plus in the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries and territories where the platform is available at an unknown future date. Further international distribution has not been announced. The Star Trek franchise – including Section 31, Discovery, and all other 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.

Will the Section 31 series get a second chance?

Sun 12.02.23Dennis

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.