Star Trek: Short Treks
Star Trek: Short Treks is an American science fiction anthology television series created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman for the streaming service CBS All Access. Originating as a companion series to Star Trek: Discovery, it consists of several 10- to 20-minute-long shorts that use settings and characters primarily from Discovery.
After signing a deal to expand the Star Trek franchise on television, Kurtzman announced Short Treks as the first such project in July 2018. The first four episodes aired from October 2018 to January 2019, between the first and second seasons of Discovery. The shorts were mostly produced by cast and crew members from Discovery, including composer Jeff Russo who provided an updated main title theme and original underscore. Filming took place in Toronto, Canada, on the set of Discovery.
In January 2019, two new animated shorts were revealed, with four additional live-action episodes announced in June 2019. The second season of shorts aired from October 2019 to January 2020, between the second season of Discovery and the first season of Star Trek: Picard, with the last short serving as a teaser for the latter series. The animated shorts were created by visual effects house Pixomondo, while a roster of new composers supervised by Michael Giacchino provided the music for the second set of shorts.
The series has received positive reviews and been nominated for several awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award. Kurtzman expressed interest in continuing the series, but the producers chose not to begin work on any new shorts when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Premise
Each episode of Star Trek: Short Treks tells a stand-alone story that explores key characters and ideas from Star Trek: Discovery and other Star Trek series.Episodes
Season 1 (2018–19)
The first set of Short Treks were released between the first and second seasons of Star Trek: Discovery.Season 2 (2019–20)
The second set of Short Treks were released between the second season of Star Trek: Discovery and the first season of Star Trek: Picard.Production
Development
In June 2018, after becoming sole showrunner of the series Star Trek: Discovery, Alex Kurtzman signed a five-year overall deal with CBS Television Studios to expand the Star Trek franchise beyond Discovery to several new series, miniseries, and animated series. A month later, he announced at San Diego Comic-Con that a spin-off miniseries titled Star Trek: Short Treks, consisting of four shorts, would be released monthly between the first two seasons of Discovery. He said they would "deliver closed-ended stories while revealing clues about what's to come in future Star Trek: Discovery episodes. They'll also introduce audiences to new characters who may inhabit the larger world of Star Trek." The shorts were expected to be around 10 to 15 minutes long.Kurtzman said Short Treks was devised as a way to buy time so they could get the second season of Discovery right. The shorts were designed to tie-in with the second season of Discovery, but appear standalone at first so those connections would be a surprise for fans. CBS CCO David Nevins indicated in December 2018 that there would be more shorts released between the end of Discovery second season and the release of the new series Star Trek: Picard. A month later, CBS All Access was confirmed to have ordered two new animated installments of Short Treks to be released in that time period. Kurtzman described the shorts as expanding "the definition of Star Trek" and allowing them to tell "very intimate, emotional stories that are side stories to characters. So you get the benefit of the experience in and of itself but then when you watch Discovery you'll see that these were all setting up things" in the main series. Kurtzman suggested in February that future shorts could tie directly into other new Star Trek series, and be used to introduce ideas to audiences and set up mysteries. At San Diego Comic-Con 2019, Kurtzman announced that the second season of Short Treks would consist of four new live-action shorts in addition to the two animated shorts previously announced, including one that ties-into Picard.
After the second set of shorts were released, Kurtzman said the series was an interesting way to test both new stories and new filmmakers, with writers, directors, and composers on the shorts going on to work on other Star Trek series. He also said this short-form story telling was satisfying, comparing the shorts to those created by Pixar. He revealed that one of the first ideas discussed for Short Treks was a story featuring Nichelle Nichols in her original Star Trek role of Uhura. The short would have seen a young Jean-Luc Picard visit Uhura in hospital and receive a mission related to the Borg. These discussions led to the development of Star Trek: Picard with an older Jean-Luc Picard, but Kurtzman said this story could still be told at some point.
Short Treks was reportedly ordered for a third season in January 2020, with production scheduled to take place from May to June. Chabon said in March that there were no plans for any shorts based on Picard to be released between the first and second seasons of that series. No other shorts had begun production by July, when the series received an Emmy Award nomination. Kurtzman said he hoped the accolade would lead to more Short Treks being made and he wanted to use future shorts to expand the franchise in new directions such as a musical short or a black-and-white short. In January 2021, Kurtzman explained that further shorts had not been made due to the COVID-19 pandemic, since the restrictions on filming meant they had to focus on what they definitely needed to film for the main series. He expressed interest in making more shorts in the future.
Live-action shorts
Of the initial four shorts ordered in July 2018, three were set to each focus on a character from Discovery: Mary Wiseman's Silvia Tilly, Doug Jones's Saru, and Rainn Wilson's Harry Mudd. Jones's short would explore the backstory of Saru, while Wilson would also direct the short that he was starring in. Aldis Hodge was set to star in the fourth short as a new character, Craft. The shorts were produced on the set of Discovery in Toronto, Canada. In August, Wilson revealed that his short was written by a writer from the popular science fiction animated series Rick and Morty and described it as "very funny and weird. You see some alien situations you have never seen before in the Star Trek canon, and I am thrilled." He added that in making the short he assumed it was set after his last Discovery appearance, "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad", but he was not certain of this since it is standalone and does not directly tie-in to Discovery. The Rick and Morty writer of his short was later revealed to be Star Trek fan Mike McMahan, who went on to create the animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks.Wiseman explained in October 2018 that her short, titled "Runaway", expands on Tilly's character and introduces her mother but otherwise would not affect the second season, so anyone who did not see the short could still understand the main series. Because of this, she did not have an exact placement of the short in the series' timeline though Jones pointed out that Tilly's hair style changes between the two seasons of Discovery and her hair in the short matches with the style from the second season. Jones confirmed that his short, "The Brightest Star", is set before Discovery and explores how Saru first joins Starfleet. He said the short has "breadcrumbs" and "hints" for the events of Discovery second season, but the idea was still for the short and the second season to stand alone. Novelist Michael Chabon joined the series as the writer of Hodge's short, "Calypso", through Discovery executive producer Akiva Goldsman who he had been working with on a film project. Chabon went on to be the showrunner of Star Trek: Picard. This short was the first work Chabon wrote for television to actually be produced. "Calypso" is set in the far future when the Discovery computer has become a sentient AI named Zora. The third season of Discovery began building towards this future by introducing an early version of Zora.
After Anson Mount was confirmed to be leaving Discovery with the second-season finale, fans began calling, including through online petitions, for him to reprise his role of Christopher Pike in a spin-off set on the USS Enterprise, alongside Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Spock. Mount and Peck both responded positively to the idea. In April 2019, Kurtzman also expressed interest, saying, "The fans have been heard. Anything is possible in the world of Trek. I would love to bring back that crew more than anything." When announcing the second season of Short Treks at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, Kurtzman said three of the new stories would feature the Enterprise actors, with the fourth live-action short being a "teaser" for Picard set 15 years before the start of that series. Kurtzman said the Enterprise-based shorts were a way to bring those characters and actors back now that Discovery had jumped into the future for its third season, but they would not preclude a potential spin-off series from being made. When a spin-off series starring Mount, Peck, and Romijn was officially ordered by CBS All Access in May 2020, Dominic Patten of Deadline Hollywood opined that the Enterprise-set Short Treks retroactively appeared to be "rehearsals" for the series, which was titled Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. For "The Trouble with Edward", Kurtzman brought in Casper Kelly to work on the "faux Tribbles cereal commercial" post-credits scene. This led to Kelly creating the comedic, non-canon shorts series Star Trek: very Short Treks.