The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Animated Pitch That Will (Probably) Never Happen

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," more than anything, exists as a fun experiment in genre. Unlike many of the streaming era "Star Trek" series, "Strange New Worlds" is presented in an episodic format, with each week's story concluding at the end of the hour. Its showrunners have been exploiting that format to the utmost of their capabilities, trying to rotate through as many genres and subgenres as they can with each 10-episode season. One episode may be an intense personal drama about the lingering impulses toward violence after suffering wartime PTSD, while the next is a lighthearted satirical murder mystery in the Agatha Christie vein. "Strange New Worlds" has more straight-up comedy and novelty episodes than any other "Star Trek" show to date as well, having made both a musical episode and a half-animated crossover with "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

Indeed, we already know the series' fourth season will include an episode featuring muppet versions of the "Strange New World" characters. Clearly, this show isn't afraid to push the limits of whimsy (although it may have found the limit in that respect during season 3).

All the same, it seems that one of the silliest ideas for an episode of "Strange New Worlds" may never come to pass. Speaking to SFX Magazine, "Strange New Worlds" co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman talked about his work on the series, implying that almost nothing is off-the-table in terms of the experimental format. However, while the show's "Lower Decks" crossover includes an animated segment, Goldsman once had a more expansive idea to write an episode that's entirely animated. More specifically, he came up with the notion of a "Strange New Worlds" episode animated in the style of "Star Trek: The Animated Series" from the 1970s. Goldsman didn't go into detail beyond that, but it's certainly a fun — and ambitious — prospect.

Many Trekkies would be able to tell you all about "Star Trek: The Animated Series," which ran for two seasons back in 1973 and 1974. It brought back most of the cast of "Star Trek: The Original Series" (although Walter Koenig as Chekov is disappointingly absent) and merely followed the U.S.S. Enterprise on its usual adventures. Thanks to the medium of animation, however, the show's aliens and stories could afford to be a little more outlandish. "The Animated Series" was produced by Filmation, the studio that would go on to make "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe." After falling into obscurity for years, it's now easily accessible on Paramount+.

The makers of the new "Star Trek" shows are clearly familiar with "The Animated Series," having already produced a series of animated shorts in its style under the banner of "Very Short Treks." Goldsman, however, wanted to take things a step further and make a full one-hour episode of "Strange New Worlds" in the same style. He touched on this when SFX Magazine asked about the show's famed genre experimentation. As he explained:

"There have been some [genres] we haven't been able to figure out. Every year we've said 'Let's do a Western!' I don't think it would break the show at all, I just don't think we know how to do it. We really wanted to do a 'TAS' episode, and for a bunch of reasons we couldn't quite get there. We haven't done a straight animated episode, and I don't think we will. Whether it would break the show or not, I don't know. Probably not. It's hard to know what would break it."

Notably, the "Star Trek" franchise already features a handful of Western episodes. Their ranks include "Spectre of the Gun" from "Star Trek: The Original Series" and "A Fistful of Datas" from "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Based on Goldsman's comments, though, it seems that a fully animated episode of "Strange New Worlds" is off the table, at least for now. Perhaps it would simply be too hard and/or time-consuming to make. There are still more seasons of the series to come, though, so never say die.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is currently streaming on Paramount+.