I must admit that, apart from Picard a few months ago, I haven’t really got into any of the so-called ‘New Trek’ – the new variety of Star Trek currently being produced. A large part of the reason for that may be because it’s being aired on various streaming services which I don’t have access to, but it just doesn’t appeal as it once did: Trek seems to have become a mess of re-readings and re-tellings of stories and characters which we were all fascinated by thirty years ago, which just does not appeal. The producers now seem to want to take the show in new directions which I have no interest in.

I just turned on my computer, and almost immediately had my first ‘What The Smeg?’ moment of the day. The word was that Star Trek is now producing it’s first musical episode. I was baffled, of course, so I googled it and sure enough found this bewildering news. ”The upcoming ninth episode, “Subspace Rhapsody,” of Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be a musical themed episode, the first ever in Star Trek franchise history, premiering on Thursday, August 3! The special musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody” will feature 10 original songs, plus a “Subspace Rhapsody” version of the series’ main title…”

Of course my jaw immediately hit the floor: Star Fleet officers do not suddenly burst into song; Star Trek is supposed to be a serious television program about humanity’s future exploring the cosmos, with awesome space battles, warp drives, quotes from Herman Melville and ‘Tea, Earl-Grey, hot.’ Why are it’s producers now taking it in these bizarre new directions so unlike what we who grew up watching The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager are used to? On the other hand, guys like me must remember that the Star Trek franchise has always reinvented itself: back in the eighties, Trek fans would have been similarly aghast at the idea of a completely new Captain and crew on a completely new Enterprise, totally separate from the stories about Kirk and Spock. Perhaps this is just a facet of the natural artistic evolution of Star Trek, and something that guys like me just have to accept: art, after all, is all about constant change and reinvention. Plus, given that I got to see my favourite crew reunite on my favourite star ship for one last time earlier this year, I suppose I can’t really complain.

Nonetheless, it still seems like a weird direction to take the Star Trek Franchise. It is so unlike anything we have seen on the show before. There have been occasional songs, such as in Vic Fontayne’s bar on Deep Space Nine, but Star Trek isn’t a drama I automatically associate with music. I’m afraid to say that, on the whole this news just reinforces my distain for New Trek: the producers seem to want to play with the franchise and take it in new directions. They appear to want to make it lighter and more comic. While to a certain extent such reinvention may be a good thing, they risk loosing the science fiction gravitas which attracted so many of us to Star Trek in the first place.