Late Star Trek

"Combining the rigorous critical eye of a literary and political theorist and the encyclopedic knowledge of a devoted fan, Adam Kotsko offers an original, persuasive, ethical, funny, grim, and nevertheless hopeful examination of Star Trek’s twenty-first-century incarnations. Late Star Trek is a salutary intervention, a sustained, cogent analysis of what’s gone wrong, what’s gone right, and what possibilities remain for creative and critical storytelling in our late-neoliberal streaming era."—David K. Seitz, author of A Different Trek: Radical Geographies of Deep Space Nine

"Adam Kotsko has written an eminently readable and deeply researched book on twenty-first-century Star Trek, providing an analysis that is both timely and long overdue. A must-read for anyone teaching, doing research on, or just thinking about this ever-growing franchise."—Sabrina Mittermeier, coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek and Fighting for the Future: Essays on “Star Trek: Discovery”

How Star Trek’s twenty-first-century reinventions illuminate the unique challenges and opportunities of franchise-style corporate storytelling

Late Star Trek explores the beloved science fiction franchise’s repeated attempts to reinvent itself after the end of its 1990s golden age. Beginning with the prequel series Enterprise, Adam Kotsko analyzes the wealth of content set within Star Trek’s sprawling continuity—including authorized books, the three “Kelvin Timeline” films, and the streaming series Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds—along with fan discourse, to reflect on the perils and promise of the franchise as a unique form of storytelling.

Significantly including the licensed novels and comic books that fill out the Star Trek universe for its fans, Kotsko brings the multiple productions of the early twenty-first century together as a unified whole rather than analyzing them in their current stratified view. He argues that the variety of styles and approaches in this tumultuous era of Star Trek history provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on the nature of the franchise storyworlds that now dominate popular culture. By taking the spin-offs and tie-ins seriously as creative attempts to tell a new story within an established universe, Late Star Trek highlights creative triumphs as well as the tendency for franchise faithfulness to get in the way of creating engaging characters and ideas.

Arguing forcefully against the prevailing consensus that franchises are a sign of cultural decay, Kotsko contends that the Star Trek universe exemplifies an approach to storytelling that has been perennial across cultures. Instead, he finds that what limits creativity within franchises is not their reliance on the familiar but their status as modern myths, held not as common cultural heritage but rather owned as corporate intellectual property.

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Adam Kotsko teaches in the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College and is author of several books, including Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital; Agamben’s Philosophical Trajectory; and What Is Theology? Christian Thought and Contemporary Life.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction: Star Trek in the Twenty-First Century

1. Enterprise: The End of One Long Road and the Beginning of Another

2. The Novelverse: The Longest Star Trek Story Ever Told

3. The Kelvin Timeline: A Blank Slate

4. Discovery and Its Discontents

5. A Darker, Grittier Picard

6. Minor Triumphs: Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds

Conclusion: From Myth to Franchise

Appendix 1. Star Trek Seasons and Films by Airdate, 2001 to Present

Appendix 2. Key Events in Star Trek’s Fictional History

Notes

Index