While Star Trek is back on track at the box office, it’s still recovering from the crash of the NX-01 on the small screen several years ago . . .

The rumored resurrection of TV-Trek is becoming a regular event. This year it’s the turn of the two Bryans, namely Bryan Fuller (Star Trek: Voyager, Pushing Daises) and Bryan Singer (X-Men).

These rumors actually go as far back as 2005 when Singer and screenwriter Chris McQuarrie laid the foundation for Star Trek – Federation during a Sushi dinner. They however never actually pitched it to CBS or Paramount.

The Federation team proposed to not start from scratch:

“The great strength of Star Trek is the very Universe in which it’s set. The characters. The starships. The aliens. The stories. Gene Roddenberry himself provided the perfect example how to create a wildly successfully new Star Trek series… Acknowledge what’s come before, but then set your stage far enough in the Star Trek future when everything old is new again. Turn the Star Trek universe upside down. Shake vigorously.”

That all shook up universe set six centuries after Star Trek: The Next Generation makes quite an interesting read:

The Federation is falling apart; many younger members of the UFP have left; the Vulcans are reunited with the Romulans; the Klingons have undergone a massive reformation to become true and honorable warriors again; the Cardassians have transformed into a “society of artists and philosophers” while the Ferengi are a powerful force in the Alpha Quadrant.

Then a new powerful and ruthless force called The Scourge arrives, destroying two colonies and a federation ship, whose only survivor goes by the name of Kirk and will soon be the Captain of a new Enterprise ready to take on the so-called Scourge.

In 2008 the other Bryan told MTV about his ambitions for Trek on TV:

“I would love to do another Star Trek series. One where you could go back to the spirit and color of the original Star Trek, because somehow, it got cold over the years. I love Next Generation, but it’s a little cooler and calmer than the ones from the ‘60s, which were so dynamic and passionate. Deep Space Nine was the best of the modern ones, because it was so emotionally complicated. Enterprise was the most sterile of all of them, when it should have been the most fun. Star Trek has to recreate itself. Otherwise, all the characters start to feel the same. You always have a captain, a doctor, a security officer, and you have the same arguments based on those perspectives. It starts to feel too familiar. So all those paradigms where it takes place on a starship have to be shaken up.”

Right now both Bryans are shaking things up with Mockingbird Lane, the reboot of The Munsters, and compared notes about their pet project: Star Trek on TV, of course.

“Bryan and I are big fans of Trek,” Fuller told Entertainment Weekly, “and have discussed a take on what we would do, and we would love to do it.”

However he added: “I don’t think anything is going to happen in any official capacity until after the next movie comes out. And I’m sure it would be wisely under J.J. Abrams’ purview of what happens. He’s the guardian of Trek right now.”

J.J.Abrams of course has a production deal with Paramount for three feature films, but his TV ties lie with Warner Brothers (Fringe and other projects) and the rights to TV-Trek are still with CBS, so a new Trek show would most likely developed there.

The latest Star Trek Movie did indeed perform well at the box office and scored with both the mainstream and the majority of the trekkies, so J.J. Abrams’ input might carry a lot of weight here. On the other hand he already admitted that he’s not a big Star Trek fan and his movie didn’t show much respect for the established Trekverse.

He’s not exactly the poster boy for a “Guardian of Trek” here, but maybe Bryan Fuller was just poking at him to get TV-Trek going again. We’ll have to wait for J.J. Abrams to answer that one . . .