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Expansion of the Star Trek Universe (2017–present)

CBS turned down several proposals in the mid-2000s to restart the franchise on the small screen. Proposals included pitches from film director Bryan Singer, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, and Trek actors Jonathan Frakes and William Shatner. While CBS was not creating new Star Trek for network television, the ease of access to Star Trek content on new streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video introduced a new set of fans to the franchise. CBS eventually sought to capitalize on this trend, and brought the franchise back to the small screen with the series Star Trek: Discovery to help launch and draw subscribers to its streaming service CBS All Access. Discovery's first season premiered on September 24, 2017. While Discovery is shown in the United States exclusively on Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access), for its first three seasons, Netflix, in exchange for funding the production costs of the show, owned the international screening rights for the show. This Netflix distribution and production deal ended right before the fourth season premiere of Discovery in November 2021. Discovery has since been exclusive to Paramount Global owned platforms.

In June 2018, after becoming sole showrunner of Discovery, 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. Kurtzman wanted to "open this world up" and create multiple series set in the same universe but with their own "unique storytelling and distinct cinematic feel", an approach that he compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the franchise would not tell a single story across multiple series, allowing audiences to watch each series without having to see all of the others. CBS and Kurtzman refer to this expanded franchise as the Star Trek Universe.

The second series of the expansion of the Star Trek Universe, Star Trek: Picard, features Patrick Stewart reprising the character Jean-Luc Picard from The Next Generation. Picard premiered on CBS All Access on January 23, 2020. Unlike Discovery, Amazon Prime Video streams Picard internationally. CBS has also released two seasons of Star Trek: Short Treks, a series of standalone mini-episodes which air between Discovery and Picard seasons. A new live-action series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a spinoff of the second season of Discovery and prequel to the original series, premiered on May 5, 2022. Lower Decks, an animated adult comedy series, was released on August 6, 2020, on CBS All Access. Another animated series, Star Trek: Prodigy, premiered on the rebranded service Paramount+ first on October 28, 2021, and on December 17, 2021, on Nickelodeon. Prodigy is the first Star Trek series to specifically target younger audiences, and is the franchise's first fully computer animated series. Star Trek saturation would hit a new peak in 2022, with five Star Trek series airing in the same year.

The Star Trek: Picard series finale aired in April 2023. Discovery's series finale aired in May 2024. A Star Trek: Starfleet Academy series is in pre-production to take the place of one of these series. Star Trek: Prodigy was removed from Paramount+ in June 2023. The series was picked up by Netflix, and season 1 was made available on December 25, 2023. A second season aired later in 2024.

Paramount is also planning to create television films for Paramount+ every two years. The first of these movies, Section 31, will star Michelle Yeoh, reprising her role as Empress Georgiou from Discovery. It is scheduled to be released in early 2025.