Never give up, never surrender! That was the mantra of the intrepid crew of the fictional NSEA Protector starship in the 1999 science-fiction action comedy Galaxy Quest. It's also apparently the mantra of Paramount TV, which has been trying to bring a spinoff series to the small screen since 2015. That persistence might finally pay off, as Deadline Hollywood reports that a Galaxy Quest TV series is back in early development for Paramount+. It's early days yet, so there are no details about what this TV series might be about or whether any surviving members of the original cast will be returning, even in cameos. Paramount has thus far declined requests for comment.
As I've written previously, the film is a clear homage to Star Trek, as well as its intensely committed fan base. The premise is deceptively simple: What if aliens watched transmissions of a popular science-fiction TV show from Earth and thought it was real? An alien race called the Thermians models their entire society on the principles of a fictional Galaxy Quest TV show, building real, functional versions of the spaceship and much of the technology from the series. When their existence is threatened by a reptilian humanoid general from another species, named Roth'h'ar Sarris, they travel to Earth to ask their heroes for help—arriving in the middle of a Galaxy Quest fan convention.
Of course, the heroic crew of the NSEA Protector are washed-up actors, eking out a living making personal appearances and selling autographed photos. Suddenly they find themselves aboard an actual spaceship, facing real peril, and must rise to the occasion to save the day—becoming more like the characters they once played.
Galaxy Quest didn't exactly bomb at the box office, grossing about $90 million globally and earning mostly positive reviews. But it wasn't the blockbuster success that it should have been. Galaxy Quest is a rare perfect film: a masterful satire with clever twists, wickedly funny, and so very meta. And it has stood the test of time, holding up even after multiple re-watchings. What makes it truly great and so beloved by fans more than 20 years later is its obvious deep affection for its targets. Sure, the film pokes fun at the Star Trek franchise: the cheesy tropes, the characters, the actors who play them, and the fandom it has inspired over the years. But it is never mean-spirited, cynical, or condescending. The teasing is done with genuine affection.
There has long been talk of making a sequel. But it wasn't until April 2015 that Paramount announced a collaboration with Amazon Studios and the original movie's co-writer (Robert Gordon), director (Dean Parisot), and executive producer Mark Johnson to create a spinoff series, similar to the studio's resurrection of Minority Report and School of Rock as TV series. But the unexpected death of co-star Alan Rickman—who played Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus in the original film—from pancreatic cancer in 2016 threw a spanner into those plans. Could you even make such a series without him? Co-star Sam Rockwell, who played Guy, told io9 he thought the series would now never happen.
But Paramount wasn't ready to let the project die, and by August 2017, Paul Scheer had signed on to help develop the spinoff series. Scheer's vision back in 2017 involved a serialized adventure picking up where the film ended, hopefully capturing "the difference between the original cast of Star Trek" and the cast of the J.J. Abrams reboot. There were also a couple of comic book series in 2008 and 2015, and the first issue's storyline included events from the fictional two-hour pilot of Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues. (The original film closed with the opening credits of that sequel.) At one point, Simon Pegg and screenwriter Georgia Pritchett (Succession) were involved.
And now a fresh TV series effort is underway with Johnson again leading the development.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings about a spinoff series from one of my all-time favorite movies. On the one hand, I love and cherish every character and every line of dialogue in Galaxy Quest. On the other, how do you improve on perfection? As Enrico Colantoni, who played Thermion leader Mathesar, told io9 in 2014, "To make something up, just because we love those characters, and turn it into a sequel—then it becomes the awful sequel."
Paramount's Minority Report series was... not good, but School of Rock ran for three seasons, so who knows? I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether (a) the series ever sees the light of day, and (b) whether the finished series lives up to its timeless predecessor.
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