What Would a ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ TV Series Have Been Like? Olatunde Osunsanmi and Alex Kurtzman Share the Details [Interview]

The journey that Philippa Georgiou, ruthless empress-turned-resourceful Federation player, has been on is wild. Star Trek fans have been awaiting the return of Georgiou for a long time, and it has finally arrived with Star Trek: Section 31. However, there are a lot of twists and turns that Georgiou is forced to face here.

Still, though, Philippa Georgiou, played by the returning Michelle Yeoh, shares the spotlight with some new “allies.” From the straightforward Alok to the comedically sadistic Fuzz, Section 31 has a whole roster of characters to play with.

As such, some fans have felt Star Trek: Section 31‘s premise coincides with other properties, like Max’s Creature Commandos. However, this is because the film was initially intended to be a television series before it was reformatted as a film.

During the carpet premiere for Star Trek: Section 31, I got to ask director Olatunde Osunsanmi and executive producer Alex Kurtzman about what the TV show would have been like.

“What’s great about the time we had developing the show was that all of the ideas that were there are still in [Section 31],” Kurtzman explained. “When we decided to make the movie, we took what would’ve been a season-long arc for [Philippa Georgiou], and we put it into two hours.”

“It actually worked really well because it used her quest for paradigm,” Kurtzman continued. “The idea of a gunslinger with her past, with the sins they’ve been running from, now all this has come back to haunt them, but they have decided they’re gonna walk the road to redemption.”

In Section 31, multiple flashbacks make it clear that Georgiou’s past plays an important role in this story. This also gives much-needed visual context for her development throughout Star Trek: Discovery, where she initially helped the Federation.

However, there are also many elements, including the ongoing arcs of each member in Section 31, in play. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi said writer Craig Sweeny provided much of the work when it came to re-formatting the original story.

“One of the things about the film is that it takes all of the most exciting parts of what was going to be [Section 31] Season 1 and collapsed them into a movie,” Osunsanmi said. “It’s very difficult to pinpoint and [say], ‘Okay, this came from what was going to be the series,’ and how it landed in the film.”

“It’s definitely safe to say that, because we excavated this idea through the course of a season, we were able to really put together the film version in a way that was very exciting and very satisfying,” Osunsanmi explained.

Of course, for many Star Trek fans, it’s exciting to watch how this mystery and “hunt for the deus ex machina” come together in Georgiou’s story. Yet, some fans might think that Section 31‘s concept of bringing an unlikely team together has already been done before.

This was apparent in Star Trek Lower Decks Season 5 Episode 9, “Fissure Quest.” On that episode, Boimler decides to gather different variations of iconic characters from the franchise for a multiversal mission.

Outside of Star Trek, fans have been acclimated to this concept through the Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy films. However, both Osunsanmi and Kurtzman explained that Section 31 offers something more unique regarding this idea.

“It is interrelated. This is within the Stark Trek universe,” Osunsanmi stated. “The way we balance how it visually looks and the way it is by looking at it, examining it, and excavating Georgiou’s character and pulling that into the viewer’s eye.” 

“What you get is what you saw, which is wild and unpredictable, just like how [Georgiou is] wild and unpredictable,” Osunsanmi continued. “The lenses, the zoom-ins, the zoom-outs, the colors, there’s a completely different color palette than what we’ve used in this previous, modern iteration of Trek.”

“The set design [from Paul Kirby], the costumes from Gersha Phillips, even the overall lighting, all of it comes from Michelle Yeoh’s character,” Osunsanmi said. “That’s how we came up with the view. That’s what you should experience when watching the movie.”

Kurtzman went further in-depth on how Section 31 plays into multiple genres rather than focusing on the trope itself. “It not only taps into the outlaw genre, but now it’s also tapping into the spy genre,” Kurtzman said.

“It can, somewhat, be in the subset of the outlaw genre,” Kurtzman continued. “The idea that we’re doing a spy show in the movie in the world of Star Trek feels like a really interesting prospect.

“It’s been set up organically because we’re not the only ones who invented Section 31. It was invented in [Star Trek: Deep Space Nine],” Kurtzman added. “Now, we’re making something bigger.”

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Star Trek: Section 31 is now streaming on Paramount+.

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