Do you miss classic Star Trek? I’m referring to the Star Trek that most of us grew up with—whether it be TOS or the 24th century Star Trek sequels…pretty much anything produced by Paramount and not CBS Studios. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy LOWER DECKS, PRODIGY, or most of PICARD season three. But there was just this certain “feel” to the Treks from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s that simply hasn’t carried over properly to the new stuff.
Then came STAR TREK: KHAN, the new audio drama available as free downloadable a 9-part podcast. The series tells the story of Khan Noonien Singh (the genetically-engineered villain from the TOS episode “Space Seed” who later tried to exact revenge on James Kirk in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) after he andhis followers were marooned on the planet Ceti Alpha V. As I listened, I felt as though I were back in familiar Star Trek territory. Granted Starfleet and the Federation play a limited role in the story, there are no Klingons or Romulans to speak of, and life on Ceti Alpha V is generally quite un-futuristic. Nevertheless, the audio drama does an excellent job of transporting the listener back into a much more familiar and comfortable Star Trek experience.
HOW STAR TREK: KHAN CAME TO BE
This audio drama podcast project got its start sometime back around 2017 when Star Trek II and VI director NICHOLAS MEYER revealed that he was working on a new Star Trek project unrelated to STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, which he was working on as a a consulting producer and writer. The following year, when ALEX KURTZMAN signed a five-year deal with CBS Television Studios to expand the Star Trek franchise beyond Discovery, it was announced that a new “prequel” to Star Trek II titled CETI ALPHA V would be produced as a 3-episode TV miniseries, focusing on Khan and his people’s fight for survival on that doomed alien world. Meyer wrote a storyline for the project.
Unfortunately, at the time, Viacom (Paramount) and CBS were still separate companies, each having its own exclusive claim to Star Trek in either TV or movie format. This made creating a television series based on something seen in one of the feature films a difficult legal maze to navigate. However, in 2019, Viacom and CBS merged, removing the copyright issues. But now there was another problem with the concept: cost. Building sets, designing costumes, hiring actors, creating visual FX, etc. for a short three-episode television run was not something that the studio was interested in funding. Expenses couldn’t be amortized over a more extended number of episodes and seasons, and because (spoiler alert!) Khan and his people ultimately die in Star Trek II, there isn’t much opportunity to launch lucrative spin-off projects that might be able to reuse some of the existing sets and costumes.
There were some brief discussions of trying to stretch out the story from three episodes into one or more full seasons, but Meyer worried that the experiences of Khan and his followers would turn into Star Trek‘s version of Gilligan’s Island and simply drag on–killing any chance at real drama.
Finally, in September of 2022, it was announced that a project called Star Trek: Khan would be produced as a multi-part audio podcast with Kurtzman, AARON BAIERS, TREVOR ROTH, and ROD RODDENBERRY as executive producers. Originally set to premiere in 2023, what Meyer later described a “a kitchen filled with cooks” led to inevitable delays. Eventually, the planned three-episode story was expanded to nine half-hour episodes written by veteran Star Trek novelists KIRSTEN BEYER (also a staff writer on Discovery and co-creator of Picard) and DAVID MACK in early 2024.
After actors were cast—including NAVEEN ANDREWS (“Sayid” from the TV series Lost) as Khan, WRENN SCHMIDT as Marla McGivers, GEORGE TAKEI as Captain Sulu, and TIM RUSS as Ensign Tuvok—all voice recording was completed by February 2025. A short introduction and the full first chapter debuted on September 8, 2025 (Star Trek Day) with one additional chapter being released each week through November 3.
“ALMOST” PERFECT…
On the face of it, the story of Khan and his genetically augmented followers (plus Lt. Marla McGivers) doesn’t seem like it would be all that compelling. Without specific spoilers beyond what was revealed in Star Trek II, we know that Ceti Alpha VI explodes six months after Khan and 70 of his people arrive on Ceti Alpha V, shifting the latter planet’s orbit and turning what was once a primitive paradise into a wasteland. Ceti eels kill 20 of his people, including his wife (whom we assume was Marla), and they spend the next fourteen and a half years fighting to survive. Not much to write about, all things considered.
Not that it hadn’t already been tried.
In January 0f 2005, Pocket Books released the third and final of GREG COX’s trilogy of novels on the life of Khan, To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh. It was a dark tragedy that had little time for joy or lightness or anything other than a slow and inevitable slide into desperation, despair, and almost certain doom for Khan and his people. And honestly, while I enjoyed the read, the novel didn’t do much else for me. I never became invested in the characters or story, and there wasn’t much that felt fresh or unexpected from the novel. I would have given it a three out of five stars.
The Star Trek: Khan audio podcast, on the other hand, gets an almost perfect five stars from me. This new story has nothing whatsoever in common with the Greg Cox novel other than covering those early years of Khan’s exile, the explosion of the sixth planet, the resulting devastation of the fifth planet, and the death of Marla followed by Khan’s descent into fury and obsession with revenge against James T. Kirk.
So why is it “almost” perfect? Well, some things can’t be helped. For example, both Tim Russ and especially George Takei have aged significantly since their last appearance together on the U.S.S. Excelsior in Star Trek: Voyager‘s 1996 episode “Flashback.” George was not quite 60 years old back then. Now he is almost 90, and his voice has become quite raspy. The actor tries valiantly to sound younger, but time has put up some significant road blocks, and as a listener, you have to “mentally ignore” Sulu’s apparent advanced age at a time very close to the events of Star Trek VI when the character sounded much younger. (My inner fan simply told myself: “Oh, Sulu has a cold.”) Similarly, even though Tim Russ is not quite 70 yet, he also lacks the tonal qualities of a young Ensign Tuvok. But his voice was close enough that I didn’t really need to rationalize the difference in my head canon. I just “edited” what I heard inside my head slightly as I listened.
But most jarring and difficult to get used to was Naveen Andrews as Khan. And let’s face it, RICARDO MONTALBAN had one of the most distinctive accents in Hollywood history. What fan can’t do a Khan impression hissing, “Kehrk, my old friend…” or “THEEZZ IS CETI ALPHA FIVE!!!” or “From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee…”? It seems like an easy enough accent to try to imitate, and yet Naveen Andrews doesn’t even try to do so. His Khan is simply his own voice, and it takes three or four chapters to truly get used to hearing it and accepting that voice as being Khan. That said, once you do manage to do so, the payoff is worth it because, I suspect, had Naveen tried to imitate Montalban, he wouldn’t have been able to provide nearly as strong of a performance as he did.
The only other thing that led me to an “almost” perfect rating is that the first few chapters take a little while to get things going. Obviously, with Sulu and Tuvok appearing, the audio drama needs to include a framing sequence looking back on the events of Khan’s exile. And (minor spoiler alert for this one sentence), that framing sequence takes place on the USS Excelsior. But that framing sequence isn’t particularly compelling or engaging, especially at first. Instead, it serves to simply provide an obvious connection to Star Trek canon though the inclusion of two known Starfleet officers and a familiar starship.
Likewise, it takes a little while to get truly interested in Khan and his people. But honestly, that’s to be expected. With the exception of Khan and Marla, the rest of the augments need to be introduced to listeners. And because this is an audio drama, those introductions have to happen through spoken interactions rather than narrated backstory. So it’s no wonder we spend the first few chapters feeling barely invested in most of these characters. But once we start to get to know them, both they and the story become significantly more compelling and satisfying to listen to it unfold. I really started to feel for these people and care about them….even Khan!
WHY KHAN WAS SO SATISFYING
Okay, Trek actors getting old, no Montalban impression, slow start—anything else keeping Khan from perfection? Not really. Within three or four chapters, I found myself counting the days until the next release. I was incredibly satisfied with the listening experience for the following reasons:
- Incredibly well acted – The cast were all superb. Each actor imbued his/her/their character with unique and familiar attributes, accents, and mannerisms so you never had to wonder who it was who was talking. And some of them were downright over-the-top (in a good way), including MAURY STERLING as Ivan, a Russian augment who was certainly no Chekov! Others, like OLLI HAASKIVI as Delmonda imbued their characters with subtlety that allowed for certain moments to be extra impactful when their voices switched to more intensity for an emotional wallop.
- Incredibly well produced – There is no question that a great deal of effort and care went into getting not only the voice performances but also the foley (sound) elements perfect. The entire listening experience is completely immersive. And the music, which is used very judiciously, is simply luxurious in the richness it provides at just the right moments.
- Incredibly well written – At a time when so many fans find quite a lot to complain about when it comes to the writing in Star Trek, I found nothing in these nine chapters to criticize. The story is so much deeper and expansive than the earlier novel. As crazy as it sounds, you actually feel for Khan! Granted, he’s still a villain and never loses that “you just can’t trust him” aspect. But at the same time, he is also in many ways a noble hero whom I found myself, at times, actually rooting for. And then, a chapter later, I was rooting against him again…then for him…then against him. And I never felt manipulated by the writing. Those shifts were not only natural, but they actually laid a path for the development and evolution of the Khan character. I gained such a better understanding of the man that I don’t think I will ever be able to watch “Space Seed” or The Wrath of Khan the same way again.
- A respect for continuity – Obviously, it’s easy to follow continuity when crafting a story that doesn’t really impact Star Trek in any significant way. All you need to do is start from the end of “Space Seed” and end at the start of The Wrath of Khan. On the other hand, the audio drama ends up going to some places where I didn’t expect, and those places definitely required some continuity. For example (and here’s your first and only minor spoiler warning), how do we even know what happened on Ceti Alpha V after Khan and his people are marooned there? I mean, if there were any recordings or notes made by Marla or the augments, Chekov and Captain Terrel were in no condition to take them back to the Reliant. And even if Khan grabbed them for some kind of sentimental reason or to document his triumph of survival, the Reliant was destroyed when the Genesis Device went BOOOM! The story also addresses another mystery from Star Trek II, and that is the question of why Ceti Alpha VI exploded. I mean, with all due respect to Superman and Krypton, planets don’t simply explode for no reason six months after being scanned by a starship’s sensors. We assume Kirk and Spock and the Enterprise crew wouldn’t maroon 70 people on a doomed planet if they’d known how unstable Ceti Alpha VI was. Or would they?
- It FELT like Star Trek – Certainly, the inclusion of scenes on board the USS Excelsior with Captain Sulu and Ensign Tuvok would provide a comfortable “classic” Star Trek feel. But somehow, so did the Khan parts (and that was the vast majority of the nine chapters). Star Trek was never solely focused on what happened within the hulls of starships like the Enterprise, Defiant, and Voyager. Very often, we would visit planets and space stations and other ships where the episodes would spend numerous scenes showing us how life was for these alien races or mining colonies or hospitals or prisons or war zones or idyllic paradises. And Star Trek stories, when they were at their best, provided action, drama, tough choices, introspection, and both triumph and tragedy for these other characters who were not in the opening credits of the show. In fact, our heroes were here to either help or resist these guest stars, and in order to make those encounters satisfying and compelling, fans and viewers needed to get to know whom we were interacting with. Khan provides that as when get to know the protagonist and his people.
And there you go…my sincere, heartfelt recommendation that you give this great experiment—Star Trek‘s first-ever audio drama podcast—a try. Listen to the first three full-length chapters, and if you aren’t hooked by then, no one will force you to get through episode nine. But I’m confident that you will be hooked by the end of chapter three. And here’s the best part: each of those podcast episodes is absolutely free to download! I listened to all of them in my car or on walks in my neighborhood. What a great way to enjoy Star Trek.
And make no mistake—the Khan audio drama podcast IS Star Trek.