Prime Video's Upcoming Space Opera Will Fill The Void Left Behind By Star Trek

Published Aug 28, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While the Star Trek franchise may currently be on hiatus, Prime Video’s next space opera is on hand to fill in the gap left behind by the iconic series. The Star Trek franchise has taken many breaks over the years, but these gaps aren’t always as long as viewers may assume from memory. Star Trek: The Original Series ran from 1966 until 1969, and 1973’s The Animated Series arrived a mere four years later. Although there was a 13-year wait between The Animated Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, it seems fair to suggest that the follow-up was worth this lengthy hiatus. Star Trek: The Next Generation’s best episodes are as influential as anything from The Original Series and many fans even consider the ‘90s classic to be the better show. This is without even getting into its influence on the spate of space operas that were green-lit after its success, such as Farscape, Stargate, Firefly, and the Battlestar Galactica reboot. The most recent incarnation of the Star Trek franchise was also one of its most prolific, outdoing The Next Generation’s spinoffs Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and Voyager by an order of magnitude. Between the 2017 premiere of Discovery and 2026, the franchise released Discovery, Prodigy, Short Treks, Picard, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Starfleet Academy. However, while there were plenty of shows released in this era, not all of them were popular. Now, the franchise is on hiatus once again, but the upcoming Mass Effect show means that fans of space opera shows need not worry. Mass Effect Puts Emphasis On Crew Dynamics & Features A Multi-Species “Federation” Even before the announcement of a long-awaited screen adaptation of the iconic video game franchise, it was already clear that viewers were living through another golden age of space opera shows. Admittedly, Prime Video’s masterpiece, The Expanse, has already ended in 2022. However, not only is its follow-up, The Captive War, entering production, but Apple TV’s Asimov adaptation Foundation already offered a similarly cerebral, addictive replacement. That said, the news that creator Casey Hudson’s Mass Effect video game franchise will soon gain a screen adaptation from Prime Video remains thrilling. A set of popular military sci-fi games, the Mass Effect series takes place in a future where the galaxy has been colonized by both humanity and various alien races, utilizing ancient advanced technology that was discovered before the story’s 2148 setting. With a multi-species federation of alien races working together to run the galaxy, Mass Effect’s TV adaptation should be ringing some familiar bells for fans of the Star Trek franchise. The show’s far-flung future setting might make the upcoming Prime Video sound superficially similar to post-apocalyptic video game adaptations like The Last of Us and Fallout, but Mass Effect is much closer to a Star Trek story in practice, or, arguably, a version of The Expanse with alien species. Mass Effect Could Be Darker Than Most Star Trek Shows One thing that does differentiate the Mass Effect franchise from Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation is its less sunny and optimistic tone. If it stays true to the source games, viewers can expect the series to be closer in tone to the likes of Deep Space Nine, Discovery, and Picard than those earlier, more idealistic Star Trek franchise outings. Of course, this is no bad thing. If the success of Foundation, Andor, and The Expanse proves anything, it is that space opera shows can be just as morally knotty and tonally dark as any other genre of TV series. While purely fun shows like SyFy’s Killjoys will always be a welcome presence in the genre, the fact that the original Mass Effect games are more morally grey than the earliest Star Trek shows means the upcoming Prime Video series should reflect this in its writing. Network Prime Video Showrunner Daniel Casey, Doug Yung Writers Daniel Casey