29 Years Later, Star Trek Is Revisiting A Beloved Lost Era
Captain Sulu and Tuvok are back.
What is Star Trek’s most unexplored era? With a timeline that spans the 22nd century to the 32nd century, it’s either very easy, or very hard, to pick a point in all of Trek’s fictional history that seems undocumented. And yet, the one era that fans have been most curious about for decades is easily the period of time between the end of The Undiscovered Country (2293) and the start of the The Next Generation (2364). It’s a big period of time, and when most fans talk about this era, we’re often focused on Captain Sulu, and the USS Excelsior. And now, in a roundabout way, Trek canon is giving fans a glimpse into this lost era through a clever framing mechanism for a different lost era entirely.
As revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, the upcoming podcast audio series, Star Trek: Khan won’t only just tell the story of what happened to Khan and his followers on Ceti Alpha V, between the years 2267 and 2285, but the framing for the story will be centered around some lost logs of Khan’s discovered by Starfleet sometime around the late 2290s. In Star Trek: Khan, George Takei will reprise the role of Captain Sulu, alongside Tim Russ, returning as Tuvok.
Star Trek: Khan Trailer
As SDCC 2025, the first major trailer for the scripted audio series, Star Trek: Khan laid out the basic nature of the series, lost logs of Khan’s discovered in the 2290s, and flashbacks to Khan’s ordeal on Ceti Alpha V in the 2260s.
In addition to Takei and Russ, one more new cast member was revealed; Sonya Cassidy as Dr. Rosalind Lear, a new character in the Trek franchise. As previously announced, Khan will be played by Lost veteran Naveen Andrews, while his wife, and former Starfleet officer, Marla McGivers, will be played by For All Mankind’s Wrenn Schmidt.
Star Trek: Khan’s Two Timelines, Explained
Khan (Ricardo Montalban) and Marla McGivers (Madlyn Rhue) in “Space Seed.”
As revealed at SDCC 2025, the format of Khan was fully explained. On the USS Excelsior, with Sulu in command and Tuvok still an ensign, Dr. Lear will present new evidence that Khan’s life on Ceti Alpha V wasn’t at all what anyone knew. The concept here is that Lear has some “lost logs” of Khan’s which, as she says in the trailer, “Khan was much more than a mad tyrant.”
So, essentially, Khan will take place in two timelines. The primary series is set in 2267 through 2285, right after Khan’s exile at the end of “Space Seed” and up until the beginning of The Wrath of Khan. But, the framing for the show will be set on the Excelsior, sometime in 2293 or later.
This will be the first time since the 1996 Voyager episode “Flashback” that both Russ and Takei will be playing Tuvok and Sulu in this exact context. Not only will this show tell us more about Khan, but also, shine a bit of light into the shadows of Captain Sulu’s adventures, during Star Trek’s most fascinating lost era.
