• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

From the Rose Parade to the high seas, CBS is taking a leading role in a year-long celebration of the 60th anniversary of “Star Trek.”

The phenomenon that is “Star Trek” began on September 8, 1966, on NBC following its debut in Canada two days earlier. It ran for three seasons and produced just 79 episodes. The rest is history.

With that history in mind, CBS is spearheading an anniversary celebration starting this week and continuing next year starting on New Year’s Day with a “Star Trek” float in the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena.

Then in February, “Star Trek” fans are invited to set sail for adventure on a cruise with the crews of “Star Trek” starships through the years.

Scheduled for February 20-27, the “Star Trek” celebs who are scheduled to beam aboard include William Shatner, 94 (pictured above with the late Leonard Nimoy), captain of the original Starship Enterprise, and Walter Koenig, 88, who co-starred with Shatner on the original “Star Trek” in the role of Ensign Pavel Chekov.

The anniversary celebration, announced this week by CBS, will include the creation and launch of new “Star Trek” content for a variety of platforms starting with a new website, StarTrek60.com. 

TV Blog shopping tip: All “Star Trek” merch on the site’s shop is 25% off this week through Friday (September 12).

A new “Star Trek” series, said to be the brand’s 12th, will premiere in early 2026 on Paramount+ (date TBA).

The show, “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” will trace the experiences of a group of young cadets on a far-flung voyage into outer space on the teaching vessel U.S.S. Athena.

Holly Hunter plays the ship’s captain and chancellor of Starfleet Academy. Paul Giamatti plays the first season’s villain.

“Star Trek” always had its eye on the future and so does CBS, which will make an effort to build a next-generation fanbase with the first-ever “Star Trek” series aimed at preschoolers.

The short-form, animated show, “Star Trek: Scouts,” premiered Monday night with the first two episodes (of 20) on Nickelodeon’s YouTube channel -- perhaps an acknowledgement on the part of CBS and parent Skydance, owner of “Star Trek,” that today’s preschoolers will more likely get their TV primarily from YouTube and other such platforms as they grow older, if they are not already. 

The show, whose episodes run 3-4 minutes each, features three 8-year-old friends who will embark on “out-of-this-world” missions that “push them to ‘discover, grow and boldly go!” says CBS.

Also launched this week is a new scripted podcast, “Star Trek: Khan” available on all major podcast platforms and the “Star Trek” YouTube channel.

The podcast “explores the untold events on Ceti Alpha V, chronicling Khan’s descent from a superhuman visionary into the vengeful villain seen in ‘Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan’,” CBS said.

Another first for the “Star Trek” franchise will be a foray into the digital comic space with Webtoon, which bills itself as the “No. 1 Global Storytech Company.” 

Set to start next year (date TBA), CBS provided few details about the venture except to say that it would launch “original stories that touch on universal genres and themes based in the world of ‘Star Trek’.”

Also timed for the year-long anniversary celebration is a collaboration between Paramount and Lego, which will come out with its very first “Star Trek” Lego-brick construction kits this November in time for the Christmas shopping season.

As everybody knows, Lego’s association with another space-fiction franchise, “Star Wars,” has been enormously successful for years.

Indeed, “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” are among the best-known brands in American popular culture. Both seem poised to make money far into the future.

The difference is that the “Star Wars” phenomenon was born in 1977 with the release of the original “Star Wars” movie, which changed the nature of movie-making and the movie business forever.

By contrast, “Star Trek” was this space-fantasy TV show made on a 1960s TV budget that ended after a mere 79 episodes.

It is doubtful that anyone involved with the show then could have foreseen that this show about exploring the universe would evolve into a universe all its own.