Scott Bakula is going back to CBS to star in and executive produce a new detective drama, and the man writing it is Mike Sussman, the Star Trek: Enterprise producer who developed Star Trek: United with Bakula. Sussman has confirmed his role himself. The production company behind the show has never made a broadcast series before, and its founder knows his way around science fiction.
A Detective Show Set in Los Angeles
The series is an untitled, high-concept detective procedural set in Los Angeles, and it is in early development at CBS. Bakula is set to star and executive produce. Sussman is writing it and executive producing, and it comes from Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment. According to a Deadline exclusive, Bakula’s character is described as quite a “leap” from the one he played on NCIS: New Orleans, a nod to his years on Quantum Leap.
Bakula is returning to the network where he spent seven seasons leading NCIS: New Orleans. His other series work includes Quantum Leap on NBC, Star Trek: Enterprise on UPN and the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age. He has five Emmy nominations, four for Quantum Leap and one for the HBO movie Behind the Candelabra. His next project to arrive is the Netflix hockey drama The Sticks.
Sussman and Devlin Bring Trek and Sci-Fi Credits
Sussman co-created Perception and his series credits include The Last Ship and 12 Monkeys. His Star Trek record is 10 episodes of Voyager and 22 of Enterprise, where he also produced more than 70 episodes. He wrote “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II,” the late fourth-season episode in which Bakula played Archer’s Mirror Universe double. He confirmed on X that he is working on the new series. In August 2025, he said he and Bakula were working together on a separate non-Star Trek project even as they kept United alive.
Devlin co-wrote Independence Day. His Electric Entertainment finances and distributes its own programming and has supplied basic cable with The Librarian and Leverage. The CBS drama is its first broadcast show. Devlin also created The Ark for Syfy, a space survival series that premiered February 1, 2023 and is in its third season, with the finale set for October 14. He mentioned the Bakula project publicly as well.
Bakula has seven seasons of CBS procedural work behind him. Sussman co-created a crime drama in Perception. Devlin’s company built Leverage, a weekly caper series that ran for years on basic cable. Fans have reason to be optimistic about this lineup.
What Star Trek: United Is
Star Trek: Enterprise ended in 2005 after four seasons on UPN, and it was the franchise’s last network series. A background detail in the show established that Jonathan Archer, Bakula’s captain, would retire from Starfleet, go into politics and become President of the United Federation of Planets, serving from 2184 to 2192. Sussman wrote that detail himself. It appeared on a Starfleet database screen in “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II,” and he wrote it knowing the franchise was heading for a long break.
Star Trek: United is built on that screen. Sussman described it as a political thriller and a family drama set in the early years of the Federation, in the mold of The West Wing and Homeland. His stated goal was an adult series about adults:
One of my aspirations would be that the series could do for Star Trek, what Andor did for Star Wars.
Sussman gave Archer four adult children, mirroring Bakula’s own family. One serves in the diplomatic corps, one in Starfleet and one in Federation Intelligence, and another is an adopted Vulcan son. The series would open on a scene from the Romulan War that Enterprise never showed. The setting later moved from Earth to the planet Babel, a diplomatic hub first seen in the original series.
Sussman and Bakula took the idea to Secret Hideout, the company that produces Paramount’s streaming Trek shows, about two years before the pitch became public. Secret Hideout liked it and took it to higher levels at Paramount. Paramount passed while it was cutting streaming spending, and the Earth-based Starfleet Academy was in development. The pitch resurfaced in August 2025 when Sussman and Bakula decided the arrival of Skydance made it worth raising again. Bakula addressed it on stage at Star Trek: Las Vegas that month:
There’s nothing I am going to say about United, at this point. There’s a great writer [Mike Sussman] and I have had conversations about the possibility... I’m just going to say, and we will close on that, you never know.
On Today last fall, he was asked whether he wanted to play Archer again. “Of course, I would love to do more of it,” he said. In July 2026 he told TV Insider the pitch had not moved: “Nothing is on my radar right now. But I know better than to say never.”
What the CBS Deal Could Mean for Trek
Bakula and Sussman are now set to work with the company that passed on United. Nothing announced connects the two projects, and neither man has said what the CBS commitment means for Archer. Sussman called United “just a delightful little fantasy” last fall and said that if Paramount’s plans involve expanding Trek on streaming, “perhaps something like this could be a part of it.”
The timing leaves room for it. Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy are burning off their final episodes, and no new live-action Trek series is in production behind them. The last time the franchise ran out of shows, in 2005, it took ten years to announce a successor. Bakula said in July that new people run the franchise and the studio, and that it “benefitted from a rest after Enterprise.” A working relationship at CBS puts the star and the writer of United in the building with the executives who decide what comes next.
If Paramount is willing to put Bakula and Sussman on CBS, will it give the same two men a chance to put President Archer on screen?
I hate to be even cautiously optimistic, yet here I am...