🪐 Inside the Star Trek podcast rewriting a legend

Presented by Cozy Critters

🧩 The Problem with Problems

How we describe our work becomes how we experience it. The words we choose set the tone for the climb.

Problem? It sounds like something to avoid, not something to solve.

When you reframe a problem as a puzzle, a challenge, an experiment, your brain starts looking for patterns. Call it a challenge, and you shift into motion. Call it a problem, and you’ll probably start checking your email.

The next time you feel resistance, try renaming it. Because sometimes the first thing that needs fixing isn’t the work. It’s the word.

🎙️ Signal Flow: Kirsten Beyer

Industry game changers and valiant minds share their wisdom, adversities, and paths to innovation.

Kirsten Beyer is the New York Times Bestselling author of eleven Star Trek: Voyager novels, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel One Thing or Your Mother, and the Alias APO novel Once Lost. She contributed the short story ‘Isabo’s Shirt” to the Star Trek: Distant Shores anthology as well as the short story “Widow’s Weeds” to Space Grunts. She has also written several articles for Star Trek magazine, and is a writer and Executive Producer on Star Trek: Khan.

Editor’s note: The following interview has been edited for flow and clarity.

Writing for Khan reminded me how flexible storytelling can be. Every episode has its own rhythm. Some are heavy on action, others on ideas or emotion, but all are interconnected.

Around episode four, I remember thinking, I just want to write a Star Trek story now. That impulse carried me back to what I love most about this universe: the balance of big, thematic questions and deeply human characters. Every time I write, I look for that hook, what this story really is, beneath the plot.

When you move from television to audio, you lose one of your most powerful tools: the visuals. Suddenly, you’re building a world from footsteps, wind, the hum of a ship, a character’s breath before they speak. You want listeners to feel like they’re eavesdropping on life, not listening to a performance.

It’s a delicate trick. Everything has to sound effortless, even though it’s incredibly deliberate.

A lot of that work starts in the script. I tend to overdescribe (footsteps entering a room, birds changing from morning to night) because it helps cue the sound designers and keeps the story anchored in time and place. Then, in post, we discover what all those details actually sound like. It’s such a joy to hear the collaboration unfold.

Of course, with a franchise like Star Trek, every choice is scrutinized. Fans notice everything. And I mean everything. I’ve made mistakes, and I’m fine with that. Sometimes they catch details I missed, and sometimes I just don’t agree with their read, and that’s okay too. What matters is intention. The goal is never perfection, it’s respect. You tell stories so the audience isn’t pulled out of the world for a dumb reason, and you do that by knowing the universe inside out.

I’ve been part of Star Trek long enough that its values have become inseparable from my own. It’s a vision of humanity at its best; striving, evolving, hopeful.

I first fell in love with it as a kid, watching the original series with my brother because it was the only show we could agree on. But Voyager changed everything for me. It was the first time I watched a Star Trek show as it aired, from start to finish, and it sparked the thought: I have an idea for a story about that. That’s where my writing journey began.

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I don’t consult Star Trek historians because, well, I am one. Not officially, but practically. Years of writing novels and screenplays built a mental map of the universe. I know where to find answers quickly, but I also understand how those facts fit emotionally into the stories we’re telling now.

That’s something no database or AI can replicate. AI hasn’t lived a traumatic childhood, hasn’t experienced loss or fear. My job is to write from that, from the human stuff. Machines can remix, but they can’t remember.

When I’m deep in a script, time disappears. It’s one of the few places that still gives me flow, that full immersion where hours vanish and all that exists is the story. Outside of work, what fills me back up is connection. Museums, art, film, sure, but mostly conversations. Sitting with my daughter and hearing about her day resets me. That’s real life. That’s the stuff all stories are built from.

As proud as I am of the writing, this project is bigger than me. It’s the result of hundreds of artists: Nicholas Meyer’s original story, David Mack’s collaboration, Fred Greenhalgh’s extraordinary direction, an unbelievable cast, and sound designers who made the universe feel alive again.

At the end of Khan, I hope listeners see him not as a one-dimensional villain but as a flawed, gifted, complicated human being whose path wasn’t inevitable. It’s so easy to label people as one thing. But understanding demands nuance. That’s the whole point of Star Trek. Empathy, evolution, curiosity.

At the end of the day, that’s what keeps me writing. The hope that stories can still remind us of who we are and who we might become.

🎧 Podcast of the Week: Turkish Airlines Series

Season 2 of Turkish Airlines Series has just taken off — inviting listeners to explore Istanbul’s vibrant bazaars, the sunlit coasts of the Mediterranean, and faraway destinations like Tokyo. Blending cinematic soundscapes with rich storytelling, each episode captures the beauty, culture, and spirit of travel. Discover new voices, fresh journeys, and the magic of exploration through sound.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

🥾 Further Exploration: Netflix is making a big bet on video podcasts

The Verge breaks down a fascinating deal between Netflix and Spotify that could reshape how we think about podcasting.

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💡 The Quiet Spark

A weekly question to ignite fresh thinking, stir self-reflection, and fuel your creative process behind the mic.

What idea have you been quietly circling that deserves your full attention?