Shout! Studios has just acquired worldwide rights to the new Star Trek feature documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Shout! plans to release it across multiple platforms including theatrical by year’s end.

The in-depth retrospective approaches the edgy Deep Space Nine as the most-misunderstood of the franchises that have flown under the banner of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek brand. When it premiered in January 1993 as a spinoff of Star Trek: The Next Generation, many devoted Trek fans thought the show flouted Roddenberry’s overarching vision of humanity’s noble and united future in the age of interstellar exploration.

The syndicated Deep Space Nine (created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller) eventually won fans over and endured for 176 episodes over seven seasons with its chronicle of a space station that is (not unlike Casablanca in the classic film) a place of intrigue, desperation, diplomacy, politics and profiteering.

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The documentary is co-directed by Deep Space Nine showrunner Ira Steven Behr and For the Love of Spock filmmaker David Zappone and includes extensive new interviews with the cast and crew of Deep Space Nine.

Deep Space Nine didn’t have the natural story propulsion of an exploration starship on an ongoing mission, but the static setting of a space station orbiting the planet Bajor did have a deep ensemble cast on board: Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, Cirroc Lofton, Colm Meaney, Michael Dorn, Armin Shimerman, Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor to name some.

More than a reflective project, What We Left Behind offers a glimpse into an alternate universe where Deep Space Nine is ramping up to its eighth-season premiere. That’s because the reunited writers of the original series are spotlighted as they craft a brand-new episode, developing what would be the Season 8 premiere if the show were to return to the air today.

A production of 455 Films and Tuxedo Productions, What We Left Behind is directed by Ira Steven Behr and David Zappone, executive produced by David Zappone, and produced by Ira Steven Behr, Kai de Mello-Folsom, Joseph Kornbrodt and Luke Snailham with additional production services from the New York Film Academy and 455 Films’ Kevin & Helene Layne.

“Deep Space Nine has a passionate fanbase—as shown by the successful crowdfunding campaign that brought this movie to life—and we’re thrilled share their love of and dedication to the show by bringing the What We Left Behind to an even wider audience,” said Michael Ribas, VP Marketing at Shout! Studios.