Last night, exec producers of the new Star Trek: Discovery announced the show would be moving from a January to May 2017 release date, to allow them more time to produce the highest possible quality series.
“Bringing Star Trek back to television carries a responsibility and mission: to connect fans and newcomers alike to the series that has fed our imaginations since childhood,” said EP’s Alex Kurtzman and Bryan Fuller. “We aim to dream big and deliver, and that means making sure the demands of physical and post-production for a show that takes place entirely in space, and the need to meet an air date, don’t result in compromised quality. Before heading into production, we evaluated these realities with our partners at CBS and they agreed: Star Trek deserves the very best, and these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of.”
The show is Star Trek’s first return to the small screen in 11 years, and it’s first return to the ‘prime universe’ since the movies were released, splitting the Trek timeline in two. Star Trek: Discovery will be set around 10 years before Kirk, with a female Lieutenant Commander as the lead, rather than the ship’s Captain. Plot details are thin on the ground, but they have said it will focus on an event mentioned, but not shown, in the original series. Although they had ruled out the Romulan War as being the focus of the story, Fuller did tweet the following recently:
A FAVORITE TOS EPISODE “BALANCE OF TERROR” IS A TOUCHSTONE FOR THE #STARTREKDISCOVERY STORY ARC #STARTREK50 #LLAP50 pic.twitter.com/3UqKS46Tnu
— Bryan Fuller (@BryanFuller) September 9, 2016
So it would seem Romulan’s are in the mix somewhere.
Whilst it is a shame we won’t be getting the new Trek quite as soon as we thought, I’d much rather they took the extra time to get it right, than rush out something they weren’t happy with, and it sound’s like CBS agrees. “The series template and episodic scripts that Alex and Bryan have delivered are incredibly vivid and compelling,” comments David Stapf, President of CBS Television Studios “They are building a new, very ambitious Star Trek world for television, and everyone involved supports their vision for the best timing to bring to life what we all love on the page.”
Star Trek: Discovery will now launch in May 2017 on Netflix in the UK, and CBS All Access in the US.
