‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Takes the Franchise Into the Future … Again!

There was much rejoicing for Star Trek fans at San Diego ComicCon as the franchise celebrated its 50th anniversary and teased the upcoming series Star Trek: Discovery which will stream on CBS All Access, premiering in January 2017.

Bryan Fuller moderated the ComicCon panel, which honored the show’s golden anniversary and the indelible mark it has had on fans around the world, and featured stars from previous iterations of the beloved series, including William Shatner, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Jeri Ryan and Scott Bakula. They revealed the new spaceship and the fact that the new show will have the same title as the ship, “Discovery.”

At the conference following the panel, the actors from the previous shows and Fuller, Heather Kadin and Rod Roddenberry, executive producers of the newest member of the Star Trek family, fielded questions from the press. Here’s what we learned:

• Fuller said Discovery will take place in the Prime timeline but won’t say exactly when just yet. Fuller says they will slowly tease fans by dropping tidbits gradually. Fuller praised his co-executive producers and writers working on the new show, saying, “I’m very fortunate to have a fantastic team on Star Trek including Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, who I worked with on Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies. I couldn’t do it without them. We have a wonderful writing staff that includes Nicholas Meyer and what a treat is it to be working with him.”
• William Shatner recalled, “Star Trek gave me the opportunity to meet the most remarkable people. All these people were affected by Star Trek. It was a TV series but science fiction is mythology and it tries to tackle those things that we can’t explain. The show expanded to affect a great deal of our culture and the legions of people who watched the show.”
• Asked about being a woman writing for genre shows, executive producer Heather Kadin commented, “What I’ve found when I’ve done ComicCon panels like Sleepy Hollow and to see so many female fans looking at me, to be a female working behind the scenes in the genre, I take it very seriously and fortunately, so does Bryan (Fuller.) The way he approaches storytelling, he’s inspired by the fandom and including everybody. You’ll see that’s a big part of it.”
• Bryan Fuller spoke eloquently about how he perceives the influence of Star Trek: “The state of this country right now terrifies and saddens me and I feel like we need something like Star Trek to remind us collectively, as a human race, that we have to get our shit together and build a better future. We have to start working much harder on that today.”
• Scott Bakula reflected on the show’s longevity: “I’m astounded by anything surviving on television for 50 years. Television has only been around for how long? 65 years? It shows a collectiveness of conscience and that’s astounding.” Brent Spiner concurred with Bakula and added, “I think Star Trek is the great American epic. Anything that goes for 50 years, you have to take it seriously.”
• Jeri Ryan observed that the show inspired kids to want to explore space or become engineers or astronauts. “It’s so optimistic and hopeful and we need that desperately. It’s about embracing everyone. In the 1960s, they had a Japanese character, a Russian character, the first interracial kiss. That was something. We need that now. Everyone is scared of anyone who’s different.”
• Michael Dorn, the actor who’s been in the most Star Trek episodes, says “for every person who watches the show and is a big fan, they have different reasons for loving it. It was really great television. The influence is mind-blowing.”

Look for Star Trek: Discovery in January 2017 on CBS All Access.