There’s some good news/bad news forStar Trek: Discovery. The first newStar TrekTV series in over a decade has cast a key role, that of Spock’s father Sarek,butwe’re going to have to wait even longer before the show actually hits the airwaves. PerEW,True BloodalumJames Frainhas landed the role of Sarek, which gives us a better idea of the show’s timeline in relation to the rest of theStar Trekuniverse. Frain is a TV veteran with scene-stealing roles on shows ranging from24toThe TudorstoGrimm. Most recently, he had a regular role in the second season ofTrue Detectiveand a recurring gig onOrphan Black, but fans of genre TV may most recently remember Frain as Azrael on Fox’sGotham. Neat!
Now the bad news: As for the show’s premiere date, it was initially pegged as January when the series was first announced, but as creator/showrunnerBryan Fullerbegan work filling out his writers room and nailing down the new characters and stories, that date became an impossibility. Fullerwas pushed out of the show back in Octoberwith timing apparently a factor in CBS’s decision, and executive producersGretchen BergandAaron Harbertspicked up the baton as the new showrunners.
CBS then set May as theStar Trek: Discoverypremiere date, but now EW reports that that’s no longer the case. There is no new date yet announced for whenDiscoverymight premiere, but it’s launching its pilot on CBS before all subsequent episodes will be available exclusively on CBS’s streaming platform CBS All Access. This fall is a possibility, as that’s when new shows usually ramp up promotion, but right now an official date hasn’t yet been targeted, and sinceDiscoverydoesn’t depend on traditional network schedules, it’s really open-ended as to when the series might drop.
So why is the premiere date being pushed again? This time it’s reportedlynotdue to creative issues, but instead has to do with starSonequa Martin-Green. TheWalking Deadalumlanded the lead rolein the series last month, but now CBS is worried about marketplace confusion; if they were to start promoting her as the star ofStar Trek: Discoverywhile she’s still on the air as part ofThe Walking Dead, audiences might be confused…or something. Additionally, there’s “still a lot of careful deliberation continuing to go into makingDiscoveryspecial,” so the extra time to peg down the right directors, special effects, etc. would be appreciated by the crew.
Production onStar Trek: Discoverystill begins this week in Toronto, but with the premiere date now open-ended, it leaves the creative team with a less stressful work environment, as they’re no longer racing towards a premiere date. The irony, of course, is that Fuller’s meticulousness was one of the reasons for CBS pushing him out back in October, and now the show may not even premiere until this fall. Given his track record withHannibalandPushing Daisies, we know the guy delivers the goods, so perhaps CBS should’ve just let him do his thing.
Alas,Akiva Goldsman(A Beautiful Mind) andAlex Kurtzman(Transformers: Dark of the Moon) were brought in as consultants when Fuller left to keep this thing on track, but it’s unclear how intensely they’re involved at the moment and, clearly, they couldn’t keep that May date intact.
As for the show itself, it takes place roughly a decade before the events ofStar Trek: The Original Series, and won’t be beholden to the cinematic universe thatJ.J. Abramscreated. In addition to Martin-Green as a lieutenant commander aboard the Discovery, the ensemble cast includesMichelle Yeohas Starfleet Captain Georgiou,Doug Jonesas Starfleet Science Officer and alien Lt. Saru,Anthony Rappas “astromycologist” and fungus expert Lt. Stamets, and a trio of kilngons played byChris Obi,Shazad Latif, andMary Chieffo. We’ll see them all in action…sometime.
