Discovery: Yeoh Kicks Us Off

I said yesterday morning that I wouldn't get on-board with the whole Michelle Yeoh thing.

However reading only a little more into it I think we can solidly say that Yeoh is going to be in Discovery. 

Writer and former Star Trek movie director Nicholas Meyer all but confirmed her involvement saying that she was in it but managed to stop short of actually stating what role she would be playing in the much anticipated CBS show. 

Yeoh is most famous for her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and in Tomorrow Never Dies. For Formula One fans she's also known as FIA President Jean Tote's wife. 

Certainly a massive name with a big cinematic history, Yeoh herself has "neither confirmed or denied" her involvement in Discovery which in itself seems to be a massive admission that she will be starring in the series. I'm actually amazed that CBS have secured such a massive name to top their show and she will definitely be a big draw for franchise fans and also to her followers.

I think we were convinced that such a big name would surely be cast as the lead lieutenant commander "with caveats" that Fuller toted a few months back but now multiple sites are indicating that she will actually be Captain Han Bo of the USS Shenzhou. Couple of things to note in that case.

Yeoh is clearly a sign of the multicultural nature of Discovery and also suggests that there could be several high profile names linked to the project since she's not even on the lead ship (let alone the lead character). It also means that the show is going to have multiple locations and not just be set on the Discovery - you wouldn't get Yeoh just for an occasional guest role now would you?! Also having this USS Shenzhou means we are getting at least two new Federation Starship designs which will keep lots of people even happier.

This is all still unconfirmed and could just be a little rumour that's got completely out of control. Heck, we don't really know if this will be her character name and I'd certainly have some salt to hand...

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Schedule Fuller Than Expected

Dammit - it now seems that due to an outrageous workload, apparent saviour of Star Trek on TV, Bryan Fuller is handing over the main reins of the show to another.

News has emerged that Fuller is finding it difficult to manage the show and continue with other commitments leading Gretchen J Berg and Aaron Harberts stepping up to the plate.  

After the delay from January to May 2017 this is yet another grumble for fans to contend with. What started out as an amazing possibility and one that offered new hope for the franchise on the small screen one thing seems to lead to another. 

Fuller appeared to be the light at the end of the tunnel - someone who understood the franchise more than Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin and could steer the show in a positive direction that would honour the Roddenberry vision yet be something new and exciting. As of now that seems to be over.

Fuller will continue to exec produce and guide the story of the show but day to day will be in the hands of Berg, Harberts and Alex Kurtzman.

So who are these guys?

Both Berg and Harberts have history with our main man Mr Fuller, working with him on Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies and working alongside each other on virtually everything from that time onwards - Mercy, Off the Map, GCB, Revenge and Reign. Clearly it's a strong pairing that's worked although my concern with this is that none of their works have been particularly long-lived. In Harberts case his longest producing role was 22 episodes for Mercy (although he did produce/co-produce Roswell High for longer - 39 - but not in a single role). Is this a wise move? Not sure because these guys don't seem to stick around too long in one place so we could have a new showrunner by the end of the first year/Fuller back depending on how they handle the vision. Might there be an option for Nick Meyer to have a stronger lean on the show for its second season IF it gets green lit?

So now we sit six months from premiere date (or one and a bit if we were still looking at a January start) with a few seconds of footage and a picture of some antennae to show since the announcement in November 2015. Supposedly a few rumours have suggested casting announcements will be forthcoming but with the continual changes going on I'm not holding out any hope - all we seem to be getting is negative and there needs to be some positivity!

The way that other sites are reporting this is that Fuller has utterly abandoned the project which is 100% untrue. He's written the first two episodes and remains in control of the bigger picture rather than dealing with the day to day minutiae. Rather than reporting this is surely just the first stage to it being cancelled (yes, seriously there are some sites pushing that), more that it's an evolution process for the show. What guarantee was there that Fuller would have remained for the duration anyway? Was he actually pulled in just to get the show back on the right track? 

Reports from io9 indicate that as well as our lead non-captain role there will be a male gay character, two admirals and a Klingon captain at the forefront of Discovery. If true then this does cement the possibility that we are going to see the Klingon War and by assumption the Battle of Axanar. Fuller has teased that the show will be very different to any previous Star Trek series and by having this Klingon role plus the two admirals you get the impression that Discovery is going to be set across several locations rather than the familiar single Starfleet vessel we have known since The Original Series. Heck, we might even spend a decent amount of time on an old Klingon ship.

While I remain enthusiastically optimistic I can also see where the doubt could be creeping in - the delays, no casting news, multiple production head changes -is it becoming a case of too many cooks or should it be more a case that there is a lot of creativity being mined to make this the best Star Trek show ever made?

Honestly I don't think we have anything to worry about since Bryan Fuller's imprint on the show has already been made and his overseeing gaze will keep the show pointed in the right direction. These are not new names in the mix and have been working with Fuller since Day One so let's give them a chance to make their mark. 

Concerned? Happy? Undecided if all this is a good move?

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Rerunning Trek

New Crews, New Villains, New Heroes, New Worlds we were promised.

But with further announcements this week in regards to Star Trek: Discovery, should we actually be led to believe that the franchise, one with a rich 50 year history, has actually run out of new ideas?

Look back to the news to date and there's seemingly always some form of link back into another part of Star Trek. You could say homage but at what point does that just become a euphemism for lazy creativity?

Take the ship for example (and starters). While in-universe it's a brand new design and one that is certainly unique but fans were quick to note the startling resemblance to the Ralph McQuarrie design that was never used for the never produced The Planet of the Titans movie in the 1970's. A design that harked back to the original Enterprise in some respects but still not a 100% new creation - and one that Fuller and Kazdan were quick to note had been knocked together in a three weeks ahead of San Diego Comic Con.

Then there's the time period. For months we had some wonderful conjectures around the as-was-then unnamed series being set in the "Lost Era" beginning after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country or, perhaps even more optimistically, after Voyager and Nemesis.

Thing is that was also dashed with the news that the show would be set 10 years before The Original Series, three years after The Cage and, effectively, another prequel. The option to take the show further into the future and truly explore strange new worlds and seek out new civilisations seems to have gone a bit stale since setting Discovery in this time period will inevitably enforce restraints on the storytelling.

Perhaps the best news in that case was that the lead character could be a black female who would be a lieutenant commander "with caveats" rather than being the captain of the ship. Hurrah! we shouted, something new, original and exciting - until it seems that she could well be referred to as "Number One". While a different character it seems Fuller is keen to see this as another homage to the Majel Barrett character from the original pilot and recently revisited in the literary anniversary special Legacies: Captain to Captain and also called Number One. Shame on blastr among other sites for "calling it" and making out that they knew - I'd personally just look at what you're writing because you do mention it's a homage to The Original Series but then assume the character is the same one when clearly they won't be. Tut tut.

With all this in mind are the concerns of some fans more than valid? Is Star Trek a tired franchise -something perhaps also echoed by the rather lacklustre financial success that Beyond received since its July 22nd release? Has a series that once prided itself on telling stories that no other series could tell be finding that the only way to be interesting is to mine its own past and even material that was cast aside as not good enough 40 years ago?

I'm reading Mark Altman and Ed Gross' second volume of The Fifty Year Mission at the moment and this originality is hammered home in almost every paragraph relating to the writing of the 178 episodes of The Next Generation. It had to be different; Michael Piller appreciated what Roddenberry was attempting to do and realised that each story had to be given the unique Star Trek spin whether the writing staff agreed with him or not (as was more likely the case...).

Even the single makeup shot we've seen to date is a pair of blue antennae which immediately points every self-respecting fan towards the belief that we will be seeing a third interpretation of the Andorians after The Original Series' Babel and Shran et al from Enterprise. More aliens than before and our first gay character are promised but even the latter is a concept oft discussed, oft cast aside and now a seemingly token gesture that seems to lack substance because it has been ignored or handled badly by the franchise for so long (step forward Rejoined or The Outcast).

For all their faults, both Voyager and prequel series Enterprise attempted something new; to explore a totally new frontier far from the confines and heavily story-mined Alpha Quadrant or to step back in time to a more basic era, even taking the bold move to take Star Trek from the titles (for the first two seasons at least).

The news that we are borrowing character names; even nicknames/informal addresses - remember even Picard referred to Riker as Number One - is a big worry for me but I'm still trying to remain ever-positive for the show.

So too did we get the news from the mouth of Fuller that the uniforms would not be along the lines of the super-bland look we are familiar with from The Cage. I'm not sure anyone will be too disheartened to find that he will be putting a new twist on the uniforms but I can already hear some fans bemoaning the fact that this will take it away from the core of The Original Series and into what may well be referred to as the Fuller-verse. Apparently we will recognise the uniforms from the word go so I suspect there will be hints of Kirk era but as its set 10 years before Where No Man Has Gone Before and therefore 13 years after The Cage how are they going to explain the total lack of red shirts in both pilots?

So OK the uniforms can't be original but now it seems to some degree they might be the most original thing going for the show at the moment. Looking to the first season and the arc, it's clear that we will get a big but as yet unconfirmed event that was mentioned in the classic episodes - and again there's the borrowing element in full force. Encapsulating the show within a bubble between Enterprise and The Original Series may well stifle that creativity and force certain stories fans expect and hope to be told, it will undoubtedly lead to seeing familiar characters from the three 1960's seasons. Has Star Trek simply become its own victim because of this choice to limit the time period to one that has already been bookended when there could be new times and new frontiers to explore?  

While we have been promised all this newness to the franchise the only things we have heard so far have all related to other aspects of the Star Trek universe in some shape or form. Fuller has yet to provide a solid, clear indication of the unique identity of the show perhaps the only exception being the main character is not the captain.

I'm not saying that Discovery should be devoid of references/nods to its forebears especially as we celebrate 50 years of the franchise but the temptation to over-mine the past has to be stopped. With The Next Generation there was a very conscious decision for a good three seasons not to backtrack to The Original Series that was only seriously broken by the arrival of Sarek in Sarek and the mention of Spock. While McCoy has appeared - unnamed - in Encounter at Farpoint and The Naked Now was a rewrite of a classic episode, everything else was culled to allow the show to build its own unique identity. I would wish that what we are hearing now is just information to show existing fans that Fuller will honour the show and keep his chapter true to the beliefs of the past five decades. Surely in the next few months we will be hearing and seeing a lot of new, exciting and inspiring details on Discovery. It has to forge it's own identity and at present it just seems that Fuller is fighting fan fires and appeasing fans who are locked into the last 50 years and not seeing the potential of the next 50.

While Fuller is looking to keep those fans happy he has to step forward, be bold and adventurous and I'm sure that this will all become apparent in due course. Please say it's so...

Will Discovery provide all the "new's" we've been promised or are we in for 13 episodes of homage?

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Ships of Discovery

Chris Groves with some tech help from Rob Gibson looks at the possibilities that could be flying into Discovery in 2017.

For the first time in 16 years we will be returning to the Star Trek Prime Universe, back home where we belong.

Bryan Fuller has confirmed Discovery’s setting as being (approximately) 2255 (10 years prior to Kirk’s five year mission) and this starts to raise questions about what we can expect from the show. One that will have fans really piqued will be the prospect of new starships. The teaser showed off the The Planet of the Titans inspired USS Discovery (design not final) but what else might we see coming out of the Federation stable?

By this point the Constitution class has become the perfected standard for Federation starships at this time but there must surely be a varied collection of ‘pre-Constitution’ vessels that could be included. Could there even be a glimpse at the NX refit?

The design of the Discovery itself, whilst other proven vessels are available, is a seemingly unique design, a secret vessel perhaps? With a moniker such as the one carried by this ship you would think it would be a vessel for exploration but does that more severe finish indicate a darker and more military purpose?

Also by 2255 a Starfleet captain named Christopher Pike will have been in command of a well known starship for some three years taking over from Robert April. I would imagine that to feature the USS Enterprise would be a little too over the top, that being said, all of us would be happy for a passing reference to establish the all important familial link.

Fuller has only teased a few details, but one notably stood out; ‘New Crews’ was stated in the initial announcement teaser. Are we truly going to have a cross-crew Star Trek story and if so can we really hope for multiple starship joy?

“I think we will be seeing lots of crews in the story. One of the things that is exciting for me is that we are telling a 'Star Trek' story in a modern way” (Bryan Fuller)

It seems we will be seeing a new kind of storytelling from that which we are used to, instead of weekly partitioned stories. Fuller has hinted at a serialization of sorts and has stated on more than one occasion that the new show would be ‘modern’ in style.

This could explain the multiple ships theory and perhaps how a central ‘incident’ maintains the focus of the actions of several starships and crews.

"There’s an incident, an event in Star Trek history in the history of Starfleet that had been talked about but never fully explored." (Bryan Fuller)

The crews in question could be drawn from across the Alpha Quadrant’s major players, Klingon, Romulan, Federation, even Tholian or Gorn may be thrown into the mix and who is to say that we won't be getting a perspective from an alien race, Anyway this is an exciting possibility and aside from the story opportunities, it means seeing a varied collection of ships in play.

The only form of Federation ship ever really shown in The Original Series in its broadcast form was the Constitution class (The Doomsday Machine, The Ultimate Computer...). Later in the re-mastered episodes we eventually saw ships like the Antares in Charlie X. Non-canon publications (such as FASA) have postulated a huge number of alternate designs for the period and so there are these to draw upon if CBS needs a selection of Starfleet types.

Could there be a disregard for Roddenberry's "even number of nacelles" demand (that gets ignored anyway...), might we have more compact ships in line with Enterprise and Intrepid from the prequel series for example rather than the style of The Original Series?

There are many of these wonderful examples that would look amazing on screen but with so many seasoned designers and artists available, CBS will most likely demand its own dedicated starship models. However there's one that does beg an appearance if only to marry in some form the two Houses of Star Trek in Paramount and CBS - the USS Kelvin. Given that the series is ten years before Kirk's mission it would place it roughly 22 years after his birth and perhaps place that ship at the end of its operational career.


Including the Kelvin would acknowledge it's existence in the Prime Universe and give some form of cohesion between the two productions but I'm not saying it's essential here - just a possibility although it's design might be radically different to the way that Fuller's Star Trek ships appear to be heading. Could another specific ship to pop up be the USS Ares or whatever craft CBS want Garth of Izar to be commanding? 

As I noted, CBS are more likely (sadly) to want to have the designers come up with their own identity and range of ships for Discovery. There are exceptions to this of course (we hope); the classic Klingon D7 battle cruiser is an icon of the Star Trek universe and it would be a travesty to not include these but then they could curve-ball in a D6 just for the hell of it. Also the work done by the Enterprise Design department from 2001-2005 already introduces several ships to the canon, (especially Klingon, Vulcan and Andorian craft) that could be reused as they would still be available options to these races post-Archer.

The era in which Discovery is set has been the subject of a lot of controversy, (although to be fair that would be the case no matter what CBS had decided upon). Storytelling will be the key to both the success of the characters themselves and the starships (who are in many ways as much characters as those on board them)

The scope of the new series seems to be a broad stroke across many worlds;

We're telling a 13-chapter story in this first season. It's nice to be able to dig deep into things that would have been breezed past if we were doing episodic and had to contain a story to an episode." (Bryan Fuller)

We are left with only guesswork until January 2017, a mere five months ahead an important month for the future of Star Trek as a whole. May all our Trekkie dreams come true?

What ships would you like to see in Discovery? What new designs might we get or what influences do you think we will see?

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Flight of Discovery

At about 11pm UK time the nail biting wait to find out the title of the upcoming Star Trek TV series was over.

Star Trek: Discovery was officially subtitled at the very end of the Star Trek panel at San Diego Comic Con.  Not only did we learn the name of the show but also that it will take place in the Prime Universe with each season as a novel and each episode as a chapter. 

Series producer Bryan Fuller had been hosting the Star Trek panel which included cast from all series - William Shatner, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Jeri Ryan and Scott Bakula with seemingly the whole of fandom waiting for him to drop some series nuggets at a packed event.

As for when in the timeline Discovery will take place we still don't know exactly but surely the registry of NCC-1031 is a clue that it'll be pre-The Original Series? But then it could be that the ship is dropped through time and the show is post-Voyager as one comment on Twitter postulated. I loved one online suggestion that there could be potential to get Federation President Jonathan Archer to christen the new ship and therefore provide a solid link to the franchise's past. God bless the internet and its theories. One theory I'd like to chuck in here is that the registry they're using here could be a red herring and just there to throw us off the scent - we know this isn't the final finished and polished article! 1031 could be the time it was decided this would be the design to be used, it could even be a covert way of telling us the first ep will be aired on the 31st January. 

Fuller also gave attendees the first look at the new ship which he noted is very apt given the nature of Star Trek - the mission to seek out new life and new civilisations and to go boldy.

Discovery is a big name if you take a second to look back and one very much associated with space flight in respect to 2001's spacecraft and also the US space shuttle which was swapped for the Enterprise at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I seem to recall that one of the NX class in the expanded universe also carried the name.

Now what we do know is that the CG and in fact the ship itself are not 100% finalised (confirmed by Heather Kasdan after the Star Trek panel) but the homage to the unmade Planet of Titans from the 1970's and by proxy Ralph McQuarrie's designs are unmistakable. That's not a bad thing and remember that bits of those designs have turned up in Unification's ship graveyard and also hidden in plain sight in spacedock when the Enterprise arrived home in The Search for Spock - so they are definitely canon now?!

The sequence opens on an asteroid containing a spacedock containing the new starship, leading to our first glimpse of her. There is the familiar saucer/engineering hull/nacelles configuration and we even have red bussard collectors akin to the series rather than the blue of the reboot Enterprise. Note that the collectors are in a triple cluster rather than a single dome. The impulse engines sit to the rear of the secondary hull rather than the back of the saucer and contain four hexagonal "thrusters" which is distinctly different to the single units we've seen on previous ships.

Even the spacedock itself has echoes of the McQuarrie design with its blue circular portals as well as its internal structure. Even the paint tone on the ship reflects those images we're so familiar with but the deflector is a much more 24th Century blue than a 23rd Century gold. Anyone else feel that the trip out was similar to that taken by the refit Enterprise in The Motion Picture which was itself hat-tipped in Broken Bow, the Enterprise pilot.

Looking at the saucer of the Discovery the edge trim lines are similar to those on the reboot Enterprise and the ridged upper surface has hallmarks of the Franklin from the recent Beyond. The lettering also seems to be more reboot than The Original Series in its simple, unbordered nature. It's a feature that would have been a glaring error in judgement had they gone for something utterly radical. 

The bridge module doesn't have the single window we've seen in the Kelvin Timeline and instead there are visible ports around the edge.Taking this and the double deck around the saucer into consideration - and a bit of counting we're looking at around 10 to 12 decks for this new ship putting her twice the size of Archer's NX Class vessel and maybe half the size of the Constitution Class. Purely guesswork on that one from the pics!

There have to be recognisable elements and the saucer is unquestionably important. The saucer underside has the registry twinned on port and starboard a la the classic USS Enterprise which helps place the ship more firmly in the post-Enterprise pre-The Original Series timeframe. Also the central dome sits in a recessed section but still drops just below the plane to retain a rather familiar profile.

To the rear it seems that the McQuarrie shuttle bay still exists but has been shaved back and narrowed on that rear edge - a flatter shape than the curved rear we've seen on the Enterprise or Voyager for instance and a more industrial door style - might even be a cargo bay?

The design and the name of the series have already taken a pounding on social media (surprise) but I think it's a good choice to go for something that is so intrinsically linked to the franchise history and was sadly consigned to some big vault of lost ideas. See below for some more closeups on the new ship as she makes her way out of the dock for that first flight.

One other thing to note and something I stupidly missed but was redirected to by Captain Revo on Twitter who is always good to help get my brain thinking of the larger picture I might add (credit where due!!!) is the music behind this teaser. It's got an incredibly Klingon feel to it. Might the Discovery herself have certain Klingon traits in her design not dissimilar to a D7 (back end) or a Bird of Prey? (again credit to Captain Revo for his thoughts). It's certainly inspiring, driven and reminiscent of the score from The Undiscovered Country in particular (court scene). Is that a hint at a Klingon/Federation team up? Are we really looking at something half-finished that will take place post-Nemesis and the destruction of Romulus and therefore tie all the universes in together?

Set to debut on CBS All Access in the US and Netflix in 188 countries around the world, it was also announced on Friday that the pilot episode will be directed by David Semel. Semel's work includes production work on The Man in the High Castle, plus directorial duties on shows including Hannibal, American Horror Story, CSI and Heroes. Certainly has the credentials for the job and the links into the Kurtzman-verse.

The top boss at CBS, John Van Citters also got online to confirm that Discovery will be shortened to DSC as with TOS, TAS, TNG et al. That was most definitely in response to the wildfire speculation it would become STD. Chuckle.

Series overlord Bryan Fuller added in his address at Comic-Con that the show would "...celebrate a progression of our species.." which is much more in keeping with Roddenberry's original vision rather than the more action-orientated cinematic adventures of the last seven years. Later Heather Kasdan said that the show will importantly represent the LGBQT community both in front of and behind the camera.

The producers seem to be saying - and showing - all the right signals at the moment but we've still be have any cast announcements or see any set pictures. The shots of the Discovery are a nice payoff for the nine months we've been waiting since the first announcement in November last year but this is merely a fraction of the tip of a very, very big galactic iceberg.

McQuarrie space dock

Forward view of the blue deflector

McQuarrie Enterprise from the rear - note shuttlebay and "straight" rear edge

rear view - note shuttlebay and kinked rear edge in comparison to the McQuarrie design

Ridged saucer topside and registry

What are you thinking to the new announcements around Discovery?

All images of the new ship and logo from the CBS teaser trailer.

You can also check out the news so far by clicking on our new DSC link in the topics list!

NOW check out and subscribe to our monthly podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Soundcloud and Stitcher by searching "Some Kind of Star Trek".

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Where Are We Up To With 2017?

With lots of information coming out of the new show, Ian Kimmins sums up all that we know in one handy post...

As Star Trek Beyond approaches and the excitement reaches fever pitch for our first new Star Trek adventure in a few years, Bryan Fuller has been quietly putting together his staff for the upcoming 2017 Star Trek TV show. 

With only seven months to go until the CBS All Access premiere in January 2017, fans really haven't got a lot of clues as to what to expect. Let's first take a brief look at his team and speculate from what we have heard so far as to what may happen:

Bryan Fuller

Executive Producer, Show Runner, Writer

Is he the best person to run the new series? I think so - without any doubt. When you look at his Star Trek credentials alone he has some great episodes including Drone and the seminal Living Witness (with Joe Menosky!) and of course Bride of Chaotica!. Another reason why I think he is an excellent choice is that he is successful outside of Star Trek with such shows as Pushing Daisies, Heroes and Hannibal.

Gretchen Berg/Aaron Harberts

Gretchen Berg/Aaron Harberts got their start on Beverly Hills 90210. Not a lot is known about both of these writers except that they worked worked with Bryan Fuller previously on Pushing Daisies. They have also worked on popular series such as Revenge and Roswell. 

Jesse Alexander

Jesse Alexander has worked on Alias, Hannibal, Lost and Heroes. Note again the links to Bryan Fuller and also Orci/Kurtzman. For those of you who watched Alias he wrote The Box which starred Quentin Tarantino and was one of their highest rating episodes. 

Joe Menosky

Clive and Tiff talked about the addition of Joe on their podcast because this is a huge addition to the super-team. Joe Menosky is well known to long time Star Trek fans as he got his start on The Next Generation writing such stories as Darmok. He wrote a few episodes of Deep Space Nine which were perhaps less successful including Dramatis Personae and Time's Orphan but most of his post The Next Generation work came on Voyager where he co-wrote Living Witness with none other than Bryan Fuller. He also had a hand in Scorpion and Year of Hell which are regarded as two of Voyager's most popular stories. Menosky is usually known for his high concept scripts so we can see why he was chosen for the new series. Also it bodes better for Menosky if the show is starship-based rather than on a static station. NB - forgive the mid-90's headshot!

Kirsten Beyer

After the announcement of Fuller, Meyer (and possibly Menosky). I don't think anyone generated as much excitement as Kirsten Beyer. As far as TV is concerned she is untried but if you have read any of her Voyager novels you will know how great she is at tying loose ends together and making them work well. Her work is so good Pocket Books have given her a solo run on the Voyager novels. The early word is that she will continue to write these in her downtime from the show. To find out more about Ms Beyer please check out fellow SKoSTer Tiff's interview here. 

Nicholas Meyer

Well what can you say about Nicholas Meyer that hasn't been said before. As one of two people credited with saving the franchise (the other being Harve Bennett) he is well placed to take Star Trek back to its rightful place. He rewrote The Wrath of Khan in 12 days without a screen credit to get in on time! Although he didn't want to limit himself to one genre he was persuaded to come back to help with the writing on Star Trek IV and direct Star Trek VI. A very big shock to the system to hear he was coming in as a writer

Aron Coleite

Aron Coliete is completely new to the Star Trek franchise but he has worked on Heroes but is probably more known from his work on the Ultimate X-Men comic book. He was also involved in the TV show The River starring Star Trek alum Bruce Greenwood (aka Admiral Pike in the Kelvin Timeline). If you get a chance to see this series; do. It's amazing!!

Kemp Powers

Kemp Powers like Kirsten Beyer hasn't worked in TV before. However this is the one that excites me the most. He known as a journalist, author and playwright. If you get to see his play One Night in Miami about Muhammad Ali you are in for a treat. He is likely to bring a real world perspective to the series that might otherwise be missing among the talented team of fantasy and sci-fi writers.

Apart from these faces, a few more announcements were made in relation to staff for the new series they include (just to refresh your memory)...

Heather Kadin

Executive Producer

Not a lot is known about this lady apart from her being Alex Kurtzman's partner in his company K/O Paper Products.

Alex Kurtzman

Executive Producer

Probably Easily the most divisive appointment due to his involvement in the reboot movies. He is also rumoured to be directing the pilot according to Mark Worthington (Production Designer) although this hasn't been confirmed by CBS or Bryan Fuller at this time.

Rod Roddenberry/Trevor Roth 

Executive Producers.

No one is quite sure what there actual role will be. Both are from Roddenberry Entertainment but is it just a marketing ploy to have a Roddenberry involved? We will just have to wait and see!

Vincenzo Natali

Producing Director

The most recent announcement. He has previously worked on Cube which was the cult Nicole De Boer film from the 1990's. He has also worked on Earth Final Conflict with the Roddenberrys and most recently with Bryan Fuller on three seasons of Hannibal. 

Mark Worthington

Production Designer 

Some of you may have seen his designs online for reported Klingon ships. Unfortunately these designs have been removed. For anyone unfamiliar with his extensive work he designed the opening scene for Lost (yeah - that really inexpensive bit with the crashed airliner that helped make it the most expensive pilot of all time). He has worked on shows as diverse as American Horror Story and Ugly Betty. 

And the show?

Well it's 13 episodes long will run anything up to 60 minutes to streaming online rather than being on broadcast TV. There has been the note made that the running times could vary episode to episode because of this swanky format on CBS All Access. 

One of the first things we found out was that it will be filmed in Toronto starting in September 2016 and running to around March 2017. Rumour also has it that the sets have been designed and that they will begin construction VERY soon. Apparently the bridge set is stunning.

The designers have been taking inspiration for new starships from sports cars which sounds very similar to what was done for the reboot USS Enterprise. 

The story for the first season arc is written and the first six episodes are broken down. Wow. Now that's progress for you. Interesting that the first season will be 13 episodes but that doesn't confirm anything for subsequent years. I guess this is a case of seeing how the first year runs and then expand from there. If the show maintains that number of episodes for an average run of seven years we will have a total of 91 episodes making it the second shortest series ahead of The Original Series (79) and behind Enterprise (98).

Bryan Fuller has noted that it is not set between The Original Series and The Next Generation which isn't a huge surprise but then that means we haven't got any timeframe confirmed plus we have it on the authority of Fuller that it's not an anthology series. Taking that and the fact that the teaser trailer talked about "New Crews" we can guess that Star Trek is going to have more than one ship and crew at its heart which I also surmise will help with the 13 episode arc.  

Finally, they are currently talking to actors and hope to release some concrete information around San Diego Comic Con - so there's still hope to see Nathan Fillon in the captains chair huh?! I've not seen that many names banded around actually but let's keep our minds open. I'd rather not commit to anyone and be very pleasantly surprised. Remember all, at one point there was a rumour that Bryan Cranston was going to be the villain in Beyond and look where that went. On the point of cast it's been suggested that in the future of the show we might get to see characters from other iterations of the franchise so that final Garak or Seven of Nine appearance could still be on the cards.

What do we hope to see?

Star Trek is coming home. While we like to see the movies - Star Trek belongs in the TV format. The biggest question people are asking is in which timeline will it be in and here's my answer. I don't care!! There I've said it. Star Trek is about the stories it tells - it's morality plays. At the end of the day a good story is a good story regardless of where it's set. I think one issue that might - and I say might - exist is the fallout from the recently announced fan film guidelines and that fans may boycott the show (and Beyond). I don't think that the number of people who will do that will have a massive effect on the audience but it's something to bear in mind.

There has been a move to rename the JJ/Abramsverse the Kelvin Timeline. Maybe more than Bad Robot will be playing in this universe? But then Bryan Fuller has said we eventually will run into established characters so maybe it's the Prime Universe.

The inclusion of such a diverse range of writers means that while we will undoubtedly get to see new concepts, good character conflict and a firm base in the Star Trek universe we will have a good deal of grounding in the real world too and that's going to be important if Fuller and co are keen to provide a relevant social commentary as occurred with The Original Series.  All I know is the eleven year wait for a new series is nearly up and it will be time for this new generation to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Personnel images from Google Images
Star Trek 2017 images from CBS teaser trailer
Information on the new show includes collated data from Collider

What do you want to see from the new show? Worried it might not go in the "right direction"?

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