STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Set A Decade Before TOS, Will Have Female Lead, Gay Character

On Wednesday, during the Television Critics Association press event, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY executive producer Bryan Fuller gave some major details on the upcoming CBS All Access series.

We now know when the series will be set and some information about its characters.

Big Star Trek: Discovery Updates From Bryan Fuller

Here’s what we learned:

• It’s set in the Prime (not Kelvin) Timeline

• Thirteen episodes have been ordered for January 2017.

• There are around seven lead characters.

• The show’s opening scene isn’t on a planet or on Earth.

• “Each episode is a chapter, within each chapter will be a beginning, middle & end.” Fuller disclosed.

• Star Trek: Discovery is set about a decade before Kirk, in the original TV series timeline. “We can play with all the iconography of those ships and those uniforms.” Fuller said.

• There’s an important event in the Star Trek backstory that hasn’t been explored yet that the series will delve into. It’s not the Roman War, Battle of Axanar or the Kobayashi Maru.

• The show will have LOTS of aliens, including reimagings of some existing species.

• The show’s lead is female is human and she is not a captain.

• “Absolutely, we’re having a gay character,” Fuller said of a LGBT crewmember.

• The lead female character is a Lieutenant Commander.

Special thanks to VOX critic Todd VanDerWerff and TVLine’s Matt Mitovich, who were both live-tweeting from the event.

On Monday, Fuller tweeted a photo from a Star Trek: Discovery makeup test.

The first episode of Star Trek: Discovery will premiere with a broadcast TV special on CBS. That episode and all subsequent episodes will be exclusively shown in the US on the video streaming service CBS All Access.

Alex Kurtzman, Bryan Fuller and Rod Roddenberry have been announced as executive producers, with Nicholas Meyer (director of The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country and co-writer of The Voyage Home) is serving as a writer and consulting producer.

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