The CBS All Access streaming service has renewed its flagship show Star Trek: Discovery for a third season. The series second season is currently airing, with new episodes being released every Thursday.
Making the jump to full-time showrunner for the third season will be The Originals‘ Michelle Paradise, who has already been working to guide the current season’s writings and plotlines.
Kurtzman stated in a press release about the renewal –
Michelle joined us midway through season two and energized the room with her ferocious knowledge of Trek. Her grasp of character and story detail, her drive and her focus have already become essential in ensuring the Trek legacy, and her fresh perspective always keeps us looking forward. I’m proud to say Michelle and I are officially running Star Trek: Discovery together.
Discovery had more than a bit of a rocky start leading up to its premier last year. Initially co-created by producer Bryan Fuller alongside Kurtzman, Fuller left while the show was still in pre-production on the first season, citing creative differences with CBS. Stepping into his place were Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, writer/producers whom Fuller had hired for Discovery after working with them on Pushing Daisies. Much of Fuller’s original intent was either jettisoned or reworked, and the show’s premier season was met with mixed reviews. Berg and Herberts were fired soon after production on the current season started, leaving Kurtzman the sole showrunner. It was here that he brought in Paradise.
Personally, I found the first season of Discovery to be about as far from the core concepts of the original Star Trek as possible. Rather than be a show that comments on the human condition through science-fiction allegories, it fell prey to the worst two impulses of modern Trek – fan pandering, most egregiously in the form of yet another return to Trek‘s Mirror Universe, and the franchise’s penchant for technobabble and stories that are based around and rely on fantastic technology to create false drama. It can make for a fun and exciting science-fiction show, but it is not necessarily good Star Trek.
The show’s second, and current, season has shown a bit of a drift away from that style of storytelling towards more thoughtful stories, though it would still have a way to go before it thematically resembled classic Trek. Hopefully this third season will continue that trend. After all, it took Star Trek: The Next Generation until its third season before it really found its legs, maybe Discovery just needs some time as well.
