‘Star Trek: Discovery’ may have only just embarked on its first season, but make no mistake, the show’s writing staff already has an eye on the future. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Alex Kurtzman spoke at length about the show’s lengthy journey to the screen before turning the conversation to the show’s future.
While work is still underway on the current season of ‘Discovery’, the writers have a sense of where they’d like to take the series in year two. Kurtzman had this to say of the preliminary state of the second season:
We have a larger picture for season two – if we’re lucky enough to get a season two order. As you’re breaking the season you get a bunch of ideas you love and realize they won’t fit in this season, so you put them on index cards and up on the board. We have a bunch of those as well as a big idea that emerged mid- to late-season one for something we want to do with season two. That’s now become the spine of what we want to do for season two. We have an emotional compass pointing toward a big idea for a second season.
Kurtzman also confirmed that he would prefer the show continue to favor shorter seasons rather than extending the show’s episode orders to something more akin to the traditional twenty-two episode length of a season on network TV:
I always like less. I’d never do twenty-two, that’d be a big mistake. If we get a second season, I’d like us to agree on a number in advance so we can make sure we are planning accordingly.
But when might this season debut? While Kurtzman couldn’t offer a specific date (due in no small part to the fact that the season hasn’t been ordered yet), he did say that the second season would bow “ideally on the early side of 2019,” bearing in mind that the current season will wrap in early 2018. Of course, it’s best to take that with a grain of salt, both because CBS has yet to renew the show and because of the numerous delays ‘Discovery’ faced during production of its first season – at least some of which were a result of the time demands of the show’s impressive visual effects work. As such, ‘Discovery’ may, like ‘Westworld’, find itself facing breaks of a year or more between seasons.
‘Star Trek: Discovery’ stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Jason Isaacs, and Michelle Yeoh. New episodes drop Sundays at 8:30 Eastern on CBS All Access.
