Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The ongoing mission of Starfleet just got re-upped for another tour of duty: CBS All Access has renewed Star Trek: Discovery for Season Three. The streaming service has also announced that Michelle Paradise (The Originals, Exes & Ohs) will join Alex Kurtzman as co-showrunner for the third season of the sci-fi series that has found its rhythm after its bumpy inaugural season.
Paradise joined the Star Trek: Discovery team as a co-executive producer in Season Two, which is also the season when Kurtzman took full command of the show after a creative team reshuffling. Kurtzman praised Paradise as a vital source of quality control and innovation for the Discovery team. “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.”
The renewal adds to the revival momentum of the Star Trek brand as a television franchise. Overall, few properties in pop culture rival the stamina of the Star Trek name which began its first screen voyage in 1966 and has yielded 14 feature films and 740-plus television episodes to date (not to mention all the novels, comic books, video games, toys, home video collections, etc.).
Discovery is still trying to win the hearts, minds, and subscription fees of longtime Trek fans but some big-name help is on the way. Last year, it was announced that Patrick Stewart of X-Men fame will star in a CBS All Access series and reprise his iconic Next Generation character, Captain Jean-Luc Picard. To add to that Kurtzman and CBS TV Studios are looking to expand the Star Trek TV universe with an animated Nickelodeon series from Emmy-winning writers Kevin and Dan Hageman (Trollhunters, Ninjago), CBS TV Studios, and Kurtzman’s studio-based Secret Hideout banner.
Star Trek: Discovery is the second original series from CBS All Access along with The Good Fight that has gone on to be renewed multiple seasons. In fact, all CBS All Access series have managed to stay put with the exception of One Dollar, which was canceled after one season.
The second season of Star Trek: Discovery launched Jan. 17 with the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery joining forces with Captain Christopher Pike to investigate seven red signals and the mysterious entity called the Red Angel. While the crew must work together to unravel their meaning and origin, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is forced to face her past with the return of her estranged brother, Spock (Ethan Peck).
That hour-long Season Two opener came bundled with considerable history. The last time Spock had been featured in a new Trek television episode was back in November 1991 when Leonard Nimoy beamed aboard Star Trek: The Next Generation to reprise his signature role as American television’s greatest alien. Peck was a mere five years old when Nimoy made that small-screen return to Starfleet duty but the newest Spock actor does have considerable experience dealing with the pressures of legacy — after all, the bearded and soulful Discovery cast member is also the grandson of the late Hollywood icon Gregory Peck.
