Bryan Fuller’s ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Influence Will Be Felt in Season 2
The first trailer for CBS’ Star Trek: Discovery certainly won back goodwill lost by multiple delays and showrunner Bryan Fuller’s exit, but it remains to be seen how much of Fuller’s ideas will make the final product. Now, executive producer Alex Kurtzman lays out how Fuller’s influence will be felt in the first season, as well as a second.
Speaking with Collider, Kurtzman offered a number of Star Trek: Discovery details, despite the series having only filmed five of its fifteen episodes. Former showrunner Fuller also previously claimed that his full attention had moved to American Gods, with no Discovery input going forward, though Kurtzman offered that some of Fuller’s influence would help set up events for Season 2:
No absolutely there are footprints left on the show … Bryan was very involved in American Gods and I think that the scope and scale of what Trek has become made it so that Bryan elected to say, ‘I don’t wanna short-change either of these two things,’ they’re both sort of beloved to him, so we sat down and we figured out how are we going to take what we can have of you and continue that through not only this season of Trek but hopefully set up things that are coming next season. So much of what’s there in terms of story and certainly in terms of set-up, character, big ideas, the big movement of the season, that’s all stuff that Bryan and I talked about.
Fuller was also perhaps the strongest voice behind Discovery putting LGBT representation at the forefront, something Kurtzman says has been upheld:
Going back to what you said about where television is at right now, it would be foolish of us to not only ignore it but not to take advantage of the fact that that’s how people are consuming stories and they’re hungrier for more complicated stories. What would have been a taboo subject 10, 15 years ago is now everywhere, and that’s a beautiful thing.
We’ll likely hear more of Fuller’s contribution to the series as we approach a fall 2017 premiere, but does the new Star Trek: Discovery already look worthy of a second season? Watch the trailer again below.