The first season of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery is set a decade before Star Trek: The Original Series in the 23rd century and follows the crew of the starship Discovery during the Federation–Klingon war. The season was produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Roddenberry Entertainment, and Living Dead Guy Productions, with Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts serving as showrunners, and Akiva Goldsman providing producing support.
Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, first officer of the USS Shenzhou and later the Discovery, along with Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Jason Isaacs. The series was announced in November 2015, and Bryan Fuller joined as showrunner the next February. He brought on Berg and Harberts to support him, and they took over as showrunners when Fuller left the series in October 2016 following creative disagreements with CBS. The season's war storyline was intended to represent the divide between different political factions of the modern United States, with effort put into redesigning the Klingon species and developing their culture and biology. Filming took place in Toronto, Canada, from January to October 2017, with additional filming on location in Jordan for the series premiere. The crew, including the visual effects team—led by Pixomondo—and composer Jeff Russo, aimed for the series' production values to match that of a feature film. The season features several guest stars taking on roles from The Original Series.
The first episode was broadcast on CBS and released on the streaming service CBS All Access on September 24, 2017. The rest of the 15-episode season was released weekly on All Access in two chapters: the first ended on November 12, and the second was released from January 7 to February 11, 2018. The season led to record subscriptions for All Access, and generally positive reviews from critics who highlighted Martin-Green's performance, the production values, and new additions to Star Trek canon. Some criticized the writing. The season was nominated for two Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards and received several other awards and nominations. A second season was ordered in October 2017.
Episodes
In March 2018, a "secret scene" was released depicting an alternative ending to the season finale, in which Mirror Georgiou is approached by an operative of Section 31. This storyline is further explored in the second season.
Cast and characters
Main Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham Doug Jones as Saru Shazad Latif as Voq / Ash Tyler Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly Jason Isaacs as Gabriel Lorca
Recurring Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou Mary Chieffo as L'Rell James Frain as Sarek Kenneth Mitchell as Kol Jayne Brook as Katrina Cornwell Wilson Cruz as Hugh Culber
Notable guests Mia Kirshner as Amanda Grayson Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd Katherine Barrell as Stella Mudd Clint Howard as an Orion drug dealer
Production Development
On November 2, 2015, CBS announced that a new Star Trek television series would premiere in January 2017, "on the heels" of Star Trek: The Original Series 50th anniversary in 2016. The series would be developed specifically for the streaming service CBS All Access. Bryan Fuller was hired to be showrunner and executive producer in February 2016, as well as co-creator with Alex Kurtzman. Fuller began his career writing for the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, and had publicly called for Star Trek to return to television for years after the end of the previous series, Star Trek: Enterprise, in 2005. When Fuller first met with CBS about the series, the company did not have a plan for what the show would be. He proposed an anthology series where each season would be a standalone, serialized show set in a different era, beginning with a prequel to the original series. CBS told Fuller to start with a single serialized show and see how that performs first, and so he began further developing the prequel concept. In June, Fuller announced that the first season would consist of 13 episodes, and a month later, at Star Treks 50th anniversary San Diego Comic-Con panel, he revealed the series' title to be Star Trek: Discovery. He also said it would be set in the "Prime Timeline" alongside the previous Star Trek series, rather than in the alternate "Kelvin Timeline" that the concurrent Star Trek film series was set in.
At the end of July, CBS hired David Semel, a veteran television procedural director who was under an overall deal with the studio, to direct the first episode for Discovery. Fuller did not approve of this decision, believing that Semel was "wrong for the job" and wanting a more visionary director to establish the style of the series. Fuller had personally reached out to Edgar Wright to direct the first episode before CBS hired Semel. As development and pre-production on the series continued, Fuller and Semel "clashed" on the direction of the show. The series was also starting to overrun its per-episode budget. Fuller was attempting to design new sets, costumes, and aliens for the series while heading the series' writers room and also spending considerable time addressing his commitments as showrunner of another new series, American Gods. This caused frustration among CBS executives that were pushing for a January 2017 debut. By August 2016, Fuller had hired Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, who he had worked with on his earlier series Pushing Daisies, to serve as co-showrunners with him on Discovery. A month later, Fuller and Kurtzman asked CBS to delay the series' release so they could realistically meet the high expectations for the series, and the studio announced that the series premiere had been pushed back to May 2017. The pair said in a statement that "these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of."
A few weeks after the delay was announced, Fuller met with Sonequa Martin-Green about portraying the series' lead, a character that had been surprisingly difficult for the production to cast. Fuller felt he had "found the crucial piece of the puzzle", but the actress would not be released from her contract at AMC until her character's death on The Walking Dead was publicly revealed. This episode was not set to air until April 2017, meaning Discovery would have to be delayed again if Martin-Green was cast in the series. At the end of October, CBS asked Fuller to step down as showrunner. They announced that the production was being restructured to keep Fuller actively involved with the series, but not on a day-to-day production level as he shifted his focus fully to American Gods: Berg and Harberts were made sole showrunners of Discovery, working off a broad story arc and overall mythology established by Fuller; Kurtzman and Fuller would continue as executive producers, with Fuller still helping the writers break stories; and Akiva Goldsman would join the series as a supporting producer—similar to the role he held on Fringe alongside Kurtzman—to help the showrunners and other producers "juggle the demands of the series". In a statement, CBS reiterated that they were "extremely happy with [Fuller's] creative direction" for the series, and were committed to "seeing this vision through". However, some elements of the series that came directly from Fuller were soon dropped, including some "more heavily allegorical and complex story" points and some of his design plans. Fuller later confirmed that he was no longer involved in the series at all, which he said was "bittersweet ... I can only give them the material I've given them and hope that it is helpful for them." By the end of the year, Martin-Green had indeed been cast as the series' lead, and in May 2017, the episode order was expanded to 15. That June, CBS announced a new premiere date of September 24. The season was divided into two chapters, with an airing break after the ninth episode to allow time for post-production on episodes in the second half of the season to be completed.
Writing
Fuller wanted to differentiate the series from the previous 700+ episodes of Star Trek by taking advantage of the streaming format of All Access and telling a single story arc across the entire first season. He and the writers had completely planned this arc by the end of June 2016. Fuller said the original series episode "Balance of Terror", one of his favorites, would be a "touchstone" for the season's story direction. In August, Fuller teased that the story arc revolved around "an event in Star Trek history that's been talked about but never been explored", 10 years before the events of the original series. This was later revealed to be the Federation-Klingon cold war. Goldsman explained that this story would be told over the course of the first season and end with the creation of the Neutral Zone, allowing a new story to be told in potential future seasons. He described the events explored by the season as "sufficiently inexact [in previous Star Trek stories] that we can now fill in how we got there." He acknowledged that this time period has been widely covered by previous Star Trek novels, and explained that the series' writers considered these novels to be non-canon.
The writers felt that a traditional series might have begun with the series' protagonist, Michael Burnham, boarding the USS Discovery and then revealed her backstory through flashbacks. For Star Trek: Discovery, they wanted to take a different approach and begin with a prologue that explored Burnham's initial actions and her relationship to Captain Philippa Georgiou. Feeling that at least "two hours" were needed to convey this, the first two episodes of the season (released as a two-part premiere) cover this prologue, with the season's main story beginning with the third episode. The third episode was considered to be the series' equivalent of a pilot episode, and begins six months after the second. This time jump was inspired by film sequels that begin with significant events having transpired since the previous instalment such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The third episode reveals that the season's story involves the development of a new form of space travel that could win the war for the Federation. When it was noted that this form of travel is not known in the previous Star Trek series (set later in the timeline), actor Jason Isaacs stated that the writers were aware of this, and were "very clear, in not a cop-out way, to both incorporate this stuff which is exciting and very visual, to make sure that it didn't rankle canon." The season's story is split into two "micro-arcs", covering the first nine episodes and then the rest of the season, with a break in airing between the two. It finishes with the end of the war, which comes down to an agreement between two characters. These negotiations are made entirely by female characters, which was an intentional choice that Kurtzman felt was justified by the Me Too movement. The writers felt this was true to the spirit of Star Trek, and allowed them to move beyond the war storyline that Fuller had established for the show. The second season is then set-up with the appearance of the USS Enterprise from previous Star Trek media. Harberts explained that the writers knew they would have to acknowledge the existence of the Enterprise at some point due to the series' place in the timeline, and after Fuller left they decided to just "tell this story now" with the second season.