Bryan Fuller can’t tell us everything about “Star Trek Discovery.” But he spilled quite a lot when he sat down recently with TV critics meeting in Los Angeles.
Fuller, who already has 22 writing credits on “Star Trek” series including “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager,” is developing “Discovery” for CBS along with Alex Kurtzman (“Sleepy Hollow”). The 13-episode series will debut on the network in January, and then move to subscription service CBS All Access.
“Discovery” will be set in the Prime universe, about 10 years before Capt. James T. Kirk’s five-year mission in the original “Star Trek.”
(“The correct designations according to the internet now are the Kelvin Universe, which is the J.J. Abrams universe, and the Prime Universe,” Fuller explained.)
The time bridges the gap between the original series and “Enterprise,” and also allows Fuller and his team to “redefine the visual style of ‘Star Trek,’” to modernize “not only the way we’re telling stories, but the way you’re seeing aliens in this environment,” he said.
“That is something that I’d been dying to do since I worked on ‘Star Trek’ the first time.”
“We’re much closer to Kirk’s time than to ‘Enterprise,’ so we get to play with all that iconography.” But no, “Discovery” won’t be set during the Romulan War, Fuller told one persistent questioner. “Close, but no banana.”
Casting is just getting started, but Fuller, whose credits include “Dead Like Me,” “Pushing Daisies” and “Hannibal,” confirmed that the lead character will be female and also human rather than alien. She won’t be a captain, though.
Describing her rank as “lieutenant commander with caveats,” he said, “We’ve seen six series now from captains’ points of view, and to see a character from a different perspective on a starship, who has a different dynamic relationship with the captain, with subordinates, felt like it was going to give us richer context.”
In creating the character, “I’ve talked extensively with Mae Jemison, who is the first black woman in space, and it was interesting to send her outlines and get her perspective of what it’s like for a woman in the sciences now,” Fuller said.
The seven or so lead characters in the ensemble will be as diverse as “Star Trek,” which teamed a Russian, a Vulcan and a black woman, has always been, Fuller said. “We’re absolutely about continuing that tradition.” There will also be a gay character.
“Star Trek Discovery” will also have robots and many aliens, and possibly even alien-human sex, since CBS All Access won’t fall under the network’s Standards and Practices rules. “Why do you think we call it STD?” Fuller joked.
The fact that, after a tease, “Star Trek Discovery” will air on a subscription service is likely to be a sore spot with viewers, especially those who are already paying for CBS via a cable or satellite provider.
All Access, which currently costs $5.99 a month and streams on most devices, will also air the planned spin-off of “The Good Wife,” starring Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo. A special fall season of “Big Brother” will air only on All Access.
“The internet, and essentially broadband connectivity, is ubiquitous today in our country,” Marc DeBevoise, president and COO of CBS Interactive, said before introducing Fuller. “Mobile and connected devices are everywhere, and people of all ages are watching a ton of video across those devices.”
At least 65 percent of U.S. households now have a streaming device connected to a television set, and 74 percent of those homes have more than one,” DeBevoise said, calling the growth massive. Of homes with broadband internet access, 60 percent subscribe to a streaming video service, and 40 percent pay for more than one, he said.
CBS All Access is “our way of delivering the CBS television network and all of its incredible assets, plus even more from our library, directly to subscribers over the internet,” DeBevoise said. “It’s not in competition with or in some way contradictory to our network television model or brand” and doesn’t even endanger local affiliate stations, because subscribers get the feed from those stations.
Although cord-cutters, who have given up cable or satellite and get programming other ways, are the largest potential subscriber base for CBS All Access, DeBevoise clearly hopes proprietary original programming will lead others to pay for the service.
“It’s a very broad audience track in ‘Star Trek,’ but you may think of it as more male or maybe slightly older. The same thing may be true with ‘The Good Wife,’ but a different demo,” he said. “You can see us sort of testing the waters in each of these areas and potentially doubling down in all of them or some of them or others as we grow the service going forward.”
