I’m not even a diehard “Star Trek” fan, but the complaints from fans this year over the handling of the franchise (outside of the enjoyable, big screen return to form with “Star Trek Beyond“) has been pretty loud. As io9 detailed, 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of Gene Rodenberry‘s groundbreaking sci-fi series, but you probably wouldn’t have known it given the slapdash and half-hearted celebration it officially received. And then there’s “Star Trek: Discovery,” the new TV show that promisingly signed up passionate ‘Trek’ fan Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal” and “Pushing Daisies”) as showrunner earlier this year and….well, nothing has really been heard since. Originally set to debut in January on CBS All Access (“Star Trek: Discovery” being dumped on SVOD is another slight bone of contention for some fans), that date has been pushed back to May, and with filming slated to start next month, there hasn’t even been a whiff of casting (though, it’s apparently all been done….except for the female lead….). Now, ‘Discovery’ has lost a major talent.
Variety reports that Fuller has stepped down from his showrunning duties, with Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts taking over, but he will remain on ‘Discovery’ as an executive producer, while Akiva Goldsman (“Transformers,” “Batman Forever,” “Fringe“) is expected to come aboard. The word is that Fuller simply grew too busy working on Starz‘s “American Gods” and NBC‘s “Amazing Stories,” but he did write the first two scripts for ‘Discovery,’ and has created the mythology and general arc the show will follow. That being said, now that he’s no longer involved as showrunner, I can only surmise he won’t be on hand to make sure things completely follow his vision, and the addition of Goldsman suggests other voices are going to have creative sway.
Despite the creative shakeup, the series will have some money behind it, with CBS ready to spend $6-7 million per episode. That’s not chump change (“Game Of Thrones” runs around $10 million per episode) so perhaps this will all work out in the end. But CBS could certainly do more to assuage fans by at least finally sharing some news about who will be starring in and directing ‘Discovery.” Hopefully, we’ll be hearing more about that soon. But for now, ‘Discovery’ will soldier on without Fuller, who has put his endorsement behind Berg and Harberts.
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