Star Trek Discovery Season 3, Everything you need to know!
Ever since the stunning finale of Star Trek Discovery Season two fans have wondered what will happen next. We’ve gathered all the information here in one place.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for season two of Star Trek Discovery
Season two of Star Trek Discovery left the titular ship in unfamiliar territory following a time jump 950 years further into the future leaving them squarely in the 32nd century. While we’ve glimpsed further into the future before, the 26th century with a brief appearance by the Enterprise J in Star Trek Enterprise (Azati Prime) and one episode of Star Trek Voyager (Living Witness) set in the 31st and briefly in the 38th century, we have never seen the state of the Alpha Quadrant beyond the events of Star Trek Nemesis.
For the first time since the premiere of Star Trek The Next Generation we will boldly go well into the future with Star Trek Discovery Season 3.
What’s going on behind the scenes of Season 3?
CBS announced in February, shortly after the premiere of Season two that Star Trek Discovery was being renewed for a third season and that they were adding a new co-executive producer and co-showrunner in Michelle Paradise who joined the production team midway through the second season and was reportedly well received by the team.
The addition of Paradise appears to be a move designed to free up Alex Kurtzman to continue developing new projects for the franchise including the upcoming Star Trek Picard which is expected to premiere later this year or in early 2020 and Star Trek The Lower Decks which has just passed another milestone on the road to production and won’t be far behind.
“Such Sweet Sorrow” — Ep#213 — Pictured (l-r): Anthony Rapp as Stamets; Doug Jones as Saru; Shazad Latif as Tyler; Ethan Peck as Spock; Ronnie Rowe as Bryce; Oyin Oladejo as Owosekun; Patrick Kwok-Choon as Rhys; Mary Wiseman as Tilly of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. Photo Cr: Ben Mark Holzberg/CBS ©2018 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Who’s back and who’s gone?
The bulk of the cast will return including Sonequa Martin-Green (Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Saru), Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Sylvia Tilly), Sara Mitich (Nilsson) and the revived Wilson Cruz (Hugh Culber).
We have yet to receive confirmation on the return of recurring characters including Mary Chieffo (L’Rell), James Frain (Sarek), or Michelle Yeoh (Philippa Georgio) though the former Terran Emperor ended up in the future along with the crew of Discovery making her likely to appear in at least some of season 3 before a departure to star in her own spin-off Star Trek Section 31. It remains unclear if fellow Section 31 agent Shazad Latif (Ash Tyler) will remain a part of the cast of either the main series or the spin-off.
We’ve already received confirmation that Anson Mount (Christopher Pike) and Rebecca Romijn (Number One) will not return for season three. Additionally, it seems unlikely that Ethan Peck (Spock) will return given that he remained in the 23rd century and we know where his character will go from there.
When will season 3 release?
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The first season began on September 27, 2017 and the second season on January 17, 2019 (17.01 for those who missed the Easter egg) so the normal routine would seem to put season 3 in early 2020, however, with Star Trek Picard set to release in that vicinity and the possibility of Star Trek Lower Decks releasing within 12 months a late January to February 2020 date seems most likely, although that has yet to be confirmed by CBS.
Regardless of the exact release date the mandate is to have something Star Trek broadcasting at all times throughout the year so a wait of over 12 months seems highly unlikely.
What will the story be?
No teasers, trailers or storylines have yet been confirmed for season 3, but that’s not stopping fan speculation as to where the crew will go next. So far we know they will spend at least some time in the 32nd century and will most likely remain in the distant future for the remainder of the series run, with the exception of Georgio who is the most likely character to return to the 23rd century given her pending spin-off.
Given that we know Starfleet has time ships by the 29th century time travel may continue to be a part of Discovery’s future, although there is no guarantee that either Starfleet or the federation still exists three centuries later, which may lead to a storyline similar to that of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda where a lone ship finds its self lost in the future long after the Systems Commonwealth has fallen along with all civilized society and the galaxy is threatened by a seemingly unstoppable force, the Magog, similarly to how we postulated a possible series Star Trek Galaxy in The Search for Story where in the 32nd century the aging USS Enterprise NCC-1701-V would face a threat from beyond the galaxy known as the Scourge.
But that is just one possibility, we have reason to believe that Sonja Sohn (Gabrielle Burnham) will return to the series at some point given that she is also in the same time period. It also seems likely that we will at some point encounter Aldis Hodge (Craft) who appeared in the Short Treks episode Calypso in which he encountered a futuristic and intelligent version of Discovery which had been abandoned by her crew nearly a millennium after being launched. Although there is also the slim possibility that Calypso takes place a further thousand years from the 32nd century in the 42nd as the date somewhat ambiguous in that episode.
Next. CBS to expand the Star Trek Franchise. dark
We will continue to update you with more information on season 3 as details become available.