It looks like there won’t be any more focus shifting for Star Trek: Discovery as the series will be permanently set in the future going forward.
Star Trek: Discovery has already had two soft reboots, but if one actor’s words are to be believed, there won’t be anymore. Collider sat down with Star Trek: Discoveries star Doug Jones and he told the outlet that the move to the far future is permanent for the franchise. Which means no more jumping back or going into any different eras.
Jones, who plays Acting Captain Saru, told Collider that the change will see the writers have more freedom with the franchise.
"[The show] has massively changed. We are boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before, and that was a permanent jump to the future. 930 years. So not just a couple of years. We went to a whole new era with a new set of rules, new customs, new everything. What this did for the writers, though, we were playing ten years before the original series in the first two seasons. We started having to adhere to canon and making sure everything we were doing didn’t affect later seasons and canon and storylines that they have already filmed. Now we’ve jumped ahead to where the writers have freedom to create from the ground up. That’s exciting, and we’ll explore new worlds and new creatures and, of course, the nostalgia of all the species you know already, we’re going to visit them again but with new relationships to each other than what you know. It’s exciting to see how the galaxy had changed in those 930 years."
This is a good move for the franchise, as it solves two big issues. On the fan scale, many fans have been clamoring for a shift in time, moving away from the Next Generation era timeline that saw the franchise launch five series revolving around characters created in the ’80s and ’90s. Now 900 years into the future from the events of Star Trek: Discovery, the fans will now be able to see what the universe looks like from a different perspective in time, which is what many wanted.
On the flip side, it also resolves many lingering issues surrounding Discovery’s first two seasons which both served to upset fans in different ways. For the first season, many fans felt the series was lost in catering to non-Star Trek fans, and in season two, the series corrected by bringing back classic characters that no one was really asking for. Giving fans a sense that the series was just trying to placate the older fans.
Now the series will be able to expand and grow on its own without being tied too much to past materials.
Star Trek: Discovery is currently airing on Thursdays on CBS All Access.