What is happening with Star Trek: Section 31?

Star Trek: Section 31 is still happening

Back in 2019, CBS announced Section 31, a Star Trek series devoted to exploring the intelligence and defense organization that is autonomous from the United Federation of Planets. Michelle Yeoh was tapped to star in the series, but since its announcement, news has been scarce, and there doesn’t seem to be much movement forward. Fortunately, we got a brief glimpse of things to come at the Television Critics Association press tour.

According to Variety, Nicole Clemens, president of original scripted series at Paramount Plus, told reporters that the series was still in development, and that there would be more news about it soon. This bit of information was followed up by Alex Kurtzman’s assurance that he and his team are working on the series.

Why is it taking so long to produce Star Trek: Section 31 and bring it to development?

Back in February of last year, Paramount Plus programming chief Julie McNamara and Kurtzman both told Variety that there wouldn’t be more than five series of Star Trek on at one time. If that decision remains solid, until one of those series runs its course, Star Trek would not expand further.

With the recent announcement of the upcoming ending to Star Trek: Picard, it’s possible this will be the next series to go into development, although, a series about Starfleet Academy has been in development since June 2018. So it might be a toss-up as to which show is chosen first.

While it’s heartening to know that plans for Section 31 haven’t been jettisoned, it sounds like it’s going to be an even longer wait before the series about the covert organization debuts, especially if the other, currently-running series have seven year runs. That will leave only one slot open when Picard ends presumably next year.