CBS All Access is all-in for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, now making its renewal official.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 is officially happening!
CBS All Access’s revival, which brought the iconic Star Trek sci-fi franchise back to its original small screen medium, has already procured a third season on the Eye Network streaming service, even as the second season is just getting ready to break past the midway point of the 14-episode frame.
Interestingly, the third season of Star Trek: Discovery will manifest under the purview of an amended creative staff, with current showrunner Alex Kurtzman set to be joined in that capacity by Michelle Paradise, who brings writer/producer experience from a lengthy stint on The CW’s The Originals, Logo’s Exes & Ohs, as well as an episode of Audience’s Rogue. However, Paradise’s show stewardship will actually be felt in the current season of Discovery. As Kurtzman explains in a statement of his new partner:
“Michelle joined us midway through season two and energized the room with her ferocious knowledge of ‘Trek.’ Her grasp of character and story detail, her drive and her focus have already become essential in ensuring the ‘Trek’ legacy, and her fresh perspective always keeps us looking forward. I’m proud to say Michelle and I are officially running STAR TREK: DISCOVERY together.”
Paradise’s arrival marks yet another major shakeup in the Star Trek: Discovery creative team, which notably experienced a tectonic shift after co-creator and showrunner, Bryan Fuller, departed the series after Season 1. After his replacements, Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg, exited, the series returned under Kurtzman for Season 2, restructured from much of Fuller's previous grandiose (and seriously expensive,) concepts. Indeed, Season 2 is more Star Trek-like with weekly stories of exploration and optimism, while managing to maintain a season-unifying story – in this case, the mysterious guiding force known as the Red Angel and its connection to Ethan Peck’s debuting Spock, who, as we learned in the beginning of the series, grew up in the same household as the protagonist, Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham.
As Julie McNamara, Executive Vice President, Original Content, CBS All Access, chimes in on the renewal:
“The massive success of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’s second season launch exceeded our expectations in both driving subscriber growth and generating a phenomenal response from ‘Star Trek’ fans. With Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise at the helm, we look forward to continuing STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’s journey, growing the ‘Star Trek’ franchise on CBS All Access and bringing fans new ‘Star Trek’ stories for many years to come.”
Of course, seeing as we’re still right in the middle of Season 2, the juicy details pertaining to Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 are not even close to being known. Indeed, the series has already demonstrated that the Captain’s Chair of the U.S.S. Discovery doesn’t seem to stay warm for long, given what happened to Jason Isaacs’s Captain Lorca at the end of Season 1. The currently-running Season 2 has Anson Mount in the big chair as classic Trek character, Captain Christopher Pike; a tenure that’s temporary by design. Moreover, don’t expect to see too much of Michelle Yeoh’s Philippa Georgiou – the former ruler of the Mirror Universe’s Terran Empire-turned Starfleet intelligence asset cavorting as her Prime Universe counterpart – since she’s set to star in a spinoff series.
Star Trek: Discovery premieres new episodes on CBS All Access, Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.