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Star Trek: Discovery

Ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien. Ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien. Ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien.

• Bryan Fuller
• Alex Kurtzman
• Sonequa Martin-Green
• Anthony Rapp
• 4.5K User reviews
• 104 Critic reviews
• 22 wins & 87 nominations total

Episodes 65

Photos 1474

Top cast 99+

• Michael Burnham …

• Lt. Cmdr. Paul Stamets …

• Sylvia Tilly …

• Lt. Keyla Detmer …

• Dr. Hugh Culber

• Lt. Gen Rhys …

• Lt. Joann Owosekun …

• Lt. R.A. Bryce …

• Lt. Nilsson …

• Cleveland Booker

• Lt. J.G. Linus …

• Discovery Computer …

• Ash Tyler …

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• Trivia The Starfleet vessels seen in the first season, including the Discovery, the Shenzou and the redesigned Enterprise, were all designed by production artist John Eaves. Eaves' work with Star Trek spans three decades. Probably his most notable contribution was the design of the Enterprise-E for Star Trek: First Contact (1996) .
• Goofs With Michael being the adoptive sister of Spock, the series has many flashbacks to their childhood and upbringing on Vulcan. Spock's Vulcan half-brother, Sybok, does not appear nor is mention during these scenes. In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) , Spock says that he and Sybok grew up together. However, since it's never stated when Sybok joined Sarek's home - only that he did so following his mother's death - or when he was exiled from the family, it's not impossible Sybok moved in after Burnham, and left before she graduated (the two extremes of the flashbacks). Also, since Sybok was never mentioned before Star Trek V, it seems reasonable the family never spoke of him again after his estrangement.
• Alternate versions The serif-font legends and subtitles in the "broadcast" episodes are absent from the DVD versions, where they are replaced with the standard DVD subtitles.
• Connections Featured in MsMojo: Top 10 Female Lead TV Shows You Should Be Watching in 2017 (2017)

User reviews 4.5K

• Jan 13, 2022

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• Why do the Klingons in this series look completely different to how they look in all of the previous Star Trek shows and films?
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• Does this series take place in the alternate timeline of Star Trek (2009), or the timeline we are all used to from TOS?
• September 24, 2017 (United States)
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Star Trek: Discovery is leaving Netflix tonight before heading to Paramount Plus

For international viewers, it’ll now live on paramount plus.

By Catie Keck

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Paramount Plus is grabbing back its Star Trek: Discovery series from Netflix, where it’s been streaming to international viewers for three seasons.

The series lived on Paramount Plus (fka CBS All Access) for US viewers and on Canada’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel, but the move will bring old and future seasons of the series under a single streaming umbrella for folks outside of those regions. Season 4 of Discovery had previously been set to debut on Paramount Plus in the US, CTV Sci-Fi Channel, and on Netflix elsewhere on November 18th. 

The show will leave Netflix at 12AM PT in regions where it had previously been available to stream. (It will remain on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on the Crave in Canada.) All seasons of the show will become available to international viewers in 2022, the company confirmed to The Verge . Deadline earlier reported the news.

The plan to grab back some of its IP comes as the company focuses on a wider international expansion heading into next year.

“As we rapidly expand our global streaming footprint, we are bringing more of our top titles home to ViacomCBS for Paramount+ markets around the world,” Kelly Day, president of streaming for ViacomCBS Networks International, said in a statement. “We have a strong global and local content pipeline that positions us for success across our regions, and repatriating beloved series like Star Trek: Discovery for Paramount+ is another step forward as we bring fans more must-watch series worldwide.”

According to the company, Star Trek: Discovery will become available internationally to Paramount Plus subscribers in 2022 in regions where the service is currently available. Paramount Plus is currently available in 25 countries but says it plans to expand to 45 markets by the end of next year. 

Uniting — for the most part — its Discovery series in a single hub for international audiences doesn’t quite fix the fractured state of the sprawling Star Trek library, however. Star Trek: Picard will still be on Amazon for streamers outside Canada and the US. As stated, Star Trek: Discovery will continue to stream on non-Paramount Plus channels in Canada. And lastly, Star Trek: Lower Decks will stay on Amazon outside of Latin America, Canada, and the US.

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Star Trek: Discoverys Wilson Cruz Explains Missing Finale Epilogue Because Of Netflix Movie

• Wilson Cruz missed filming Star Trek: Discovery's finale epilogue due to commitment to Mother of the Bride in Thailand.
• Paramount+ greenlit 3 days of filming a coda for Discovery's emotional series finale in Spring 2023.
• Dr. Hugh Culber still appeared in the final moments thanks to CGI, despite Wilson Cruz's absence.

Star Trek: Discovery 's Wilson Cruz explains how his commitment to Netflix's Mother of the Bride caused him to miss filming Discovery 's series finale epilogue. However, Dr. Hugh Culber did appear in Discovery 's finale coda. Following Paramount+'s announcement that Star Trek: Discovery would end with season 5, the streamer greenlit 3 days of filming a coda for the series in Toronto in Spring 2023. While the entire Star Trek: Discovery cast led by Sonequa Martin-Green returned for the emotional epilogue, Wilson Cruz had to bow out because his role as Scott in Mother of the Bride required him to be in Thailand at the same time.

Screen Rant exclusively interviewed Wilson Cruz and asked him about what happened that caused him to miss filming Star Trek: Discovery 's finale epilogue . Cruz describes the circumstances that required him to be in Thailand for Mother of the Bride , but he's grateful that, thanks to CGI, Dr. Hugh Culber joined Star Trek: Discovery' s cast for the emotional final moments. Read Wilson's quote below:

Wilson Cruz: True story. Yeah, because we didn't find out that we were canceled until I had already booked that job, and was actually getting ready to go. And it was impossible for me to fly back from Thailand to Toronto and shoot that and then go back. And it just didn't work schedule wise for either production. So, through the magic of television and special effects, Culber was there, but I was not. Screen Rant: I had no idea. I was totally fooled, I have to say. Wilson Cruz: Good, good, good. I'm so happy it happened. Because for a while there, I didn't know if he was going to make it in at all, which was incredibly disheartening to me. So I'm so grateful that he was.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

As Burnham seeks the universe's greatest treasure in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, she'll need help from a host of new and returning characters.

Will Wilson Cruz's Dr. Hugh Culber Return To Star Trek?

Cruz is open to appearing in star trek: starfleet academy.

Star Trek: Discovery is now over, but Wilson Cruz is open to reprising Dr. Hugh Culber in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The next Star Trek series is mounting production in Toronto. Along with a slew of new faces playing Starfleet Cadets, and Academy Award-caliber actors Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti leading the show, Starfleet Academy also announced three actors from Star Trek: Discovery joining Starfleet Academy 's cast . Regarding playing Culber again in Starfleet Academy, Cruz told Screen Rant :

They know where I am.

Star Trek: Discovery gave Wilson Cruz satisfying stories to play as Dr. Hugh Culber. Hugh died in Star Trek: Discovery season 1 and explored what it means to come back to life in season 2. Culber is also one half of Star Trek 's first gay married couple with Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) . Star Trek: Discovery season 5 also let Cruz explore Culber's spirituality and play a whole different character in Jinaal. Whatever Dr. Hugh Culber's Star Trek future entails, Wilson Cruz is ready for what's next.

Source: Screen Rant Plus

Star Trek: Discovery

Cast Blu del Barrio, Oded Fehr, Anthony Rapp, Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Eve Harlow, Mary Wiseman, Callum Keith Rennie

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Writers Alex Kurtzman

Directors Jonathan Frakes, Olatunde Osunsanmi

Showrunner Alex Kurtzman

Where To Watch Paramount+

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Star Trek: Discovery

The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery finds Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt as well … dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

Season four of Star Trek: Discovery finds Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery facing a threat unlike any they’ve ever encountered. With Federation and non-Federation worlds alike feeling the impact, they must confront the unknown and work together to ensure a hopeful future for all.

Follow the voyages of Starfleet on their missions to discover new worlds and lifeforms, and one Starfleet officer, Michael Burnham, who learns that to truly understand all things alien, she must first understand herself.

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He likes prune juice. She likes bloodwine. Recap the history of our favorite couple from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

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Star Trek introduces the Discovery -- and its mysteries

The starship that the show is named for finally turns up in episode 3, and brings with it a whole lot of questions.

The mutinous Michael Burnham is played by Sonequa Martin-Green.

Welcome aboard the Discovery. 

Episode 3 of the new Star Trek show finally introduces the starship of the title, but this brings only more mysteries.

" Star Trek: Discovery " is available now on CBS All Access in the US and on Netflix around the world. In the third episode, "Context is for Kings", the main character, Michael Burnham, finds her prison sentence for mutiny interrupted when she encounters the USS Discovery and its captain, Gabriel Lorca. These are the questions we're asking ourselves after watching the episode. (Disclosure: CBS is CNET's parent company.)

Be warned: Mild spoilers ahead .

What happened to the shuttle pilot?

It's strongly hinted that Captain Lorca set up Burnham's prison transfer in order to shanghai her into service aboard the Discovery. Burnham's fellow prisoners are quickly sent on their way as if nothing's happened, but what about the shuttle pilot? She stepped outside to fix the Species GS54 space-bug infestation and was never seen again. Please tell us that Lorca didn't let her float off into space while he was busy handing out fortune cookies.

Was that the coolest introduction of a starship ever?

It always gets us right there when the music swells and we swoop over the curves of the USS Enterprise as it rests in spacedock. But the introduction to the Discovery tops that, looming over us to save the day in a miasma of neon pink and turquoise space-clouds. Epic stuff.

Say hello to the U.S.S. Discovery. #StarTrekDiscovery pic.twitter.com/xf1hEYnawD — Star Trek: Discovery (@startrekcbs) October 2, 2017

What's Commander Landry's problem?

Within moments of arriving on the Discovery, the ship's security chief has referred to the prisoners as "garbage" and "animals", not to mention dissing Burnham's skills with Vulcan martial art Suus Mahna. Charming.

The sinister Captain Gabriel Lorca is played by a flinty Jason Isaacs.

Who are the black badges?

The Discovery is full of secrets. The ship is capable of hosting 300 different scientific projects. Some of them are locked away behind closed doors as Captain Lorca attempts to co-opt benign research for military purposes. This episode gives us a glimpse of the  mysterious black-badge-wearing troops guarding these secrets, suggesting there are more layers to be revealed as we follow the consequences of Lorca's actions.

How far will the crew go?

At the heart of the dynamic aboard the Discovery is the clash of ideals between the crew of scientists and its military-minded captain. Engineer Lt. Stamets laments being forced to continue his research under "warmonger" Lorca, but continue he does. Lorca clearly shows he's not interested in abiding by the utopian principles of the Federation, which means he's likely to make demands of the crew that will run contrary to their peace-loving philosophy. We expect the drama of the show to come from seeing how far the characters will go to further the captain's ends. 

Cadet Tilly, played by Mary Wiseman, has ambitions for her future in Starfleet.

For example, beneath her bubbly, nervous exterior, Cadet Tilly shows a streak of ambition when she tells Burnham she intends to be a captain someday. If Lorca plays on that ambition, it could take Tilly to some dark places. 

What are Lorca's plans for the monster?

Beaming aboard an abandoned ship to tackle an unidentified alien menace is one of the oldest Trek tropes in the book. But this dark and gory encounter plays out more like an "Alien" movie -- complete with humans who think they can harness the deadly creature even after it's torn up an entire starship. Also, where did the monster come from? Is it a by-product of the Glenn's experiments with organic spores?

Up close and personal with Star Trek: Discovery props at Comic-Con

What did Stamets just say?

Basidiosac? Progenitors of panspermia? Stamets takes Trek technobabble to new heights.

What did Captain Lorca just say?

Stamets isn't the only character in need of a universal translator. We're huge fans of the steely-eyed British actor Jason Isaacs , but we did have to employ the rewind button during more than one of his scenes. I'm not sure how the Discovery crew can carry out Captain Lorca's orders when he's chewing through his Southern American accent. 

Luckily for any aliens watching, Netflix offers Klingon subtitles.

A few final questions:

• After the Glenn, will the Klingons target the Discovery?
• Who named the shuttle "Disco 1"?
• Will we ever meet Ensign Chiefowitz, whose name is called over the comm system?
• How come Lorca can just ask the computer to transport him about the place?
• Would you step into a sinister sealed experiment chamber if Jason Isaacs asked you to?
• Do Vulcans say "shit"?
• Does the breath scan still work after a few beers?
• What's with all the snacking?

29 sci-fi and geektastic TV shows coming soon to 2017

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‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Exits Netflix Tonight; Set For 2022 Launch On Paramount+ Globally

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EXCLUSIVE: Star Trek: Discovery is heading home.

More than four years after the series starring Sonequa Martin-Green launched on what was then CBS All Access in North America and Netflix in the rest of the world, Discovery will be leaving the steamer as of midnight tonight.

In a just-closed deal between ViacomCBS and Netflix, the Shari Redstone-controlled company has ended the lucrative financial arrangement that launched Discovery back in 2017. In broad strokes, the bargain that then-CBS head honcho Les Moonves made with Netflix saw the latter paying the vast majority of Discovery ‘s hefty budget for the overseas rights. With the top-tier IP fully back in the fold, the plan is for Discovery to take flight on Paramount + around the globe starting next year.

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The UK, Germany, Ireland, Austria and Switzerland will be among the first markets to stream Discovery on Paramount+ of the more than 20 countries the platform is available in outside of North America. ViacomCBS has said that as part of an accelerated expansion, it anticipates being in about 45 markets within the next year or so – and, of course, a high-profile brand like Star Trek will lead that charge.

In Canada, Discovery will stay on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave under the long-standing deal with the northern broadcaster.

No details were given of the deal that ViacomCBS and Netflix struck for the first three seasons of Discovery , but we hear it was in the healthy six figures. The arrangement removes any stake that Netflix had in the series.

There is a timely quality to the new deal as Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery is set to kick off  November 18 on Paramount+ in the States.

“As we rapidly expand our global streaming footprint, we are bringing more of our top titles home to ViacomCBS for Paramount+ markets around the world,” ViacomCBS Networks International streaming boss Kelly Day told Deadline today. “We have a strong global and local content pipeline that positions us for success across our regions, and repatriating beloved series like Star Trek: Discovery for Paramount+ is another step forward as we bring fans more must-watch series worldwide.”

Like a lot of media companies, CBS and Viacom — separately and since their reunion in late-2019 — have looked for opportunities to reduce costs as they ramp up streaming originals. Star Trek series had output deals with various parties, including Bell in Canada and Amazon and Netflix in much of the world. But CBS All Access was rebranded as Paramount+ in March, and its offerings expanded and went global starting over the summer.

Earlier this month, ViacomCBS reported having nearly 47 million streaming subscribers across all of its services. It hasn’t yet broken out specific numbers for Paramount+. In a move seen as a sign of the difficulty of expanding streaming across the entire world, ViacomCBS formed a joint venture with Comcast for the Sky Showtime platform, which is set to launch in Europe.

While Star Trek: Picard will still be on Amazon outside of North America and Star Trek: Lower Decks will be on the Jeff Bezos owned streamer outside the U.S., Canada and Latin America, the Starfleet shift off Netflix was hinted at earlier this year. Back at the end of September, Star Trek: The Original Series , Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise all left the streamer.

Now we know where the true final frontier is.

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Netflix's Star Trek Discovery: Will this be a return to form?

'star trek' returns to our tv screens with a new series, new characters and a new ship, but the franchise has experienced a bumpy ride in the half century since the show launched in 1966, article bookmarked.

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Star Trek will return to our TV screens in September after a 12-year hiatus, with the launch of the imaginatively titled Star Trek: Discovery on SVoD platform CBS All Access in the US and Netflix in the UK.

The show has had a torturous time reaching the screen, with showrunner Bryan Fuller ( Hannibal ) quitting in October 2016 due to being overwhelmed with other projects, namely American Gods (Starz) and a possible re-boot of the anthology series Amazing Stories .

Originally announced as launching in January this year, this was then pushed back to May, but now the wait is over for fans with the announcement by Netflix UK that the show will debut on 25 September when the first two episodes will be available to stream.

New episodes will continue to be made available every Monday, less than 24 hours after they initially stream CBS All Access. The first season – which runs to fifteen episodes – is being split into two separate runs; the first eight episodes will air from September to November, with the remaining episodes kicking off in January 2018.

In the 50 years since the launch of the original Star Trek series in September 1966, the show, along with its attendant movies and spin-offs, has pursued a cyclical path in terms of popularity.

Whilst served by a consistent and vocal fan base, Trek has a mixed record in terms of crossing over to wider audiences.

A mainstream success such as The Voyage Home (1986) was followed by the disastrous Final Frontier (1989), a Shatner directed/written clunker which was felt by some to have almost killed the franchise.

Similarly, 2002’s Nemesis , despite boasting an early leading performance from Tom Hardy, was considered such a bomb that the movie series was put on ice until JJ Abrams successful Star Trek re-boot in 2009, which managed to engage cinema-goers who previously wouldn’t have been willing to pay to see any of the franchise.

But the swings and roundabouts of the Trek movies continued, and after the strong performance of Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond was considered a relative box office failure, possibly because it hued closer to the ethos of the original series.

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Another Trek movie is in the works, presumably with the intention of aiming for the crowd-pleasing spirit of Abrams first movie.

The erratic performance of the Trek movies led to the so-called ‘Curse of Star Trek ’, where the even-numbered titles were felt to be substantially better than those with odd numbers - hence the popularity of The Wrath of Khan , Voyage Home , Undiscovered Country and First Contact , and the opprobrium attracted by Star Trek: The Motion Picture , The Search for Spock , The Final Frontier , Generations and Insurrection .

Despite its neatness, this theory unfortunately falls apart by the time we get to the aforementioned Nemesis .

The live action spin-offs that followed the original series (which itself was canned by NBC after only three seasons) have also varied in popularity, with Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94) and Deep Space Nine (1993-99) enjoying positive critical and fan reaction, but Voyager (1995-2001) and particularly the prequel Enterprise (2001-2005) being less well received.

It’s interesting to note that both TNG and DS9 were shown only in syndication, whilst Voyager and Enterprise were shown on the fairly minor UPN network, in acknowledgement of the comparatively limited but dedicated audience the Trek TV franchise attracts.

Star Trek: Discovery is set 10 years before the original series, with all 13 episodes covering a season-long storyline.

This is not a first for the franchise, as season three of the largely derided Star Trek: Enterprise was also dedicated to the single Xindi story arc.

Future Star Trek:Discovery series may be set in different timelines, with all new casts, although this has not been confirmed.

The production travails involved in getting the show on air pale into comparison with some experienced by previous Trek series, most notably when actress Genevieve Bujold quit the lead role of Captain Janeway in Voyager after just a day and a half’s filming and was then replaced by Kate Mulgrew.

Star Trek seems to have brought out the worst side of some of the actors involved in the show, most notoriously William Shatner, who feuded with pretty much the rest of the cast of the original series.

Less well-known was the bad blood that occurred when the character of the buxom Borg Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) was introduced in season four of Voyager , with Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway) apparently not welcoming Ryan’s addition to the show.

One thing that Star Trek: Discovery does have going for it is an unusually strong cast (by Trek standards) with Brits James Frain ( Gotham / The Tudors ) and Jason Isaacs ( Harry Potter / The OA ), Michelle Yeoh ( Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon / Tomorrow Never Dies ) and lead Sonequa Martin-Green, most familiar to UK audiences as Sasha from The Walking Dead who recently memorably exited the show at the end of season 7.

Rainn Wilson ( The Office / Backstrom ) takes the recurring role of comic relief confidence trickster Harry Mudd, a character from the original series played by Roger C Carmel.

As an SVOD show, there may be more leeway in terms of language, although it’s unlikely to be giving The Wolf of Wall Street a run for its money.

Set design will be a major priority for the series, with original showrunner Fuller wanting to echo some of Ralph McQuarrie and Ken Adams concepts for the unproduced 1970s Trek movie Planet of the Titans , saying that they wanted ‘something distinct about what our Star Trek was going to look like - sort of harder lines of a ship, talking about race cars and Lamborghinis in the '1970s and James Bond cars’.

In addition to unproduced movies, Star Trek must hold some kind of record for discarded spin-off ideas, which include Assignment Earth , Phase II , Federation , Hopeship , a Spock solo series, a re-boot of the original 1960s show and even The Adventures of Harry Mudd …

Some elements of these rejected concepts eventually made it into other Trek movies and series, but the only one we really envisage what it may have looked like is Assignment Earth .

This is due to its nature as a backdoor pilot in season 2 of the original 1960s series, with time-travelling super-agent Gary Seven preventing WWIII, aided by his secretary Roberta Lincoln (Teri Garr) and his shape-changing cat Isis.

The Trek crew act as more an impediment than a help, but naturally nuclear Armageddon is averted; presumably Seven, Lincoln and their feline companion then go on to more groovy adventures in late-sixties USA.

It’s a shame that Assignment Earth was never picked up, as the episode possessed a kind of goofy charm and humour that Trek itself was not always capable of.

Let’s hope Star Trek: Discovery can enjoy some lighter moments and avoid the occasionally po-faced tendencies of some previous Trek series.

'Star Trek: Discovery' is on Netflix from 25 September

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Star Trek: Discovery Is Tearing the Streaming World Apart

Dan Leckie has been a Star Trek fan since he pressed play on a VHS tape of the original TV show during Christmas of 1991. Leckie, from Aberdeen, Scotland, was instantly hooked on the sci-fi series and its subsequent iterations, and regularly attends conventions to meet up with fellow fans. But on November 16 he noticed something weird: Netflix had stopped promoting the first three seasons of Star Trek: Discovery —and previews of season four, due to launch on November 18, had also vanished. 

What Leckie had spotted would soon become a point of outrage for Star Trek fans the world over: Netflix had lost the rights to the fourth season of Discovery outside of the US, and the previous seasons too. They would now appear on Paramount+, the streaming service formerly known as CBS All Access and owned by ViacomCBS—but not until 2022, and even then, not everywhere. (In the US, Star Trek: Discovery has always streamed exclusively on Paramount+/CBS All Access.) And Star Trek is just the beginning. What’s bad news for Discovery fans now is yet another glimpse of the increasingly muddled future of streaming.

Up until relatively recently, most intellectual property (IP) owners sold rights for TV and movies through paid TV, physical home video, and cinema. The concept of online streaming was seen as a non-priority. Then everything changed—and quickly. As Netflix’s popularity soared, Disney grabbed back the streaming rights to its vast catalog and launched Disney+ in November 2019, raking in 118 million subscribers to date. Others are following quickly—from Discovery+ to HBO Max and Britbox. And as streaming services scramble to produce more original content, anyone wanting to sit down and watch their favorite TV shows is left with a headache. Rather than subscribing to a single streaming service, with each passing year people are being asked to fork out more and more to access rival platforms.

“A lot of fans, in the UK and around the world, are outraged that they'll have to pay for yet another subscription service to enable them to see Discovery , and eventually the rest of the Star Trek TV series,” says Leckie. Glenn van t’Hof, a Dutch Star Trek fan, is more blunt. “What a dick move to announce this two days before the supposed European release date,” he says. “This is no service to the fans.” Leckie believes the move—which prevents people outside the United States and Canada from seeing season four of Discovery until 2022—will drive many toward pirated versions of the show. The rights deal with Netflix for Star Trek covered 190 countries and territories—but Paramount+ will only be available in 45 countries by the end of 2022. “That leaves three-quarters of their market unable to watch without piracy,” says Leckie.

Analysts are also skeptical about the benefits to Star Trek fans from the shift to Paramount+. Andrew A. Rosen, a former Viacom digital media executive and founder of Parqor, a streaming service analyst firm, believes it’s highly unlikely Paramount+ can replicate the economics, scale, or sophistication of Netflix's marketing model around major franchises such as Star Trek. Neither ViacomCBS nor Netflix responded to requests for comment.

The bet Paramount and ViacomCBS are making is that fans of Star Trek love the brand enough to follow it to whichever streaming service ends up offering it—rather than whichever is the most convenient for them. That isn’t beyond the realms of possibility: The average American household accesses eight streaming and video on demand services in a given week, according to data gathered by technology research company Omdia—though that includes free catch-up services and websites like YouTube. In the UK, the average is nearer six to seven, and in mainland Europe, five to six. “For the audience there’s no difference,” says Tony Gunnarsson, principal analyst of TV, video, and advertising at Omdia. “They dip in and out of everything that’s available.” But as major media companies like ViacomCBS, which are racing to catch up to Netflix, attempt to claim space in the streaming industry, it’s only going to get messier for consumers. Omdia research indicates there are 292 video streaming services available in the United States, and 182 in the United Kingdom.

For Star Trek lovers, keeping up with the universe of content is difficult enough as it is, regardless of where you’re based. While ViacomCBS decided in October 2021 not to renew its streaming licenses for the classic series of the intergalactic show in the United States, international viewers like Leckie are currently still able to watch six separate shows tied to the brand on Netflix. Spin-off shows Picard and Lower Decks , an animated comedy, are available on Amazon Prime Video internationally and Paramount+ in the United States, while kids’ series Prodigy looks likely to land on Paramount+ too. “It’s bonkers,” says Gunnarsson. “A whole range of legacy rights are still active. Right now, this leads to a lot of confusion and frustration for customers, but in the long term these things will be ironed out and you’ll find all the IP for one series within their owner groups’ designated streaming platform.”

And what’s confusing for fans to understand is downright impossible for more casual viewers. Star Trek became such a totemic cultural touchstone because of its enormous viewership, built up at a time when there were far fewer options to choose from on television. While some brands, such as Squid Game and Breaking Bad manage to cut through in the saturated streaming era, it becomes much harder to do so to the scale seen in the past.

When Gunnarsson began analyzing the streaming world 10 years ago, Hollywood studios were lax in how they sold the streaming rights to their services, seeing it as an unnecessary extra. The deals were experimental. “They did market by market, then did bigger global deals, then realized it’s not good for them and removed rights from Netflix—because they are completely disrupting their markets,” he says. “Now we’re in a world where they’re launching their own streaming services.” The removal of series and shows from mainstream platforms into others is the logical conclusion of that shift in how things work. Star Trek is just the latest victim of the global rights tug-of-war, and the likes of the US Office and Friends, both of which are no longer on Netflix in the US, could soon also vanish from Netflix worldwide. Services like NBC’s streaming platform Peacock, which launched in the UK and Ireland this week , are unlikely to keep their biggest shows sat on Netflix for long.

Streaming services will soon have a difficult decision to make, says Johanna Gibson, Herchel Smith professor of intellectual property law at Queen Mary University of London: Whether they want a smaller share of a crowded market or decide to team up through cross-licensing arrangements to share content. “If the market leader is Netflix then that’s a further motivation for others to cooperate in such ways in order to compete with Netflix,” she says.

Rosen is more blunt. “For Star Trek fans and ViacomCBS shareholders, it sucks,” he says. The latter, he believes, will be left carrying the can for the higher marketing expenses required to bring eyeballs to Star Trek on Paramount+, rather than leveraging the built-in benefits of Netflix’s massive audience. As for Netflix? It’s a loss, sure—but how big a loss is difficult to tell because there’s a dearth of data. How the company will plug the USS Discovery -shaped hole in its programming slate is clearer to Rosen. “The economics of producing its own content imply it will likely seek to produce the next Star Trek—and likely from a foreign country,” he says.

Every streaming service is seeking to develop its own IP precisely so they don’t struggle when rightsholders pull the rug out from underneath them. “The number of originals is increasing across different platforms,” says Gunnarsson. “If you have a streaming service, you must have exclusive content. Netflix and Amazon have been doing this. All of them have.” In 2016, Netflix revealed it had a target for half its content to be original, home-grown series or movies. While it’s not there yet, 40 percent of Netflix programming in the United States is original to the streaming service—up from 16 percent in January 2019 . At that pace, Netflix will reach their goal around this time next year. As original content becomes more vital, the future of beloved existing series on streaming services becomes threatened. “Anything a streaming service doesn’t own and has to license may disappear from a platform if not supported by an ongoing significant audience,” says Gibson.

As for Star Trek, the universe is already expanding—and could expand at warp speed, says Rosen, aping the way Disney has built out the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With animated series about lower-ranked staffers on starships already streaming, future shows could delve deeper into the Star Trek canon. That could, in time, make Paramount+ a genuine Netflix rival—but there’s a long way to go. “I wouldn’t necessarily bet against them building a universe with that IP,” he says. “There are worse decisions they are making.”

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'Star Trek: Discovery' leaves Netflix just ahead of its new season

International fans will have to wait for paramount+ to be available in their countries next year..

The fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery was supposed to be available on Netflix a day after it premieres on Paramount+ in the US on November 18th, but that will no longer happen. In fact, fans outside the US and Canada will have to wait months to be able to see the new episodes — legally, that is — if they ever get the chance at all. According to Deadline , ViacomCBS has ended its deal with Netflix that had been in place since the series launched in 2017.

The publication says the money Netflix paid for the show's overseas rights paid for most of Discovery's hefty budget. Now that ViacomCBS has paid off the deal, it also pulled the entire show from Netflix. Apparently, it plans make the series available again to international fans in 2022 when Paramount+ goes global. The UK, Germany, Ireland, Austria and Switzerland will be among the first regions to get access to the streaming service next year. By the end of 2022, the service will be out in 45 countries, but as Gizmodo points out, that's still a tiny fraction of the 190 regions where Netflix is available.

Kelly Day, ViacomCBS Networks International streaming boss, told Deadline :

"As we rapidly expand our global streaming footprint, we are bringing more of our top titles home to ViacomCBS for Paramount+ markets around the world. We have a strong global and local content pipeline that positions us for success across our regions, and repatriating beloved series like Star Trek: Discovery for Paramount+ is another step forward as we bring fans more must-watch series worldwide."

In a tweet, the show's official account said that the fourth season will still premiere on Paramount+ on November 18th in the US. Meanwhile, it will arrive on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada on the same day and will be available for streaming in the country on Crave the day after.

pic.twitter.com/uz0ReiYUMW — Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) November 16, 2021

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• August 19, 2024 | Interview: Doug Jones On His Surprise ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Evolution And Ideas For Saru On ‘Academy’
• August 16, 2024 | ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ To Wrap Up With “Gigantic” Finale Episode

Interview: Doug Jones On His Surprise ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Evolution And Ideas For Saru On ‘Academy’

| August 19, 2024 | By: Laurie Ulster 22 comments so far

Now that  Star Trek: Discovery has finished its run, fans can pick up the Blu-ray or DVD of the show’s fifth and final season, as well as a box set of the complete series, later this month. The sets include audio commentary, deleted scenes, exclusive special features, a gag reel, and more. On August 26, the digital release of season 5 comes out, with DVDs and Blu-rays coming the following day; the full series comes out on the 27th and includes over 15 hours of special features. ( Full details and pre-order links available here .)

Doug Jones played Saru in all five seasons of the show and his character went through one remarkable transformation after another, evolving from a fearful creature who could predict the coming of death to a 32nd-century “Action Saru.” TrekMovie interviewed Doug Jones about Saru’s journey, the changes he never expected, the impact the character has had on him, and his hopes for the Kelpien’s future.

Looking back at your time on the series, do you have a favorite adventure of Saru’s?

I think probably the most growth that Saru had in one episode was back in season 2, when he went through Vahar’ai. Being born into a species that was a prey species… He was fearful, always looking over his shoulder for the next threat, right? Going from that to getting through where his threat ganglia fell out, and he went through an adolescence sort of period called Vahar’ai, where he now could live as an as an adult with an indefinite lifespan that no Kelpien had explored in centuries or generations, it was really liberating for him. And also to go back to his home planet and liberate everybody else from that domination that the Ba’ul had over us, that was just life-changing.

And getting through that with me personally, too..  I found that like with my own fears and anxieties, I took an example from Saru. Saru, everything around Saru, the world around him, and the daily dangers and threats that came at him didn’t change, his reaction to them, did.  Instead of being like “Oh no, here comes a thing,” it was like, “Here comes a thing, and we’re going to get through it.” Much different, right? So I thought, if I can adopt that into my own life and be able to handle whatever comes at me with “No, we’re going to get through this, we’ve gotten through it before…” I learned a lot about fear and anxiety, that it’s more about my perspective of it than the actual threat, you know. And I hear that from the fans, too, that have dealt with their own fears and anxieties, and that makes my heart swell with pride that I was able to help tell his story that has inspired others to deal with their own fears and anxieties and depressions. I hear so much feedback from fans in a really, really good light.

Saru goes through vahar’ai and survives, with Michael Burnham at his side.

That’s beautiful. So when you started and you were told you’re going to play this fearful prey creature, did you know that you were going to evolve and get quills and lose your fear and have all this later?

Nope, I did not see any of that coming. Saru’s growth was a was a season-by-season surprise for me, and I loved it. But when his threat ganglia fell out, and when he now had a new courage and confidence… When I saw that episode coming, I was like oh, dear, I have developed this entire character with a baseline of fear. So now I have to—as an actor, I have to change my intentions, I’d have to change my innards, you know, to play him correctly now. So it took a little bit to find a confidence and I, too, much like early Saru, Doug Jones comes in the room without much confidence. I have imposter syndrome, and I have always dealt with my own self-image issues and everything. So I related to early Saru. But now that Saru’s gone through a growth period, it’s like, oh, I don’t know this part, right? I don’t have a life experience to deal with this. So Saru taught me a lot,. I’ve taken away a lot as an adult in my sixties, now I finally have come into myself. And I think Saru helped me get there, honestly.

Oh, that’s lovely to hear. I think we all battle with those things too.

Oh, gosh. Right?

Were you especially excited about getting quills?

[laughs] That was such a nice surprise, too. I loved how it happened, too. He didn’t know the quills were there. The first time they came out, it’s like he knew that his threat ganglia had fallen out, but he was now faced with a threat, and he got some anger built up and some righteous indignation toward the Ba’ul, and these come out, and it was like, whoa. I think that’s another lesson for all of us: We have strength within us that we’re not aware of, and in the right moment when pushed into a corner and we have to, we have to bring something out of ourselves, we have to bring up a fight, we have to bring up a winning attitude. It’s there. It’s there for us.

By season 5, “Action Saru” had mastered the use of his quills.

If there had been another season, what would you have liked to have Saru do? Like, were you thinking of him as a dad? Was there any talk of raising a family?

Honestly, when season 5 ended, I was feeling like, I don’t know where you go from here! So when we didn’t know that—I thought we had seven seasons to go. But when season 5 was finished filming, I had no idea where they’re going to take Saru after that. So when I heard the news that season 5 WAS our final season, it’s like, oh, well, then I’m totally satisfied with where we jumped off with Saru professionally. He had been promoted, and had such growth all the way from a science officer in the very beginning, as a lieutenant commander, then a commander, first officer, acting captain, captain, and ambassador to smaller planets with the Federation, a very dignified diplomatic position that he that that fits him very well. And now that he’s married to another diplomat, the president of Ni’Var, it’s perfect. So professionally and romantically, I think he found his happily ever after.

I mean, I was hoping for little alien babies, but that’s just me.

And what would those look like, Kelpien and Vulcan together? Right? Anyone’s guess, right?

T’Rina and Saru with Michael at their wedding, where their “happily ever after” begins.

So I know you can’t tell me anything even if you know anything, which you probably don’t, but if Saru showed up on the Starfleet Academy show, what would you like to see him doing?

I have not gotten this call yet, by the way, but I would never say never to such an opportunity. Um, what would he do? I assume he would be a guest lecturer of some sort, and because he does speak 94 languages, and I think he might be, we might be in the-and now that he’s an ambassador for smaller planets, and being a liaison between them joining the Federation, he might be one who talks about the languages and the diversity of planets that he represents, could be a way of connecting all of the different species that are in the cadet room and finding a way for communication between those with differences.

Great workshop for the students. I like it!

I think that’s a good one, yeah.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 comes home August 27

You can pre-order  Discovery  Season 5  at Amazon on Blu-ray for $34.99  or  DVD for $29.99 . The limited edition Steelbook Blu-ray can be  pre-ordered for $39.99 .

Season 5 Steelbook Blu-Ray

The complete series box set can be pre-ordered for  $59.95 on Blu-ray and  $49.95 on DVD .

Box art for complete series Blu-ray edition

DISCLAIMER: When we link to products to buy on Amazon in our articles, these are customized affiliate links that support TrekMovie by earning a small commission when you purchase through them.

Note: The interview has  been edited for brevity and clarity.  

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Such a wonderful character, Saru! Portrayed with skill by such a fascinating actor!

Did Saru get any character development whatsoever after season 2? Apart from a, frankly paper thin, love interest storyline. He was fine but people really oversell his character, especially after classic Trek shows did it much better.

He became captain, he hired & fired Michael as his first officer, he helped them solve The Burn because he made a connection with Su’Kal, he became a diplomat and changed careers.

All pretty wishy washy. Becoming captain and hiring/firing Michael isn’t character development. It’s plot development. I’m talking about things that gave the man depth. Barely anything after a good start.

I thought those were big moments for him and his character. To each their own!

I have to agree that those don’t count as character development/chang/growth, though.

And was promoted to Admiral in the final episode.

That’s not character development. I’m talking about meaningful storytelling that adds depth to a character.

I’d say his entire journey from becoming captain of the Disco in Season 3 to finding his true calling as a diplomat by Season 5 was some decent character growth. I also very much enjoyed his relationship with T’Rina. While it was a slow burn (no pun intended with the other Burn…), I really liked how Saru went from admiring this person to falling in love with her. If anything, I think it was one of the most beautiful portrayals of how a relationship b/w two very different alien species, especially in how the experience emotions, would work. I wish they had explored his relationship with Sukal some more, as there was definitely a lot of character growth fodder in there (becoming a pseudo-father figure to this very broken person); but the little we did see said a lot about who Saru was. Finally, while we had certainly seen Saru become more confident since going through the Vahar’ai, seeing him calling himself a predator in the series finale initially caught me off guard, but absolutely fit his growth as a character.

How about the other side of the argument: “…classic Trek shows did it much better.”

I don’t assume you mean ACTUAL classic Trek like TOS. Kirk, Spock and McCoy & Company didn’t change much in 3 seasons. There was growth in the movies, but not in the series.

TNG is my favorite and I love the characters, but other than some major changes for everyone between seasons 1 and 3, Data and Worf are about the only ones that show any serious character development the remainder of the series. Most everyone else just experiences promotions or one-off situations. You could maybe argue Riker and Deanna as they move on in their relationship, but I’d argue they stay pretty much the same as characters from season 3 through 7.

I’ll lump Voyager and Enterprise together and also say there wasn’t a whole lot of development past the first few seasons for most characters. There was a lot of potential, but again, only a few characters were noticeably different from beginning to end – VOY: Paris & B’elanna (but not much after season 3 – other than getting married), the Doctor, and 7 of 9; ENT: T’Pol and MAYBE Archer. Discounting series premieres, I’d say everyone else was almost the same base character at the end as they were in the beginning.

So the only real argument to be made is DS9. There’s no doubt that there was DRAMATIC growth for multiple characters. If you take Odo, Kira, Quark, Rom, Nog and Sisko alone and compare them from beginning to end, in some ways it’s like a whole different show. Miles, Bashir, Jake, and (later) Worf have their moments, but they pretty much start and finish about the same. (I won’t mention Dax because completely changing the actress is not exactly a fair argument.) But the show AS A WHOLE is completely different in the end in terms of where DS9/Terok Nor start and finish, and that obviously leads to necessary changes for just about everyone.

So, all that said, if you take Saru and put him in any other show – with the potential exception of DS9 – I say he’s in the same boat as the majority of characters. Even then, I’d still say his development is more dramatic and noticeable than almost everyone except for Data, Worf, T’Pol, Odo, Nog, and Sisko.

Saru is the one thing I’ll truly miss about Discovery; I hope they bring him back for the Academy show!

I’d bet good money they will!

*crosses fingers for luck*

not betting, but could reuse the found ISS enterprise as sailing school ship and therefor reuse SNW sets for academy as well.

It is inevitable that Discovery characters will pop in for guest appearances on the Academy show, and obviously some like Tilly will be regulars or recurring, but I hope that they let the new show develop as its own thing and not try and make it Discovery 2.0.

Interestingly I read an article a couple days ago on a site that suggested Paramount (or any studio experiencing financial difficulties) may take a strategy similar to this in the future due to their money troubles.

Essentially, it proposed that Paramount would keep a series around long enough until the lead contracts expired. Then they’d cancel the show, make a new one, and shuffle well liked characters into the new series.

I think something like that is going on with that Yellowstone show after Kevin Costner bailed on it.

I feel so bad for Doug Jones, he was the best part of this show. He deserved better than the scripts (and the ensemble) he had to work with. I would have loved him as Pike’s first officer on SNW.

Doug Jones’ Saru was definitely a solid character and one of Discovery’s bright spots.

Whatever feelings I may have about Academy just in general, I must admit it’s always fun to hear the news about a new crew being assembled, new characters becoming part of the Trek lore one by one. It would obviously be a huge missed opportunity not to feature crossover characters, as long as it’s done sparingly and tastefully. It would be good to see a Trek show for once not be the vehicle for 20th century nostalgia.

If you think about it, every nu Trek show has been sort of “hung on” existing legacy characters: Disco leaned on Sarek and Pike’s Enterprise. Picard was TNG. Prodigy is Voyager. SNW is TOS. And Lower Decks is just one giant meta-reference to 24th century Trek. None of it stands on its own without these callbacks to the past.

Academy is frankly the one chance the writers will have to prove that they can reference a prior Trek series, in this case Disco (Disco is already a legacy series, crazy to think!), without *relying* upon that series as a foundation for the stories it is telling. If it’s going to succeed in its intended goal of capturing the YA market, it needs to operate wholly without the crutch of nostalgia for things passed.

Doug Jones, you are great, and you acting is art! :-)

Nice to hear that Saru’s arc inspired people with fear, anxiety, and depression!

I liked the character and I’ve always been a Doug Jones fan, from Hellboy on.

Why isn’t Star Trek: Discovery on Netflix in the United States?

Star Trek: Discovery Copyright CBS

Star Trek: Discovery is back with its second season on CBS All Access and if you’re in the United States wondering when the first and second season will be dropping on Netflix. We’ve got bad news. Star Trek: Discovery will not be coming to Netflix in the US despite being a Netflix Original abroad. 

Star Trek hasn’t had a big TV series since the early 2000s when Enterprise was airing in a much different environment. It wasn’t until 2017 when CBS announced a brand new series called Discovery.

The biggest news regarding Discovery from a broadcast point of view is that it’d be airing exclusively on CBS’s then brand new streaming service as one of the first Originals on the platform.

Netflix announced it would be the international distributor for the series.

Why isn’t Star Trek: Discovery on Netflix in the US?

The reason should be fairly clear by this point as to why Star Trek: Discovery won’t be coming to Netflix in the US.

That reason is the same reason why Titans , the new DC streaming exclusive show and why The Handmaids Tale doesn’t come to Netflix. It’s on a competitor to Netflix that wants to bolster reasons for having a subscription to their service.

This is obviously a big problem for the future as eventually, you’ll have to have a subscription to every other streaming service.

If CBS All Access ever failed could it come to Netflix?

It’s likely that this could be a scenario although the streaming service is reporting strong subscriber growth so far and most importantly, doesn’t show any signs of going away anytime soon.

In August 2018, the service had 2.5 million subscribers . We’ll likely have to wait until later this year to see if that number continues to grow as the service anticipates “for 4 million subscribers in 2019, and 8 million in 2022.”

Speaking last year , David Stapf’s was the then head of CBS TV studios who stated: “My goal is that there should be a  Star Trek  something on all the time on All Access,”.

So there you have it, Star Trek: Discovery will likely never hit Netflix. There’s plenty of other Star Trek content on Netflix however, with the original series, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise all being available on Netflix US at the time of writing.

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Star Trek: Discovery’s Wilson Cruz Feels There's More To Hugh Culber’s Story, So We Discussed Whether It Could Continue In Starfleet Academy

There's more potential for the story.

Star Trek: Discovery 's final season celebrated the series and gave an ending that actors like Doug Jones felt gave them closure on their characters. That's not to say everyone felt that way, however, as actor Wilson Cruz recently revealed to CinemaBlend he felt there was more potential for Hugh Culber's story to grow. With several Discovery cast members joining the cast of Starfleet Academy , Culber could return, too, but would the actor show up?

Cruz was gracious enough to speak to CinemaBlend to promote the upcoming digital release of Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 on August 26th, and on Blu-ray and DVD on August 27th. We discussed the totality of Culber's story in the series, which fans can rewatch with a Paramount+ subscription , and how Season 5 finally felt like the ship's doctor had conquered his inner turmoil and was ready to move forward. Cruz spoke about his feelings of the final arc and the potential it had:

I was actually really excited about now that we've closed this chapter of questioning, who he was gonna be now, right? Like, he was firing on all cylinders at that point. So, I, I feel like we're gonna probably see him step into more of his counseling and see him more on these away missions. There was a lot of opportunities for that. So I just feel like, by the time we finished the season, this was a character that was completely three-dimensional We've seen him in every conceivable position. I could really take him anywhere, and I felt like as an actor, I could step into any situation, and I could make it work.

Hugh Culber had a new zest for life he lacked after his resurrection, and it sparked a real change in him that would've been great to explore in another season. Of course, Star Trek: Discovery was canceled , so I feel we were robbed of what this new era of Culber on the show could've been.

Part of that transformation was thanks to the episode "Jinaal," in which Culber volunteered to be a temporary vessel for a Trill, Jinaal Bix, who had information the Discovery crew needed. Though the ritual made the process temporary, Wilson Cruz confirmed to CinemaBlend that there are echoes of Jinaal that remain in Hugh's body:

If you look at the rest of the season, I haven't really talked about this, there was an element of Jinaal still left in him. There was still the awe, you know, the thing about Jinaal was that he was locked in that away for 800 years, and there was a joy of being alive again that [Culber] understood but never allowed himself to live it. And I feel like Jinaal gave him the ability to be like, ‘Yes, this existence is amazing and can be exciting and fun, and I need to embrace that part of it.’

Imagine Culber maintaining some semblance of his boldness while being Jinaal and taking that with him on new away missions! It's killing me that we didn't get another season of Star Trek: Discovery to explore that, though I did think the series' conclusion was solid enough.

There is one upcoming Star Trek series that Hugh Culber could join, and it's already added Discovery characters to its cast . I felt like I knew the answer already, but for posterity's sake, I asked Wilson Cruz if he'd like to reprise Culber on Starfleet Academy for a chance to show off the new side of the character. He answered:

Yeah. They know where I am. They know my email. They know my phone number. They know all of my representatives, and they know that I would come back. So I'll leave it at that, but I haven't been asked.

I have a feeling that once Star Trek: Discovery characters start to appear in Starfleet Academy , we're going to see a number of them pop in and out of the show. I definitely think that Wilson Cruz's character is an obvious choice, and that he could teach cadets a lot of things about medicine and counseling others on a ship.

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Jones explained what was up to CinemaBlend.

Starfleet Academy is its own show, though, and with the massive cast it already has, it could be telling more stories about the 32nd century rather than continuing the story of Star Trek: Discovery . That's not to say there won't be ways for it to be connected, as even shows like The Next Generation found ways to work in The Original Series actors, in addition to its numerous guest stars , despite a 100-year gap in the timeline.

If an appearance in Starfleet Academy isn't in the cards, there are always novels and comic books to continue Hugh Culber's personal journey. After all, the story in Star Trek is never truly over for its characters when the show ends unless they die like Trip Tucker did in Enterprise 's finale. Aside from that, however, I would expect to see Culber in more Trek adventures regardless of their medium.

Star Trek: Discovery is available to stream right now on Paramount+. I'm planning on re-watching Seasons 3-5 ahead of Starfleet Academy 's release to get a refresher on life in the 32nd century, and am hoping a good number of fans get the same idea so we can revisit it together.

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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'Star Trek: Prodigy' is the 'Voyager' spin-off you never knew you wanted — and we love it

And you thought it was just a kids' show… Why "Prodigy" is the perfect continuation of Captain Janeway's story.

Of all the TV Treks to date, " Star Trek: Voyager " is the one with the most definitive ending. From day one, the show was on a mission to get Captain Janeway and her lost-in-space crew back from the distant Delta Quadrant. Once that objective was achieved in series finale "Endgame", however, there wasn't much left on the ledger labelled "unfinished business". The series certainly wasn't calling out for a follow-up, but two decades later it's got one — and it's great.

Okay, " Star Trek: Prodigy " isn't technically the eighth season of "Voyager", but it's undeniably the '90s show's spiritual heir. Unlike "Picard", which used its third season to deliver the perfect send-off for the "Next Generation" crew, "Prodigy" substitutes wall-to-wall nostalgia for youthful exuberance, to tell the story of a bunch of kids who stumble on a grounded Starfleet vessel in the Delta Quadrant.

They're a likeable group seemingly focus-grouped to look good on a lunchbox. Indeed, on many levels, "Prodigy" is the quintessential Nickelodeon animation, working through a playbook that's been serving Saturday morning cartoons since the '80s. A gang of mismatched heroes with plenty to learn? Hat tip to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Characters trapped in an unfamiliar and hostile alien location? Thank you, "ThunderCats". A cute, wise and indecipherable sidekick? That'll be Brain in "Inspector Gadget". They've even brought the obligatory mentor along for the ride.

But while it would undoubtedly have been easier to set a fun, kid-friendly cartoon in a loose facsimile of the "Star Trek" universe, "Prodigy" goes all in and embraces the franchise's history with the same reverence "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels" had for the "Star Wars" movies . That aforementioned mentor is an Emergency Training Hologram based on a certain Captain Kathryn Janeway (voiced by original actor Kate Mulgrew ), and she ties the voyages of the USS Protostar to nearly six decades of "Trek" storytelling — while helping her protegés to learn the ropes, and shape the future of the universe. 

The show is ingeniously structured, drip-feeding the " Star Trek " references to keep older viewers interested without alienating new recruits. Like most of the show's younger viewers, the rag-tag crew of the Protostar (each one an extra-terrestrial) have no knowledge of Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Federation. But with Janeway as their guide, their close encounters with Tribbles, the Borg and even the Kazon (Klingon-esque antagonists so lame that "Voyager" quickly left them behind) provide a gateway to "Trek"'s wider universe, plotting a course for the real story to get started.

"Prodigy" may be targeted at kids, but it's hard to imagine how any show could more embody the values of "Star Trek". As in "Voyager", the crew of the Protostar are charting a course through an unknown region of space, working as a team to science their way past the obstacles they encounter, while formulating theories that (almost) sound plausible.

As with all the best Starfleet crews, the chemistry is fantastic, all the way from conventionally cocky Dal R'El, to malleable Mellanoid slime worm Murf, and — perhaps best of all — Zero, a telepathic, non-corporeal Medusan. Their species first appeared in "Star Trek: Original Series" episode "Is There in Truth no Beauty", and they have to keep their true form hidden in a robot suit to avoid driving shipmates mad. (Just as "Voyager" did with the entirely CG Species 8472, "Prodigy" relishes the fact its alien lifeforms aren't limited by what's feasible for human actors in prosthetics.)

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The production also features none of the "it'll do…" mindset you'd once have expected from a kid-oriented spin-off. The theme is by top Hollywood composer Michael Giacchino (whose previous credits include "Rogue One", "The Batman", JJ Abrams first "Star Trek"), while the voice cast is packed with top talent like John Noble ("Fringe"), Daveed Diggs ("Snowpiercer") and Jameela Jamil ("The Good Place"). The space battles are pretty spectacular, too.

And for anyone expecting a dumbed down plot, "Prodigy"'s second season shoots preconceptions down faster than you can say "Temporal Mechanics 101". The foundations of season two were laid in season one, when the real Janeway (now a Vice Admiral, as revealed in " Star Trek: Nemesis ") learned that an experimental starship called the USS Protostar — under the command of her former first officer, Chakotay — had been located on a planetoid called Tars Lamora, and was now under the control of a bunch of fugitive kids.

Without venturing too far into spoiler territory, what follows is a complex and sophisticated story involving time loops, a first contact scenario gone horribly wrong, and an antagonist with a serious (and, arguably, understandable) grudge against Starfleet. It has monsters (known as the Loom) who can erase their victims from history, and a brief excursion to the Mirror Universe — where, yes, goatee beards are still a surefire giveaway that you're talking to a villain. It also features some refreshingly familiar voices (Robert Beltran as Chakotay, Robert Picardo as the Doctor, Ronny Cox as Admiral Jellico ), and a pivotal role for a former boy wonder who quit Starfleet to play at being Doctor Who.

If "Prodigy" is not quite "Voyager" season 8, it's definitely season 7.2, a passing of the torch to the next, next generation. This show was never about Janeway, Chakotay or the Doctor but its wonderful, cynicism-free celebration of "Star Trek" could never have worked without them. 

As this era of Starfleet deals with synth uprisings and the evacuation of Romulus — events destined to leave lasting scars on Jean-Luc Picard and the Federation — it's good to know the crew of the Prodigy are still out there, somewhere in the cosmos. There's no question they deserve a third season to see what strange new worlds they might find.

Every episode of "Star Trek: Prodigy" is available to stream on Netflix .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Richard's love affair with outer space started when he saw the original "Star Wars" on TV aged four, and he spent much of the ’90s watching "Star Trek”, "Babylon 5” and “The X-Files" with his mum. After studying physics at university, he became a journalist, swapped science fact for science fiction, and hit the jackpot when he joined the team at SFX, the UK's biggest sci-fi and fantasy magazine. He liked it so much he stayed there for 12 years, four of them as editor. 

He's since gone freelance and passes his time writing about "Star Wars", "Star Trek" and superheroes for the likes of SFX, Total Film, TechRadar and GamesRadar+. He has met five Doctors, two Starfleet captains and one Luke Skywalker, and once sat in the cockpit of "Red Dwarf"'s Starbug.  

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‘The Acolyte’s Cancellation Begs The Question: What Do Audiences Even Want Out of a Star Wars Show???

Where to Stream:

• The Acolyte

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Yesterday, I felt a great disturbance in the Force; it was as if millions of voices of horny women cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. That’s because Disney+ pulled the plug on The Acolyte , forever denying us more glimpses of Manny Jacinto ‘s magnificently toned arms in a Star Wars series. However, the loss of The Acolyte went further than that for fans. Without The Acolyte , there might never again be queer Force witches living on the fringes of the galaxy in their little dark space communes. The Season 1 cliffhanger ending will never be resolved. Worst of all, we might never get to see Bazil sniff out a solution to a problem ever again!

The Acolyte had its narrative issues, but it was also a creative breath of fresh air for the Star Wars galaxy. At its heart, The Acolyte asked the question: Who, exactly, gets to wield power in the Star Wars universe? The show’s creator, Leslye Headland, is a queer woman raised on the lore of early ’90s Star Wars. She wanted to expand the canvas of live action Star Wars by exploring never-before-seen parts of the official timeline. The story eschewed the Skywalker clan to focus on Force-sensitive twins Mae and Osha, both played by Amandla Stenberg and both torn between the light and the dark.

The Acolyte divided critics and fans alike. Some camps enjoyed the shades of moral grey that The Acolyte applied to the Jedi, Sith, and the overall universe, while others loathed it. Indeed, if there’s one pervasive trend in the Disney Star Wars era, it’s how divided the fandom feels. I often wonder what exactly people want out of a Star Wars show. Do we want non-stop Baby Yoda, aka Grogu, and his buddy, The Mandalorian ? Nostalgic fan service, like the retcon-heavy Obi-Wan Kenobi ? Spin-offs about popular side characters like The Book of Boba Fett ? Live-action versions of the beloved animated series? A nuanced and brilliant piece of art made by and for adults, like Andor ? Whatever Skeleton Crew is going to be? All of the above? None of the above?

It’s past the point of cliche to compare Star Wars to Star Trek , but the latter franchise has figured out how to successfully expand its brand with numerous television projects for numerous networks and streaming services. What unites the likes of Star Trek: Discovery , Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks , and beyond seems to be an understanding of how to stay true to the franchise’s core tenants. When you tune into a Star Trek show, you expect to see diverse casts of characters working together with a sense of optimism and a love of discovery. Starfleet itself gives structure to the storylines, thanks to the organization’s rules and history. Alternate universes are clearly delineated within the lore of the franchise itself. Star Trek knows what Star Trek is.

I’m not sure Star Wars knows what Star Wars is, though. Star Wars fans certainly find themselves caught up in existential debates over what it is time and time again. Is Star Wars specifically the Skywalker saga or can it be an omnibus of stories from all over that galaxy, far, far away? Do we tune in for lightsaber battles or profound contemplations about morality? Should Star Wars be funny? Can it be romantic? What is canon and what’s not?

That last question is one that dogs me, personally, the most. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the vast off-screen canon of stories known then as the “Expanded Universe” was wiped off the board and renamed “Legends.” Nevertheless, recent projects, from Ahsoka to The Acolyte , have made bold nods to the “EU.” Not only that, but Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka both changed our understanding of the prequel trilogy in profound ways. Disney can’t stop futzing with the Star Wars canon, further muddying the rules of the franchise itself.

What I liked about The Acolyte was the bald fact that it had the audacity to directly ask these existential questions about Star Wars out loud. As Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) tells her daughter in one episode, The Acolyte was not about good versus evil, but about power and who is allowed to wield it. However, many Star Wars fans felt this philosophy was antithetical to what Star Wars is.

But, again, I keep circling back to this larger existential question: What is Star Wars? Is it about the pure dichotomy of good versus evil? Is it about just Jedi? Should it only encapsulate the three generations of Skywalkers we’ve seen on the big screen? Is Star Wars mystical or rule-bound? Is it more for children or for adults — or is it for everyone?

I don’t have any answers to those questions, and judging by the last dozen years of output since Disney bought the franchise from George Lucas, no one at Disney (up to and including Kathleen Kennedy) really has a clue what Star Wars is, either. If they did, the fandom wouldn’t melt down into self-destructive, finger-pointing chaos every time a new series rolls out. The fandom would be largely in accord with how they felt about each new installment of the Star Wars saga.

The most powerful contribution The Acolyte made to Star Wars was questioning our preconceived notions about the Jedi, Sith, and Old Republic. Ironically, in doing so, The Acolyte revealed that Star Wars itself might not be as solid and strong a franchise as we previously thought. Star Wars is fully in the throes of an identity crisis, and appears to be far, far away from a solution on how to solve it.

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