Newest ‘Star Trek’ turns back the clock
The CW picks up CBS’s ‘Supergirl’
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The next iteration of “Star Trek” on TV, “Star Trek: Discovery,” will have a female lead who will not be a captain.
“We’ve seen six series now from a captain’s point of view,” said series creator Bryan Fuller (“Pushing Daisies”). “And to see it from the point of view of a different person on the starship who has a different dynamic related to the captain and with subordinates felt like it was going to give us richer context, give us different types of stories with that character.”
Mr. Fuller said the lead role has not been cast but diversity “is in the forefront of our minds,” mentioning the importance of Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) in the original series to NASA astronaut Mae Jemison.
“Discovery” will premiere on CBS in January, and subsequent episodes will be available weekly on the subscription streaming service CBS All Access.
The show will be set about 10 years before the original “Star Trek” TV series that introduced the world to Captain Kirk (William Shatner). Mr. Fuller said a recast version of characters from the original “Star Trek could appear in “Discovery,” but there are no plans for that in the show’s first season.
Mr. Fuller said the series will involve a never fully explored incident in Starfleet history, but it’s not the Romulan War or Starfleet’s black ops division, Section 31.
“We’re telling a much more serialized story that digs deep into something very tantalizing,” Mr. Fuller said, “and to tell that story through a character who is on a journey that is going to teach her how to get along with others in the galaxy, and for her to understand something alien she has to understand herself, felt like a journey we could all go on.”
Set in the “prime universe” of past TV series (as opposed to the “Kelvin universe” of the current big-screen films), “Discovery” will feature a gay character and more aliens than past “Star Trek” series.
“Usually it was one person with a bumpy forehead and
seven other people who are relatively human, but we wanted to paint a picture of Starfleet that’s indicative of a universe where you’re encountering people who are different,” said Mr. Fuller, who got into TV writing because he wanted to write for “Star Trek” and was a writer, but not showrunner, on “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”
Because “Discovery” will air on a streaming service, it won’t be subject to broadcast standards and practices, so it might have “slightly more graphic content,” and possibly more profanity but how to balance that is something producers continue to weigh.
Franklin Park native Gretchen Berg and her writing partner, Aaron Harberts, are executive producers on “Discovery” after previously working with Mr. Fuller on ABC’s “Pushing Daisies.”
“I hadn’t seen an episode [of ‘Star Trek’] since I was 11 years old,” Ms. Berg said after the press conference, noting that Mr. Fuller was more interested in hiring an array of writers, some die-hard fans and some not, who could write characters and stories. “We would never have come aboard if we didn’t think we were helping.”
The CW
The CW basically renewed its entire 2015-16 lineup — save for the virus drama “Containment” — so it has space for only two new series this fall, the meh “Frequency” (9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5), inspired by the 2000 movie, and “No Tomorrow” (9 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4), a cute but too-slow pilot about a woman who falls for a guy who believes the apocalypse is coming in eight months.
Perhaps the bigger news is the shift of “Supergirl” (8 p.m. Oct. 10) from CBS to The CW, joining The CW’s “Arrow,” “The Flash” and “Legends of Tomorrow.”
Greg Berlanti, executive producer of all four series, said a four-way crossover will occur in late November or early December. And late in the 2016-17 TV season, “Supergirl” and “The Flash” will do a pair of crossover musical episodes. He said the musical mostly will use pre-existing songs and possibly will include one or two original songs.
“We’re happy to take requests throughout the year, what songs from what musical you’d like to see,” Mr. Berlanti said, suggesting fans tweet him their ideas at @GBerlanti. “My sense is we’ll be sensitive to how they break into song; it may be an element of being in the character’s head at the time. We’ll be delicate in terms of how we navigate those waters.”
Cast members on both shows have musical theater backgrounds, and Mr. Berlanti said Victor Garber of “Legends” has been pitching songs in hopes that he might be included in the musical episodes of “Flash” and “Supergirl.”
A character on one of the four series will explore his or her sexuality in a comingout storyline.
Dolph Lundgren will play a villain on “Arrow,” Sharon Leal (“Recovery Road”) will play Miss Martian on “Supergirl,” Chris Wood (“Containment”) will play Mon-El on “The Flash” and Lance Henriksen (“Millennium”) will play Obsidian, a member of the JSA.
On “Frequency,” a New York police detective (Peyton List) communicates with her father (Riley Smith, “Nashville”), who died in 1996, via a ham radio. In the movie, it was a father-son story, but executive producer Jeremy Carver said making it a father-daughter story for the TV series felt like more of a challenge and an opportunity to avoid “daddy’s little girl” cliches.
“I was very interested in exploding that trope and presenting a very different kind of father-daughter relationship,” he said. “And as a writer [that relationship] made the project much more exciting to envision the first season and beyond.”
In the pilot, timelines get changed, but Mr. Carver said the butterfly effect won’t result in major changes.
“It’s meant to be very personal,” he said. “If history is a rope, we’re changing fibers on that rope episode to episode, mainly seeing how it affects our main characters or guest cast.”
Channel surfing
A new season of Investigation Discovery’s “Homicide Hunter” starring Western Pennsylvania native Joe Kenda returns at 10 p.m. Aug. 25. … Cable’s Up will air a new season of Canadian import “Heartland,” premiering three episodes Wednesdays at 8, 9 and 10 p.m. beginning Sept. 7. … “Criminal Minds” star Thomas Gibson was suspended from the series for two episodes after reportedly kicking a writer on set. … “Saturday Night Live” star Leslie Jones, an Olympics super fan, tweeted her way into covering the Olympics in Rio. After reading her enthusiastic tweets, NBC Olympics executive producer Jim Bell invited her to come to Rio and she accepted. … Disney Junior ordered a second season of “Elena of Avalor.”