'Star Trek: Discovery' Will Klingon To Ex-Showrunner Bryan Fuller's Ideas Even Though He Beamed Up For A New Enterprise
Fans were especially concerned about how Fuller's departure would affect the promise of diversity and a more forward-thinking show.
When Bryan Fuller, the creative mind behind Pushing Daisies, Hannibal and American Gods, stepped down as the showrunner for Star Trek Discovery in October 2016, there were concerns about whether the show had lost power to its rear thrusters. Would it still bear the marks of its creator, or would everything Fuller had written be reimagined?
Fans were especially concerned about how Fuller's departure would affect the promise of diversity and a more forward-thinking show.
Fortunately, Alex Kurtzman, the other creative half of Star Trek: Discovery (and director of The Mummy) allayed those fears when he spoke with Collider this month. He let fans know that the first season of the CBS All Access series — as well as the second — would have Fuller's footprints all over it:
"Bryan was very involved in American Gods and I think that the scope and scale of what Trek has become made it so that Bryan elected to say, ‘I don’t wanna short-change either of these two things,’ they’re both sort of beloved to him, so we sat down and we figured out how are we going to take what we can have of you and continue that through not only this season of Trek but hopefully set up things that are coming next season. So much of what’s there in terms of story and certainly in terms of set-up, character, big ideas, the big movement of the season, that’s all stuff that Bryan and I talked about.”
Fuller remains the executive producer of the series and, speaking with CBR.com, he left no doubt that he will continue to uphold Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's vision of inclusiveness and diversity:
“We were very adamant early on about that cast, not just in terms of race but also in terms of gender. Janeway (of Star Trek: Voyager) carved a nice path as did Majel Barrett (Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series) in 1966, in the original pilot. So it was important for ethnic inclusivity and gender inclusivity (to be upheld in casting). I was very excited to cast Michelle Yeoh before I left. I was pushing very hard for Sonequa Martin-Green to be cast before I left. So I feel like there’s a lot of wonderful diversity represented in the show, and I’m excited to see how it turns out.”
Earlier this week, Kurtzman confirmed that Fuller's desire to bring LGBT representation to the show would be fulfilled:
“I don’t feel that—going back to what you said about where television is at right now, it would be foolish of us to not only ignore it but not to take advantage of the fact that that’s how people are consuming stories and they’re hungrier for more complicated stories. What would have been a taboo subject 10, 15 years ago is now everywhere, and that’s a beautiful thing.”
Though Bryan Fuller might not be as hands-on with the series as he had originally intended, there's no doubt that he'll still be very much a part of this new path into undiscovered territory.
Star Trek: Discovery’s first episode will premiere in 2017 on CBS before moving to the network’s streaming platform CBS All Access. The series will also be available on Space in Canada and on Netflix in the rest of the world.
About the Creator
Rachel Carrington
I'm an avid writer and reader. I've had over 53 novels published and over 2,000 articles. Here I review movies, TV series/episodes, books, and write about entertainment. www.rachelcarrington.com
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