Showrunner Bryan Fuller has been speaking to Collider about his vision for the bold new Star Trek series, set to launch early next year.
“We’ve got the arc of the first season entirely written, or arced out,” he says, “and we’ve got the first six episodes entirely broken,” says Fuller.
The first season will be 13 episodes long and production will last from September until March. Each episode’s runtime will be more flexible thanks to the show being streamed on CBS All Access. “They gave us parameters, and I can’t remember exactly where it was,” he says regarding the running times. “It was sort of, ‘No more than this, no less than that.’”
As for how the castings going: “I’ve met with a few actors, and it’s an interesting process. There’s a few people that we like and we want to carry on what Star Trek does best, which is being progressive. So it’s fascinating to look at all of these roles through a colourblind prism and a gender-blind prism, so that’s exciting.”
But what of LGBT characters? Although in its 50 years Trek has had episodes that have rather coyly dabbled with wider issues of gender assignation – such as Dax kissing a woman who was an old flame of a former male host or Riker falling for an androgynous character (but played by a woman, of course) – the franchise has been disappointingly slow to embrace such characters.
“Absolutely,” says Fuller. “I think the progressive audience that loves Star Trek will be happy that we’re continuing that tradition.”
The new Star Trek will be overseen by Alex Kurtzman and Bryan Fuller, with a writing staff that also includes veteran franchise writer Joe Menosky, Wrath Of Khan director Nicholas Meyer and longtime Star Trek: Voyager novelist Kirsten Beyer.
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