Star Trek: Discovery TV Series Features a Female Lead, Serialized Story

The newest chapter in the Star Trek television saga, Star Trek: Discovery, will explore new worlds with a female lead when it becomes CBS All Access's flagship show. The news of the lead role being a woman was reported by EW shortly before the TCA panel for the show in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Star Trek: Discovery comes from showrunner Bryan Fuller, who also launches Neil Gaiman-adaptation American Gods during the upcoming TV season. As he's been prepping that show, he hasn't actually cast for Discovery yet. The series will launch on CBS in January 2017, but after the pilot airs on TV, will move over to the CBS All Access digital platform. The subscription service launched in late 2014 and runs $5.99 per month. It has apps for Roku and Chromecast streaming devices, as well as mobile, but none for other settop boxes or game consoles yet.

Discovery will mark the second Star Trek TV series with a female lead, after Captain Janeway led Star Trek: Voyager, as played by Kate Mulgrew. The series takes place in the same continuity as the other TV series, not in the new, rebooted continuity of the current film series. However, the new female lead will not be the Captain of the ship.

"There's an incident and event in Star Trek history that's been talked about but never been explored," Fuller said at the TCAs. "To do this series, we're telling a much more serialized story, to dig deep into a very tantalizing arc. And we have a character who's on a journey, and in order to understand something that is alien she first has to understand herself." The thirteen-episode first season will be heavily serialized, and he likens it to a "Star Trek novel."

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