‘Star Trek: Discovery’ New Showrunner Says Jump to the Future Was Always Season 2 Plan

Star Trek: Discovery shocked fans by jumping centuries into the future in the final moments of its second season. As surprising as this was to audiences, it turns out it was always the creative team’s plan. Michelle Paradise joined Star Trek: Discovery halfway through the second season’s development. In season three, she will become co-showrunner, alongside co-creator Alex Kurtzman. She tells Trek Movie that the plan to jump into the future was in place long before she came aboard.

“As I joined about halfway through the season, I wasn’t there when they originally made that decision,” Paradise says. “That was made even before the season started. They knew that was where they were going. I can speak to the benefits of that, and what we have talked about since then. One of the discussions that I have been part of is the opportunity to go to the future to be beyond canon, and to explore what that looks like and what that fresh snow landscape looks like. This felt like an organic way to do that.”

Kurtzman said in a previous interview that the series is “jumping 950 years into the future for season three.” Paradise confirmed that Kurtzman’s number was a bit off and that the show is jumping 930 years into the future. Kurtzman went on to explain what that jump means for the future of the show.

“We love playing within canon,” Kurtzman says. “It’s a delight and a privilege. It’s fun to explore nooks and crannies of the universe that people haven’t fully explored yet. That being said, we felt strongly that we wanted to give ourselves an entirely new energy for season three with a whole new set of problems. We’re farther than any Trek show has ever gone. I also had experience working on the [J.J. Abrams] films where we were stuck with canonical problems. We knew how Kirk had died, and we wondered how we could put him in jeopardy to make it feel real. That’s what led us to go with an alternate timeline; suddenly we could tell the story in a very unpredictable way. That’s the same thought process that went into jumping 950 years into the future. We’re now completely free of canon, and we have a whole new universe to explore.”

What do you think of the big time jump for Star Trek: Discovery? Let us know in the comments. Star Trek: Discovery will return for its third season on CBS All Access.

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