Star Trek Producers Remain Optimistic About Section 31 Spinoff's Future

Star Trek's Emperor Georgiou fans can take heart knowing that hope is not lost for the planned Star Trek: Discovery Section 31 spinoff. Fans following the project will remember that a writers room was in place with plans to start production on the show's pilot episode immediately after Discovery's third season wrapped. Plans changed due to COVID-19. Discovery's season three barely finished production before lockdown went into effect, leaving no time for Section 31 to begin filming. With five Star Trek shows currently in production, the producers behind the Star Trek franchise decided to put the series on hold for the time being. Still, Star Trek head Alex Kurtzman remains optimistic about the show's future.

"We actually have a couple of [Section 31] scripts. COVID frankly, just changed the game for everybody and every show," Kurtzman explained during a Producers Guild of America (via Trek Movie). "We were on a very specific schedule that then got thrown completely into whack because of COVID. Even Discovery season four started many months later than originally planned, Picard too. Everything got pushed… So we're actually on a great track with Section 31 and I'm very optimistic about it."

Despite that, Star Trek: Discovery still laid the groundwork for Georgiou's future. The series bid farewell to Georgiou and the actor who plays her, Michelle Yeoh, with the help of the Guardian of Forever.

"Obviously, it's no secret that we've been working on Michelle's spin-off show for Section 31," Kurtzman said. "So the big question was, how to do it in an organic way? How to do it in a way that paid off the relationship arc that was set up from the beginning? It's no accident that in the Discovery pilot, [Michael and Georgiou] are walking through the desert, and in their final episode, they're walking through the snow in a visual echo of what we did in the premiere.

"There's a whole relationship arc that they've had from the beginning of the series. And also Georgiou has really never confronted – in an honest way – the consequences of her choices as a Terran. And the closer that she gets to the crew of Discovery – with whom she's very bonded and does not want to say so – the more she is is forced to reckon with those choices. So, in knowing that we were going to bring Michelle into the Section 31 [show], we needed to give her an appropriate goodbye that tied up a lot of the story threads that we set up from the premiere of season one."

Yeoh is now committed Netflix's The Witcher prequel. Still, Star Trek's producers have said previously that Section 31 probably wouldn't move forward until one of the current Star Trek shows -- Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds -- ends its run.

Are you still hopeful about the Section 31 series? Let us know in the comments. Star Trek: Discovery is streaming now on Paramount+.