Star Trek: Discovery Will Have Non-Captain Female Lead

By Danny F. Santos (doddleNEWS)

We finally have some information about Bryan Fuller’s upcoming Star Trek television series, Star Trek: Discovery. The showrunner revealed some tantalizing information about the new series at the show’s Television Critics Association panel.

Fuller has confirmed that not only would the lead character be played by a woman, she’s also not a captain. Here’s what he said (via Variety):

“Lt. Commander … with caveats. We’ve seen six series from captains’ points of view, so to see a character from a different perspective, who has a different dynamic with the captain, with subordinates.”

Ain’t It Cool News’ Hercules seems to have clarified the “with caveats” part. According to the site, Fuller told the outlet that, “She will hold many ranks.” I can’t help but wonder if Fuller has a plan to promote the character from Lt. Commander to Commander to Captain, and maybe even to Admiral. Most of the Star Trek series rarely show characters being promoted, so that would be a fascinating character arc.

Fuller also revealed that the series would take place ten years before the original series, and in the prime timeline (and not the JJ Abrams timeline) which would place it around 2255. He also said about the plot that, “there’s an incident in the history of Starfleet that had been talked about but never fully explored,” but it won’t be about the Romulan war, the Kobayashi Maru scenario, or Section 31 — with the caveat that the blacks ops organization “might be some marble through the meat of our season.”

I think my theory that this show may in fact deal with the Klingon war which the Star Trek fan film Axanar is currently tackling is correct. The Hollywood Reporter’s sources indicate that one of the characters on Star Trek: Discovery will be a male Klingon captain, which may mean that this season will at least have a constant antagonist.

Another interesting point about that timeline is that the USS Enterprise is under the command of Captain Christopher Pike at the time, meaning we could come across the starship. However, don’t expect to see them this season, as Fuller wants to focus on the characters they created for Star Trek: Discovery, but also that they will, “be looking in the second season to familiar characters and how they could feed into the weave, but first and foremost, we want to establish the greatness of the characters that we have come up with.”

Other tidbits from Star Trek: Discovery includes:

1. The first season will consist of 13 episodes
2. There will be more aliens than you normally see in a Star Trek cast
3. The series will be serialized but each episode will also have a resolved ending
4. Spock’s mother Amanda Grayson could be featured in Discovery but not as a central character
5. There will be robots in the series and it may feature time travel

Here’s what we may know about the cast which will be made of seven characters:

1. Female Lt. Commander lead
2. An openly gay actor to play one of the male leads
3. A female admiral
4. A male Klingon captain
5. A male admiral
6. A male adviser
7. A British male doctor

Star Trek: Discovery will premiere in January 2017.