Reset your countdowns, Trekkies. The Star Date for CBS's upcoming Star Trek: Discovery series (which will air on their new streaming platform, CBS All Access), has been pushed from January 2017 to May. In a press release from the Eye network today, it seems like showrunner Bryan Fuller has asked for more time to be sure the series is everything he wants and everything that fans want to see. In a joint statement with fellow executive producer Alex Kurtzman, the pair said:

“Bringing ‘Star Trek’ back to television carries a responsibility and mission: to connect fans and newcomers alike to the series that has fed our imaginations since childhood. We aim to dream big and deliver, and that means making sure the demands of physical and post-production for a show that takes place entirely in space, and the need to meet an air date, don’t result in compromised quality. Before heading into production, we evaluated these realities with our partners at CBS and they agreed: ‘Star Trek’ deserves the very best, and these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of.”


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Image via CBS

CBS President David Stapf added,

“The series template and episodic scripts that Alex and Bryan have delivered are incredibly vivid and compelling. They are building a new, very ambitious ‘Star Trek’ world for television, and everyone involved supports their vision for the best timing to bring to life what we all love on the page.”

Given the high-profile nature of the series, and that it's being set up as the marquee show for CBS's streaming platform, it makes sense that the network would be willing to give the production some more time. However, it doesn't instill a lot of confidence in fans who might be thinking that this is hinting at behind-the-scenes troubles for the show. In Fuller we trust!

Both Star Trek: Discovery and The Good Wife spinoff (which has itself been moved up to February, and which I am personally looking forward to!) will have their premiere episodes air on CBS before moving to the pay platform for the rest of the season. It remains to be seen whether there's enough demand for both series that people will want to pay for what is usually free on broadcast, or whether (mostly in Star Trek's case) it ends up leading to the show just being widely pirated.

For more on Star Trek: Discovery, check out some of our recent coverage below:


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Image via CBS