Bryan Fuller’s Star Trek: Discovery Series Will Have Female Protagonist, Openly Gay Character and More New Info

Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Heroes) has revealed a massive amount of new information on his forthcoming series Star Trek: Discovery. This will be the first new Star Trek television series since Star Trek: Enterprise, which ran from 2001 to 2005. At a Television Critics Association panel, Bryan Fuller shared that the new series will feature a woman as the protagonist, who will potentially be non-white, THR reports. For the first time in a Star Trek series, the protagonist will not be the captain of the ship; she will be a lieutenant.

Star Trek: Discovery will also feature at least one openly gay character. Fuller, who wrote on Star Trek: Voyager, received a deluge of hate mail during his tenure on the show following a rumor that one of the characters in that series could be gay.

Star Trek: Discovery will be set in the original (Prime) universe, not the universe of the recent films (the Kelvin universe). It will take place ten years before Captain Kirk’s journey in The Original Series, during the Klingon Wars. “We have the opportunity to bridge the gap between the Enterprise and the original series and really help us redefine the visual style of Star Trek,” Fuller said.

Spock’s human mother will also appear in the series to some capacity and there will be more aliens on the ship than usual, Fuller shared.

Star Trek: Discovery currently has thirteen episodes planned and will premiere on CBS. Discovery will be the first non-episodic Star Trek series, with a through-line connecting every episode. As such, it’s unclear if there will be anything else after these thirteen episodes. The series begins filming this fall and is set to air in January of 2017.