The good thing about prequels is that you can launch them any time. And now, 51 years and two weeks after the original Star Trek debuted on NBC, the latest installment in the franchise — Star Trek: Discovery — will arrive at warp speed on CBS on September 24, 2017.
On Monday, reporter James Poniewozik of the New York Times confirmed that the new highly anticipated Star Trek series will arrive first on regular network, and then on CBS’s streaming platform, All Access. Essentially, the first episode of Discovery will be broadcast on conventional TV, while the rest of the series will be available exclusively via the streaming service. The September 24 premiere date of Discovery is also slightly earlier than previously anticipated. Prior to this announcement, many fans believed the show would materialize sometime in October 2017.
Set ten years before the timeline of the original Star Trek series, Discovery is actually the second prequel in the franchise. Back in 2001, UPN launched Enterprise, a show set roughly 100 years before the original series. Since the cancellation of Enterprise in 2005, the series has has been carried on in the three feature films produced by Skydance and Bad Robot productions. Producer Alex Kurtzman recently asserted that the line between these cinematic Treks and the new show is “utterly blurred.”
Star Trek: Discovery will also be distributed internationally on Netflix. No word yet on how the September 24 network premiere date will impact the Netflix debut.
Variety has also reported that the first season of Discovery will air on CBS All Access in two parts. Eight episodes run from Sept. 24 through Nov. 5. The season will then resume in January 2018 for what is expected to include the final seven episodes.
