'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 2 Trailer Brings Back Spock, Canon, and Fun

If hardcore Star Trek fans were worried that the next season of Star Trek: Discovery was going to be as dark and brooding as the first season, don’t worry. Humor and fun are going to live long and prosper in season 2 of the show right alongside those classic color-coded uniforms from the original series.

On Friday, at San Diego Comic-Con, a panel featuring the cast of Star Trek: Discovery as well as executive producer and showrunner Alex Kurtzman dropped a ton of specific details, plus a new trailer. Was the use of Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away” in the trailer kind of weird? Did it also kick ass? Yep. There are basically four huge takeaways from everything that happened at the Star Trek: Discovery and in the trailer: Original Series canon is totally happening, the show will be trying out a new format with “short films” this year, people might come back from the dead, and it’s very clear this season is going to lighten up a lot. Here’s how it all breaks down.

Spock and Classic Canon

Showrunner and producer of Discovery Alex Kurtzman wasted no time hitting the Vulcan elephant in the room. “I can tell you that, yes, you will be seeing Spock this season.” Now, whether this means Spock will only be glimpsed in childhood flashbacks remains to be seen, but the trailer made a big deal of saying that Spock has “taken leave,” from the Enterprise to investigate some kind of huge galaxy-wide mystery. Shots from the trailer show Burnham hanging out in Spock’s abandoned quarters, and later she determines that her step-brother is “in trouble.” So, in some ways, it seems like this season of Discovery could also be called “The Search For Spock.” Too bad there’s a pesky 1984 film that already stole that title.

Kurtzman also directly said that any other perceived canon problems between Discovery and the classic series will be tackled in this season. “We’re syncing up with canon this year,” he said. “You will get those answers next season, guaranteed. You’re just not going to get them the way you expect them.”

Part of that classic canon, of course, includes Captain Pike and the USS Enterprise, which are both shown in great detail in the new trailer. (Though we don’t actually get to see the inside of the Enterprise outside of Spock’s quarters.) But, one big surprise was the addition of Rebecca Romijn as the character “Number One,” originally played by Majel Barrett Roddenberry in the very first Star Trek episode ever, “The Cage.”

Short Films in 2018, Second season in 2019

In addition to all the details about the classic canon, the notion of when the show was actually coming back was explored. It turns out it won’t hit until early 2019, but that there will be four short stand-alone films all about Saru, Tilly, and Harry Mudd.

Dr. Culber’s Return and…Lorca’s Return?!!

Back in January, fans were shocked when Dr. Culber was seemingly killed off in the episode “Despite Yourself.” Since then, Wilson Cruz has maintained that his character would return, a fact he doubled-down on in the panel. And speaking of dead characters, Kurtzman even said Captain Lorca might be back. Surely, this can only mean original, good-guy Lorca, and not his Mirror Universe double, right?

Return to Fun Space Adventure Shit

The trailer was also a ton of fun and even used that word specifically when Captain Pike (Anson Mount) when he said he was there to “have fun” and “ruffle a few feathers.” Tig Notaro was also a welcome breath of fresh air in the humor department and the entire trailer ended on a gag that seemed like it could have happened in one of the new J.J. Abrams Trek movies. Tilly and Stamets are high-fiving about “the power of math” and hot licks from Lenny Kravitz are playing as spaceships are warping all around the comsos. What’s not to love?

Star Trek: Discovery will be back sometime in 2019. The short films do not have a release date set, but should be out in December 2018.