Bryan Fuller on what Star Trek: Discovery’s timelime means for the series

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

When Star Trek: Enterprise was in its pre-production phase, over fifteen years ago, I didn't have access to the internet or subscribe to any Star Trek related magazines, so I was completely in the dark as to what the series would be about or who would be starring in it until I actually saw the first episode. Ah, simpler times. Being able to follow along with the goings on of Bryan Fuller's new Star Trek: Discovery series is a new experience for me and, as a big Trek geek, has been a lot of fun. Fuller stopped by KERN-FM radio’s Nerd World Report with Hop & Herc (via TrekCore) recently and elaborated on what the chosen timelime for Star Trek: Discovery means for the series.

As we discovered the last time Bryan Fuller spilled Star Trek: Discovery details, the upcoming series will be set "10 years before Kirk, and will bridge the gap between Enterprise and the original series," and Fuller explained why the production team chose that particular era.

[The time period we chose] came pretty organically, because we are going to try to achieve a new look for ‘Star Trek’ that is very much ‘Star Trek,’ but also our interpretation of ‘Star Trek.’ I love each of the shows I work on to have a distinct aesthetic […] so it seemed like a good place to start our signature look for the ‘Star Trek’ universe and work our way forward as we tell the stories.

Speaking of giving the Star Trek universe a Bryan Fuller aesthetic, it seems that the makeup and uniforms will be getting a refit as well.

One of the very cool things that we get to do on this show is – we get to re-imagine all of the alien species that we’ve seen before in the series, and do something a little unique with that. We were looking at a specific species’ costume on Friday, and Jesse Alexander, who is one of the writers, was commenting on the cosplay aspects of it, and how [the design] has gone a kind of quantum leap forward – and what were the people who do cosplay going to do? Another one of our writers was like, “They are going to rise to the occasion!” So for all of us who have fetishized the look of all of the various species over the years of watching ‘Star Trek,’ it’s fun for us to put a new spin on old favorites.

[Uniform design will be] something completely different [from ‘The Cage’]. I think when you see the design, it’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We were having a wardrobe test the other day and it was interesting to think, ‘Now we need to take these colors and put them up against the [ship set colors],’ to see what is going to be the best-looking aesthetic for the show, taking in the sets and wardrobe and lighting style.

As for the lead character of Star Trek: Discovery, we know that she will be a human female but that she won't be the captain. That description, plus the series' placement in Star Trek history, had fans wondering if she would be the same character played by Majel Barrett in the original Star Trek pilot (The Cage). Fuller didn't confirm or deny that, but he did say that the character will be called Number One in honour of Majel.

Our character, when we introduce the protagonist, she is called ‘Number One’ in honor of Majel Barrett’s character in the original pilot. As we were first talking about the series and talking to CBS, we said, initially, we’ll only call the character ‘Number One’ because in the Sixties, in the first pilot, Gene Roddenberry was very progressive and had a female first officer. So since [our lead character] is a female first officer, I just loved that we were calling her ‘Number One.’

More details, plus some casting announcements, are expected to follow sometime in October and the series will debut on CBS All Access in early 2017. I've got my fingers crossed.