Star Trek: Discovery’s second season to boldly explore controversial themes

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

During CBS' panel at the Television Critics Association this past weekend, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY producers Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts revealed that the show's next season is expected to boldly go in what some might find is a controversial direction for the series.

“We are very interested in tackling themes of faith next year, science vs. faith,” Harberts announced. “We’re interested in different points of view on that and we’re still hashing out what we want to tell. The second season is not a war season. We’re in this interesting pocket of time, 10 years, now nine years before TOS. There are a lot of things in terms of TOS canon that we want to do some nods to and we’re still figuring it out. This next season is going to be jam packed with stuff that we wanted to do [the first season].”

After a brief sabbatical, the writing staff for STAR TREK: DISCOVERY returned in December to pen the forthcoming season, and have completed the development of three episodes, so far. How the show plans to approach its science and faith-based content remains unclear, though I'm positive that the cosmos will provide for at least a few good "science vs faith" conversations to be had among the exploratory crew.

Personally, I think there's always been a fair amount of faith-based intrigue added to the STAR TREK franchise; and to say that the show plans to explore themes of a science-based nature, well … it's friggin' STAR TREK. Either way, it should be interesting to see if the team behind Discovery can work together to present an over-arching story that explores these themes in new and interesting ways. Live long and prosper, friends.