Bryan Fuller is very busy with his American Gods series for Starz and talking about bringing Hannibal back to its hungry fans, but he's also hard at work on CBS's new Star Trek series. The showrunner recently revealed how many episodes the first season would include as well as looking towards progressive casting.
Will still don't know much of anything about this new series though the teaser may have offered more than we first thought. Speaking to Collider.com, Fuller revealed the first season would consist of 13 episodes to be aired weekly on CBS All Access.
“We”ve got the arc of the first season entirely written, or arced out, and we”ve got the first six episodes entirely broken,” he told them, adding the entire season would tell one story. “And there are 762 episodes of Star Trek television, so over six episodes we have to tell stories differently than they”ve been told for fifty years.” He also mentioned the episode run time would be flexible because they're streaming and not limited to broadcast standards.
Trek movie director/writer Nicholas Meyer is already working on the show as is Gene Roddenberry”s son Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry and Trevor Roth. Heather Kadin is also working on this new series as a producer and it recently picked up its first woman for the writers' room in Star Trek: Voyager novelist Kirsten Beyer. But Collider wanted to know, would this new generation of Trek be as progressive as the show had been in the past?
Star Trek has never filmed certain subject material because it was filmed at a time when showing a gay character or showing certain kinds of characters was frowned on. What I”m so looking forward to is to see you guys be so progressive and all-inclusive. Are you looking at it that way?
FULLER: Absolutely. I think the progressive audience that loves Star Trek will be happy that we”re continuing that tradition.
While he didn't get into specifics, he also told them “I”ve met with a few actors, and it”s an interesting process. There”s a few people that we like and we want to carry on what Star Trek does best, which is being progressive. So it”s fascinating to look at all of these roles through a colorblind prism and a gender-blind prism, so that”s exciting.”
It may sound good to hear Fuller is “blind” casting the show but as Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat just recently learned, you can't sit back and think diversity will happen, you have to help make it so. “I had this baffling idea that if we just threw open each part to everybody, it would all work out in the end. I put my faith, inexplicably, in the free market,” Moffat said. “It doesn”t work. You can only cast for talent – you”ve got to cast the best person, every single time – but you”ve got to gauge where you”re looking for the talent.”
Most creative endeavors have no excuse but also as Moffat pointed out, science-fiction and fantasy shows have less of an excuse to depict diversity on screen and in fact, should be the ones changing the status quo. Let's hope that's exactly what Fuller is talking about.
You may recall there's been a fan push to get Angela Bassett in the Captain”s chair. Sadly, she recently told E! News between raising her children and American Horror Story, she wouldn”t have the time.
The new series will start shooting in September said Fuller and we'll likely be getting more details during San Diego Comic-Con.