With these new episodes, “Discovery” has jumped 930 years into the future, into a strange new time: the 32nd Century. Suddenly, it’s no longer a prequel, but exploring a completely unknown period of “Trek” history.
Franchise head Alex Kurtzman, who produces all the “Trek” shows for CBS All Access with the production company he founded in 2014, Secret Hideout, confirms “Discovery” will stay in the 32nd Century for however many seasons the show runs. This was a clean break from the franchise myth-making that came before. A lot of thought went into the selection of this particular blank canvas: over Zoom, Kurtzman nodded and chuckled when this writer suggested that previous “Trek” series such as “Enterprise” only explored as far as the 31st Century. That series’ Temporal Wars get a shout-out in Season 3’s first episode.
“We did not want the time jump to be a gimmick,” Kurtzman said. “There are so many extraordinary new opportunities and story options, that it feels like an endless well. We’re also now separated from preexisting canon, which means we get to write the future of ‘Star Trek’ on this show, and it’s entirely fresh snow.”
Kurtzman is quick to point out that neither he nor the writers’ room found the setting of the first two season to be constraining. Especially with the introduction of Ethan Peck’s Spock and Anson Mount’s Pike, the plan was always for the Discovery crew to have a finite amount of time with those familiar characters — the time jump to the 32nd Century was planned from the very start of developing Season 2.