Star Trek: Discovery's second season ended with the crew of the USS Discovery Jump 930 years into the future. It was a blind jump into the unknown, with no guarantee of safety or living beings. For the crew, it meant leaving friends and family in the past forever for almost a millennium.
For viewers, this is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to Discovery Premiere on Thursday on CBS All Access (Disclosure: CBS All Access is owned by ViacomCBS, which also owns CNET).
The show spent its first two seasons grappling with various aspects of Trek history, from Michael Burnham's (Sonequa Martin-Green) relationship with foster brother Spock (Ethan Peck) and father Sarek (James Frain) to the issue of balding Klingons and why we had never heard of a sophisticated spaceship that could teleport itself anywhere through a mycelial network of spores.
And while Discovery did a good job getting Discovery into canon, it was all a bit of a strain.
But the season three premiere offered a completely different experience that also managed to take on the spirit of Star Trek. The episode stayed with Burnham and new signing Cleveland "Book" Booker (David Ajala) in a stand-alone adventure different from anything the show had thrown at us before, while defeating the problem of a greatly diminished - not vanished - federation down through a galaxy-wide catastrophe. We are far from the dynamic in which the Federation served as the basis for Gene Roddenbury's vision for a better future.
The new status quo is why the time jump on all established cannons is so exciting. It gives Discovery a breath of fresh air and the opportunity to tell completely new stories.
"It was very liberating," Discovery executive producer and co-showrunner Michelle Paradise said in an interview last week. "The world they come into is very different from the one they left."
We no longer have to worry about Burnham's relationship with Spock or how it all fits together, and frankly, that's a relief.
But jumping that far forward doesn't mean the writers throw canon and what comes out the window beforehand. You will see similar aliens and the technology, while futuristic, offers a natural evolution from what we saw before.
"We don't just put things in a blender and throw them all over the place," she said. "We really thought about it."
Why the Federation has fallen so far and the work to rebuild it forms the backbone of season three of Discovery. You can also watch with confidence that it is a story that will continue. CBS All Access today confirms that a fourth season has been lit green and filming is scheduled to begin in November.
Strange new adventures
The last time we left the crew, the Discovery had followed Burnham, put on the Red Angel suit, and led the ship into the future, part of a complicated time warp designed to prevent the end of all sentient life by a malicious artificial intelligence called control.
Season three will begin immediately after that, with Discovery and Burnham leaping into the future, and specifically for Burnham in Booker's ship. He serves as guides to Burnham and the rest of the crew, including Commander Saru (Doug Jones), Lt. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) and Ensign Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) - once we actually see the crew and they are reunited with Burnham.
"Cleveland Booker is a character who will add lightness, fun, and other spontaneous dynamics to the franchise that we may not have had before," Ajala said in an interview last week.
He said the character would bring a new side to Burnham and be a little bit of angry mischief in the process. Ajala said he was excited about the new technology he and the rest of the cast could play with, considering how far into the future they fly. He talked about an energy gun in the trailer called Tallowah (Jamaican / Patois for powerful) that gives audiences a feel for advanced technology and shows how different everything is now.
Paradise also teased known species that would appear even if Discovery's relationship with them were shaken.
"Species we know from the past - maybe we interact with them differently," she said. "Alliances have shifted."
While the trailers for a show that flirted with a lot of grit for the first two seasons suggest an even darker tone, Paradise said the show ultimately remains true to the spirit of Star Trek.
"Our heroes are uniquely poised to bring that kind of hope and optimism into this new future and inspire others around them," said Paradise.
Reflection of society
Paradise notes that this season of discovery is about connection and disconnection - topics we are all grappling with thanks to the global pandemic that has forced millions to stay home and be apart.
"It resonates quite unexpectedly," she said. "We couldn't have imagined when we would write and shoot the third season of the show, how much response it would have."
Discovery was diverse from the get-go and was the first Star Trek series to feature a gay couple (Stamets and Culber) as the main cast. The drive for more representation continues in the coming season with some new characters. The first is Adira, a non-binary, played by Blu del Barrio, who is also non-binary in real life. The second is a transgender character named Gray, played by Ian Alexander, who became the first transgender Asian-American to appear on a television series.
Ajala, who admits he wasn't a Star Trek fan before joining the cast, said he was still impressed with the legacy of diversity that the franchise left behind.
"Star Trek was for me and I'm sure many other people have always been at the forefront of the normalization of diversity," he said.
It was just as important for Paradise to stay true to Star Trek's long-standing tradition.
"Star Trek has always valued diversity, and Gene Roddenberry started it back in the original series and had a diverse cast at a time when diversity wasn't what you did on TV," said Paradise. "We make sure we honor that."
