Michelle Yeoh’s Section 31 Star Trek spinoff has assembled a writer’s room

Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou in Star Trek: Discovery

DECEMBER 2, 2019 - The long-anticipated Star Trek Section 31 spinoff show has assembled a writer’s room.

Julie McNamara, the Executive Vice President of Original Content for CBS All Access, confirmed over the weekend that the Section 31 show, which will star Michelle Yeoh, is already in the early stages of production. McNamara told Vanity Fair, “We are very excited about the Section 31 show and Michelle Yeoh is excited to do it. She is in the current season of Discovery so she’s working on that right now but we have scripts getting written, and Alex [Kurtzman] has a writer’s room.”

McNamara also said that Alex Kurtzman, current Star Trek: Discovery showrunner and overall leader of the Star Trek franchise has a vision for the “voice” of each of the Star Trek series in the works. She said, referring again to the Section 31 show, “We love what we’ve heard so far. It’s yet another tonality of Trek. As Alex has mapped it all out, each show has its own unique sort of voice and vision.”

Kurtzman, in the same interview, told Vanity Fair, that the Section 31 show will be like the “black ops CIA division of Star Trek and it was established in Deep Space 9.” Kurtzman also revealed that a spinoff show starring Michelle Yeoh was in the works, more or less, before Discovery even came to our screens.

Kurtzman said, “Full credit goes to Michelle Yeoh for coming to me and saying in season one, before we even launched, ‘I want to do a spin off of my character!’ With Michelle Yeoh, it's very hard to say no.” He went on to explain that once Discovery had launched, he started working on a pilot with Discovery writers Erica Lippoldt and Bo Yeon Kim. And the new show will be unlike what we’ve seen in Trek so far. “It occupies an area of the Trek universe that’s never really been explored geographically,” he said. “It has a new mythology to it, which is very interesting. And it puts Michelle's character to the test in a lot of ways that Discovery can't. In some ways it will be her Unforgiven.” He was referring to the Academy Award-winning film by Clint Eastwood, in which Eastwood’s outlaw character takes on “one last job” years after getting out of the business.

The last we heard of the Section 31 show, Heather Kadin, co-executive producer with Alex Kurtzman, said that the spinoff might happen after the middle of Discovery season 3, which is currently expected to air sometime in the latter half of 2020.