Star Trek boss Kurtzman gives an update on Discovery season 4, says Strange New Worlds will film in 2021
More news from boss Alex Kurtzman about the Star Trek Universe…incoming!
If you’ve found yourself frustrated lately by the delays of big Hollywood projects due to COVID-19 restrictions, you’re not alone (I’m looking at you, Black Widow and Mulan). But it sounds like, despite the challenges that producers and creatives have faced while working from home, there might be something of a silver lining.
Alex Kurtzman spoke to awards-buzz website Gold Derby on Tuesday - yes, the same interview in which he floated the idea of a Star Trek: Short Treks musical episode. In the course of their discussion, he talked about his plans for future seasons of Star Trek, including all the series we already know about, and he even mentioned Section 31. According to ComicBook.com, Kurtzman noted in the interview that the pandemic stay-at-home orders have actually helped Trek writers get ahead.
“We’ve been running all of our writers’ rooms on Zoom,” Kurtzman said, “and the silver lining is that we’ve actually been able to get quite ahead on the scripts for upcoming seasons of Discovery, and Picard, and Strange New Worlds, which is going to be shooting next year, and Section 31.”
So let’s recap:
“Upcoming seasons of Discovery” is the closest we’ve gotten to an official announcement of the go-ahead for Star Trek: Discovery season 4 (although I would note that it did turn up in Production Weekly back in January, so it’s hardly a secret at this point).
Regarding Picard season two: we’ve already heard from other producers, notably Akiva Goldsman, that it’s pretty deep in production, but pandemic restrictions are hampering it from progressing far beyond the writers’ room.
Strange New Worlds shooting next year is new news, but also vague news, since we already know that a number of the series’ stories are already set, and “next year” is a pretty broad time frame.
And finally...wait. Section 31 is still a thing?! Apparently so.
One of the most promising things to come out of Kurtzman’s Gold Derby interview was an encouraging update on how they are planning to eventually move back into physical production once restrictions are eased. “We are planning to go back into production,” Kurtzman said. “A lot of time has been taken, coming up with a big plan for how the sets and the stages are going to be run that’s still being iterated right now [...] Everybody’s working on that really diligently, because everybody wants to go back to work, and nobody wants to do it in a way that’s unsafe.”
Star Trek has been nominated for a total of 6 Emmy awards this year in technical categories. The 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmell and are currently scheduled to air September 20th on ABC.
