‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Renewed For Season 4, Production Starts In November

CBS waited until the day after season three premiered to officially announce what was already apparent, Star Trek: Discovery has been renewed for another season.

Discovery stars and producers announce return to production

The fourth season of Discovery begins production in Ontario, Canada on November 2nd. The announcement came today via a video featuring executive producers and co-showrunners Alex Kutzman and Michell Paradise, along with Sonequa Martin-Green (Michael Burnham) and Doug Jones (Saru). In the video, Kurtzman proudly proclaims, “We are back!” Martin-Green says she is “excited to be back on set… It’s going to be great to see everybody and I think we are really going to love on each other.”

Jones referred to the new world of production during a pandemic, saying:

“I’m looking forward to the one thing I look most forward to when we get to come back for another season of Star Trek: Discovery and that is to be reunited with my family again, the Discovery family… To be in the same room again, even if we can’t hug each other right away. I don’t know how it’s all going to work, but I can’t wait.”

[International fans can watch video at official site]

Producing Star Trek in the era of COVID

Prep work on Discovery has actually already started under new strict COVID protocols, including requiring cast and crew to quarantine before shooting. Picard and Strange New Worlds are expected to go into production in 2021. In the latest issue of SFX Magazine, Kurtzman talked about how the pandemic has shaken up the plan for three live-action Star Trek series:

“Things are just starting to shoot again. We would have been in production already on Picard, but we couldn’t be because of COVID. It’s pushed our Discovery and Strange New Worlds dates just a little bit, but I think we’re actually planning on staying on track for those.”

And last week Kurtzman talked to THR about how work on Clarice (a CBS series tied to Silence of the Lambs his Secret Hideout production company is shooting in Ontario) is informing the upcoming production on the Star Trek shows:

“We just started shooting a new show, and it’s been a real learning curve just in the three days that we’ve been doing it. The great news is that it’s very doable, but it’s a highly militarized operation, everything is slower. Between testing, and your set it doesn’t function like it used to function, there are groups that are vetted by the unions, pods within the groups themselves, there are rotations in and out of people so that if somebody gets sick in your pod, the pod just gets removed and another pod gets pushed in, but it doesn’t infect the whole group. It is a massive massive operation. And we haven’t even started that yet on the Star Trek shows.”


New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes will be available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.

Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.

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Season 4 is official…

In the next few years, I will watch Picard season 2, Strange New Worlds, and maybe even Section 31.

Those are the Star Trek shows I will watch.

Star Trek is helping me get through college a little better. There is something for everyone.

The life of a college student.

I might watch Star Trek: Discovery season 4 and season 3 is starting to feel good.

Hopefully Burnham and the Discovery crew stay in the future. I don’t want them to time travel back into the past at the end of season 3.

Star Trek Prodigy is not appropriate for my age group but kids will love that.

STP is appropriate for any age group where mind are open. 🖖

Except for any scenes featuring Admiral F-Bomb, and also the multiple gory scenes of eyeballs being ripped out or stabbed

He means Prodigy, not Picard.

They’ll have to be ST:PRO and ST:SHIT, I mean ST:PIC.

I don’t know if kids will love it, but I certainly will.

Not appropriate is perhaps not the best word.

Not intended. But not excluded.

Watch it anyway.

This^ I’m actually hopping it’s light and accessible for younger ages. My brother is significantly autistic, and is still watching sesame street at age 25. I know it won’t be aimed for kids that young, but if there isn’t anything inappropriate for 4-6 year olds then he would probably love it. Here’s hoping it is a fun clean family show!

Well I’m 31 and I’ll be watching Prodigy. Troll Hunters (written by the Showrunners of STP) was genuinely one of my favourite TV shows from the last few years. It’s a great little Fantasy adventure.

I’m 46, and I’ll watch Prodigy.

Section 31 is a myth. :-)

It sounds as though its still moving along, but I’m increasingly certain that Georgiou won’t be returning to the 23rd century.

The “All the Asians on Star Trek” podcast released this week featured an interview with S31 co-showrunners and Co-EPs Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt. It was recorded just a few weeks ago so it’s current.

While they were necessarily cagey about the show in development, it’s clear that they are working on it. They also mentioned (and said that Kurtzman had already dropped it during an interview) that a third co-showrunner had joined the team.

By the way, I encourage everyone to check out the “All the Asians on Star Trek podcast.” It’s really well done, the host/interviewer is great and he is literally interviewing any and all Asians who have worked on the franchise at any time. He was clearly stoked to get Kim and Lippoldt on at this point.

And a shout out to Tony and Laurie for flagging this podcast series on their own All Access podcast.

It sounds as though its still moving along, but I’m increasingly certain that Georgiou won’t be returning to the 23rd century?”

What makes you say this TG47? Is it just a gut feeling or something that’s been hinted at in interviews that you’ve read/seen?

Do give the podcast interview with Kim and Lippoldt a listen Corinthian7.

The way they spoke about the constraints for Discovery in writing in the TOS era, I just can’t see them situating Yeoh’s vehicle in that era, especially as Akiva Goldsman (who loves that era) is continuing the NCC-1701 story through SNW.

I suspect that the series will be another “fresh snow” series, not only “geographically” as Kurtzman has promised, but possibly in time.

Interesting. I’ll try and find time to give it a listen. Do you think it will be set in the 31st century though or might Georgiou find herself in another era? Given that Discovery is now about restoring the Federation and its values I’m not sure that a parallel narrative about the revival of Section 31 would fit. Of course we don’t know what the plot of such a show would be, it may well turn out that Section 31 are involved in or behind the burn and a story may spin out of that. On the other hand it’s also worth considering that the clandestine nature of Section 31 combined with the likelihood that a show focusing on Emperor Georgiou will be at least partially based in the Mirror Universe means that if it is set in the TOS era it would likely still have a lot not freedom.

In some of the panels last year Kadin and/or Kurtzman said that, based on Kim and Lippoldt’s pilot, the series would be Georgiou’s “Unforgiven.”

Not sure what that means, but the parallel with the Clint Eastwood films suggests that Georgiou would be long and contentedly “reformed” away from her past life only to be required to return to it out of duty.

The thing is, we haven’t really seen Georgiou authentically reformed yet.

The thing that is missing, of course, is SHOULD she be reformed, and is that ENOUGH? The requirement of antonement seems to be completely absent from these people’s minds.

For the appropriate parallel, I think reform was not on the mind of the Allied tribunal at Nuremberg. If Hitler hadn’t shot himself, he’d have been shot. End of story.

(As many reviewers have noted for this week’s episode, again, extralegal corporal punishment regularly is no problem for the writers when our heroes are meting it out against their enemies like Andorians or Orion guards, nothing less but blown to bits without trial. Poor kids having no daddies come home after the shift! So let’s not claim superior morality on their behalf here!)

That still makes me think she’s going back to the Mirror Universe, the one place where she can really confront her past and a setting that gives Kim and Lippoldt a lot of creative freedom.

I’d say that the MU is a definite possibility.

However, it’s somewhere “geographically” that we’ve seen a lot of over many series. Unless the EPs were meaning that we haven’t had an entire series set in the MU.

One way to look at the High Noon to Unforgiven arc, is that an ace gunslinger who kills without impunity because he is a sherriff, swears off killing when he marries a Quaker woman who is a pacifist. After her death, when asked to stop a killer, he takes up his guns and killing again, but with great personal regret.

To VS’s point, in High Noon there was no atonement, it was just Jimmy Stewart’s character giving up violence as a condition of marrying into a pacifist Quaker community. In Unforgiven, we see that character late in life after his wife, his anchor to the pacifist community, has died. It’s more like an addict falling back into an old pattern, even if it is at the request of the larger community.

So, if we see Georgiou as only staying on the side of the good only bec of Michael (who brought her to the Prime Universe), this story could be about her returning to Terran-like behaviour for a greater good.

Can’t say that works for me at all.

And allow her to prevent whatever happened in this universe to occur in hers.

I suppose there could be worse things for cast and crew then to be spending six months in Canada. Congratulations on a forth season!!

Canada is doing a better job containing COVID than the U.S. at the moment.

I might go to Canada after the election lol. Congratulations on season 4.

Good luck. The USA-Canada border is Covid-sealed shut to non-essential personnel. You guys are allowed to come in a handful of border crossings but only for a few days and only to drive directly to Alaska. We are actually issuing fines of thousands of dollars to Americans who do manage to sneak in. Nothing personal but we just have a slightly different set of pandemic policies here and like to keep it that way.

You’d need to have a dual citizenship Ninja, or immediate family in Canada.

Even then, it’s a two week quarantine when you arrive in Canada, and it’s monitored.

But if you have citizenship or close enough family for an exception, best wishes on the trip.

I think what Faze Ninja is trying to say, is that he may be moving to Canada depending which President will be at the White House in January 2021.

ah, he’s usually so upbeat that it went right by me.

Well, let’s hope we don’t have desperate folks running the Minnesota-Manitoba border this winter.

Love Canada. Always have a great vacation in Montreal and Toronto. Dreaming to win one of those CBSAA Sweepstakes to see the studio and meet the crew. =D

Dreaming to win one of those CBSAA Sweepstakes to see the studio and meet the crew. =D

Are they doing such sweepstakes now? Shooting under current health regulations seems to entail that you have as few people on set as possible. So probably no random guests.

Good luck. PM Trudeau has announced the US Canadian border stays closed until the US gets its s**t together.

Everybody is doing a better job than the US handling COVID… Somebody is purposefully not handling the pandemic because acknowledging the problem would just expose how much he has been lacking in his leadership and responsibility since the beginning. And of course, the lives of hundreds of thousands of people are not worth taking the risk of looking bad right?

I don’t know about you guys, but there is nothing more disgusting and contemptible than that. Would be difficult to find a greater coward on this planet. Sorry for the political diatribe…

Never worry, you’re among friends. (Well friends and perhaps a couple Romulans, but we’ll just ignore those for now. I have my phaser at the ready if need be.) _\\//

Toronto is far from the most brutal place to spend winter in Canada, but even there it’s long.

I feel for the cast given that any return to the United States would require another 14 day quarantine on reentry. I’m wondering if they have been able to bring in spouses and dependent children under their visas. I’m not clear on where that stands for work visas.

You Torontonians… One centimeter of snow or -10C and complete panic! we Montrealers, on the other hand, are a hardy bunch :)

I’m not in TO Silvereyes.

Let’s not have a good old Canadian competition about whose winter is worse, as we’d come out about even as it happens ;

But I am originally from the coast, so I really feel for those who are about to experience their first full Canadian winter, even the relatively mild Toronto climate change moderated version.

Yes, well, having lived in Toronto my entire life, the winters here seem plenty cold (and long enough) to me! :-)

Ottawa, here…I’d say it’s worse, but I think it’s likely the same as Montreal.

After spending about 15 years in NorCal, Louisiana and DC, I got spoiled and soft when it comes to winter. Toronto really doesn’t get much snow and it is not bitter cold like Sask, and Manitoba or Quebec because of the Great Lakes and we don’t get real blizzards here like the east coast – but I really really miss the nice San Jose winter weather.

Great news! Hopefully, they’ll also get SNW done ASAP. This is by far the show I’m looking forward to the most, followed by DSC S4.
Not so sure there will ever be a PIC S2. Stewart isn’t getting any younger and it doesn’t seem to be feasible the pandemic is going to go away any time soon.

SNW is showing up on the guild sheets as continuing preproduction until February.

Interestingly, Discovery is showing as set to stay in production until June, with SNW production running from February to just a few weeks later in late June.

Perhaps a shorter first season is planned or Anson Mount got his way on tighter shooting schedules.

Disco has a 13-episode order, SNW has a 10-episode order.

Why not just do a TV (made for streaming) movie, do a fun adventure story and put to bed Picard’s (at least Stewarts version of Picard) story?

Considering how overly bloated S1 was, condensing down to a fast and straightforward 2′ hour story would probably be a good thing.

And there you go, folks. Told ya’ an announcement was imminent. :)

Brillo

I hope LDS gets a season 3 renewal soon!

Preferably 3 and 4 at once.

YES!!!!!!

But but but… all the youtubers said the show was cancelled?!?! and Kurtzman fired!?! and the sets destroyed ?!

Goes to show folks don’t trust people like Midnights edge. People like that will rot your brain.

I presume you mean that idiot Midnight’s Edge? Most people view him as a big joke. He’s almost never right about anything–his YouTube channel is to Star Trek reporting what Fox News and TMZ are to journalism.

Midnight’s Edge feeds into the fever dreams of fans who hate specific content.

That could be 75% of the commenters on here.

True.

Pretty amazing that a guy who was “fired up” keeps showing up at these press conferences and making all these announcements. CBS management must be spineless…..

It’s because he was fired, but they want to keep it secret. He will spend the next two decades just faking he’s calling the shots for Star Trek.

And to spite CBS even more (because in reality CBS hates Discovery and would love to get rid of it) Kurtzman is paying for more seasons out of his own pocket.

You can add Nerdrotic, MechaRandom… I’m sure there’s more. They’re miserable.

It delights me to think of their suffering today. So good.

I also admit to a nasty sense of glee at their discomfort.

I’d be more gleeful if their views went down.

I don’t think there will be much dicomfort on their side. Quite the opposite, it is good news for them. Their “hate” for Kurtzman Trek is not fueled by passion but by the rational calculations to generate the most possible klicks. They certainly disrespect their own viewers much more than Kurtzman. Why else would they lie to them so shamelessly?

I’m not too big a fan of DSC and PIC, and don’t feel a need to keep quiet about it, but YouTube shows like the one you mention just feel gross and pointless to me. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d want to watch something like that.

Personally, I’m glad the show got renewed. Now, I just hope I will begin enjoying it consistently!

its a good day for midnightsedge and friends. more discovery means more content means more clicks means more money…

Sad, but true – all they have to say is negative stuff about every new Star Trek show and their viewers lap it up.
I used to actually listen to what Gary had to say about things but once he decided a single narrative of negativity can drive more clicks and revenue – his channel became diminished as a legit source of information or reviews. JP seemed to start down that path but now has decided legitimate reviews and opinions are more important. He may not be the biggest fan of CBSAA, but he actually seems to give the new shows a fair shake, sometimes positive and other times negative.
Sadly, it is often hard to discern between a legit critique and a tough negative review vs hatred for a show(s), network or certain people – so one always has to be on guard.
Btw, just to reiterate – I really appreciate what the team at Trekmovie have put together because this is a great portal for information and opinions. We don’t all agree with eachother, but for the most part the fans are respectful to others and people can post positive and negative opinions while catching up on all things Trek, so thank you.

Yeah DeanH, TrekMovie fills an important niche.

It’s good to see new and returning posters joining the discussion here,

I really appreciate how careful they are in making sure they have multiple, distinct sources or an official source before posting.

On this week’s All Access podcast, Laurie and Tony noted that unlike some other places, they had been trying to be good and wait for the official season 4 announcement even though Kurtzman was effectively implying it was happening in interviews. It’s got to be difficult to hang tough when the naysayers are generating clearly false rumours and sucking in clicks.

Maybe with the pandemic delays, Martin-Green could take the opportunity to take some acting classes. In the latest Discovery ep, she comes across as a Days of Our Lives / General Hospital actress more than ever. Masterclass offers some good courses one could take from home. I see Helen Mirren and Samuel Jackson are both offering lessons. Or, and this is on my mind because I watched it recently, Martin-Green could study Regina King in Watchmen. King is incapable of hitting a false note, because she is so centered and ground amidst the sci-fi fantasy. Martin-Green is doing an awful lot of posing and preening, and she should be doing more being. If you can’t act, just be natural. Bad acting is worse than non-acting; perhaps the films of Bresson could be helpful in this regard.

Post a video of your own ‘award wining’ acting so we can see your acting compared to SMG who has won awards for her acing.

You don’t need to be an actor to find someone’s acting ability lacking. Many have posted a similar opinion, with wich I agree. It’s called over-acting, and it’s one of the reasons I stopped watching this show. She may have won awards, she may be a good actress, that doesnt mean she’s a good actress in Discovery.

Actors over-acting on Star Trek? Never! Shatner, Brooks, and Bakula could sometimes fly way off that particular handle.

You should be an actor because you’re an “expert” at acting.

Mr. Acting expert at your service.

I won’t begrudge anyone their opinion of an actor, but she would not have been cast as the lead of the show had she not had “it”, and I think Sonequa Martin-Green *does* have that It Factor that makes her watchable. What she does not have — and has never had — is good writing. It has indeed been on the level of a soap opera because the majority of the writers who’ve been in the room have a lot of primetime and daytime soap opera writing credits. (Season 1’s Ted Sullivan specifically, did One Life To Live & As the World Turns)

“Posing and preening” is exactly what the scripts and directors call for, because *they* think that’s what elevates this sci fi schlock (important to remember that Paramount has traditionally hated Star Trek and they, like Secret Hideout, think it’s nerd shit) to something emotionally satisfying and dramatically profound.

Again, fine with your opinion; just hope you take this all into consideration. Actors *do* have a difficult job (relatively speaking, of course — they’re not performing brain surgery or operating a space shuttle, etc.) and in order to do their best, they have to put their faith in a lot of people who are seeing what they (the actor) can’t see and trusting that these people are telling them (again, the actor) that they’re doing a good job or the right thing.

It’s just impossible to ignore the effect writing has on literally everything we see on screen.

Excellent point, Tiberius. I’ve been saying for years on posts here that her work on The Walking Dead (the only other show I’ve seen her in) was actually pretty good. I don’t think the problem is SMG, it just goes to show how imperative good writing is (and TWD has had its own problems over the years).

Overkill, dude.

Let’s see, she’s managed to stay gainfully employed for twelve years or so, prior to your penning this op-ed piece, so just how are you an expert again?

Just to balance that out, there are some really ignorant and naive replies to your thoughtful assessment (with which I fully agee), which seem to be based on the false premise that because of the position she is in that in itself is proof that she is a star actress. We don’t live in a meritocracy, folks! Least of all, in Hollywood. There are many other, more important qualities that put someone into a job than their hard skills. Or why is John Eaves still on the Trek pay roll churning out the same lego ships he did 20 years ago while Master designers like Rick Sternbach or Andy Probert were long let go? Same for the guy doing the soundtracks, inexplicably for both Discovery and Picard. Kurtzman does NOT have a good hand in picking talented staff (with fhe exception of LDS, maybe). Just look at those writers and directors who created this “Shakespearian masterpiece” last night, That Hope Is You… ;)

John Eaves designed the Sovereign class and the DiscoveryPrise, both which are fan favorites. Sure, he does not have the Enterprise refit, the Galaxy class, or the D’deridex Class under his belt like Andrew Probert, but he is a talented designer.

While VS and I disagree on a lot of things, I’m not a fan of John Eaves work in general.

There’s always something not quite there about his designs.

What, the Pizza cutter is a “fan favorite”? In which alternate universe is this? :D

The Sovereign is bearable – just. It has all the trademark superfluous Eaves hard lines but it is clear he was reigned in by the requirements of the producers and design lineage.

Roddenberry, Matt Jeffries and Andy Probert where really on to something when they conceived smooth starships were all technology is hidden. That makes sense with micro debris in outer space AND is truly futuristic!

You’re not as good a troll as you think you are, either.

Outstanding news!
If someone had have told me 5 years ago that we would have this much Star Trek on TV, I’d have called them crazy but I would have been wrong and happily so.
What a time to be a Star Trek fan!

Full season or half? (How is this show paying for itself?)

Netflix pays for it. It is for free for CBSAA. Ain’t that amazing?

And Netflix has a reputation for cancelling shows after 3 seasons so if they’re paying for it then we can only conclude that it must be hugely successful for them.

I’m actually wondering if ViacomCBS might intend to keep the show for their own streamer as they roll it out globally.

It’s not obvious that they want to sell more of the franchise product to the competition.

I’ve been wondering that as well. Although season 3 has arrived on Netflix in the UK season 2 of Lower Decks is still missing in action. Also I honestly can’t believe that there are no takers whatsoever for LDS in the Europe. I’m thinking that either ViacomCBS have intentionally held it back to make their own streaming service more appealing or they were trying to sell it at a premium price on an extremely short lease.

Depending on the agreement I wonder if they’re allowed to move Discovery to another service now. Netflix have even marketed it as a “Netflix Original”.

It wouldn’t surprise me if widespread global rollout of CBSAA or whatever they call it isn’t accompanied by a new flagship Star Trek show to get around this.

Aaaaand now we know the FM fallback position…

I mean, it couldn’t be popular! Right? If I don’t like it, it couldn’t be popular! Validate my opinion!

My Netflix is showing a small “Top 10” button on the Discovery entry. No idea if that’s country-specific.

Cool.

Guess we’ll be able to see how widespread the interest is when Parrot Analytics’s next TV Demand Last Week video and table comes out.

Show (supposedly) doesn’t draw the number of viewers that failed to sustain ENT back in the day.

And we know it costs more.

So…?

It’s canceled for sure now.

….so, it’ll take three or four more seasons after that to wind down production?

Great news, but not surprising. It’s been rumored for months season 4 was starting soon. Kurtzman basically confirmed it a month ago.

I am shocked they are starting so soon though but it obviously prove they must have been green lit months ago already if they have scripts and sets already built. It’s great news and maybe JUST maybe we don’t have to wait another 18 months to see season 4.

And I was a little surprised this was starting before Picard but yeah it shows the big difference between Canada and America right now. Frakes did say they may get permission to start shooting Picard in January. Yeah still doubtful but fingers crossed.

But maybe we will actually have a few live shows airing next year after all.

You didnt like the first two seasons and yet… your optimism is unbeatable :)

Frankly, at this point I’d rather try my luck with a new show that takes the slot of Discovery (although, Picard!) The fact that this show has the most episodes every year of all current and announced productions, and may end up having more seasons than Enterprise irks me. I’d rather have them put 15 episodes in SNW (give 5 to script submissions and hard scifi authors!) than seeing more of Michael’s soap opera. Yeah, trying the new setting in the 31st century and playing a bit Andromeda is interesting. But as we know from some failed B&B Trek, the execution matters at least as much as the idea. And season 3 should be enough for this. Where to go from here?

No, I DID like season 2 overall, I just thought how it wrapped up pretty much sucked. But I rewatched that along with season one last week and I realized there were more episodes I liked about season 2 than I remembered but even less I liked in season 1. Season 2 was generally a fun season, but the last third of it just wiped a lot of the early good will away sadly. Thats the problem with serialized shows, if the ending doesn’t do it for you it can ruin the whole thing but that didn’t really happen. And overall I cared more about them going into the future instead of explaining how they did it, so yeah.

Season 3 certainly have a lot to prove but I am hoping the freedom it has to do whatever it wants bring about a better show. I thought first episode was good although I read your review and you weren’t as positive about it lol. I’m just excited about the possibilities more than anything. I couldn’t really say that in its first two seasons other than getting a Kirk cameo. ;)

I see! Wouldn’t you say the parts you liked about season 2 were mostly about Pike, Spock, Number One and rhe presence of the Enterprise though? I think both New Eden (despite the Red Angel timesuit rubbish that later invalidated part of that episode) and the Talos episode are fan favorites of that season which are, again, mostly standalone shows and have a heavy Pike/Spock presence, respectively. If so, I think it’s not the innate qualities of Discovery and it’s original cast that generated this goodwill (as also showcased by the basically unopposed enthusiasm for SNW by otherwise opposing fans), and everything is open again in season 3.

I will say I liked the season 2 opener a good deal better than the season 3 one not just because of the Enterprise and Pike; it was a more traditionally structured and styled Trek episode and certainly less “raw emotional experience”. If you read the Polygon review, it says the show settles in a more traditional rhythm after episode 3, more resembling Voyager. Not the worst comparison to make, so I don’t give up just yet!

Sadly the second wave of COVID has started up here. The greater Toronto area (including York and Mississauga, the home to SNW) reported about 475 new cases yesterday in a city with about 4 million plus people. The numbers seem to be leveling off, but the city regressed back to stage 2 restrictions last week. Hopefully they can continue with production plans for Disco S4 which is filmed downtown on the waterfront as well as SNW which apparently will be filmed at CBS’ new studio in the west end, south of the airport.

From what Wilson Cruz posted on Twitter in reply to the announcement “Good thing I’m here,” it looks like the cast is already in isolation in their Toronto accommodations. It looked that way from SMG’s and Doug Jones’ videos too.

It doesn’t look like the current modified stage 2 in the GTA and Ottawa are affecting film and television production from what one can see on the public guild information sites.

Hopefully, taking a one month pause on public entertainment, gyms and dining will reverse the trend so that the film and television industry won’t have to take a brief pause (unlike in BC).

So far, the producers have made adjustments each season in response to the audience reaction to the previous season. This won’t be possible for season 4 if it’s shooting already while season 3 has only started airing. But if they continue the trend of telling a new story each season that at least reduces the risk that they pick a thread from season 3 for season 4 that audiences won’t like.

That’s not really true for season 3 though. They were already writing scripts for this season when season 2 was on the air. That season ended in April and they started shooting season 3 in July of last year. Its really season 1 that where they were able to change things because they didn’t start shooting it until 6 months later IIRC.

That still gave them several months to adjust stuff. Plus they had feedback from fans about season 2 before that season ended in April. But it’s still too early to tell what lessons they may (or may not) have taken from season 2.

I do hope they got the message now they didn’t seem to get for seasons 2 and 3:

LESS EMOTIONAL MICHAEL
MORE ENSEMBLE

As eternal cynic, I doubt they would act upon that though. The primacy of St. Michael is unnegotiable (safe for the acress quitting).

How long will it be here before the usual suspects start insisting that the show NOW won’t make it past Season 4?

No doubt they are looking for their old posts (e.g. “it won’t make is past season 2,” and “it won’t make it past season 3”) that they can cut and paste here for this year’s latest renewal. LOL

At season 5 or 6 the show will probably come to it’s natural end anyway, so all that doomsday speculation seems even more pointless.

In his recent interview about plans until 2027 Kurtzman seemed to suggest that Discovery still has years worth of stories left in it.

Regardless of whether or not a 5th season is commissioned any series in the modern TV era that gets 4 seasons and leads to at least 5 other TV shows being developed (Picard, LDS, S31, SNW, Prodigy) must be considered a success.

Michael Bay movies are successes too; it doesn’t mean they are critically acclaimed pieces of art, or even just serving their audiences well.

Don’t be surprised if a year from now when they premiere season season 4 that they announce season 5!

I’m looking forward to seeing how Midnight’s Edge and co. spin this to really mean that Discovery is very unpopular and will be cancelled any day now.

They don’t need to “spin” this. Like (some) politicians they simply don’t care about what they said a week ago. And most of their audience probably doesn’t care either. They will probably just shift their focus and claim that Picard has been canceled. Or that CBS refuses to give Secret Hideout any money for Strange New Worlds.

I really enjoyed the ‘Star Trek: Discovery.’ Season 3 Opener. Sonequa Martin-Green acted out of her skin as always. The production values were astonishing and my only gripe is that we didn’t get to see Burnham unite with her ship-mates. Next week, I guess.

Most striking of all for me this episode was the final scene. The writers really know how to turn the tone of a scene on a dime and go quite convincingly from a sense of hopelessness to one of triumph in just a few seconds.

I think the next episode is the Discovery crew. No Burnham. Probably episode 3.

Lol

Excellent character development– i held off watching Discovery– but I am now hooked –good stories, special effects and a great lead– breaks the mold for boring tv. Keep up the great stories– Live Long and Prosper

I have enjoyed all three seasons of Discovery as well. I know I am probably in the minority though.

Not likely in the minority if they keep getting renewed. The vocal minority are the haters.

I totally agree, Alan!

Most viewers probably aren’t commenting on it on web forums or giving it nearly as much thought as we are. Just watching an interesting show their TV recommended to them.

Awesome news! I am really looking forward to more seasons of Discovery! I love it! Thank god, they start shooting soon. I increases hope for some more Trek in 2021 admist Covid. The world really needs more Trek. I am so grateful for Kurtzman and his Star Trek strategy. Without his push for animated Trek as well as live action it would be really a trekless 2021.