Alex Kurtzman Claims He’s Currently Mapped Out Star Trek Through 2027, Teases More Discovery

Drew Taylor |

Oct 14, 2020

Alex Kurtzman has a whole lot of Star Trek in the works.

Star Trek: Discovery

In addition to the recent announcement of the animated Star Trek: Prodigy starring Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway, Kurtzman hinted that further seasons of Discovery and other new projects are planned.

Prodigy marks the fifth series launched since Kurtzman took the television reigns of Star Trek. The other four include Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Lower Decks. Two other shows have been announced including a Section 31 show and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Kurtzman was recently a guest on the Hollywood Reporter’s podcast, and revealed a lot concerning Star Trek’s TV future.

First, he detailed they have “years and years left on Discovery.”

He explained, “I’m going to say in all honesty, there are years and years left on Discovery. First of all, Star Trek, in general, has a long history of going something like seven seasons minimum. And we just jumped into the future.”

“In a way, it’s not that it’s a brand new show, but it’s a whole new set of variables with a whole new set of ideas and stories. And I don’t think we limit ourselves to thinking, ‘Oh, we’re capped at this place.’ I’ll tell you that when the show starts to feel too stale to us, we’ll be rallying to stop it. But for now, it doesn’t feel like we are running into a shortage of stories,” he added.

Later in the discussion he would reveal he just had a planning session with ViacomCBS and that they have plans for Star Trek through 2027.

Kurtzman explained, “Heather Kadin and Aaron Baiers, who work with me at Secret Hideout, we literally just got off a call before this with the network mapping us through 2027.”

“Again, when I say that, it’s not like it’s set in stone, it’s just ‘okay here’s a plan, here’s what we’re looking, here’s how the different shows are going to drop.’ Consider that it takes a year from start of production to airing, so you have to plan way way in advance to get these things done and you have to stay on top of the zeitgeist and make sure what you’re doing is relevant,” he added.

Kurtzman continued, “So you have to plan so far in advance now in different kinds of ways to seem loose and improvisational, but there is nothing loose and improvisational about it.

There’s not much word on the specific project titles in the works, but we’ll see what they come up with.

Kurtzman would also provide an update on his current Star Trek projects in an interview with SFX Magazine including a possible fourth season of Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds.

As reported by TrekMovie, Kurtzman stated, “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.”

He added, “By the time they shoot, we will have innovated with a couple [non-Star Trek] shows, and we will know where we are. And we will be a little bit more down with a process.”

Speaking specifically about Strange New Worlds, he stated, “The silver linings are that Akiva [Goldsman] and Henry [Alonso Myers] are ready to show up and able to really get ahead with scripts. By the time we go back into production, we will have a lot of scripts ready to go, which is not usually how it is for us.”

“We’re always running ahead of the freight train that is production and trying not to get flattened, but this time we actually have some advanced warning with a lot of prep time,” he continued.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 airs its first episode on October 15, 2020. Subsequent episodes will air on Thursdays on CBS All Access.

What do you think of Alex Kurtzman’s claim that he has mapped Star Trek out to 2027 and that there are years worth of storytelling left for Star Trek: Discovery? Share your thoughts with us below.