A Section 31 series has been teased for a while, but we now have a better idea of when the Star Trek: Discovery spin-off show could beam down to our screens.
After previously announcing that the franchise was working on a series led by Michelle Yeoh’s evil “Mirrorverse” version of Starfleet’s deceased Captain Georgiou, Star Trek showrunner Alex Kurtzman has now suggested the project is not set to start filming until after Discovery’s next run.
“Our hope is that we will have a script in the next couple months, and then as soon as Discovery Season three is over we're rolling right into that show. That's my hope,” he told ComicBook.com.
Such confident talk of a third run for Star Trek: Discovery is news in itself, since there's been no official announcement as yet that the CBS show – which airs in the UK on Netflix – will return after the current season (although it would be a surprise if it didn't, given it's at the centre of CBS's renewal of the franchise).
And assuming season three is on the cards, it sounds as if we may have to wait until late 2020 to watch the Section 31 show, which is expected to follow Captain Georgiou as she takes on missions for Starfleet’s black ops arm vowing to keep the Federation safe by any means necessary. In other words, expect a very dark series.
Kurtzman also confirmed that Star Trek: Discovery writers Erika Lippoldt and Bo Yeon Kim are currently working on scripts for the yet-to-be-titled spin-off. "They're amazing, and they're a big part of Discovery, so they're on our staff too. So they're doing double duty this year," he said.
Meanwhile, CBS has confirmed that a show centred on Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard – which we’re still hoping is an entirely in-holodeck series with the Enterprise captain solving crimes as Dixon Hill once more – will be hitting our screens in 2019.
