The first season of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery is set a decade before Star Trek: The Original Series in the 23rd century and follows the crew of the starship Discovery during the Federation–Klingon war. The season was produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Roddenberry Entertainment, and Living Dead Guy Productions, with Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts serving as showrunners, and Akiva Goldsman providing producing support.
Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, first officer of the USS Shenzhou and later the Discovery, along with Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Jason Isaacs. The series was announced in November 2015, and Bryan Fuller joined as showrunner the next February. He brought on Berg and Harberts to support him, and they took over as showrunners when Fuller left the series in October 2016 following creative disagreements with CBS. The season's war storyline was intended to represent the divide between different political factions of the modern United States, with effort put into redesigning the Klingon species and developing their culture and biology. Filming took place in Toronto, Canada, from January to October 2017, with additional filming on location in Jordan for the series premiere. The crew, including the visual effects team—led by Pixomondo—and composer Jeff Russo, aimed for the series' production values to match that of a feature film. The season features several guest stars taking on roles from The Original Series.
The first episode was broadcast on CBS and released on the streaming service CBS All Access on September 24, 2017. The rest of the 15-episode season was released weekly on All Access in two chapters: the first ended on November 12, and the second was released from January 7 to February 11, 2018. The season led to record subscriptions for All Access, and generally positive reviews from critics who highlighted Martin-Green's performance, the production values, and new additions to Star Trek canon. Some criticized the writing. The season was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and received several other awards and nominations. A second season was ordered in October 2017.
Episodes
In March 2018, a "secret scene" was released depicting an alternative ending to the season finale, in which Mirror Georgiou is approached by an operative of Section 31. This storyline is further explored in the second season.
Cast and characters
Main
Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham
Doug Jones as Saru
Shazad Latif as Voq / Ash Tyler
Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets
Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly
Jason Isaacs as Gabriel Lorca
Recurring
Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou
Mary Chieffo as L'Rell
James Frain as Sarek
Kenneth Mitchell as Kol
Jayne Brook as Katrina Cornwell
Wilson Cruz as Hugh Culber
Notable guests
Mia Kirshner as Amanda Grayson
Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd
Katherine Barrell as Stella Mudd
Clint Howard as an Orion drug dealer
Production
Development
On November 2, 2015, CBS announced that a new Star Trek television series would premiere in January 2017, "on the heels" of Star Trek: The Original Series 50th anniversary in 2016. The series would be developed specifically for the streaming service CBS All Access. Bryan Fuller was hired to be showrunner and executive producer in February 2016, as well as co-creator with Alex Kurtzman. Fuller began his career writing for the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, and had publicly called for Star Trek to return to television for years after the end of the previous series, Star Trek: Enterprise, in 2005. When Fuller first met with CBS about the series, the company did not have a plan for what the show would be. He proposed an anthology series where each season would be a standalone, serialized show set in a different era, beginning with a prequel to the original series. CBS told Fuller to start with a single serialized show and see how that performs first, and so he began further developing the prequel concept. In June, Fuller announced that the first season would consist of 13 episodes, and a month later, at Star Treks 50th anniversary San Diego Comic-Con panel, he revealed the series' title to be Star Trek: Discovery. He also said it would be set in the "Prime Timeline" alongside the previous Star Trek series, rather than in the alternate "Kelvin Timeline" that the concurrent Star Trek film series was set in.