Star Trek: Strange New Worlds To Bring Back Original Episode Format
We're warping away from Discovery's format and heading back to episodically-themed television.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds writer and director Akiva Goldsman has given an interview to The Hollywood Reporter expanding on some recent bits of news that have dropped about the show.
There has already been much discussion about the fact that Strange New Worlds is heading back to the Original Series' episodic format. Goldsman went into a little more detail on this, saying that it wasn't simply a case of each chapter having a start, middle and end. Rather, he said, that the new/old format allows them to play with genre, much as the Original Series did.
He cited Robert Bloch, who wrote Psycho, being able to write a horror episode such as Wolf in the Fold, while Harlan Ellison was able to do hard SciFi with The City On The Edge Of Forever. Star Trek's ability to morph genre like this gave its writers a lot of licence and also kept the show from getting stale, even as it went into its third, troubled season.
Goldsman did say that they would not be abandoning serialisation altogether, with character arcs remaining in place, similar to the Next Generation and Voyager, while Deep Space Nine, Picard and Discovery leaned a little more heavily on serials.
Goldsman also confirmed that there were going to be a few changes to the sets and uniforms. We know from the trailer that Discovery has gone through a similar change at least, with the uniforms receiving a more colourful update in season 4. While it's unclear what exactly the changes will entail, Goldsman said that it was thanks to the Enterprise getting a chance to take the centre stage again, rather than being an aspect of Discovery's story, that has given them licence to do this. He teased that it would pay homage to the classic series, something that is a positive thing for fans of Matt Jefferies' original design to hear - this writer included!
Production on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is continuing in Toronto, despite a recent report of a crew member testing positive for Coronavirus.
It's understood that the actor had flown in from Vancouver and tested positive during CBS's security measures, with the man never getting further than a wardrobe fitting.
Goldsman is directing the pilot, which he says is almost finished.