In a story that kind of reeks of covering their asses after many on the web raised valid concerns about the show looking like it wouldn’t fit into the established canon, Alex Kurtzman (the shows producer) “revealed” that the studio hired a group of fact-checkers and fans to make sure that Star Trek: Discovery stayed within canon and didn’t step on any other show’s toes. With the series taking place only 10 years before the original it would be incredibly easy to do that.
Kurtzman told CNET, “Without spoiling anything we are adhering to a timeline and sticking to the rules, but also I think finding some new areas and avenues that have only been alluded to, but never fully explored.”
“You have to respect canon as it’s being written. You can’t say, ‘That never happened.’ No, no no, you can’t do that, they would kill you. Star Trek fans would kill you. No, you have to respect canon. You have to understand the timelines and what the different timelines were and what the different universes were and how they all worked together. You have to keep very meticulous track of who, what, where, when and why. And we have people in the writer’s room whose sole job is to say, ‘Nope, can’t do that!’”
I’m sure they’re going to adhere to canon pretty well, but after our first looks at the show gave us very JJ Abrams influenced sets and costumes it’s hard for me to believe that they’re really going to be trying hard to fit this into the timeline well. There’s adhering to plot points and continuity, and then there’s adhering to tone and feeling. We may get the former, but it sure looks like we won’t get the latter. Hopefully I’m very wrong about this and it does feel like we’re in the original Trek universe. The deciding factor will be how they once again explain a drastic change in what Klingons look like.
Of course, maybe it’s not that important. If the show is fun and feels like Trek maybe we can all just sit back and relax and enjoy it, right?
