Star Trek: Discovery season 1
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.
Star Trek: Discovery
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 Creative Arts Emmy Awards and received several other awards and nominations. A second season was ordered in October 2017.[1]
Marketing[edit]
With the announcement of the series' title in July 2016 came a promotional video giving a first look at the USS Discovery. The video did not feature final designs, as the producers had put it together in three weeks to show the concepts for the series to fans.[97] In January 2017, a YouTube video presented by Alcatel was released, using 360° technology to showcase digital models of previous Star Trek ships.[98] The first full trailer for the series was released in May 2017.[99] Chris Harnick of E! News said the trailer was gorgeous and cinematic, and added, because of the appearances of both Sarek and the Klingons, that "this is the Star Trek you know and love."[100] Aja Romano at Vox called the trailer's visuals "sumptuous [and] modern, but still very much in keeping with the aesthetic of previous Trek series". She did note that the series' plot was not conveyed in the trailer.[101]
In July 2017, Discovery had an extensive presence at San Diego Comic-Con, including a panel featuring Martin-Green, Isaacs, Jones, Latif, Wiseman, Rapp, Frain, Kurtzman, Berg, Kadin, Harberts, and Goldsman, and moderated by Wilson.[102] Footage from the series was screened at the panel, with a new trailer released online soon afterwards.[13] CBS also created an immersive art experience at the Michael J. Wolf Fine Arts Gallery, featuring the USS Discovery's captain's chair and other props, costumes, and sketches from the series, as well as limited edition posters and a shop selling Comic-Con-exclusive items. Pedicabs inspired by the series gave free rides through the Gaslamp District, while a "#TrekDiscovery Challenge" competition saw fans have to take pictures with "authentically costumed Trek ambassadors", one each representing the crews of the five previous Star Trek series, as well as the captain's chair at the art gallery, and post them online with the hashtag #TrekDiscovery to be eligible to win a Roku streaming stick and a subscription to CBS All Access.[102] At the convention, Gentle Giant Studios revealed that they had gained the license to create mini-busts and statues based on the series, and planned to particularly focus on the series' Klingons.[103] At the beginning of August, an afternoon of four panels at the Star Trek Las Vegas event was dedicated to the series, featuring producers and writers, actors who were not present at Comic-Con, creature designers, and writers involved with related books and comics.[73]
By the beginning of September, promotion was taking place around the world: Isaacs was involved in the Blackpool Illuminations festival in the UK; cast and crew promoted the series at the Fan Expo Canada; a USS Shenzhou-themed photobooth, that took pictures of fans as Klingons, was in operation at the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin; and an outdoor campaign of posters and billboards was underway, including a large billboard on the roof of an LAX Airport building.[104] The night before the premiere, a model of the USS Discovery was flown above the Hudson River on Manhattan's west side. Created by Remarkable Media, the 50 feet (15 m) skeleton rig was covered in LEDs and suspended from a Black Hawk helicopter.[105] On October 7, panels for the series were held at both the PaleyFest television festival and at New York Comic Con.[106]
Release[edit]
Broadcast and streaming[edit]
Star Trek: Discovery premiered at the ArcLight Hollywood on September 19, 2017.[107] The first episode aired in a "preview broadcast" on CBS in the United States on September 24,[2] and was made available for free on CBS All Access along with the second episode (which required an All Access subscription).[2][108] Subsequent first-run episodes, making up the first chapter of the season, were streamed weekly on All Access through November 5. The second chapter streamed from January 7 to February 11, 2018.[2][3]
CBS Studios International licensed the series to Bell Media for broadcast in Canada, and to Netflix for another 188 countries. In Canada, the premiere was broadcast on September 24, 2017, on both the CTV Television Network and on the specialty channels Space (English) and Z (French) before being streamed on CraveTV, with subsequent episodes just broadcast on Space and Z before streaming on CraveTV. In the other countries, Netflix released each episode of the series for streaming within 24 hours of its U.S. debut. This agreement with CBS also saw Bell and Netflix acquire all previous Star Trek series to stream in their entirety.[23]
In August 2020, CBS announced that it would be broadcasting the full first season of Discovery beginning on September 24, 2020, alongside other older or acquired series, due to the lack of television content available to the network due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[109] Also in September, ViacomCBS announced that CBS All Access would be expanded and rebranded as Paramount+ in March 2021.[110] Existing episodes of the season remained on Paramount+ along with future seasons of the series.[111] In November 2021, ViacomCBS announced that it had bought back the international streaming rights to Discovery from Netflix effective immediately.[112] In August 2023, Star Trek content was removed from Crave and the season began streaming on Paramount+ in Canada. It would continue to be broadcast on CTV Sci-Fi and be available on CTV.ca and the CTV app.[113][114]
Broadcast breach[edit]
After reviewing the episode "Choose Your Pain", Space chose to air it uncensored despite its use of the word "fuck" and depictions of violence. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council received an official complaint about this given the channel aired the episode before 9 pm, since series intended for adult audiences should be shown after that time according to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Code of Ethics and Violence Code. The complainant, the council, and Space itself acknowledged that the use of the word was unexpected given the franchise's "51 year track record of being fairly clean with regards to its content." The Council found Space to have breached the regulations in not censoring the episode or scheduling it post-watershed, and required the channel to air an announcement stating as such twice during the week following April 19, 2018. At the time, Bell Media accepted the decision and agreed to comply with the ruling, but did not indicate any intention to change their approach to broadcasting future seasons of the series.[115]
Home media[edit]
The season was released on DVD and Blu-Ray formats in the U.S. on November 13, 2018. The release included two hours of bonus features, including deleted and extended scenes, and behind-the-scenes featurettes.[116] On November 2, 2021, a home media box set collecting the first three seasons of Discovery was released, with more than eight hours of special features including behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted and extended scenes, audio commentaries, and gag reels.[117]
Reception[edit]
Ratings and viewership[edit]
According to Nielsen Media Research, the CBS broadcast of the first episode was watched by a "decent" audience of 9.5 million viewers.[118][119] The premiere of the series led to record subscriptions for All Access, with the service attributing its biggest day, week, and month of signups to the debut of Star Trek: Discovery.[120] According to "app analytics specialist" App Annie, the premiere of the series caused the number of downloads of the All Access mobile app to more than double. Following a 7-day trial period for new subscribers, revenue from the app for CBS doubled on October 1 compared to the average in-app revenue during the previous 30 days.[108]