Star Trek: Discovery has only been on the air for a month, but the show has already been granted a second season.
CBS made the announcement on Monday, assuring fans that the series’ inaugural season will not be its last. “In just six episodes, Star Trek: Discovery has driven subscriber growth, critical acclaim and huge global fan interest for the first premium version of this great franchise,” CBS Interactive’s president and chief operating officer, Marc DeBevoise, told The Hollywood Reporter. “This series has a remarkable creative team and cast who have demonstrated their ability to carry on the Star Trek legacy. We are extremely proud of what they’ve accomplished and are thrilled to be bringing fans a second season of this tremendous series.”
Thanks to the show’s strong critical reception (the series holds a “certified fresh” rating of 82 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), the decision to renew may seem like a no-brainer, but it was hardly a sure thing. As the first Star Trek TV series since Enterprise came to an end in 2005, it was unclear how Star Trek would fare on the current television landscape. That hurdle, coupled with a fandom that wasn’t crazy about some of the show’s decisions or CBS’s recent history of lawsuits involving fan-made films, along with the series’ troubled and lengthy production (its release was delayed numerous times) made just getting people to tune in a bit of an uphill battle. Then there’s the biggest elephant in the room: CBS All Access, the pay-to-play streaming service where the show is exclusively available, and that few subscribed to prior to Discovery‘s release.
But it looks like Discovery is good enough — and more importantly for CBS, popular enough — to overcome all of these challenges en route to a second season, which is expected in early 2019. And if it can maintain its success and continue to drive growth for CBS All Access, then we might even end up with some more Trek shows down the line, and isn’t that what we all really want?
