Screen-Trek round-up: Discovery season 3 home video, and latest updates from SNW, Picard, Georgiou, and movies

With multiple Star Trek TV series currently in production, and the promise of a new movie, there's a fairly steady stream of news coming from the on-screen portion of Star Trek lately. Continue below for a round-up of the latest from Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Picard, the Section 31 show, and movies.

First up, CBS Home Entertainment have released cover art for the forthcoming home video release of Discovery season 3(ad). While the season is already available for pre-order, a little oddly it's not yet clear when those orders will be fulfilled, as a release date hasn't yet been revealed - UPDATE: CBS Home Entertainment's Facebook page says 20th of July (thanks Star Trek Pike on Twitter). Nor have details of the extra features. But this is what the case will look like at least, for bluray(ad) or DVD(ad) editions:

There will also be a steelbook version of the bluray, in an interesting dark version of the 32nd century Federation flag:

Looking to what is currently shooting, Strange New Worlds showrunner Akira Goldsman recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about production, including this little nugget that we can expect some slight revisions to the Enterprise sets and costumes for the new series:

There are a few more reach-backs (to The Original Series) and the uniforms have been adjusted slightly, the sets are slightly different. Remember the Enterprise existed as a little piece of [the show Discovery], but now it's its own object. When you close your eyes and think of the key sets and situations that you think of The Original Series, that's what we're looking to do.

 

Goldsman is also one of the co-creators of Picard, and spoke a little about production on that series too. Pointedly he noted that one of the lessons learned from the first season was:

Figure out the end earlier. If you're going to do a serialized show, you have the whole story before you start shooting. It's more like a movie in that way — you better know the end of your third act before you start filming your first scene.

He also suggested we can look forward to a Q that has evolved with age much as Picard himself has:

[Co-showrunner] Terry Matalas and I don't pretend that the interstitial years didn't happen. No, obviously, chronological time is less relevant to Q. The time between shows is probably not even the blink of an eye in Q time — if you even have Q time. But we definitely chose to follow suit when it came to him. So as we tried to evolve the other characters, the same is true of Q. This is a show of a different time with actors of a different age. We're now talking about the issues that come up in the last [stage] of your life. We wanted a Q that could play in that arena with Picard.

TrekMovie also uncovered some quotes from Q actor John de Lancie, who has been revealing little snippets about production as part of Cameo videos he has been publishing. Notably he revealed they are shooting seasons two and three back-to-back, as transcribed by TrekMovie:

...for the last two weeks I have been filming on Picard and really annoying Picard – really annoying him. [laughs] Patrick was delighted to see me for the first couple of days and after a couple of more days of really annoying scenes, he said, “SO, how many episodes are you doing?” In other words, ‘When are you going to get out of my face?’ And the answer is six episodes. I think they are going to be coming out – actually I don’t know. But we are shooting season two and three all at the same time right now.

Aside from Discovery, currently shooting season four, there's one other live action show we're waiting on news from, the Emperor Georgiou/Section 31 spin-off. News on this series has been pretty limited, and it seems Strange New Worlds jumped the queue to take it's place as the first Disco spin-off. Speaking recently to The Pod Directive, the official Star Trek podcast, Georgiou actor Michelle Yeoh speculated a little about the possibility of a Georgiou-Burnham reunion at some point, despite them being split by time, and possibly realities, via the Guardian of Forever:

I think when she went through the portal that time, for me it’s like saying [...] "Goodbye, until we meet again". Because you know, this is Star Trek, who knows? One day Emperor Georgiou is going to find out that Michael Burnham is like in dire straits, or the other way around, and something has to be done; I don’t know, but I’m just putting it out there… 

What she didn't do was straight up confirm her imminent return to the role in the expected spin-off, but did firmly promise there is more to come from her:

I think there's so much more possibilities for Georgiou, and I know my executive producers and showrunners and writers have a lot more things in store for such an amazing character.

Meanwhile speaking to Variety, head of all things TV-Trek Alex Kurtzman had this interesting thought on TV and movie alignment:

I think vertical alignment has made it so that it’s impossible not to accept the reality that the line between movies and television is gone. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a feature that is separate from television. But if they aren’t connected in some way, then you’re basically running two universes parallel as opposed to interconnected, and I think that those messages could potentially cancel each other out.

While this comment wasn't specially about Trek, given his position you've got to wonder what conversions inside ViacomCBS this quote might be bouncing off, especially just as a new movie has been announced. Certainly co-ordination is on his mind within the TV realm, as he also revealed there is now a monthly showrunners meeting to keep everything in alignment between the various in-production series.

Several Star Trek movie projects have been in development over the last few years, and one was to be written and directed by Noah Hawley. His frequent musical collaborator just happens to be Star Trek composer Jeff Russo, and the pair had already started thinking about music for the film project before it was "paused" last year. Russo recently spoke to TrekMovie, and summarised his feeling about the script he had read:

I did read the script. And I had already started talking about what the music was going to be. We talked pretty in depth. We always do that before a project.

I mean it was different in its voice because Noah has a voice – his writing voice. So in that way, it may have had a different feel. But it was a very Star Trek story. And it was a very interesting way to tell that Star Trek story, which is what made me so excited about it and had me inspired to write music already for it. The way he explained it to me made me feel like the fans are going to lose their mind. It literally felt like that, to me. Lose their mind… I read the script and my call to him was the fans are going to lose their mind, because of just what the story was.

Another movie was just recently announced for 2023 release. It's not yet clear whether this means the various other projects, including Hawley's are all now forgotten for good, or might still resurface at some point.

You can find all current and future TV Treks, in the US at least, on Paramount+(ad). In Canada look to Bell Media services, while in the rest of the world Trek is split, so far, between Netflix and Amazon Prime Video(ad).

For more Star Trek TV and film updates, check by through my coverage on the TV and movies tags, or those for each of the current series: Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Short Treks.