Star Trek has been growing these past six months, from the moment that franchise overseer Alex Kurtzman landed a massive five-year deal with CBS to manage a planned expansion of the Trek universe with the studio.
Since early summer, we’ve gotten a series of new short adventures set in the realm of Star Trek: Discovery, the bombshell announcement that Patrick Stewart is returning as Jean-Luc Picard in a new series, the reveal of the animated comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks which is in development now… and a new report signals that another live-action series could be in the works as well.
On Friday, Deadline Hollywood reported that Star Trek: Discovery actor Michelle Yeoh — who portrayed the late Captain Georgiou and returned late in Season 1 as her royal duplicate from the Mirror Universe — may be in negotiations for her own Trek spin-off series, following the former Terran Empire through her adventures as a member of Section 31.
The character was recruited into Section 31 following the events of “Will You Take My Hand?,” as revealed in the ‘secret scene’ former Discovery showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg debuted back at WonderCon all the way back in March, where the mysterious Leland (Alan Van Sprang) tracked down Georgiou on Qo’noS to invite her to join the clandestine organization.
Before being introduced in Discovery, Section 31 originated in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, made a brief appearance in the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise, and later factored into the plot of 2013’s Kelvin Timeline film Star Trek Into Darkness. It has also been the focus of an ongoing series of novels set in the prime Trek universe, culminating in last year’s Section 31: Control.
Yeoh, who appeared in eight episodes of the show last year, is already set to return in Discovery Season 2, seen in the newest trailer encountering Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) on the USS Discovery and travelling back to the Klingon homeworld.
While there’s been no comment from CBS Television Studios on the report, Deadline does note that Yeoh’s busy schedule may be a hurdle in landing the actor for a full-time series role, due to commitments to a planned Crazy Rich Asians sequel and an overall development deal inked with her production company earlier in 2018.
So will this Yeoh-led Star Trek series make it to actual production? Well, we’ll have to wait and see — but new CBS head Joe Ianniello, who is leading the company following the departure of former CEO Les Moonves — told investors on last week’s corporate earnings call that the company “expect[s] to have more Star Trek announcements coming shortly.”
What are your thoughts on the concept of a Georgiou-centric Section 31 Star Trek series? Let us know in the comments below!