The Longtime Star Trek Rule That Discovery Is Tossing Out

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The Star Trek franchise has been growing and evolving on the large and small screens alike since way back in the 1960s. When creator Gene Roddenberry first came up with the utopian society of Star Trek, he laid out guidelines that Trek characters should not conflict with each other, because what's the point of a utopia if people are still squabbling pettily? Well, as it turns out, the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery will be tossing out that old rule. Showrunner Aaron Harberts explained the decision, saying this:

We're trying to do stories that are complicated, with characters with strong points of view and strong passions. People have to make mistakes -- mistakes are still going to be made in the future. We're still going to argue in the future.

While the early years of Star Trek under Gene Roddenberry did feature conflict, it was usually between the crew of the Enterprise and the various alien species they encountered on their travels. Sure, Spock and Bones would disagree fundamentally sometimes, and there was the occasional case of mind control and/or body swapping that led to in-fighting on board, but the crew members were usually pretty cool with each other. It's possible that the red-shirted members would have gotten aggressive over time; they simply died so frequently that it was never much of an issue. Judging by Aaron Harberts' comments to EW, there will be impactful conflict among the ranks of the starship Discovery.

Of course, judging by the trailer for Star Trek: Discovery, there will be plenty of outside conflict as well. The Klingons seems to be getting up to some of their old tricks, and Michael at least seems to been on testy terms with Sarek (a.k.a., Spock's Vulcan father). Even if Discovery is set in the same universe as the series and movies of decades past, it seems that the status quo will be less utopian and more relatable to audiences.

Given the stakes that are clearly quite high, any mistakes made by Michael or any of the rest of the Discovery crew could have significant consequences. Bryan Fuller -- who got the series started before departing due to scheduling issues -- revealed a while ago that Discovery would be a much more serialized story than has been done on Star Trek series in the past. The plot will evidently touch on an event in the history of the Trek universe that has never been explored in-depth, so we should be in for an exciting first season.

Luckily, we don't have to wait too much longer to see Star Trek: Discovery hit CBS All Access. After many delays, CBS finally released a premiere date earlier this week. The new show will debut on Sunday, September 24 at 8:30 p.m. ET. September is still several months away, but after all the postponements, I'm happy to just have an official date. Our 2017 Netflix guide and our summer TV schedule can help you find all that you can watch while we all wait to discovery Discovery in the fall.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).