It’s a fairly grim fall for new TV shows, if we’re being honest (and we’re not the only ones to notice this phenomenon). There’s some exciting stuff coming to be sure — “Mindhunter,” “Godless,” “She’s Gotta Have It.” But we’ve already been disappointed once this season by the extremely dispiriting second run of “Top Of The Lake,” and for every show that seems promising, it seems like there are two where Jeremy Piven solves murders with crowdfunding or something.
Still, one of the ones that we’re certainly most intrigued by is “Star Trek: Discovery.” The first new TV show in Gene Roddenberry’s seminal sci-fi franchise in sixteen years has had a tumultuous gestation period — a premiere date delayed almost a year, and the departure of its much-lauded showrunner Bryan Fuller early in the process.
But as its premiere date gets closer, we’re undoubtedly getting more excited (and that’s even as someone who’s never watched an episode of “Star Trek” in their life, only the movies). The cast, which is headlined by “The Walking Dead” actress Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh, seems promising, Trek veteran Nicholas Meyer is writing on the show, and trailers have looked pretty good, suggesting a hybrid of the bones of the TV series with the flash visuals of the rebooted films.
We’re now just a couple of weeks from the show’s debut, and to celebrate that, the first clips have arrived courtesy of Den Of Geek. The first sees Martin-Green’s Commander Michael Burnham and Yeoh’s Captain Philippa Georgiou on a desert planet before their ship, the USS Shenzhou, makes an impressive entrance, the second sees Burnham square off against a Klingon for the first time.
Can the show live up to hopes? Does the presence of Akiva Goldsman among the writers and producers doom it? We’ll find out when “Star Trek: Discovery” airs on CBS All Access beginning September 24th (and in most of the rest of the world on Netflix from then too). Watch the clips below.