Star Trek Discovery season 3: Release date, cast, plot, trailer and everything you need to know

Note: contains spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek: Discoveryseason two was beamed to your respective streaming devices back on January 18 in the UK, just one day after its US broadcast. But after wrapping up in April, our sights are firmly focused on the next mission, which has officially been confirmed.

"The massive success of Star Trek: Discovery's second season launch exceeded our expectations in both driving subscriber growth and generating a phenomenal response from Star Trek fans," said Julie McNamara, executive vice president of original content at CBS All Access, in a statement.

"With [showrunners] Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise at the helm, we look forward to continuing Star Trek: Discovery's journey, growing the Star Trek franchise on CBS All Access and bringing fans new Star Trek stories for many years to come."

Despite the fact that time travel has been deemed impossible by the Vulcan Science Directorate, we're still going to journey into the future to have a good guess about what we can expect from Discovery season three, because we're impatient like that.

So, join us on our quest for knowledge, as we compile all the latest information for a regularly updated feature that Trekkers will definitely want to bookmark and check back on.

Star Trek Discovery season 3 release date: When will it air?

Season one premiered in September 2018, with season two dropping at the beginning of this year. But whether we'll get the next batch of episodes in 2019 is currently up in the air.

"Picard is in the middle of shooting, we've broken the season and I am so happy with the scripts," Kurtzman told Deadline's Crew Call podcast. "We are on episode five of season three of Discovery. We're far along. Picard is [filming] here in Los Angeles and Discovery is in Toronto, and future Trek shows I believe will be in Toronto."

Gretchen J Berg and Aaron Harberts were working to Bryan Fuller's schedule for the first season (they replaced him as showrunners in 2016), and then they made way for Kurtzman and Paradise.

Kurtzman added: "Michelle [Paradise] joined us midway through season two and energised the room with her ferocious knowledge of Trek.

"Her grasp of character and story detail, her drive and her focus have already become essential in ensuring the Trek legacy, and her fresh perspective always keeps us looking forward.

"I'm proud to say Michelle and I are officially running Star Trek: Discovery together."

These shows take a lot of time to put together, so we'd say January 2020 is the earliest we can expect to see season three.

Star Trek Discovery season 3 cast: Who's in it?

When we left season two, the following were all present and correct, which means we'd expect to see them in the next chapter: Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), Saru (Doug Jones), Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Nhan (Rachael Ancheril), Dr Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), Nilsson (Sara Mitich), Gen Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon), Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts), Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo), RA Bryce (Ronnie Rowe), Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) and Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh).

Speaking of Yeoh, there was concern that she could be too busy with her own Star Trek show, Section 31, but the spin-off will reportedly start filming after Discovery – so hopefully she will back.

And we'd be very surprised if new additions Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and Ethan Peck (Spock) are shoved into a torpedo casket and launched into space, so expect them to be back too.

Star Trek: Discovery season 3 plot: What can we expect?

Speaking of Spock, expect the character to be very different in season three to the one we met in season two.

"Part of what I love about the opportunity of this season is that it is the untold chapter of Spock," executive producer Alex Kurtzman said. "And we can only tell it this season."

"Spock has experienced something in the signals and the red angel that has broken his logical brain. He cannot figure it out and he is emotionally ill-equipped to deal with it. So both logic and emotion are failing him completely and he is not the character we know at the beginning of TOS.

"This is really about how Spock becomes that character and evolves into the Spock we know from TOS. And the unwritten chapter is the chapter he shares with his sister.

"Through their relationship and the difficulties they've had with each other, Spock figures out where on the line between logic and emotion he lives, or how to hold them both in balance or who he wants to be."

It sounds to us like Spock will be in a very different place at the beginning of season three.

Of course, the addition of such a significant character highlights a major narrative problem – why does Spock never mention having a sibling bond with Michael Burnham in the original series?

"We are syncing up with canon [this season]," Alex Kurtzman said. "We know we’re 10 years pre-TOS but there are a lot of big questions.

"Like, how come Spock is never mentioned as half-sister of Michael Burnham? This season is all about understanding what that relationship is. By the end of the season, we will be synced up with canon."

So, with the CBS series serving as a prequel to the original Star Trek, set ten years before the adventures of Kirk and Spock, expect season three of the series to tie even more closely to plot points in the original Trek once it's completely synced up.

Kurtzman said at San Diego Comic Con on 21 July: "Obviously we made a pretty radical jump into the future at the end of season two – we're going almost a 1000 years into the future in season three, which is crazy. Further than any Trek series has ever gone before."

He added: "Part of the fun of it is that we get to honour canon but shake it up hugely."

Star Trek: Discovery season 3 trailer: When will it land?

Expect your first look at season three this weekend at Comic-Con, because that's what happened for season two and we predict the showrunners will follow the same pattern.

As soon as it arrives, we'll chuck it into this feature, so keep coming back for all the latest updates.

Until then, you can enjoy the latest season two trailer above.

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Source: www.digitalspy.com