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The new Star Trek TV series has found the perfect showrunner: Bryan Fuller, best known for Hannibal and Pushing Daisies, as well as the upcoming American Gods adaptation.
Fuller is a longtime Star Trek fan, beginning his career as a writer for Deep Space Nine and Voyager. He has spoken a few times about wanting to bring Star Trek back to the small screen, but until recently that didn’t look like a serious option. Then CBS announced a brand new series last November, and Fuller was evidently their first choice to take charge.
In 2013, Fuller said that his dream casting would be Angela Bassett as the starship captain and Rosario Dawson as her first officer. That specific casting is unlikely to happen in real life—he was just spitballing in an interview three years ago—but it already gives us an idea of how Fuller’s Star Trek may differ from the J.J. Abrams reboot movies.
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The new series is set to begin in early 2017, with Alex Kurtzman (cowriter of 2009’s Star Trek and its sequel Star Trek Into Darkness) as executive producer. But despite his involvement, fans shouldn’t expect any tie-ins with the current direction of the movie franchise, which is a separate entity.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Kurtzman said, “Bringing Star Trek back to television means returning it to its roots, and for years those roots flourished under Bryan’s devoted care. His encyclopedic knowledge of Trek canon is surpassed only by his love for Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic future, a vision that continues to guide us as we explore strange new worlds.”
Until its cancellation last year, Hannibal was frequently lauded as one of the best shows on network TV. This, combined with Fuller’s personal love of Star Trek, makes him a very exciting choice to revitalize the franchise after more than a decade off the air.
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