It hasn't even made it to our screens, but it looks like Star Trek Discovery may be in distress.

A report by Variety late last night confirmed that Bryan Fuller, the showrunner behind the series, is stepping back from his role in order to more fully commit himself to Neil Gaiman's American Gods for Starz and a reboot of Amazing Stories for NBC. In his stead, Fuller has put Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts - two writers he worked with on Pushing Daisies - in charge of day-to-day running whilst Fuller will continue to create stories and generally shepherd the whole thing as executive producer.

Discovery's premiere date was initially expected to be January 2017, with the shows streaming in Ireland on Netflix right after their US Premiere. That's since been pushed back to May 2017, with filming due to commence next month. A statement from CBS said that Fuller will remain as "an executive producer, and will continue to map out the story arc for the entire season." Variety's sources stress that CBS were happy with Fuller's work, but that he simply had too much on his plate to deal with and moving the premiere date again simply wasn't an option for anyone.

"Bryan is a brilliant creative talent and passionate ‘Star Trek’ fan, who has helped us chart an exciting course for the series. We are all committed to seeing this vision through and look forward to premiering ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ this coming May 2017."

The scuttlebutt also suggests that one of the big areas that CBS and Fuller were stressing over was the fact that the lead character of the show - a female Lieutenant Commander - has yet to be officially cast. The reports are that almost all of the supporting cast are locked in, but that the lead of the show is still up in the air and filming is just to kick off next month.

So, thoughts? It's a crying shame that Fuller isn't more heavily involved as he cut his teeth on Star Trek and seemed so genuinely enthusiastic about the show. The fact that he's still saying on as an executive producer and has a hand in the major plotlines and the like is positive, but you do get the sense that things aren't exactly going smoothly aboard the Discovery.

Of course, if you want a really good story about how things can go crazy on the first season, look up Chaos On The Bridge!, a brilliant little documentary about the rocky first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

 

Via Variety