It’s safe to say Star Trek: Discovery will end up different from Bryan Fuller’s vision; especially the initial pitch of an AHS-style anthology visiting different eras. Now, Fuller’s replacement Aaron Harberts details how the anthology might have gone, and whether CBS might try again.

It was back in July we learned that Fuller initially pitched CBS on several serialized anthology shows that would begin with Discovery, go through Kirk and Picard eras, and eventually “beyond to a time in Trek that’s never been seen before.” CBS naturally wanted to start smaller with one series, and Harbarts told IGN that Fuller’s vision may have jumped around quite a bit:

People have different ways of defining anthology. What Bryan’s hope was was to try to find – to try to Marvel-ize the Star Trek universe, in success. Have a writer on Star Trek: Discovery do a three-episode arc on a sliver of Next Gen that maybe you haven’t seen before. Or a little runner about what happened to [Discovery’s main character] Michael Burnham in her teenage years on Vulcan. Just trying to find opportunities to fill out the universe as it were, bring in writers who might not be on staff at the show, and just start kind of plotting different storylines.

That sounds closer to supplemental material, or a short stories collection than any one series, so we’re not surprised to see Discovery keeping its premise more central. All the same, Harberts wouldn’t shoot down the possibility that CBS ends up revisiting the anthology idea, perhaps between seasons:

I think it could happen – I think a lot of it depends on how Discovery does. And one thing that I’ve learned is, and truly, I’ve said this up and down the halls. People will be like, you can’t shut up about that: Star Trek is really bigger than all of us. And so there may be a plan for it at CBS that I’m not aware of. They may have a plan.

In the meantime, CBS is keeping Star Trek: Discovery pretty hush-hush before next week’s premiere, but is the pre-Kirk premise enough to carry on the franchise’s legacy?

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