Star Trek: Discovery season 3 is boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before — into the future.
When Discovery returns to CBS All Access for its third season, it will pick up where season 2 left off, with the U.S.S. Discovery jumping over 900 years into the future. That’s the farthest forward in time that any Trek series has been set, and means that the show will be breaking new canonical ground.
The huge time jump sparked a ton of questions that season 3 will have to address. Does the United Federation of Planets still exist? What’s the state of the universe? What kinds of new friends and enemies will the Discovery crew find in the future?
Here’s everything we know about Star Trek: Discovery season 3, including its release date, cast, plot and more.
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Star Trek: Discovery season 3 release date: When is it coming out?
Star Trek: Discovery season 3 does not yet have a solid release date, but it's set to stream on CBS All Access sometime in 2020.
Filming for season 3 began in July 2019, and production concluded in mid-January 2020.
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Editing, visual effects and other post-production work will require at least several months to complete. And with CBS All Access airing new episodes of Star Trek: Picard until late March, the earliest that Star Trek: Discovery season 3 could debut is April 2020.
Is there a Star Trek: Discovery season 3 trailer?
A teaser trailer for Star Trek: Discovery season 3 was unveiled at New York Comic-Con in October 2019.
Star Trek: Discovery season 3 cast: Who’s in it?
The finale of Star Trek: Discovery season 2 was a major shake-up for the series. It sent the Discovery and its crew over 900 years into the future.
Everybody on the ship when it time-traveled is almost certain to return for season 3. That includes cast members Sonequa Martin-Green as Cmdr. Michael Burnham, Doug Jones as Cmdr. Saru, Anthony Rapp as Lt. Cmdr. Paul Stamets, Mary Wiseman as Ensign Sylvia Tilly and Wilson Cruz as Dr. Hugh Culber.
Also on board and likely to reprise their roles are Michelle Yeoh as Operative Philippa Georgiou, Tig Notaro as Cmdr. Jett Reno, Rachael Ancheril as Cmdr. Nhan, Emily Coutts as Lt. Keyla Detmer, Ronnie Rowe as Lt. R.A. Bryce, Oyin Oladejo as Lt. Joann Owosekun and Patrick Kwok-Choon as Lt. Gen Rhys.
At San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019, Star Trek: Discovery season 3 announced a major new cast member, David Ajala, who will play Cleveland “Book” Booker. The show's official description describes him as “smart and capable” with “a natural charisma and devil-may-care attitude that tends to get him into trouble as often as it gets him out.”
Ajala's co-star Martin-Green welcomed him to the cast in this video:
Indian actor Adil Hussain is also joining the cast, as an unnamed character who is seen talking to Burnham in a stark white office in the season 3 teaser trailer.
Since the Discovery went into the future, it’s unclear if we’ll see anyone who wasn’t on the ship at the time. That includes Capt. Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck), Sarek (James Frain) and Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif).
Star Trek: Discovery season 3 plot: What to expect
Discovery’s aforementioned 900-plus-year leap into the future occurred as part of a plan to defeat Control, an evil AI that would have wiped out all life in the universe, had it become sentient.
That time jump will take Discovery far from established canon. As Star Trek: Discovery co-creator Alex Kurtzman told The Hollywood Reporter, there is “an entirely new energy for season three with a whole new set of problems.”
Co-showrunner Michelle Paradise told TrekMovie: “We’re going 930 years into the future, so we’re taking expectations and alliances and enemies and all of those things and putting them in a blender and mixing it all up and seeing what’s going to happen. It’s going to be very interesting, I think.”
Paradise revealed that the Federation still exists in the future but is going through “a bit of a rough patch.”
The Discovery’s spore drive will continue to be a factor, since it’s still the only ship with one even in the future. Other people will want the technology, making the Discovery a target.
While not much else is known about Star Trek: Discovery season 3, Kurtzman did drop one plot tidbit. “We are going to Trill this year,” he said at Paleyfest. As Trek fans will recall, the Trill were first introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation. More was revealed about the alien species in Deep Space Nine, through the character of Dax.
Star Trek: Discovery season 3 set photos: What we’ve seen so far
Star Trek: Discovery season 3 does not have any photos from the set so far. Check back for updates.
