Star Trek: Discovery went big at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, taking over the legendary Hall H and offering a season-two sneak peek and details about Star Trek: Short Treks. On hand from Discovery were cast members Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, Mary Chieffo and Anson Mount, as well as executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin, along with panel moderator and season two guest star, Tig Notaro.

First, fans were treated to a sneak peek at the show’s upcoming second season, with footage introduced by series co-creator and executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who directed the season-two premiere.

“Bless you.” Above: Lt. Nhan (Rachael Ancheril), Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Linus (David Benjamin Tomlinson), Saru (Doug Jones) and Lt. Connolly (Sean Connolly Affleck).

If you recall, at the end of season one, the USS Discovery was last seen in a rendezvous with the USS Enterprise. Apparently, Spock – who has conveniently taken a leave of absence from the Enterprise so neither we nor Burnham can see him – is connected to a significant new cosmic threat, with strange anomalies popping up throughout Federation space, necessitating an urgent response from the Enterprise and now the Discovery, which Captain Pike wants to take command of. What does poor Saru have to do to become captain?!

Before Discovery returns for its second season, CBS also revealed it will release four “Short Treks” minisodes, which will be approximately 10-15 minutes long and cover many of our favourite secondary characters.

Rainn Wilson will return to play Harry Mudd in a short he will also direct and Aldis Hodge will star in another as Craft, a man who finds himself the only human on board a deserted ship. Additional episodes will include a deep dive into Saru’s backstory as the first Kelpien to join Starfleet, plus Tilly’s journey aboard the USS Discovery and her friendship with an unlikely partner.

“There is no shortage of compelling stories to tell in the Star Trek universe that inspire, entertain, and either challenge our preconceived ideas or affirm long held beliefs, and we are excited to broaden the universe already with Short Treks,” said Kurtzman.

“Each episode will deliver closed-ended stories while revealing clues about what’s to come on in future Star Trek: Discovery episodes. They’ll also introduce audiences to new characters who may inhabit the larger world of Star Trek.”

Other notable announcements from the SDCC panel include confirmation of several members of the Enterprise crew appearing in the season – including Rebecca Romijn (The Punisher, X-Men) as Number One, a character played by Majel Barrett in the original pilot episode for Star Trek, “The Cage” – and the return of actor Wilson Cruz, who will reprise his role as the Discovery’s Chief Medical Officer Hugh Culber…despite the fact that the character was controversially killed off in the first season.

The second season will also visit Saru’s homeworld and continue to explore the Klingon storyline established in season one surrounding L’Rell’s ascendancy to the position of Chancellor on the Klingon Homeworld.

There was no mention of Section 31…so we don’t know yet if that clandestine arm of Starfleet is involved with the afore mentioned cosmic threat, despite the tease some time ago of “Section 31 Bridge Blueprints“.

Fans are already speculating that the “red bursts” are in some way linked to the dreadful 2009 JJ Abrams reboot, especially since they also seemed to be linked to Spock.

The Kelvin Timeline was a lazy and misguided attempt to reinvent the characters for the sake of novelty by using a red matter deus ex machina and time travel. None of that was necessary.

So we sincerely hope that is not the way Star Trek: Discovery is going.

Season 2 will beam onto our screens via CBS All Access in the US, Space Channel in Canada and Netflix for the rest of Earth in early 2019.

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