© 2017 CBS Interactive. All Rights Reserved(LOS ANGELES) — Once again, we’re boldly going where no one has gone before — Star Trek: Discovery premieres Sunday night on CBS, before moving over to the subscription-based CBS All Access streaming service.
This adventure, which takes place about 10 years before Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock’s five-year mission, which debuted on NBC in 1966, stars The Walking Dead‘s Sonequa Martin-Green, Harry Potter and Black Hawk Down veteran Jason Isaacs, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star Michelle Yeoh.
The original series famously tackled issues like racism and the Cold War, making hot-button issues more palatable because they were couched in Gene Roddenberry’s futuristic universe. Discovery‘s executive producer Alex Kurtzman says the show won’t be overtly political, but will echo the times in which we live, because that’s what Star Trek does: “I think that obviously events of the world of the last two years have been so intense, no matter what side of the political line you’re on. And Star Trek, at its best, has always been a mirror, and a reflection of the world that we live in.”
Discovery will be the first Trek series developed for a digital platform, something about which Kurtzman has mixed feelings, knowing people may be watching the show’s grand vistas on a mobile phone screen. “That hurts my heart about anything that we create at any point,” he admits, allowing, “it’s also the reality of the world we’re living in now.”
Ultimately, Kurtzman says, “the most important thing for us is the character stories, and the audience’s investment in the emotion.”
Discovery premieres Sunday night at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time on CBS.
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