US network CBS has announced it's planning a brand new series of Star Trek for January 2017.
The new series will premiere with a special preview broadcast on CBS, before it and all subsequent episodes will then be available exclusively in the United States on CBS All Access, its digital subscription video on demand and live streaming service.
The new Star Trek will also be distributed on TV and other platforms around the world by CBS Studios International.
CBS says the new series 'will introduce new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966'.
It wil be executive produced by Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote and produced the blockbuster films Star Trek (2009) with Roberto Orci, and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) with Orci and Damon Lindelof. Both films were produced and directed by JJ Abrams.
The new series will be produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout. Kurtzman and Heather Kadin will serve as executive producers. Kurtzman is also an executive producer for the hit CBS television series SCORPION and LIMITLESS, along with Kadin and Orci, and for HAWAII FIVE-0 with Orci.
Star Trek first broadcast in 2016 and has become one of the most successful and enduring TV franchises of all time.
David Stapf, president of CBS Television Studios, said: “There is no better time to give Star Trek fans a new series than on the heels of the original show’s 50th anniversary celebration. Everyone here has great respect for this storied franchise, and we’re excited to launch its next television chapter in the creative mind and skilled hands of Alex Kurtzman, someone who knows this world and its audience intimately.”
“This new series will premiere to the national CBS audience, then boldly go where no first-run ‘Star Trek’ series has gone before – directly to its millions of fans through CBS All Access,” said Marc DeBevoise, executive vice president/general manager of CBS Digital Media.
The new series has no relationship to the upcoming feature film Star Trek Beyond, which is scheduled to be distributed by Paramount Pictures next summer.
It will be the first new Stark Trek TV series since Enterprise, which ran to 20015.
