Rumor: Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 has been extended to 14 Episodes
The second season of Star Trek: Discovery arrives in just over a month and there are some new developments to report. We also have some reactions to this week’s Short Treks episode and more in our latest roundup of Disco Bits.
Mount says season 2 has been extended
The new Captain Pike, Anson Mount, is visiting the official Star Trek: The Original Series Set Tour, in Ticonderoga, NY this weekend. During his Q&A this afternoon, reported by TrekCore, Mount announced to the crowd that season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery has been expanded to include an additional episode.
Extending the season to 14 episodes is not entirely surprising. Shortly before production began in April, TrekMovie first reported that season two was scheduled to run 13 episodes, however, three months later one of the reasons cited for the dismissal of showrunners Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts was “leadership and operational issues” which included overruns, both in budget and timeliness. Over the summer it became clear the production was running behind, which is likely the reason why Jonathan Frakes ended up directing the ninth episode instead of the tenth, as originally planned.
Production on the second season was originally set to wrap in early November, but it has continued, picking up again after the (American) Thanksgiving holiday. The local Toronto TV and film production union website confirmed Discovery (under the codename “Green Harvest”) has been extended by nearly a month, to December 21. With the schedule slippage, CBS has already needed to extend their time at Pinewood Studios, so tacking on another episode would allow CBS to amortize the cost of production over more episodes. Discoveryseason 1 was expanded mid-production by two episodes for similar reasons.