Better keep that nerd-belt buckled...

Spoiler alert: The past of the
future is here...again!

But...but...wah? Ok, look, I'm sorry about posting twice in a row about my fannish obsession with Star Trek, but in addition to the new movie, we nerds have been waiting to hear about the series which starts next year. There've been rumors and speculation about what the deal is. Is it another reboot, a next-next generation? Would it be set in the new movie continuity or the Prime timeline (vanilla canon)? What? And today we might have got some answers. Click here to see the teaser trailer released at Comic-Con.

"I can confirm that the show will
be set in space...maybe."

-Fuller, just fucking with us

Sigh. While show runner Bryan Fuller is still being cagey about the details, he did announce that the show will be called Star Trek: Discovery and that it would be set in the Prime timeline but he won't say when. So who cares? You might be asking yourself aloud. Well I can't hear you, but let's say that's what you said. The answer is nerds care. A lot. And thanks to our encyclopedic knowledge of trek minutia we can make some educated guesses from the teaser. Oh, and brace yourself, I'm about to lay down some geekery and I'm not sure you'll be able to respect me afterwards.

The titular Discovery (the starship in the trailer), isn't another Enterprise, but it isn't totally new either. Instead it looks a lot like some unused Ralph McQuarrie concept art for an un-produced Star Trek series from the 70's.

Fun fact: Ralph McQuarrie worked on the original Star Wars movies as well, which explains
why his concept looks like the Starship Enterprise got it on with an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Yeah ok, not that nerdy,
but close. damn close.

And that's fine, it's not my favorite, but I can get over it. The ship's registry number however is 1031; lower than Kirk's Enterprise suggesting that the series will be situated sometime before Captain Kirk but well after Captain Archer which, and I'm going to get super-speculatey here, might help explain why Paramount came down so hard on that fan production, Axanar. It was set during some pre-TOS war with the Klingons and I'm wondering if that's ground the new show will cover. Get me, I'm like a nerdier Sherlock Holmes.

And then evil Archer fought a Gorn
on a ship from the future of another
universe. Nope, I'm not making that up.

Anyway, I get that I'm totally making assumptions based on like a minute of teaser footage and I could be totally be misreading it, but the idea that this is another prequel is kind of a letdown. I didn't hate Star Trek: Enterprise, but it did tend to rely too heavily on references to other, better Star Trek episodes. Like, there was once a two-parter about how Klingons in the original series didn't have the forehead ridges but do on TNG. Turns out that it has to do with Khan and Data's creator's grandpa. Yeah, Star Trek was eating itself for awhile there.

It seems like Star Trek is about the future and when they keep going back to the past of the future, it kind of feels, you know, like the past...confused? Me too. But whatever, I suppose we should just have faith in the seriously amazing talents of Bryan Fuller and Nicholas Myers to put together something creative and awesome so finger crossed.

Yeah, I've got faith...faith of the heart. Holy shit,
I will never forgive them for that theme song.