Bryan Fuller has departed his prized day-to-day showrunner job at Star Trek: Discovery. But apparently he got quite a bit done before vacating his office, including writing the show’s first two episodes, and casting nearly all the major parts.
Well, except for the lead.
CBS and new showrunners Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts are seeking an actress who will play the lead in the sixth Star Trek series, described by Variety simply as a young lieutenant commander. That would be the lowest rank of a Star Trek lead character in the television franchise’s 50 years, putting her at the level of Brent Spiner’s Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation or Terry Farrell’s Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
It was Deep Space Nine, in fact, that had the lowest-ranked lead for a series as Avery Brooks’ Benjamin Sisko started as a commander (to ensure at the time only one Star Trek series had a captain, Patrick Stewart’s Picard in The Next Generation).