Star Trek: Discovery Will Stick With Bryan Fuller's Original Vision

Star Trek: Discovery raised a lot of red flags when it was announced late last year that original showrunner Bryan Fuller was leaving the series to devote his attention to finishing American Gods for Starz.

Akiva Goldsman stepped into the showrunner role for Trek, but many have wondered how much of the original vision created by Fuller -- who made his name as a writer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager -- would remain on screen when the show premieres on Sept. 24. Executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who created the Discovery story with Fuller, is adamant that the crew of Discovery respects Fuller so much.

"The first thing that I'll say about Bryan is that someone once described him to me as a unicorn, meaning there's only one of him and he's extraordinary," Kurtzman told TV Guide on the Star Trek: Discovery red carpet at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday "It's the truth. He really is an incredible, incredible visionary. We worked together for a while and there is no greater Star Trek fan than Bryan. Truly in his bones, he is a Trekker."

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Fuller's original plan for the series included having a black woman as No. 1 on the call sheet and an openly gay character. Both of those things have been checked off with Sonequa Martin-Green headlining the series as First Officer Michael Burnham and Anthony Rapp on the bridge as the openly gay science officer Lt. Stamets. Kurtzman continued to say that the series has done everything they could to bring Fuller's ideas to life.

"[Bryan] made what was a very difficult choice for him. [American] Gods was a very consuming process for him and he did not want to compromise Trek in any way," he said. "We have done everything possible to really live in the vision and the course that he set. He and I did the story together, but he had some incredibly great, big ideas for the course of Season 1 and some things to be set up in Season 2. We've really done everything we can to protect and preserve that."

Star Trek: Discovery premieres Sept. 24 on CBS before moving exclusively to CBS All Access.

(Full disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS)