Star Trek fans have been waiting for years for a new set of adventures on the small screen, and CBS' upcoming Star Trek: Discovery is shaping up to be as amazing as we hoped it would be. Unfortunately, we'll be doing even more waiting for this prequel series, which has just been delayed for the umpteenth time by the studio, and it looks like The Walking Dead is partly to blame, since both series share a star in Sonequa Martin-Green.
Big casting news came out today for Star Trek: Discovery, but for everyone waiting since late 2015 for this show to come together, the bigger TCA announcement (via EW) was that the sci-fi adventures will not make its May premiere on CBS All Access as planned. And while there are other aspects involved, a big part of the reasoning is Sonequa Martin-Green, who was hired for the high-profile and mystery-cloaked lead role, will soon be seen back on The Walking Dead when Season 7 returns in February. Some execs were worried that it would cause confusion among consumers if a new Martin-Green series went into a heavy promotional campaign when she could still be seen on another show.
That might sound dumb, but they're not making blind assumptions about these things. Perhaps if Martin-Green had joined a straightforward legal drama on USA where she wears a blue wig, there would be less to worry about, but both Walking Dead and Discovery being genre shows doesn't help, despite the fact that no spaceships are zooming around the zombie apocalypse.
So not only is Sonequa Martin-Green's double-series distinction a bad thing for Star Trek: Discovery, but it has also been a bit of a calling card to Walking Dead fans that her character Sasha probably won't make it to Season 8. (The zombie series' contracts reportedly bar its actors from simultaneously starring in additional series.) So if Star Trek: Discovery is just about to kick off production for its delayed season, and it'll go on for months, so there won't be any time for her to get back into her Sasha gear for more Negan-hating.
The other issues that went into the decision to push the release date for Star Trek: Discovery involve getting the creative aspects of the series as perfect as possible, which are basically the same ones that postponed the earlier release window, as well as what made that initial date take as long as it did to get announced. With the change-ups behind the scenes and the casting in recent months, a lot of moving parts are finally in place, so everyone has to now make sure all of those angles are polished and executed properly.
Sadly, no replacement release window was announced, so now we're almost back to square one with Star Trek: Discovery, just with the knowledge that everything is actually in motion, even if it's going forward without co-creator Bryan Fuller. In the meantime, The Walking Dead returns to AMC for Season 7 on Sunday, February 12. Head to our midseason premiere schedule to see everything that The Walking Dead won't stop from hitting the small screen in the coming months.
