We were surprised – but not shocked – to learn yesterday that STAR TREK: DISCOVERY has been pushed out to a May 2017 start date, after producers Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman decided they would not have enough time to produce a quality product by the planned January debut.

In a media conference today, CBS president Les Moonves touched a bit on the scheduling change for the upcoming Trek spin-off series.

We’ve delayed our ‘Star Trek’ [launch] ’til May. For those who think that’s something to be worried about, let me assure you: it’s not. The producers came into my office last week and begged me – they said, “We are creating an entire universe; you know how fanatical ‘Star Trek’ fans are. We’re creating this universe, we need a couple more months to get the effects right, to get the world right. PLEASE let us have until May.” With ‘Star Trek,’ which is the family jewels, I’d rather it be a few months late – and great – than than early, and not great. Because we will suffer for it. So we made the decision to give them the time to make their perfect ‘Star Trek,’ which we are wildly anticipating. In addition, we have the ‘Good Wife’ spin-off, which was going to be ready earlier, so basically we just flipped their position [on] our calendar.

While there are some fans who have expressed concerns (and complaints) that this delay means only bad things for DISCOVERY, a great deal of reaction on social media appears to be some unsurprised relief that the show will have some more time to coalesce behind-the-scenes ahead of the public debut – and we’re inclined to agree.

In addition to the production team’s need for more time, CBS now has four additional months to roll out the “larger marketing push” that Moonves predicted back in March, as well as spread the CBS All Access streaming app to more platforms – such as Smart TVs and other devices which are missing the app from their services – before the May 2017 arrival of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY.