The most exciting news in years for Trek fans was the announcement that Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) was taking the reins as showrunner on a new CBS series called Star Trek: Discovery. But now the series premiere has been delayed until May 2017 after originally being slated for January, and Fuller has stepped away from the project because he's so busy with other work.

The separation seems amicable. CBS says it is still committed to the project, and Fuller legitimately has his plate full with a forthcoming American Gods miniseries and a new Amazing Stories show. Still, it's not great to see such a visionary writer step away from a series that sounds so promising.

We already know that Discovery will focus on the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery, whose starship explored the galaxy before Kirk was captain of the Enterprise. The lead will be a female lieutenant commander not yet cast, which has been a cause of concern to the studio. According to The Hollywood Reporter , other main characters include "an openly gay actor as one of the male leads (which Fuller confirmed), a female admiral, a male Klingon captain, a male admiral, a male adviser, and a British male doctor." Rumors are swirling that the series starts with a mutiny, though that has not been confirmed.

Replacing Fuller will be Gretchen Berg (Roswell, Pushing Daisies) and Aaron Harberts, both of whom were already executive producers on Discovery. Responding to the news, Fuller tweeted, "Riker spent 7 years of TNG unready for Captaincy, @GretchenJBerg @AaronHarberts are ready. Thrilled to see them in command of the Bridge." They'll likely be joined in the writers' room by Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind, Fringe). Fuller has already written the first two scripts for Discovery, and he will apparently be staying on to help shape the tone and direction of the series as an executive producer.

In a statement, CBS said:

We are extremely happy with the creative direction of Star Trek: Discovery and the strong foundation that Bryan Fuller has helped us create for the series. Due to Bryan’s other projects, he is no longer able to oversee the day-to-day of Star Trek, but he remains an executive producer and will continue to map out the story arc for the entire season. Alex Kurtzman, co-creator and executive producer, along with Fuller’s producing partners and longtime collaborators, Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, will also continue to oversee the show with the existing writing and producing team. Bryan is a brilliant creative talent and passionate Star Trek fan, who has helped us chart an exciting course for the series. We are all committed to seeing this vision through and look forward to premiering Star Trek: Discovery this coming May 2017.

It's not entirely clear what actually motivated Fuller to leave beyond his full schedule and CBS insisting on a May start date. Variety reports that the network has ponied up $6-7 million per episode, which is a good amount, and they continue to tout it as one of their prized offerings for 2017. One issue for audiences is that the series will be available exclusively on CBS's streaming service, with only the pilot aired on broadcast TV. Fans were already griping about this because it means investing in a streaming service with relatively pitiful offerings and not much of a track record in terms of functionality. As TV writer/producer Josh Friedman (Sarah Connor Chronicles) put it on Twitter: "CBS will be asking people to buy whole season of show that had 1st couple eps conceived/written by Fuller and other eps by NotFuller." He added that without Fuller, the series became "80 percent less interesting."

That said, new showrunners Berg and Harberts have excellent track records and have worked closely with Fuller already. Like a lot of fans, I will be watching no matter what.