As an executive producer on CBS All Access’ “Star Trek: Discovery,” Alex Kurtzman has the unenviable job of trying to calm the nerves of anxious “Star Trek” fans worried about the new series.

Marking the first Trek show on the air in twelve years, the story revolves around the lead character of Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in a time ten years before the original series. In an interview with CNET this week, Kurtzman promises the show intends to honor both the spirit and plot of the stories that have come before:

“If you are a fan of Trek you are going to see a lot of things which hearken back to the original series and elements of the original series…I’m not just talking plot, but the spirit of what that show was. We are going to be revisiting a couple of things on Star Trek: Discovery that I think people are going to find familiar. Without spoiling anything we are adhering to a timeline and sticking to the rules, but also I think finding some new areas and avenues that have only been alluded to, but never fully explored.”

Kurtzman also says the show’s writers room is stocked with Star Trek devotees who aren’t going to allow the series to lose sight of what makes the franchise what it is:

“You’ve got a roomful of people with very different and very devoted relationships to Star Trek in that writers room. And that carries on a pretty proud tradition of Trek being written by fans. You have to respect canon as it’s being written. You can’t say, ‘That never happened.’ No, no no, you can’t do that, they would kill you. Star Trek fans would kill you. No, you have to respect canon. You have to understand the timelines and what the different timelines were and what the different universes were and how they all worked together. You have to keep very meticulous track of who, what, where, when and why. And we have people in the writer’s room whose sole job is to say, ‘Nope, can’t do that!'”

The show has endured a rough creative process and has suffered criticism for numerous issues. How much that will factor into the show when it finally airs we’ll have to wait until September 24th to find out when the premiere episode goes to air on CBS.