Image: CBS

CBS has announced the premiere date for the second half of Star Trek: Discovery’s first season, but in doing so they look to have already revealed how the first half is going to end.




Deadline has reported that Star Trek: Discovery will return to CBS All Access on January 7 with six more episodes, confusingly calling the collective episodes Chapter 2 (even though it’s not the second season, but a continuation of the first). According to the plot description, the 10th episode, called “Despite Yourself,” will be about the crew finding themselves in a Voyager-type situation, struggling to find their way home:



In Chapter 2, while in unfamiliar territory, the U.S.S. Discovery crew is forced to get creative in their next efforts to survive opposing and unprecedented forces and return home.


The series so far has centered around the Discovery’s spore drive, which can instantly transport the ship anywhere in the universe, as well as Lieutenant Stamets’ (Anthony Rapp) growing instability as he struggles to serve as the ship’s navigational device. Sunday’s episode ended with the crew waiting for the Klingons to arrive, with a teaser for this Sunday’s episode showing a big battle. This description seems to say that this fight ends with the Discovery, damaged, jumping somewhere. It’s either that or, completely unconnected to the arc that’s been established, next season just opens with the ship stranded. Which, given the weirdness of the “arcs” of this show, we will grant is a possibility. But it seems far more likely that it’s the result of events happening during the midseason finale.

Since the synopsis says they’re “forced to get creative” during a return trip home, it seems like the Discovery is going to get stranded after escaping the Klingons during the forthcoming battle at Pahvo. They could be trapped in Klingon space, in another galaxy entirely—maybe they’re in the Mirror Universe, a place Discovery director (and Star Trek alum) Jonathan Frakes said will come into play this season.

It seems surprising that CBS would blurt this out, giving away a major cliffhanger for the upcoming episode before it’s even aired. It’s especially unusual given how secretive CBS has been about some of the reveals on the show—including keeping Captain Georgiou’s death under wraps until the first two episodes aired, even when it was clear she wasn’t in the rest of the show, as well as working hard to hide any trace of Ash Tyler’s possible secret identity.

Discovery returns Sunday with “Into the Forest I Go,” and then will return in January. We might not know where the series is headed, technically, but at least we can take “comfort” in knowing that the upcoming Battle at Pahvo probably won’t mean diddly squat...since the Discovery is just going to end up fleeing it anyway. Yippee.


[Deadline]