Ever since Paramount announced last year that it would be launching a new Star Trek TV series, rumors have swirled about what it might be like. Now we know that the show is in good hands, at least when it comes to the writing. Bryan Fuller, who also worked on Deep Space Nine and Voyager, will be taking the helm as showrunner.

Despite his long association with the Star Trek franchise, Fuller is probably best known for creating his own original visions on television in beloved cult series like Pushing Daisies and Hannibal. He has a flair for the weird, and he's drawn to stories that are driven by characters as well as gripping plots. He's currently working on a miniseries of Neil Gaiman's classic novel American Gods for Starz.

Obviously we can't get too excited until we know what Fuller has planned, but I think cautious optimism is in order. Fuller knows the Trek universe, and he's a smart writer who isn't afraid to strike out in interesting new directions.

Over at io9, Charlie Jane Anders discusses what might be in store:

Fuller has teased a few different ideas for Star Trek TV shows in the past. At one point, he said it would be interesting to see how the Next Generation era looks, in the altered timeline of the J.J. Abrams films. In another interview, he said it would be cool to have a show that follows another starship, the USS Reliant, and that he’d love to cast Angela Bassett as the captain and Rosario Dawson as the first officer.

Focusing on another starship would be an excellent way to get away from a storytelling legacy that has increasingly divided fans. That said, based on these hints, I think we can be pretty sure that this series will be set in the J.J. Abrams alternate universe. In a 2013 interview, Fuller said:

I think there’s something very exciting about the new J.J. Abrams-verse, and there’s also kind of an interesting reinvention. How would The Next Generation evolve from that? Where would that be? Where would that go? But there’s also… Star Trek is such a big universe, and there are so many places to go with it.

It sounds like he's pondering how to blend the sensibility of Next Generation with the Abrams universe, which is a tall order. Unless Fuller decides to set the series before the events of Abrams' Star Trek, that means this will be the first series where Vulcan civilization plays virtually no role in the Federation. We might get a chance to see the Vulcans trying to rebuild after the destruction of their home planet. Perhaps humans will even have a chance to offer help to the powerful, wise Vulcans who brought Earth into the Federation in the first place.

Alex Kurzman, who co-wrote the Abrams Star Trek films, will be a producer on the series. He said in a statement that Fuller would be getting back to the series' original vision: "[Fuller's] encyclopedic knowledge of Trek canon is surpassed only by his love for Gene Roddenberry’s optimistic future, a vision that continues to guide us as we explore strange new worlds." I really hope that "optimistic future" means we won't have to go back to the fake-gritty version of Star Trek from Enterprise.

The series will launch with a pilot on CBS in early 2017 and will then be available exclusively for streaming via CBS All Access. This is the only blot on today's otherwise good news. CBS' streaming service is currently a wasteland, and making it the only home for Star Trek could sink the series.

With Fuller in place, fans can now move on to fretting over fifteen zillion other things that could go wrong with the show.