This Week In Sci-Fi TV: Star Trek Discovery Lead Has TOS Relative, Matt Groening’s New Fantasy Series, and More

1. The Lead Character In #StarTrekDiscovery Will Have Strong Ties To The Original Series

We are learning more and more about the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery and it appears that the series lead Commander Michael Burnham (played by TWD‘s Sonequa Martin-Green) will have ties to Spock. She is his adopted sister who was raised by Spock’s father Sarek (to be played by James Frain in the new series). This is of course the first we have heard of her, but apparently an explanation will be provided to retrofit her into series canon. But as pointed out in a Reddit thread over at r/SciFiSroll, this breaks the Fontana rule. D.C. Fontana was the story editor and one of the writers on the original series and she stated that no siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. of Spock should ever appear on the show otherwise they would present an ongoing diversion. Apparently the new creative staff has decided to ignore that rule, though. Star Trek: Discovery premieres on CBS on September 24th.

2. Netflix Teams With Matt Groening On Fantasy Series ‘Disenchantment’

The creator of The Simpsons and Futurama has his next animated project on the way as Netflix has picked up Matt Groening’s Disenchantment for a minimum of two seasons that will have ten episodes each. Deadline Hollywood gives the following description of the series:

Set in the crumbling medieval kingdom of Dreamland, the series will follow the misadventures of hard-drinking young princess Bean, her feisty elf companion Elfo, and her personal demon Luci. Along the way, the oddball trio will encounter ogres, sprites, harpies, imps, trolls, walruses, and lots of human fools.

The voices of the three lead characters will be provided by Abbi Jacobson (BoJack Horseman), Nat Faxon (The Cleveland Show) and Eric Andre. The series has actually been in the works at Netflix for a while, but the streaming service has now officially announced that it will join their lineup of originals. Expect it to debut at some point in 2018.

3. Nat Geo Gets ‘The Right Stuff’

The National Geographic Channel already has its docu-drama series Mars on the air, and now that cable channel will head to the Moon with an adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff. The plan is to make it a multi-season drama that will start from the beginning of the space program in the late 50’s and go all the way up to the Moon landing. Leonardo DiCaprio will executive produce the series which will likely make it to the schedule at some point in 2018. The Right Stuff was previously adapted to the big screen in 1983 starring Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, and more.

4. ‘One Piece’ Anime To Get Live-Action Adaption

The pirate-adventure / fantasy Anime One Piece will be heading to the States with a live-action version. That series is much-loved in Japan and has produced over 800 episodes as well as multiple Manga volumes. It follows the adventures of the boy Monkey D. Luffy and his pirate crew as they search the world looking for the great treasure known as “One Piece” in order to become the Pirate King. Tomorrow Studios will be working on the project, though no network has been attached at this point.

5. Sci-Fi TV Status Report: ‘Midnight, Texas’ Has Decent Debut, ‘Somewhere Between’ Is In Trouble

On Monday, NBC’s new supernatural soap opera Midnight, Texas debuted at a 0.9 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 3.6 million total viewers. Those are okay numbers for a Summer scripted series, but not spectacular, and it did lose 36% of its lead-in from American Ninja Warriors. If it does not slip too much further, though, this show might be able to get a second season. How it tracks over the next few weeks will be crucial to its fate.

Over on ABC, time travel drama Somewhere Between debuted with a tepid 0.5 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic and 2.9 million total viewers on Monday, and it lost 69% of its lead-in audience from The Bachelorette. When it moved to its regular Tuesday timeslot for its second episode, its numbers slipped to a 0.3 score. ABC has referred to this one as a “limited series”, but we know that means it is really only as limited as its audience size. At this point, I expect the show to get kicked to Saturdays with Still Star-Crossed pretty soon before heading to the Peak TV trash-heap.

6. #AmericanHorrorStoryCult Teaser: The Clowns Come Marching In

A new, and quite creepy, teaser has been released for Season 7 of American Horror Story, subtitled Cult, and beware if you have a clown phobia. It doesn’t give too much detail on what to expect from the coming season, and it actually may not have anything to do with it. Last year, multiple teasers were released that had little or no connection to the story and were designed to keep viewers guessing. Series co-creator Ryan Murphy has claimed that Season 7 will be about the 2016 election, but he could be just trolling us to keep the true premise a mystery. The show returns on Wednesday, September 5th at 10 PM EST. You can see the preliminary schedule of Fall sci fi and fantasy shows here.

7. #VoltronLegendaryDefenderSeason 3 Debuts Next Week

Netflix’s reboot of the the Voltron Anime has proven quite a hit, and the third season arrives next week on Friday, August 4th. It will comprise seven episodes, all of which will be available for streaming that day. Also next week, Sundance’s Cleverman will have its Season 2 finale. Plus, there’s some shark movie on Syfy on Saturday night. You can keep up with the weekly listings of sci fi and fantasy shows here.

8. News Bites: ‘The Inhumans’ Will Have Ties To ‘Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, And More

ABC’s upcoming series The Inhumans is not considered a spin-off of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. but it will have connections to that show, which has also featured Inhuman characters, according what showrunner Scott Buck said at Comic-Con.

Genre veteran Esai Morales (Jericho, Caprica) will be joining Nat Geo docu-drama Mars in its upcoming second season.

Genre veteran Terry O’Quinn (Millennium, Lost) will be hosting the Science Channel’s upcoming documentary series Mysteries of the Missing which will explore possible explanations for famous missing-person cases.

Hulu’s upcoming Runaways series will take place in the same universe as the Marvel movies and Netflix Defenders shows.