The Announcement
“Paramount+ today announced it has officially greenlit Star Trek: Section 31 starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh. In this special original movie event for the service, Yeoh will return to her role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou, a character she first played in Star Trek: Discovery’s first season.
In Star Trek: Section 31, Emperor Philippa Georgiou joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and faces the sins of her past. Produced by CBS Studios, production will begin later this year.”
Full article here from StarTrek.com
Tricorder Readings
Coming on the heels of her recent Oscar win for 2022’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the announcement from Paramount+ comes as a bit of a surprise, even though rumors of a Section 31 spinoff series had been long-brewing since Star Trek: Discovery’s third season (“Terra Firma,” Part 2), when Yeoh’s character, Philippa Georgiou, was forced to leave the 32nd century.
When we last saw Georgiou, she’d returned to say goodbye to her friends, after using the “Guardian of Forever” to revisit her own past in her native Mirror Universe. Once there, she found she had changed since those days, following her experiences with the Prime Universe’s Discovery crew. After her goodbyes, Georgiou hinted she was returning to the past–possibly the 23rd century.
It’s conceivable Georgiou’s return to the past might allow her to interact with the popular new crew of the starship Enterprise in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” The character of Georgiou had already worked closely with that series’ Captain Pike (Anson Mount) during Star Trek: Discovery’s second season.
While Star Trek: Discovery itself has received a generally mixed response from critics and Star Trek fans (some love it, some don’t–I’m somewhere in the middle), it’s very likely that Yeoh’s recent spike in popularity following her much-deserved Oscar win spurred renewed interest for this one-off project, which is not a full series (as originally rumored).
In any case, as a longtime fan of Yeoh’s work dating back to the 1997 Bond film, “Tomorrow Never Dies” and 2000’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” I look forward to Michelle Yeoh’s return to Star Trek. A one-off movie might be the perfect way to welcome Yeoh back without committing her to the grind and scheduling uncertainty of a full-time series, which frees the actress for other work.
And, of course, if “Star Trek: Section 31” does well? There’s always the chance for a sequel…
Where To Watch
With no word on a specific release date, “Star Trek: Section 31” will debut on Paramount+ streaming service anytime within the next two years or so. All of Michelle Yeoh’s work in “Star Trek: Discovery” (dating back to the first two episodes) is available to stream on Paramount+, along with all other Star Trek series, past and present.
Michelle has certainly earned this after her most special Oscar win. Thank you for this article.
My pleasure.
I’m a big fan of Michelle Yeoh. While I’ve had various issues with Star Trek: Discovery over the years, she was never one of them.
I would’ve loved to have seen Prime-universe Capt. Georgiou survive beyond the pilot of DSC, but then again, we may never have gotten “Everything Everywhere All At Once” if she had.
I was somewhat surprised when it was announced Michelle Yeoh would be doing Section 31 then it was announced it was a movie and not a series. I most likely won’t get to watch the movie for a while, if ever.
I have loved Yeoh for years (she is my fav Bond partner) and her Oscar is so well deserved. I started out as a fan of Capitan Georgiou but as Discovery devolved into a mess, I became less excited about a proposed Section 31 series, even if it did star her. But a movie, I will commit to!
I think making it a one-off movie, whatever the reason, was a wise choice.