According to The Hollywood Reporter, CBS All Access drama Star Trek: Discovery has made another showrunner change, this time ousting Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts (Revenge, GCB, Mercy) over what were said to be leadership and operational issues. The series has promoted executive producer Alex Kurtzman to showrunner five episodes into production on season two.
“We’ve made some producer changes at Star Trek: Discovery. The series continues under the creative vision and leadership of executive producer and co-creator Alex Kurtzman. Discovery remains on course for season two in 2019 with new and continuing stories that build on its successful premiere season,” producers CBS Television Studios said in a statement.
Full details of the firing of Berg and Harberts (longtime collaborators of original showrunner and televisual nomad Bryan Fuller) can be found at the source, but in summation, the budget ballooned under their watch, to the point that subsequent season two episodes will have to have their individual budgets trimmed to make up for the first five episodes. Additionally, the two were said to be abusive toward the writing staff, going as far as threatening them to keep concerns internal after multiple writers considered going to HR.
In terms of the show itself, Kurtzman’s arrival comes at a pre-planned production hiatus, with production to not be impacted by the showrunner change. He marks the fourth showrunner Discovery has had in its one short season following Berg, Harberts, and Fuller, the last of whom was asked to step down in October 2016.
