Today marked Star Trek: Discovery’s return to San Diego Comic Con, with promises of updates on the progress of production, new details on Season 2, and a hope for a look ahead to new episodes — and perhaps even an update on those franchise expansion rumors.

After kicking off the morning passing out donuts to weary fans waiting in line for entrance to SDCC’s famous Hall H, the cast made their way to surprise fans at the off-site Mirror Universe prop and costume exhibit – a repeat of their journey last summer.

Following the morning excursions, the Discovery cast including Sonequa Martin-Green, Anthony Rapp, Shazad Latif, Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Mary Wiseman, Mary Chieffo, and Anson Mount — joined by producers Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin — made their way to Comic Con’s biggest stage where a crowd of 6,000 fans packed Hall H.

Discovery Season 2 guest star Tig Notaro hosted the hour-long panel, the first for any Star Trek film or television series to be held in Hall H, which of course kicked off with our first real look at the season, now officially targeted for January 2019, in a new trailer:

In other casting news, Rebecca Romijn has been set to play the Enterprise first officer ‘Number One’ (as we reported earlier today), and Aldis Hodge will be joining the show in one of the four ‘Short Trek’ mini-films set to debut in December.

As for the characters returning from Season 1, Wilson Cruz was on hand to repeat to the crowd that — as he’s been saying publicly for months — his murdered character Dr. Hugh Culber will be part of the Discovery story in Season 2.

Mary Chieffo’s L’Rell has her sights set on “being the best chancellor she can be,” after grabbing the reigns of power on Qo’noS last season, and exploration of her relationship with Shazad Latif’s Ash Tyler will continue, as “a Beauty and the Beast story – with a female ‘beast.'”

At the post-panel press-conference, Kurtzman shared that the Tyler/L’Rell storyline will “interconnect” with the Discovery ship-bound story as the season progresses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k7XGBluxw4

Regarding everyone’s favorite Kelpien, we learned that Discovery plans to visit the homeworld of Doug Jones’ Saru — something many fans have been asking for — but we don’t yet know more details on that just yet. “Who’s the prey? Who’s the predator?,” said Jones.

While he wouldn’t offer any specifics, Kurtzman did tease that “maybe” we will see Jason Isaacs’ Gabriel Lorca again — perhaps we’ll see the ‘good’ prime-universe counterpart of Season 1’s Terran impostor? (It might be a good time to go read Drastic Measures!)

In another note, Kurztman continued to reiterate that Season 2 will be “syncing with canon” as Discovery gets closer to the timeframe of the Original Series — but some canon-related questions will get answered in ways not expected by fans, said the producer. (Anthony Rapp was excited for some upcoming “fun with red shirts.”)

As for the newcomer to the cast, Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike, Kurtzman described the captain as the “opposite” of Lorca, a man who can “apologize when he’s wrong” and that based upon the authority of original actor Jeffrey Hunter’s performance. Pike has “tremendous optimism” and “a good heart” said Mount.

Finally Kurtzman also finally confirmed the rumors that we will be seeing Spock sometime in the upcoming season — which could be the “young Spock” which director Jonathan Frakes first let slip back in April — or perhaps, as the trailer suggests, an adult Spock yet to be announced.

We’re hoping more might information may come from the post-panel red carpet interviews, so keep watching for more Star Trek: Discovery news from Comic Con as it breaks!