Michelle Yeoh has not been seen in the Star Trek franchise since her character Emperor Philippa Georgiou returned to the 23rd century at the end of season 3, episode 10 of Star Trek: Discovery. But since that episode was released on CBS All Access (now called Paramount+) almost a year after the streamer revealed that it is developing a Star Trek spinoff about Section 31 with Yeoh set to star, fans thought that it wouldn’t be long before the actress would come back to the franchise. Unfortunately, no major development on the spinoff has been announced since January 2019, and this has caused fans to wonder whether Yeoh will be back to Star Trek at all.
While it’s not clear when exactly the Section 31 spinoff will go forward, Yeoh revealed during her last month’s appearance in The Pod Directive, Star Trek’s official podcast, that she’s confident that fans have not seen the last of Emperor Georgiou yet.
“I think when she went through the portal that time, for me it’s like saying… ‘Goodbye until we meet again’ Because this is Star Trek, who knows?” Yeoh said of her character’s final scene in Discovery. “One day Emperor Georgiou is going to find out that Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is in dire straits or the other way around, and something has to be done.”
Yeoh went on to say that the way Emperor Georgiou’s story arc ended in Discovery suggests that the character is about to embark on a completely new adventure.
“I don’t know, but I’m just putting it out there,” the actress said, before explaining why Emperor Georgiou ultimately decided to go through the portal to 23rd-century Mirror Universe at the end of her stint in Discovery. “She walks through because Carl (Paul Guilfoyle) has said to her, ‘You have another journey to undertake. And it’s so obvious you have more things to do. It’s not going to be a smooth ride. It will be bumpy. It will be full of heartaches. It will be full of pain.’”
“So I think there’s so much more possibilities for Georgiou,” Yeoh continued. “And I know my executive producers and showrunners and writers have a lot more things in store for such an amazing character.”
Though the fate of the Section 31 spinoff is still up in the air, Paramount+ programming chief Julie McNamara told Variety in February that the Section 31 spinoff or any other in-development Star Trek spinoff will only move forward once at least one of the five concurrent Star Trek series ― Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Star Trek: Prodigy ― ends its run.