Days after the casting rumour about Michelle Yeoh hit the net, CBS made an official announcement on not only her involvement is Star Trek: Discovery, but the involvement of two additional actors.
Michelle’s casting was confirmed, though it looks like the rumour mill was wrong about her character’s name. Michelle will be playing Starfleet Captain Georgiou, in command of the USS Shenzhou – not Captain Han Bo.
Who else is joining her on the final frontier?
Doug Jones, playing an alien science officer called Lieutenant Saru, and Anthony Rapp, playing Starfleet science officer and astromycologist Lieutenant Stamets.
Astromycologist? Mycology is the study of fungi… so… space fungi! CBS have made a point of adding in the astromycology bit, so no doubt space fungi will in some way play an important part in the first season of the new Star Trek series.
![Anthony Rapp The opening of the Off-Broadway production of 'The Metal Children' at the Vineyard Theatre. New York City, USA - 19.05.10 Mandatory Credit: Joseph Marzullo/WENN.com (Newscom TagID: wennphotostwo471141) [Photo via Newscom]](https://scifiregen.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/794ac-anthony-rapp.jpg?w=320&h=427 "the metal children 190510")
What’s also interesting about the announcement is the differentiation between Lieutenant Saru and Lieutenant Stamets.
Saru is described as an alien science officer, and Doug Jones is particularly well know for his ability to bring characters to life under a mountain of makeup and prosthetics. Stamets is described as a Starfleet Lieutenant. In the images above, you’ll see “New Crews,” “New Villians,” “New Heroes,” and “New Worlds.” It looks like Saru will be from one of those new crews and/or new worlds. It remains to be seen as to whether or not he’ll be a new hero or a new villain.
Where might you have seen Doug and Anthony?
If you’re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you’ll have seen Doug as one of the “Gentlemen” in the fantastic episode ‘Hush’. You would have also seen his work in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Hellboy and The Strain.
You might have seen Anthony on Broadway in Rent, or on TV in the series The Knick.
If you want to learn more about Doug and Anthony, you can check out Doug’s IMDb page here, and Anthony’s IMDb page here.
In an interesting aside, they released the news at 10:31am. Get it? The USS Discovery is NX-1031. Clever, CBS. I actually love that little detail.
And now onto Bryan!
Star Trek fans everywhere felt a bit of a blow when it was announced that Bryan Fuller was stepping down as showrunner for Star Trek: Discovery. For many of us, his involvement guaranteed quality, and it guaranteed deep and intelligent story-telling which is something we most certainly want. Since the announcement, we’ve all been wondering why he chose American Gods over Star Trek: Discovery particularly when he is a proud and vocal Star Trek fan. We were also, many of us, under the impression he would still be involved in some way with the show… but it turns out he’s not. He’s stepped away entirely.
Bryan has finally spoken up about why, telling Digital Spy that the decision he made was a hard one and it came down to a couple of simple things – where Star Trek would give him the chance to have a conversation about things he cares deeply about, like human progress, environmental issues and hope, American Gods gives him the chance to comment on a few other things that Star Trek doesn’t often give voice to, like religion and immigration – two themes that run very strongly through Neil Gaiman’s American Gods novel.
The themes of faith and immigration that are present in American Gods resonate with Bryan, and he feels they will resonant deeply with people today.
It wasn’t an easy choice for him, but it was mitigated by the fact he felt he had done ‘enough’ to put Star Trek on the right path to success. Should they need a little help navigating, he’s said he would be available for season two, if CBS needs him.
In the interview, when asked what Star Trek: Discovery is about, Bryan said there are three words that sum up the new series: “understand each other.” I think that little sentence is very telling and I would hazard a guess that the premiere episode will start with a monumental misunderstanding between species that will throw us into the overall story-arc of this exciting new addition to the legacy of Star Trek.
Star Trek: Discovery starts filming in January 2017 in Toronto. It’s first two episodes have been written by Bryan Fuller, and so far we now know that it stars Michelle Yeoh, Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp. The new series will premiere in May.
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