Discovery.

 

The first trailer has been released for Discovery, the new Star Trek series, and I'm intrigued by the possibilities suggested by the clip, even with the brief glimpses of the main characters that we are given.

So far the show's creator's have been quite coy about the actual plotline, and the trailer doesn't provide a lot more information.  Apparently it's a single story thread - which, to be honest, may well be the wave of the future (no pun intended) for this sort of series - and it deals with a specific event from the Star Trek future.  The show takes place ten years before the original series, but after going through a wide variety of reference material, I couldn't find anything in the history of the future* for that range of time that would warrant 15 episodes. The presence of reimagined** Klingons may indicate that it deals with some aspect of the Klingon war, but let's be honest, Klingons are a fairly standard prop in the Star Trek universe, it's probably unwise to attribute too much significance to their appearance in the trailer.

Sonequa Martin-Green, fresh from being zombified*** on The Walking Dead at the end of last season, stars as Michael Burnham, first officer on the U.S.S. Discovery, with Michelle Yeoh as Captain Philippa Georgiou of the Shenzhou.  Based on just the brief footage from the trailer, Michelle Yeoh is obviously going to be a fabulous starship captain, to the point where I'm concerned that she might overwhelm her younger co-star.   

However, I was surprised (and a little disappointed) when I realized that Yeoh isn't the captain of the titular starship.  Captain Lorca, played by veteran genre actor Jason Isaacs, will be in charge of the bridge on the Discovery, which makes it a bit puzzling that he's not featured at all in the trailer.

Isaacs tweeted that he wasn't in the trailer because (haha) he wasn't in the trailer, but tongue-in-cheek comments aside, there's been some speculation that his character may not be around for very long. (A first name would certainly make me feel more secure about the character's future.)  It would be a shame if that turned out to be the case, Isaacs is an excellent actor who is very often cast as a villain, and it would be a welcome change to see him in a (presumably) more heroic role.

That being said, there are some ways in which I wouldn't be disappointed to see Isaacs make an early departure, or perhaps be featured in flashbacks. With Captain Lorca out of the picture, we'd be left with a brash young black female first officer who is being mentored by a veteran Chinese female captain.  I think that Gene Roddenberry would have had some trouble selling that concept in the 60s, but to me it sounds exactly like the sort of future that he envisioned when he first created Star Trek.

- Sid

* I realize it sounds contradictory, but science fiction makes you comfortable with phrases like this.

**  What, again?

*** Walkered?