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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY 311 Photos: “Su’Kal”

TrekCore Staff
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY 311 Photos: “Su’Kal”

This week brings us to the eleventh of this season’s Star Trek: Discovery episodes, and we’ve got a new round of photos from “Su’Kal” for you today!

In this new episode — which in early leaks was titled “The Citadel” — the crew goes after the long-lost Kelpien starship Khi’eth inside the Verubin Nebula, the source of The Burn…  resulting in what seems to be a trippy experience for Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), who seem to turn Trill and Bajoran during their venture aboard the ship.

Meanwhile, Osyraa (Janet Kidder) returns in her Emerald Chain flagship, the Veridian, to disrupt Discovery’s mission.

Here are thirteen new photos from “Su’Kal, which not only feature the crew during a crisis on the bridge… but also a visit to sickbay where Book (David Ajala) brings Grudge for a checkup.

Finally, if you didn’t catch it at the end of “Terra Firma, Part 2,” here’s a new preview for the episode, and a clip which debuted during Thursday’s episode of The Ready Room where Grey Tal (Ian Alexander) returns after hiding from Adira for the past few episodes.

SU’KAL — Discovery ventures to the Verubin Nebula, where Burnham, Saru, and Culber make a shocking realization about the origin of the Burn as the rest of the crew faces an unexpected threat.

Written by Anne Cofell Saunders. Directed by Norma Bailey​.

Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, December 24 with “Su’Kal” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode December 25 on Netflix, in all other global regions.

Review — STAR TREK: THE ARTISTRY OF DAN CURRY

Jim Moorhouse
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Review — STAR TREK: THE ARTISTRY OF DAN CURRY

It’s right there in the title: artistry.

Dan Curry quite literally did it all when it came to his behind-the-scenes contributions to the Star Trek franchise, and to describe him as anything other than an artist would not tell the complete story.

In this incredibly detailed look at Curry’s career, Star Trek: The Artistry of Dan Curry is the complete story — directly from the man himself (with co-writer Ben Robinson).

The 204-page publication from Titan Books is another standout in the growing line of Trek reference books released in the last few years. However, unlike some of those other releases, the broad scope of the experiences being detailed here — and the in-depth text that accompanies those narratives — is unparalleled.

Curry is well-known in Trek production lore as a true jack of all trades. Born out of his interest in martial arts and from his time in the Peace Corps and living in Asia, he famously designed a myriad of unique Trek weapons — including the Klingon bat’leth and mek’leth, which everyone knows, of course. But his resume also includes a slew of other creative titles and job responsibilities.

Storyboards for the revamped DEEP SPACE NINE Season 4 title sequence.

From visual effects supervisor and producer to second unit director and the director outright of “Birthright, Part 2,” the multi-hyphenate artist also designed two different title sequences (for Deep Space Nine and Voyager), and was a conceptual designer for Trek across four series from 1987 to 2005. Again, he literally did it all.

Star Trek: The Artistry of Dan Curry is broken up into 27 different chapters, and each of those section titles almost comically showcases exactly how many areas of Star Trek production were influenced and guided by Curry: Video Compositing, Motion Control, Models, Explosions, Directing Second Unit, Creating Body Doubles, Martial Arts & Weapons, Matte Painting, Visual Effects Producer, The Move to CG, Creatures, and more.

The titles are a cornucopia of jobs and skillsets with varying levels of expertise required to navigate them, and Curry excelled in all of them. From a fascinating timeline that opens the book and details his career, to a heartfelt afterword to close it out, the book is absolutely packed with elements from the “Department of I Had No Idea About That.”

Diagrams showing how to film matte paintings used in the DS9 series finale.

And you know if you are reading a book with detailed breakout sections on items like “Blowing Up Remmick,” “Lava Flow in ‘Basics,’” and “Wreck of The Raven,” you are surely going to learn more than a few things you didn’t know.

  • Iconian Ruins – The Iconian ruins so memorably depicted in the TNG episode “Contagion,” featured a combination of a Curry matte painting and an art department model of the Iconian tower that was made from a swimming pool filter mounted on a cardboard tube and embellished with model and toy parts. Pretty cool.
     
    “I did an acrylic painting of the terrain,” explains Curry, “adding distant ruins rising out of the sand. The sky was a separate painting, so it could be independently controlled and moved in compositing.”
     
  • Riker’s Arm – As a testament to Curry’s attention to detail, there is a brief but key shot of Riker’s forearm being shown in multiple layers that pre-dated CG. In order to bring the shot together for the episode “Schisms,” Curry had a distinguished medical researcher at a prominent university take “a cadaver’s arm and shaved it layer by layer with a microtome with the help of one of his grad students, who took photographs for us.”
     
    So, yeah, that’s a real arm.
One of the more insightful — and gruesome — stories inside this book.
  • Title Sequences – Curry’s beautiful work in designing the visuals for the title sequences for Deep Space Nine and Voyager are documented in detail here. But beyond that, who knew he has previously designed more than 100 title sequences for other television series’ and features.
     
    Regarding his DS9 titles: “I decided to open with a shot of a comet to suggest remoteness,” he writes, “before discovering the station itself in the distance.”
     
  • Jem’Hadar Beach – The beach head featured in a shot of two Jem’Hadar soldiers early in “Rocks and Shoals” is a mélange of Dan Curry specials. He not only created the matte painting used in the shot as the edge of the cliff, but composited it together with a photo he took of a scenic view in Ireland.
     
    “The actual shape of the shoreline wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he details, “so we squeezed it east-west to make the terrain more ruggedly vertical, and color-corrected it to match the quarry (where the actors were shot).”
How THE NEXT GENERATION used motion-control model photography.
  • ‘Storm Front’ VFX – Enterprise won the international Visual Effects Society Award for Best Broadcast Visual Effects for “Storm Front, Part 2.” Curry helped storyboard the final battle sequence — where the Enterprise NX-01 dogfights over Nazi-occupied Manhattan — and also played an important role in creating the old school 1940s newsreel that opened the episode.
     
    “We looked through stock images, but couldn’t find a perfect angle from the 1940s,” he writes, “so in Photoshop I took a photo from the 50s, made it black and white, painted out all the people and any buildings that were built after 1939, and added in the binocular stands.”
     
    (Oh, and the award they picked up from the VES? It was actually designed by Curry. He literally DOES. IT. ALL.)
     
  • Species 8472 – Based on a comedic alien character he created for his MFA Theatre thesis project, it was Curry’s idea to have the major computer-generated species have three legs. “I wanted to do something that couldn’t be mistaken for a man in a suit.”
Curry and longtime Trek stunt coordinator Dennis Madalone demonstrate the way of the warrior.

In addition to all those elements — and hundreds more — Curry also makes space in this book to celebrate some of his peers for their accomplished work. Most notably, his recollections in full-page callouts on supervising producer Peter Lauritson, VFX supervisor Ronald B. Moore, and video compositors Fred Raimondi and Paul Hill add important context to the collaborative nature of this kind of work.

In the end, it feels close to impossible to summarize the totality of Dan Curry’s immense contributions to the Star Trek franchise in any single format like a book, but Curry and co-author Ben Robinson have basically done it here.

Star Trek: The Artistry of Dan Curry is one of the biggest, best and most comprehensive in terms of showcasing not only how Trek established itself as a groundbreaking television production in the 1980s and 90s, but how critical Dan Curry was to that success.

Jim Moorhouse is the creator of TrekRanks.com and the TrekRanks Podcast, and can be found living and breathing Trek every day on Twitter.

Review — STAR TREK: QUIBBLES WITH TRIBBLES

Alex Perry
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Review — STAR TREK: QUIBBLES WITH TRIBBLES

Hero Collector, who significantly expanded their Star Trek book publishing slate for this year, recently released a Where’s Waldo? for the Star Trek universe sure to please the heart of any nitpicking fan.

The new Quibbles with Tribbles by Glenn Dakin is a fun locator game that draws upon something that all Star Trek fans love to do: find the mistakes!

Across eight richly-illustrated double-page spreads, Dakin — with art by John Ross and colors by Alan Craddok — present scenes from eight classic episodes of The Original Series, including “The City on the Edge of Forever,” “Devil in the Dark,” and “Amok Time.”

The reader’s job, among other things, are to spot the continuity mistakes. Maybe a character is wearing a uniform from a different era (such as Kirk wearing a Discovery uniform on the cover), perhaps a character from another time is incongruously aboard the Enterprise, or there’s a piece of technology in the scene that was not appropriate for the time period.

In addition to there being five big continuity errors in each spread — including connections to Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Lower Decks — there are also ten nods or callbacks to the other episodes of the Original Series on each page. All together, with the errors and with the callbacks each of these spreads is a visual feast that you’ll want to spend a long time poring over. The art is really phenomenal, and the colors really pop off the page.

Quibbles for Tribbles is focused on the classic Trek series, but there are lots of nods to the other Star Trek shows as well. For example, one Star Trek: Enterprise character appears in a certain spread, as do two appropriately-attired characters from The Next Generation. If there are more Quibbles with Tribbles books, it would be fun to do one for the other shows as well.

The great thing about Quibbles with Tribbles is that it’s more than just one game. For each spread there are the five continuity errors, the ten Easter eggs referencing other episodes of the Original Series, along with a hunt for an exploding tribble and several extremely deep-cut errors that will really test your behind-the-scenes knowledge of the franchise.

With four different games to choose from, the book can be enjoyed several times from start to finish as you look to complete each challenge.

In addition to the page spreads for the eight episodes of classic Trek, there are a full set of answers for each spread to tell you what you identified correctly, and where you slipped up. Providing the answers is particularly welcome, as there are some real deep-cuts here! There is also a score sheet provided so that you can write down your answers as you go.

In addition to the games, there is also some fun behind-the-scenes nuggets of information included throughout the book. Very little of that information is material that you wouldn’t already know if you’re a big Star Trek fan, but it’s fun to tie together how and why various elements were included.

If there’s any criticism of this hilarious little book, it’s that the exploding tribble game is a bit too easy. Given there are flames coming out of it, it’s pretty easy to spot on every page. But I’m a huge Star Trek fan, and I’ll be honest I didn’t find all the continuity errors or each of the callbacks to other episodes of the Original Series in my first pass — this is not a book for casual fans masquerading as one for more intense fans. This is the real deal!

Quibbles with Tribbles is a fun and humorous entry to your Star Trek library that will put your nitpicking skills to the test. I recommend it for even the most dedicated of Star Trek fans who like everything to be very specific and correct!

Will you be putting Quibbles with Tribbles on your holiday wish-list? Let us know your thoughts on this fun new book — and any ‘errors’ you find in the images above — in the comments below!

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Review: “Terra Firma, Part 2”

Claire Little, Executive Officer (In Charge of Radishes)
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Review: “Terra Firma, Part 2”

Picking up immediately where “Terra Firma, Part 1” left off, this week’s conclusion explores Emperor Georgiou’s efforts to reshape her empire and save her own life and continues Discovery’s attempts to solve the mystery of a stranded Kelpien science vessel that may hold the key to The Burn.

Georgiou’s return to her native universe continues to be campy and lush and fun, but unfortunately also uneven and less meaningful than it could be (but more on that later). Instead of executing the traitorous Burnham like any proper Terran would, Georgiou embarks on a mission to rehabilitate Burnham by… subjecting her to months of intense torture.

It’s an odd way to show mercy, affection, and growth, even for a notorious hardass like Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), but it seems to work. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) professes her renewed loyalty to the emperor and is sent on a campaign of retribution, systematically killing everyone aboard Discovery who was part of the failed coup, including Landry, Rhys, Detmer, and a slew of others.

Whether Georgiou’s strange mix of gentleness and terror was evidence of her trying to find a balance between showing mercy and showing weakness, or the show was simply trying to keep her motives shrouded in mystery, I’m not sure. Either way, I found myself questioning Georgiou as much as I was rooting for her, and that felt odd.

Her decision to grant Kelpians a degree of autonomy and biological agency by explaining to Saru (Doug Jones) that the vahar’ai is not only survivable, but also ultimately positive was a step in the right direction, no question. But Georgiou still seemed bent on the use of manipulation and domination as a means of control, both on an individual and a wider cultural level.

Perhaps there was only so much that could change in a three-month period… or perhaps the show has decided that it’s the thought that counts here.

Once Burnham has cleaned up the remnants of the coup aboard Discovery, the only major player left to find is Gabriel Lorca, who continues to exist — in name only — as a return appearance for Season 1 star Jason Isaacs never actually materializes. The closest we get to him is a lieutenant who, once aboard, gives Burnham the opening she’s been waiting for.

Whether or not she was ever actually broken by Georgiou’s regimen of torture, Burnham is less than impressed with the new, slightly gentler version of Georgiou she’s been spending her time with. Kelpien is off the menu, and the Emperor has decided that constant oppression may not be the most effective way to rule a galaxy… and well, Burnham just can’t stand for that.

A big fight scene ensues that includes Saru and some other post-vahar’ai berserker Kelpians swooping in to defend the emperor from a bunch of rebellious Discovery crewmembers Georgiou impaling “her” Burnham with a wobbly CGI sword, and ends with Georgiou waking up to find herself back in the snow with our prime-universe Michael Burnham and the ever-mysterious Carl (Paul Guilfoyle).

Was it all a dream? Well not quite, since Georgiou’s funky FitBit has recorded three month’s worth of biometric readings, despite her only being unconscious in the snow for less than a minute. But it also wasn’t a linear trip back in time to change or correct the past — instead, that thanks to Carl, Georgiou has created a splintered version of the Mirror Universe timeline, one in which the Terran Empire is perhaps a little less brutal… and in which Kelpians have learned they can survive the vahar’ai.

As a side note, I do have to wonder about the ethical implications of creating an entirely new timeline filled with trillions of lives just to see if one person learned a lesson — especially when the original timeline full of suffering won’t see any of the benefit. Duplicating something bad just to see if you can make it a little less bad this time around still results in a net increase of badness.

(For sure I am thinking too hard about this, but I’m thinking about it nonetheless.)

While Georgiou is still trying to make sense of what exactly is going on and why, Carl finally confirms — or reveals, depending on whether the scant clues we picked through last week were enough — that he is, in fact, the Guardian of Forever. The simple wooden door transforms into the iconic (yet reimagined-for-Discovery) stone time portal first seen 53 years ago in the Original Series classic “The City on the Edge of Forever,” complete with archival audio from original voice actor Bart LaRue.

Georgiou is given the opportunity for passage back to a time when the Prime and Mirror Universes were much closer to each other than they are now, meaning that her temporal and interdimensional psychosis should abate (enough for her star in her own spin-off show, at least).

So why the quick trip back to the Mirror Universe? Why not just passively let Georgiou leap through the same way McCoy, Kirk, and Spock did? After being weaponized as an easy means of time travel during the oft-mentioned Temporal Wars, the Guardian packed up and moved to a faraway planet and decided folks would need to pass a test before he’d let them use the gateway.

By demonstrating that Georgiou’s time in the Prime universe has softened some of her edges and that she is a person ultimately driven by love for her daughter instead of love for power, she’s passed the test she didn’t know she was taking and the Guardian will allow her — and only her — passage.

(The story reasons for the Guardian declining to send the rest of the Discovery crew back to their original time are obvious, but the Guardian’s motivations within the story are opaque and Burnham doesn’t push.)

After a touching goodbye, one that’s so touching it seems borderline out of character for Georgiou — even the less ruthless version of her we saw grow and develop over her three-month side trip to the Mirror Universe — Georgiou steps through the portal and disappears. Godspeed Georgiou, I look forward to seeing you again whenever your solo show actually starts filming.

Meanwhile back on Discovery — the prime Discovery — Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Adira (Blu del Barrio) get some unexpected but very welcome help from Book (David Ajala) while they continue to try and refine the message coming from the Verubin Nebula.

Taking to heart Saru’s statement that Book needs to prove himself if he wants to stay aboard the ship permanently, Book uses a stolen Emerald Chain-built subspace amplifier to give Saru the additional information he was waiting for before going to Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) with the finding.

Vance isn’t thrilled that Emerald Chain technology was involved, or that Saru waited a bit before bringing him in, but ultimately Vance is pleased with the developments. Even so, after all this, we still haven’t really learned much about this ship or the mysterious music or nebula or The Burn.

The episode — and Georgiou’s time on Discovery — wraps up with a casual memorial in the mess hall. Conceptually it’s a nice moment for the cast to celebrate their departing friend Michelle Yeoh; but for all the pomp and ceremony presiding over her empire in her universe, I suspect Georgiou would prefer folks to knock back a few drinks her honor and move on.

(The woman was practically allergic to sentimentality.)

But in practice, the scene seemed to have forgotten just how prickly and acerbic — and at times downright mean — Georgiou not only could be, but took pride in being. I don’t doubt that some of the people present truly would miss Georgiou, but I have to think that there are those among the crew who are relieved they no longer have to work with someone who took such joy in belittling them.

Not to mention, of course, the whole “enslaver of entire species, subjugator of countless worlds, enthusiastic eater of people” thing that Discovery never really addressed; past a vague “boy that was something, huh?” attitude to her whole reign as Emperor, the show truly never put time into making this version of the character anywhere close to one that would worthy of that kind of tear-filled send-off.

On a less character-driven note, I also found the impact of Georgiou’s departure to be dulled somewhat by the fact that this two-part episode was specifically positioning her for the long awaited Section 31 series. It’s a bit difficult to connect with the sense of grief and loss shared by the crew when I, as an audience member, know she’ll be back.

This sense that the “Terra Firma” story is both an end — and a starting point — undermined the emotional impact of the story in some ways. It seemed like Georgiou’s journey into the Guardian was supposed to be the first step of an exciting journey, but bifurcating the tone between that new adventure — and the Discovery crew mourning the loss of a friend (albeit a scary one) — muddled that effect.

As fun as they were at times, the two-part “Terra Firma” tale felt like a story that the show needed just get past for purely logistical purposes. How do we create a series featuring a character who’s currently stuck in the 32nd century? Grant her a sudden, miraculous, and conveniently-irreversible ticket back in time to… whenever.

Now that that’s checked off the season’s to-do list, the show can get back to The Burn and everything going on with Starfleet, even though it was pretty anticlimactic here in the second half of the story.

(And honestly, the two-parter felt a lot like a long, single episode that got broken in half during editing, requiring the Book-and-Saru stuff to pad out the running time to fill two hours. It was all just so… anticlimactic.)

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

  • I have a lot of questions about Carl — a name inspired by, apparently, Carl Sagan — questions that come not from a place of criticism but from curiosity.
     
    As a Guardian (the Guardian?), is Carl the man simply a helpful personification of the gateway — like a UI — or is he a separate being who attends to and administers the gateway? How much autonomy does Carl have?
     
    He can move from place to place but it appears that he couldn’t prevent people from using the gateway during the Temporal Wars, though he could introduce a loophole over which he exerts control. Or perhaps it wasn’t that he couldn’t prevent the gateway from being used, but simply that he didn’t, and he lives with a regret similar to that of Georgiou?
     
  • The opening credits sequence is both flipped vertically and color-inverted, in a callback to the altered Mirror Universe titles used in “In a Mirror, Darkly” during the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise – though in this case, there’s no alternate theme song or new footage included.
     
  • The monitor on which Georgiou watches Burnham’s torture in the agony booth greatly resembles the Tantalus Field device that was located in Captain Kirk’s quarters on the ISS Enterprise in “Mirror, Mirror” – including the iconic teardrop-shaped button — though the enemy-eliminating functionality doesn’t appear here.

  • Shout-out to the Mirror Universe Denobulans – the first mention of the Enterprise-era race since that show’s conclusion – who Burnham expects to be brave enough to join the rebellion against the Terran Empire.
     
  • Stamets rightfully asks Reno where she’s been for the last several episodes, since she hasn’t been seen since “Die Trying.” Her response? She’s been here the whole time – conveniently off-screen, of course, thanks to Tig Notaro’s only-occasionally-appearing contract with the show. (I do appreciate a good fourth-wall breaking moment!)
     
  • We see planet Risa from orbit from the first time since “Two Days and Two Nights” in 2002; the planet now has rings, unlike its prior appearance. One more difference in the Mirror Universe!
     
  • Ellen Landry’s Terran Starfleet serial number is PWH5261-7126SS; Ronald Bryce’s is EUR4000-7524xxx (last three characters illegible).
     
  • Lorca’s alias is revealed to be ‘Vicar,’ which Georgiou notes as meaning “substitute” – a veiled reference to the man’s eventual role as a secret Mirror Universe replacement for Starfleet’s Captain Lorca aboard the prime-universe USS Discovery.

After what felt like a two-episode detour, I look forward to seeing if — and how — this third season is going to wrap up the plot threads about Book’s place on Discovery, his relationship with Burnham, Adira and Grey, The Burn, the Emerald Chain, and the current and future state of the Federation.

With with just three episodes left, I don’t expect — or even hope, really — that everything will be tied up in a nice bow by the end of this season, but I do hope the story moment that lost its momentum these last two weeks can be regained as the show heads into the final stretch of the season.

Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, December 24 on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode December 25 on Netflix, in all other global regions.

STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS Heads Abroad on January 22; Series Will Stream on Amazon Prime Video Internationally

TrekCore Staff
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STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS Heads Abroad on January 22; Series Will Stream on Amazon Prime Video Internationally

In yet another blow to the conspiracy theorists out there — who have claimed for months, without evidence, that no international distributor was interested in the show — the good news fans around the world have been waiting for is finally here: Star Trek: Lower Decks has finally locked in plans to debut into international territories.

While we’ve known for months that the unexpectedly-early debut of Lower Decks this August resulted in a long delay on international distribution plans — series showrunner Mike McMahan explained in August that the CBS-managed US scheduling change (due to COVID-19 impact on Discovery‘s Season 3 debut) rocked their timetable — there’s no need to worry any longer.

“[The] reason you guys don’t know yet is squarely because of COVID… because the timelines for everything we’ve been doing for production have been completely thrown out.

A lot of what we’re doing [for ‘Lower Decks’] unexpectedly got shifted two months earlier, because they were juggling around schedules and stuff. A lot of the different groups in entertainment — when you shuffle that stuff around, they can’t move as fast as [we in production can].”

— Mike McMahan

Announced early this morning through The Hollywood Reporter, the animated Star Trek comedy series will debut on Amazon’s Prime Video service in multiple international regions on January 22, 2021.

Like Star Trek: Picard, the show will be exclusive to that service outside of the US (where it airs on CBS All Access) and Canada (airing on CTV Sci Fi Channel and Crave) — and the entire 10-episode first season will beam down to the UK and Europe, Japan, India, Australia, and New Zealand on January 22. (Hopefully additional territories will follow soon after.)

Star Trek: Lower Decks airs on CBS All Access in the United States, CTV Sci Fi Channel and Crave in Canada — and will debut on Amazon’s Prime Video service January 22 for fans abroad. Season 2 of the animated series is expected in 2021.

WeeklyTrek Podcast #121 — Updates on STAR TREK: PICARD Season 2 and More!

Alex Perry
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WeeklyTrek Podcast #121 — Updates on STAR TREK: PICARD Season 2 and More!

On this week’s episode of WeeklyTrek, brought to you in partnership between The Tricorder Transmissions Podcast Network and TrekCore, host Alex Perry is joined by Matt McClendon to discuss all the latest Star Trek news.

This week, Alex and his guest discuss the following stories from around the web:

In addition, stick around to listen to Matt’s theory about how this week’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Terra Firma, Part 1,” might tie into the Section 31 show, and a listener theory about how the Voyager-J might tie into Star Trek: Prodigy.

WeeklyTrek is available to subscribe and download each week on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify — and we’ll be sharing the details of each new episode right here on TrekCore each week if you’re simply just looking to listen in from the web.

Do you have a wish or theory you’d like to share on the show? Tweet to Alex at @WeeklyTrek, or email us with your thoughts about wishes, theories, or anything else about the latest in Star Trek news!

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’s Noah Averbach-Katz Makes the Jump from From Fan to Andorian

Alex Perry
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’s Noah Averbach-Katz Makes the Jump from From Fan to Andorian

It is rare for a Star Trek fan to end up landing a recurring guest appearance on a Star Trek show. But for Noah Averbach-Katz — the husband of Star Trek: Discovery’s Mary Wiseman — that childhood dream has become a reality this month as Averbach-Katz appeared as the Andorian fugitive Ryn in two episodes: “Scavengers,” and “The Sanctuary.”

Since the premiere of “Scavengers,” Averbach-Katz has been sharing his Star Trek fandom and some of his experiences working on Discovery, and this week he sat down for an interview with John Krikorian of the TrekProfiles Podcast to talk more about his fandom and his time on Discovery.

Introduced to Star Trek at a very early age by his mother, Averbach-Katz talked about how the casting of his wife (who plays Ensign Sylvia Tilly on the series), followed by his own casting in the role of Ryn, has been a transformative experience for his fandom, and how it has helped Mary with her introduction to the Star Trek fandom:

It was so exciting, and it just kept getting better. And it’s mutually beneficial in a way because I can clue her in on what she was getting into, and clue her into why it was important to people.

Because I think with any fandom, if you don’t have a close relationship it’s like, “Yeah, it’s great. It’s fun. But why does it mean so much to people?” And I think I was able to give her a window into that.

Averbach-Katz’s own road to casting in Star Trek: Discovery was a convoluted one. He explained that in speaking with Akiva Goldsman after a taping of After Trek, Goldsman introduced Averbach-Katz to Alex Kurtzman:

Alex nodded, and then right then somebody who worked at CBS came up to me and was like “Oh I know you! You were on ‘The Good Fight!’” And at that point it was like, “Oh this guy isn’t just a fan who wants to be an extra. He’s an actor.”

Then later down the road, I actually auditioned for Spock, which was interesting because the secret script they had [Spock] was coded as an Andorian named Tom. But as a ‘Star Trek’ fan I knew right away this was a Vulcan, this was not an Andorian. You’re not fooling me!

I auditioned for that, and they liked that. It was clear I had a relationship with this material. And then this [Ryn] part came up and I was in Toronto at the time and flew to New York and auditioned for it, and just kind of got it from there.

In preparing for the role of Ryn, Averbach-Katz did what any good Star Trek fan would do, and watched a lot of Jeffrey Combs.

“The first thing I did when I got the role was to go through Enterprise and watch all of Jeffrey Combs’s Shran,” he said. “As much as there’s that episode in the Original Series, I think Jeffrey Combs invents Andorians. He and the other guest stars on the show are the ones who invent this idea of the sort of boisterous, haughty, confident, blustering front footed Andorian.”

Noah Averbach-Katz goofs off with his real-life spouse, Mary Wiseman (Tilly). (Photo: Noah Averbach-Katz / Twitter)

Averbach-Katz also talked about how his more restrained portrayal of Ryn matches up against the fiery passion of Combs’ portrayal of Shran:

I think what Jeffrey Combs lays a blueprint out for is that this haughtiness and confidence [in Andorians] is covering a deep emotional sensitivity. A deep emotional well.

I think in [Enterprise] when [Shran] loses his partner [in “United”] and his daughter is kidnapped [in “These Are the Voyages”] you see just such a depth of experience that is not just showboating. It’s really showing that there is this really deep emotional well.

And so my approach for Ryn is that we pick up when he’s at his bottom. He’s already had this moment, which is alluded to in “Scavengers,” where he has brought this confidence, this swagger, and tried to knock down this character Osyra that he feels is unjust. And he’s failed. And he’s hit absolute rock bottom.

He’s been humiliated, degraded, and forced to do the worst job on this planet which separates him even further from his Andorian-ness. And I think my approach for Ryn is that his story is a redemption story as he makes his way back from the bottom.”

And though Averbach-Katz describes the prosthetics in Star Trek: Discovery as an “insane experience,” there is one thing he misses from the Enterprise Andorians – the active antennae.

“Those moving antenna are amazing. They’re absolutely amazing. So much fun. They’re insane. I read interviews where they said, ‘If you break one of these it’s $10,000 and we need to stop shooting,’ so I understand why they stopped doing that. But it’s campy in the best way.”

A closer look at Ryn’s blue Andorian makeup. (Photo: Noah Averbach-Katz / Twitter)

In a discussion about his favorite Star Trek collectibles, Averbach-Katz indicated his favorite piece of star Trek memorabilia was one he might have absconded from the set with.

“I think my favorite thing that I’ve gotten is something I’ve posted on Twitter which is the communicator badges [from “Scavengers”], which serendipitously wound up in my pocket somehow from the set of Star Trek,” he said. “I feel like that’s really cool. Something where I got to create and pass on my own piece of authentic memorabilia.”

And as revealed by Anthony Rapp (Stamets), Averbach-Katz has also been hosting a regular Dungeons & Dragons game for members of the Discovery cast, including Emily Coutts (Detmer), Ian Alexander (Grey Tal), and Blu del Barrio (Adira Tal).

In the process of describing that experience, Averbach-Katz talked a little about what filming for season four is like for the Discovery cast and crew:

You know it’s been a weird time because while everyone is up here shooting they get to spend their days at work together. Masks. Very safe. Lots of really, really necessary but very intense protocols.

There’s not a time outside of set for people to socialize, which sucks because that was one of the most fun things about this cast. It’s a very social cast. They have a lot of fun together.

Everybody gets along really well, so having that taken away has been a bummer, so I thought that [D&D] could be an opportunity for people to find a time to hang out, to make some new stories together, and to not be focused on work for a little bit.

To hear more about Averbach-Katz’s experiences on Discovery, including acting in prosthetics, as well as to hear more about his early convention experiences, make sure to check out the full episode of TrekProfiles.

https://twitter.com/N_A_K/status/1329533802755059712

Star Trek fan if we didn’t find out Averbach-Katz’s favorite episode, and he does not disappoint. “I think my favorite episode of Star Trek is “The Offspring” [from The Next Generation.] It’s an incredible work of television, of sci-fi, and it really exemplifies what Star Trek can do that no other television show can do.”

Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, December 17 with “Terra Firma, Part 2” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode December 18 on Netflix, in all other global regions.

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY 310 Photos: “Terra Firma, Part 2”

TrekCore Staff
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY 310 Photos: “Terra Firma, Part 2”

This week brings us to the tenth of this season’s Star Trek: Discovery episodes, and we’ve got a new round of photos from the second half of the Georgiou-centric tale, “Terra Firma, Part 2,” for you today!

In this new episode, Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) continues her trip back into the Mirror Universe, with an ultimate goal of changing the fate of her reign over the Terran Empire — and with it, the fate of her adopted daughter, Imperial Starfleet captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green).

Here are twelve new photos from “Terra Firma, Part 2” — which concludes the tale conceived by the lead minds behind the Star Trek: Section 31 series, Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt.

Finally, if you didn’t catch it at the end of “Terra Firma, Part 1,” here’s a new preview for the episode, and a clip which debuted during Thursday’s episode of The Ready Room featuring the Mirror Burnham’s time in confinement aboard the ISS Discovery.

TERRA FIRMA, PART 2 — Georgiou uncovers the true depths of the plot against her, leading her to a revelation about how deeply her time on the U.S.S. Discovery truly changed her.

Story by Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt & Alan McElroy.
Teleplay by Kalinda Vazquez. Directed by Chloe Domont​.

Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, December 17 with “Terra Firma, Part 2” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode December 18 on Netflix, in all other global regions.

David Cronenberg Returning for DISCOVERY Season 4

TrekCore Staff
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David Cronenberg Returning for DISCOVERY Season 4

Star Trek: Discovery returned to the Starfleet fold after landing in the far future this season, and with the new era came surprising casting in the form of legendary horror director David Cronenberg.

Cronenberg portrays the mysterious Starfleet representative Kovich, introduced during Philippa Georgiou’s debriefing in “Die Trying” earlier this season, and the “man of widely-varying interests” revealed during an interview this week with Variety that he’ll be continuing his stint on Discovery not just into the final run of Season 3 episodes, but also into next year’s Season 4.

The famous filmmaker also spoke a little bit about his casting in the series, which he joked was due to his Toronto residency — where the series currently filming for its next run of episodes.

I’m cheap and I’m available. I live in Toronto, and it’s being shot in Toronto. I think that’s my main qualification.

But I just got a note through people that I know, casting people, saying that [executive producer] Alex Kurtzman was really thinking of having me do a spot on the show. I said, of course, I’d be absolutely delighted. Who wouldn’t be, especially as an original Star Trek fan — and for Canadians, too.

I mean, because William Shatner, one of the lead actors on the [original] show, he was a very well known Canadian actor. To have him be in a successful U.S. TV series was quite thrilling.

So it’s kind of come full circle that “Star Trek” should be shooting in Toronto. And so of course I was delighted to be a part of the multiple universes of “Star Trek.”

Dr. Culber (Wilson Cruz) and Kovich (David Cronenberg) aboard the Discovery. (CBS All Access)

Cronenberg didn’t speak much to who his still-secretive character truly might be, or position within Starfleet’s ranks, but he did talk a bit about his thoughts on the Discovery sets and production team.

They are fabulous sets. I don’t think I’ve ever built a set myself that was as complex and as inventive in that particular sci-fi way as they have here in Toronto. Very impressive. I mean, I’m really a kind of a dilettante dropping in the show which has been ongoing for years, as you know.

They’re just so polished and everybody is so professional, and it’s a lovely experience. And, of course, I was interested in the handling of the visual effects and what was there on the show that was practical and what was obviously going to be done later in post-production.

It was just kind of seamless, really, and some of it was surprisingly simple. I was very interested to see that, because of course I’ve dealt with visual effects myself, but I hadn’t done tons of CG — you know, computer graphics. The director part of me was very intrigued by that.

Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, December 17 with “Terra Firma, Part 2” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode December 18 on Netflix, in all other global regions.

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Review: “Terra Firma, Part 1”

Alex Perry
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Review: “Terra Firma, Part 1”

In addition to being just the starting half of an oddly-unbalanced story, “Terra Firma, Part 1” is a tough episode to review, packing a lot of confusing and unnecessary obfuscation around a story element that — if you weren’t paying really close attention — may drastically change your enjoyment of what just occurred.

Setting up a number of elements which seem primed to exit Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) from the series, this week’s Star Trek: Discovery tale is filled with scenes and symbolism that imply a conclusion to her story, at least until the long-gestating Section 31 series arrives (not-so-coincidentally being led by two members of this episode’s writing team, Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt).

But before we get into the big events around the former Terran Emperor, let’s spend a moment on the new developments surrounding The Burn. The revelation that the lost Federation ship broadcasting from the Verubin Nebula is a Kelpien vessel — and not some duplicate of the USS Discovery, as some fans had speculated — allows The Burn investigation to make only marginal progress in the season story arc, taking time away from this episode’s clear Georgiou-centric intentions.

(While I’m not yet convinced that the Discovery won’t have some role to play in being part of what caused The Burn — somehow, somewhen — we don’t seem to be heading down that road yet, as there’s clearly still something about that Kelpien ship yet to be explored.)

That said, it’s a nice touch to see Captain Saru (Doug Jones) experiencing hesitation and making minor missteps as an inexperienced captain. His initial inclination to shut down the idea of a mission to Dannus V is logical — based in the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one — but Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) approves the mission while offering some important advice about how to earn the loyalty and respect of his crew.

This is a lesson that other captains in Star Trek like Kirk or Janeway did not need to learn, but as Saru continues to come out of his own Kelpien shadow, watching him progress towards that level of revered commanding officer a rewarding journey — but just as the Kelpien connection to The Burn gets started, the episode abruptly says “That’s all for this week!” and puts it all back in the box to shift the spotlight fully to Georgiou’s story.

The Section 31 agent and Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) beam down to a cold, wintery planet in search of a way to stop her medical degradation — caused, we learn from Kovich (David Cronenberg), by her trip across dimensions coupled with her jump into the far future.

Following a path gleaned from Discovery’s ancient Sphere Data, Burnham and Georgiou trek for miles across an arctic tundra — a trip which mirrors the Burnham/Georgiou desert excursion in “The Vulcan Hello,” another sign that this may be the end of the road for this character pairing.

At the end of their hike appears a enigmatic, dapper gentleman calling himself Carl (Paul Guilfoyle of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fame) who spouts vaguely deep-sounding riddles while goading Georgiou to step through a mysterious — there’s that word again — freestanding door in the middle of the snow. The door, he says, is her only way to survive.

I’ll come back to Carl in a minute, because there’s a lot to unpack: and whether you have a sense of his identity or not will go a long way towards understanding what’s going on in this deeply-frustrating episode, which ends with more of a simple act break than a cliffhanger to keep us hooked in for next week’s conclusion.

Georgiou steels herself and walks through the open doorway — only to immediately find herself basically Quantum Leap-ing back into the role of 2350’s-era dictator of the Terran Empire, keeping all of her memories of the past and future and offering her a chance to change her fate.

She’s still got her future Fitbit to monitor her health, but besides that she’s all Terran again, trying to figure out what she’s doing back home and shaking off the temporal confusion to assert herself back in her Emperor role while giving viewers a look at the Mirror Universe from a time before the Discovery crossover in 2018.

Georgiou averts an assassination attempt by Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), killing him in the process (we saw him alive back in Season 1), and learning from her own recollections of the past — and sparing the life of her Burnham, who was supposedly killed during Lorca’s rebellion.

It’s delicious to dip back into the Mirror Universe after almost three (calendar) years away; seeing the gleaming gold costume design and over-the-top makeup work on the Discovery cast is a surprise likely no one expected ahead of this week’s viewing, and something CBS has done a remarkably good job of keeping under wraps — something that was spoiled for fans back in Season 1.

Hearing the crew talk about the long-gone Gabriel Lorca as current foe, seeing the Mirror counterparts of Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), still-human Airiam (Hannah Cheesman), and alive-again Ellen Landry (Rekha Sharma), and finally getting to meet the dastardly Terran version of Burnham and the much-feared ‘Captain Killy’ (Mary Wiseman) are all a lot of fun — but ultimately, the episode doesn’t give us any explanation of what’s going on, or why any of it matters.

That is, unless you’ve figured out what’s up with Carl.

Leaving his identity hidden from all but the most eagle-eyed viewers, I think, is probably the biggest storytelling mistake this episode makes… because unless you’re able to get a good look at “tomorrow’s newspaper” advertising Georgiou’s impending demise, you’re going to have a lot of questions.

“Everything you need to know is right here in black and white,” Carl says, leading most to focus on the Georgiou-centric front page story, but it’s what’s on the back pages that tend to be the most revealing about what’s actually happening here. (Check out our full break down of the front and back pages below.)

With a splashy, advertisement for “Good Soup!,” a glimpse at the name of the 21st Street Mission, a half-seen woman’s portrait and a very visible offer to “Let Me Help!” on The Star Dispatch — all elements from Edith Keeler’s work in the 1930s, seen in “The City on the Edge of Forever” — these puzzle pieces seem to immediately unveil a connection between Carl’s magic door and the iconic “doorway back through time” from Star Trek legend: the Guardian of Forever.

“A time portal, Captain. A gateway to other times and dimensions, if I’m correct.”

If somehow Carl truly is connected to (or a personification of) the Guardian — either the original portal visited by Captain Kirk and company, or perhaps a second Guardian located at this new planet — “Terra Firma, Part 1” is suddenly seen through a very different light, and the stakes become much clearer.

On a brief note, having a personified Guardian — if that’s really what’s happening here — is actually a concept that dates back to Harlan Ellison’s concept for what eventually became the Star Trek episode fans are familiar with; in the 2014 IDW Comics adaptation of Ellison’s original teleplay, the Guardian is not a talking stone donut, but in fact actual entities who call themselves the Guardians of Forever.

The IDW Comics adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s original ‘Guardians of Forever’ concept.

If Carl really is connected to the Guardian, then Georgiou has likely in the process of really changing her own history. That makes me so much more invested in the story than the sly “What the hell is going on here?” eyebrow waggling that the episode attempts upon first watch; even the little tap of the wrist band by Georgiou when she arrives in the Mirror Universe, which also may be designed to indicate the reality of the situation, is too coy.

More than once in its run, Star Trek: Discovery has gotten so wrapped up in making things in a puzzle to solve — What’s up with Lorca? What are the Seven Signals? Who’s the Red Angel? What caused The Burn? Who is Carl? — that it often neglects an important part of storytelling: telling the audience why what’s happening is supposed to matter.

This is where I think “Terra Firma, Part 1” really stumbles — for everybody who doesn’t live with a copy of Memory Alpha in their heads like many of you reading this review — because the final scene in which Georgiou spares Burnham matters so much more if it’s really happening.

Burnham’s care for this version of Philippa Georgiou isn’t a one-way thing, and the longer that the Terran has been part of the Prime universe we’ve seen her reciprocation slowly grow. As recently as last week, Georgiou expressed her concern for Michael when Discovery went to Red Alert over Kwejian (even if only the audience saw it), and sparing Mirror Burnham’s life this time around shows that she’s fundamentally changed since joining ‘our’ Discovery‘s crew.

Beneath all the rude bluster, the former Emperor may just no longer be the brutal and genocidal ruler she once was — and that’s an important milestone if this version of the character is on her way to become the lead of her own Star Trek series.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

  • Kovich’s discussion with Culber in the opening moments of the episode labels the main Star Trek universe as “the Prime universe.” Aside from a glancing mention in last season’s “Perpetual Infinity,” this has been a term used only outside of storytelling, to delineate the main setting of the franchise from the Kelvin Timeline — the universe of the three Chris Pine-led Trek films — and the Mirror Universe, home of the Terran Empire.
     
  • As we covered more in-depth in Monday’s article, Betelgeusian  ‘time soldier’ Yor was a refugee from the Star Trek: Nemesis era of the Kelvin Timeline – the year 2379 of an alternate universe created by a Romulan mining ship – which makes this the first mention of that alternate universe outside of the Chris Pine films.
Hannah Cheesman as the human, pre-cyborg Airiam, still organic in the Mirror Universe. (CBS All Access)
  • There are a lot of references to the Temporal Wars and Temporal Accords this season, and this week we learn that the Accords include ‘iron-clad’ provisions regarding ‘interdimensional displacement restrictions’ which ban against universe-hopping. If our thoughts on the Guardian of Forever (above) are correct, that may serve as a way to bypass the Accords to get Georgiou out of this time – and dimension.
     
  • Culber, Stamets, and Airiam are shocking themselves with agonizers in the ISS Discovery’s mess hall – what a fun party game!
     
  • The Kelpien scientist mentions the USS Hiraga Gennai, which was named for an 18th century Japanese ‘polymath’ — or Renaissance man — who know much about many subjects. (Quite an interesting fellow.)
     
  • Mirror Burnham’s tale of talented artists and her wicked acts against them took her to planet Kepler-174d, a real exoplanet discovered in 2014.
     
  • Carl’s newspaper is reminiscent of the Q Continuum’s The New newsmagazine seen in “Death Wish,” as well as that of The Ascended Times from Stargate SG-1, which was read by Daniel Jackson in that series while visiting the Ancents’ ascended plane (SG1: “Threads”).

  • The price of a copy of The Star Dispatch newspaper? 15 Quatloos, of course.
     
  • Besides Georgiou’s fate, other headlines in Carl’s paper reference the missing USS Jenolan which carried Montgomery Scott to the 24th century (TNG: “Relics”) and the fall of the T’Kon Empire by supernova (TNG: “The Last Outpost”).
     
  • The back page of the paper features a column about Worf’s win at the bat’leth competition at Forcas III (TNG: “Parallels”). The honeycomb-shaped crossword puzzle on the back page, complete with two spiral-shaped black areas, could be references to the hexagon-shaped ships which make up a Suliban Helix, where key events occurred during the Temporal Cold War in Star Trek: Enterprise — but both the header and questions appear to be printed in Bajoran script.
     
    (Perhaps the Vulcan script at the bottom says that the Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible.)

  • Like the ‘hand cannons’ used by the Emerald Chain, 32nd century Starfleet phasers are able to compress into wrist-mounted badges when not in use, thanks to programmable matter tech.
     
  • Culber’s red Terran uniform – also worn by other actors typically seen in medical white aboard the ‘prime’ Discovery – was first featured as concept art during a 2018 episode of After Trek. While not used in the first trip to the Mirror Universe, early story concepts included a Culber appearance during that first season tale.
     
  • Book’s desire to help Discovery navigate the future – while pulling his weight – gives me a strong Neelix-and-the-Delta-Quadrant vibe. Hopefully Book’s better in the kitchen!
     
  • The Kelpien doctor in the century-old hologram is played by Hannah Spear, who also played Saru’s sister Sirannah last season.
Wilson Cruz finally shows off his Mirror counterpart’s look, established several years back. (CBS All Access)

Overall, I am really conflicted about this episode. There is a lot that I like, but keeping Carl’s secret in the deep, deep background of the story robs the episode of its stakes, and creates a situation where it feels a lot like the whole back half of the episode set in the Mirror Universe is exquisitely-produced filler material, just biding time until “Terra Firma, Part 2” finally lays all of its cards on the table.

Though its gilded production design looks amazing as always, “Terra Firma, Part 1” is ultimately a jumbled mess of great scenes that piece together to form a story of very little substance. Here’s hoping next week’s “Part 2” sticks the landing in a way that makes Georgiou’s detour to the past worth the trip.

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