This week brings us to the sixth of this season’s Star Trek: Discovery episodes, and we’ve got a new round of photos from “Scavengers” for you today!
After rejoining the fleet, Discovery and crew are tasked as ‘rapid responders’ under Admiral Vance’s (Oded Fehr) command — but when Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) received a distress signal from Book (David Ajala), she recruits Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) to leave on an unsanctioned mission to save her friend.
Here are seventeen new photos from “Scavengers,” as Burnham and Georgiou head off on their attempt to rescue Book from danger.
Admiral Vance and Lt. Willa brief Captain Saru. (CBS All Access)
Lt. Willa on the Discovery bridge. (CBS All Access)
Lt. Owosekun uses programmable matter at her console. (CBS All Access)
Book and Burnham on Discovery. (CBS All Access)
Commander Michael Burnham. (CBS All Access)
Burnham and Georgiou chat. (CBS All Access)
Georgiou and Burnham on their mission. (CBS All Access)
Georgiou and Burnham on their mission. (CBS All Access)
Stamets and Culber share a moment at home. (CBS All Access)
Stamets and Culber share a moment at home. (CBS All Access)
Ensign Tilly encounters Book's cat, Grudge. (CBS All Access)
Ensign Tilly encounters Book's cat, Grudge. (CBS All Access)
Stamets and Adira chat in the mess hall. (CBS All Access)
Stamets and Adira chat in the mess hall - as Gray observes. (CBS All Access)
Adira Tal. (CBS All Access)
Adira Tal. (CBS All Access)
Lt. Commander Paul Stamets. (CBS All Access)
Finally, if you didn’t catch it at the end of “Die Trying,” here’s a new preview for the episode, and a clip from the opening moments of the episode from last week’s The Ready Room, where Admiral Vance reveals the existence of the Spore Drive to the rest of Starfleet Command.
SCAVENGERS — After receiving a message from Book, Burnham and Georgiou embark on a rogue mission to find him, leaving Saru to pick up the pieces with Admiral Vance. Meanwhile, Stamets forms an unexpected bond with Adira.
Written by Anne Cofell Saunders. Directed by Doug Aarniokoski.
Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, November 19 with “Scavengers” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode November 20 on Netflix, in all other global regions.
In a season of Star Trek: Discovery where literally everyone and everything is rediscovering themselves and working to find their place in the 32nd century, Starfleet is no different. And that is where we find ourselves as the series’ superb fifth episode begins.
“Die Trying” is an extremely dense hour of Star Trek, featuring an introductory look at a modern Starfleet Command — sandwiched around a complex retrieval mission, staff interrogations, the departure of a fan-favorite crew member, and an analysis of Philippa Georgiou’s motivating demons that have been building for more than a season.
The episode opens with a deep dive into Trek nirvana that has rarely been seen in 54 years: from advanced tech, flying rain forests, and starships with holographic hulls and detached nacelles, the opening minutes of the episode are a wonder as Discovery approaches Starfleet’s cloaked headquarters and is introduced to a strange new world that is less brave than it is pragmatic.
The Voyager-J, ten generations of evolution past the original starship. (CBS All Access)
We also get an emotional glimpse of an unexpected descendent of Captain Janeway’s starship in the form of the USS Voyager (NCC-74656-J), a welcome surprise among all the new futuristic designs in the Federation fleet.
We’ve confirmed with CBS that the Voyager-J is 32nd century Intrepid-class starship — the same class designation as Captain Janeway’s Voyager, but with 800 years of evolution beneath the hull.
The crew’s reaction to all the new technology serves as the perfect stand-in for the fans watching at home. Organic hulls, holographic containment walls, flying rain forests – the crew is all of us in these early moments as Captain Saru (Doug Jones) prophetically trusts that “what matters most will have endured.”
In charge of this advanced metropolis is Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr), Starfleet’s commander-in-chief, who questions everything when meeting the Discovery crew — and rightly puts them through the paces before allowing them to assist in an important search for a galaxy-trotting “seed vault” ship that needs to be accessed to help save some refugees they are assisting. (Told you it was dense!)
From the opening minutes, the episode moves at breakneck speed as Starfleet very deliberately dissects Discovery’s arrival in an appropriately real-world way. The episode rarely gives you a chance to catch your breath — for example, blink and you’ll miss the USS Nog parked nearby, as we detail in our feature on the tribute to the late Aron Eisenberg.
Admiral Vance is suspicious of the Sphere Data, of the ships uncorroborated conflict with Control, and the spore drive – and when he meets Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio), he makes sure everyone knows he is familiar with Tal’s previous Trill host, Senna, but not yet with Adira. In the end, after processing everything in the reports from Saru and Commander Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), he quite sensibly warns that “two truths now exist in one space; that never goes well.”
Fehr is phenomenal as Vance, ultimately telling the crew when they meet that they “aren’t home yet” — and that their very presence in the 32nd century is a crime, adding even more context to the long-established Star Trek: Enterprise tale of the Temporal Cold War, and agents of the 31st century who fought to subvert the Temporal Accords in a century-spanning battle eventually called the Temporal War.
While suspicious of tales about a Red Angel suit, time crystals, and temporal wormholes, Vance makes it clear that he is working with Starfleet’s end goals in mind, indicating that after a series of debriefs, the ship will be requisitioned and the crew reassigned.
Those debriefs are successfully played for laughs and include snippets of interrogations with Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) getting snacky, Ensign Tilly (Mary Wiseman) trying to recount her stint as ‘Captain Killy,’ Commander Nhan (Rachael Ancheril) sticking to name, rank and serial number, Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) blithely explaining his trip through the afterlife, and Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) incredulously being asked if he’s “essential personnel.”
And then there’s Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), whose rebellious interview also takes place under the watchful guise of bespectacled, observer Kovich — played by renowned director David Cronenberg in a surprise cameo appearance for the body horror genre auteur. (The character’s name comes from CBS episode information.)
The back-and-forth between Georgiou and Cronenberg’s creepy operative is superb, revealing a number of major Terran details: the subatomic cell variance that makes them “wicked” (a fact Georgiou vigorously dismisses), the fall of the Terran Empire (the aftermath of which we saw in Deep Space Nine), and the fact that there has not been a crossing between the two universes in in 500 years as the two quantum realities drift apart.
In the end, Georgiou is adversely affected by Cronenberg’s character, saying at one point in defiance that “the weakness of people is generally other people,” a fact every observer of Discovery has seen in her relationship to Burnham. It seems now, however, that the former Terran emperor might be coping with this realization for the first time herself.
As for Saru, he is starting to realize that his contrasting style with Burnham is becoming a problem. They push Vance on offering up Discovery to use their spore drive to help find the USS Tikhov (which houses the seed vault), but they do it in vastly different ways. “Our first Federation act will not be to pilfer its property and violate a direct order,” says Saru, chiding Burnham about a lesson he’d thought she would have learned by now.
Burnham has been doing things her own way since we first met her in “The Vulcan Hello,” and this season alone she has already hijacked Discovery’s dilithium in “People of Earth” and quickly phasered a couple of Trill dignitaries in “Forget Me Not.” It’s pretty clear that her year alone in the 32nd century has only intensified her process of doing things on her own terms.
Saru is fully aware of this fact, and that he will be held responsible by Starfleet for her actions moving forward. Despite knowing this, it is Saru that convinces Vance to let Discovery “serve as she is able,” by putting Burnham in command of the mission while staying behind as a bit of Kelpien collateral.
Like the rest of the episode, the mission to the seed vault is crammed with intense moments and interesting story points that could have easily stood on their own as one full episode. There is a great mystery to be solved, a transporter accident, a ship overgrown with vegetation, and a bunch of strong character beats for the Discovery crew.
As seen throughout the season, Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts) continues to struggle mentally with the ship’s situation, hesitating at a key moment during the rescue operation. Her friend Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo) helps her fight through her trauma in the ship’s attempt to reach the Tikhov, adding a layer of depth to both the bridge crew and the series. (Her trauma is not gone just because everyone shared their true feelings during the epic dinner scene last week.)
This scene, as well as another round of productive banter between Stamets, Tilly and Reno, helps Starfleet realize the crew can deliver when tasked, and is a sign of the maturity and nuance in Michelle Paradise’s run at the helm of Star Trek: Discovery.
We also learn much more about Nhan’s backstory as a Barzan for the first time. (Before Discovery, the Barzan were a race previously only featured once in TNG’s “The Price.”)
It turns out the family taking care of the seed vault is from Barzan, but sadly only the father is left alive — albeit out of phase from the aforementioned transporter accident caused by a solar flare. The Discovery crew eventually secures the material necessary to help save the Kili refugees back at Starfleet, but only through a process in which Nhan rediscovers herself.
We learn that Nhan’s family was devastated by her decision to join Starfleet, and that Barzan’s don’t have the same idea of death as humans. It takes Burnham to help the grieving Dr. Attis (Jake Epstein), the Barzan caretaker of the seed vault, to see past his loss to help other families in need, an act that also motivates Nhan to forgive herself for the death of Airiam in “Project Daedalus,” so she can move on — and move on she does.
With Jefferson Russo’s brilliant score propping up the emotion in the compelling scenes on the Tikhov, Nhan recounts Burnham’s speech at Airiam’s funeral in “The Red Angel,” to “reach for the best in ourselves and each other.” As a popular character who defined the role of ‘adventurer’ since she was first introduced in “Brother,” the former Enterprise security officer decides to stay and take charge in protecting the seed vault, where she will guide the ship to Barzan — so she can see her home again and make sure Attis and his family receive proper burials.
It’s a powerful moment replete with some excellent debate on duty, cultural mitigation and Starfleet’s place in an officer’s personal decisions. The departure for Nhan is a surprise, and while there is certainly potential for everyone’s paths to cross again, it also feels definitive.
If all that wasn’t enough, one more mystery seed is planted when Burnham recognizes a melody being hummed by the Barzan family on a holo-recording. It’s the same one that Adira played on a cello after accessing her Trill memories in “Forget Me Not.” Burnham believes there is something more to it than just being a catchy earworm, a revelation that will bear watching in future episodes.
Other Observations
One ship in the Federation fleet is the USS Armstrong (pictured above).
Owosekun is excited to see a starship that might hold a crew of 1,000 or 2,000 people; in her own time, Captain Pike’s Enterprise carried 203; by the time of The Next Generation, the Enterprise-D carried 1,014 aboard.
Admiral Vance details that both Starfleet Command and the civilian Federation government both reside in the same hidden “starbase,” addressing some fan concerns that the two entities were being portrayed as one organization this season.
At its peak, there were 350 member worlds in the United Federation of Planets; by Discovery’s arrival, that number has been reduced to 38, including Saru’s homeworld Kaminar, and Nhan’s homeworld Barzan.
“Die Trying” was expertly directed by Maja Vrvilo, who has now helmed three standout episodes of Star Trek in 2020, including Star Trek: Picard’s“The Impossible Box” and “Broken Pieces.” Her distinctive, spare style adds weight to the quiet moments and gravitas to the comedic ones. Her work is impressive.
The holographic galactic map floating in Starfleet’s command center includes Voyager-established Delta Quadrant locations like the Ankari homeworld (“Equinox”), Ocampa(“Caretaker”) a Kazon Clan Forum (perhaps planet Sobras from “Alliances”), Neelix’s homeworld Talax, the Devorehomeworld (“Counterpoint”), and the Silver Blood demon planet (“Demon”) — along with new locations like Federation Deep Space Outpost #36 and #72.
The holographic map also lists the Founder’s first— and fourth! — homeworlds, indicating that the Changelings of the Gamma Quadrant still like to move around every so often for their protection.
The holographic helmets worn by Burnham and Culber when they beam on to the Tikhov are reminiscent of the life support belt forcefields seen in The Animated Series.
The Barzan Dr. Attis fittingly shares a name with Attis, the Phrygian god of vegetation in Greek Mythology.
The USS Tikhov’s registry number is NCC-1067-M, indicating it is not a 1,000-year old ship, but more likely one that’s been upgraded and replaced over the centuries. The ship was likely named after 20th century Soviet astronomer Gavriil Andrianovich Tikhov.
The USS Cuyahoga is mentioned to have detected Orion and Andorian ships — the ‘Emerald Chain’ cabal — in the Sigma Draconis system, an area of space famous for the episode “Spock’s Brain.” (Episode writer Sean Cochran hales from Cuyahoga County in Ohio.)
In addition to the mention of the Temporal Accords, the episode also references the events of Star Trek: Enterprise’s “In a Mirror, Darkly,” when the Mirror Universe’s Zefram Cochrane killed the just-landed Vulcan delegation with a shotgun.
In the end, Discovery’s successful mission to the Tikhov helps Vance and his staff to finally “look up,” as Saru tells him; the crew is officially welcomed home and will remain together and await their orders from Starfleet on where they go from here.
Of course, Burnham has been singularly focused on finding out what Starfleet knows about The Burn, but Vance has more theories than ships in the fleet. He tells her they have far more immediate concerns, and haven’t had the ability to chase down all the different leads — which immediately becomes a challenge that Burnham accepts to see what she can find on her own.
What did you think of Cronenberg’s appearance? And Nhan’s surprising departure? And how about those tributes to Voyager and Nog? Sound off in the comments below… but don’t let the blinking at your harmonic rate disrupt your holo protocols and create a reference loop that shuts down your program!
Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, November 19 with “Scavengers” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode November 20 on Netflix, in all other global regions.
Last September, Star Trek fans were shocked and saddened to learn of the unexpected passing of actor Aron Eisenberg, who played the young Ferengi character Nog for seven years on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
A convention mainstay for two decades, Eisenberg was a fixture in the fandom — many run-of-the-mill fans had fond memories of encountering the enthusiastic fellow at any of the many events he would attend throughout the year, or through online interactions as Star Trek fandom spread to social media.
One of Eisenberg’s most memorable moments in recent years came as part of What We Left Behind, the 2019 Deep Space Nine documentary that looked back on the making of the series — highlighted in this extended clip from the production.
The cast of Deep Space Nine, accompanied by series producer Ira Stephen Behr, paid their respects to Eisenberg — as well as departed Odo actor Rene Auberjonois — during the Star Trek Day livestream events in September 2020.
Last October, during New York Comic Con 2019, a Star Trek fan asked current franchise head honcho Alex Kurtzman about an online petition to honor the Nog character — wearing the rank of captain, as seen in the alternate future depicted in “The Visitor” — and if there was any chance that Star Trek: Discovery might find a way to make Captain Nog part of the new canon being developed for the series.
The discussion takes place at 37:45 in the below video:
Kurtzman commented at the time:
“We saw that petition, and obviously we would love to honor Aron in any way possible — so we will look for every opportunity.”
While some may have taken that diplomatic answer as a kind — but noncommittal — response, now that a year has passed and Discovery Season 3 has finally made it to our television screens, it’s clear that Kurtzman meant just what he said in 2019.
Debuting in “Die Trying,” this week’s new episode of Star Trek: Discovery, we can now get our first glimpse of the USS Nog (NCC-325070), a starship serving the Federation well into the 31st century — meaning the legacy of Nog, the first Ferengi to join the service, lives on more than 800 years after the events of Deep Space Nine.
We reached out to Alex Kurtzman and the team at CBS, who confirmed that this is the fulfillment of his promise made to fans a year ago.
“We promised to honor the legacy of both Nog and the late Aron Eisenberg, and it seemed fitting to name a starship after a character who exemplified the possibility of resilience after a period of darkness.
Hopefully we’ll see more of the USS Nog as it helps Starfleet build a brighter future.”
— ALEX KURTZMAN
Kurtzman’s reference to “resilience after darkness” calls back to Nog’s trying time recovering from losing his leg in the Dominion War (“It’s Only a Paper Moon”), which Eisenberg himself described as an episode that served as inspiration to many military veterans in the Star Trek fan community.
Like Nog after his time in the war, the USS Nog is helping Starfleet through the difficult times after The Burn, centuries after the Ferengi’s time in uniform.
Nog returns to the station after being injured in battle. (“It’s Only a Paper Moon”)
Upon learning about this nod to Nog, we reached out to Eisenberg’s wife, Malíssa Longo, for her reaction to this touching tribute to her late husband and his on-screen alter ego:
“I am thrilled to learn that Nog will be honored in the upcoming episode of ‘Discovery!’ Nog was a trailblazer in DS9. I have no doubt that he would have left a lasting impression on the Federation.
It is beautiful to know that he will be remembered. Nog deserves nothing less. So does our beloved Aron. Captain Nog forever!”
— MALISSA LONGO
* * * *
We’ve also confirmed with the team at CBS that the Nog is classified as an Eisenberg-class starship — named after Nog’s real-life counterpart, of course.
While we don’t know if we’ll truly see any more of the USS Nog in future episodes of Star Trek: Discovery — it wasn’t mentioned in dialogue, but received a lovely flyby shot in the opening moments of “Die Trying” — we’re sure there will be plenty of demand for a physical model of the futuristic starship.
It maybe a while until our friends at Eaglemoss’ Official Starships Collection expand their line into ships from Discovery Season 3, but we’re hopeful that fans will have their own chance to bring the USS Nog home at some point in the future.
This week brings us to the fifth of this season’s Star Trek: Discovery, and we’ve got a new round of photos from “Die Trying” for you today!
After getting directions to Starfleet and Federation Headquarters from Adira (Blu del Barrio), the Discovery heads to the secret coordinates to report in… but when they get there, they’ll have to prove themselves worthy of rejoining the fleet.
Here are fourteen new photos from “Forget Met Not,” as Discovery finally reconnects with the future Federation:
Reno, Stamets, and the crew look out the window. (CBS All Access)
Tilly, Reno, and Stamets work to solve a problem. (CBS All Access)
Burnham and Saru stand at attention. (CBS All Access)
Saru and Burnham take a meeting. (CBS All Access)
Georgiou sits patiently. (CBS All Access)
Georgiou sits patiently. (CBS All Access)
Saru on the bridge. (CBS All Access)
Nhan on the bridge. (CBS All Access)
Nilsson on the bridge. (CBS All Access)
Tilly on the bridge. (CBS All Access)
Detmer on the bridge. (CBS All Access)
Bryce on the bridge. (CBS All Access)
Finally, if you didn’t catch it at the end of “Forget Me Not,” here’s a new preview for the episode — where it seems the Discovery may not be as welcome an arrival as they hoped — and a clip from the opening moments of the episode.
DIE TRYING — After reuniting with what remains of Starfleet and the Federation, the U.S.S. Discovery and its crew must prove that a 930 year old crew and starship are exactly what this new future needs.
Teleplay by Sean Cochran. Story by James Duff & Sean Cochran. Directed by Maja Vrvillo.
Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, November 12 with “Die Trying” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode November 13 on Netflix, in all other global regions.
Say what you want about the plot of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but one thing that no fan can deny is what a gorgeous visual feast for the eyes it is.
The Motion Picture asserts that right from the very beginning of the movie: the camera pushes in on a trio of familiar looking Klingon battlecruisers, and in a series of sweeping effects shots we get our best look ever at Klingon ship designs.
Seeking to inspire that same level of awe, Eaglemoss has released the K’t’inga-class Klingon battlecruiser — which first appeared in The Motion Picture — as the second XL-sized Klingon ship in the larger format. The K’t’inga is a familiar shape, based on Matt Jeffries’ iconic D-7 design from the Original Series, but has been significantly upgraded for the big screen (after first being built for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II series).
Interestingly, the K’t’inga name has never actually been mentioned by any canon source. The name — which was later adopted by the Star Trek Encyclopedia by Mike and Denise Okuda — originated with The Motion Picture novelization by Gene Roddenberry. It has become the de facto name for the ship, including in the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, but when originally designed for Phase II the ship class was known as the Koro-class.
Regardless of what it’s called, Eaglemoss has produced a beautiful model that does real justice to this incredible iconic design. The model evokes all the menacing angles and smooth curves of the original studio model, and is impressive to look upon from any angle. The secondary hull of the ship is metal, while the nacelles and bridge module are plastic.
Across the whole model, there are lines and paneling that provide it visual interest. The K’t’inga is a sharp departure from the disappointing XL-sized runabout model, which lacked many of the smaller details (like panel lines) that would have made that model worth the cost. The K’t’inga, by contrast, is entirely worth it.
There are also small splashes of color at various points around the model, including the red plastic grilles for the warp engine, a large rendition of the Klingon Empire’s logo on the bottom of the ship, and a smaller logo and some Klingon text on the top of the secondary hull.
If there is one area of the ship where maybe there is not quite as much detail as I would have liked, it is the bridge dome at the very top of the ship. In The Motion Picture, the camera pushes into to the dome and much more detail is visible. Though much of that would not have been possible to recreate at this scale, the dome is entirely smooth on the model. But that’s a very minor gripe.
The stand grips the model firmly around either side of the base, and because it is slightly angled and the weight is held mainly towards the back of the ship in the metal aft section, there is little danger of this model falling forwards. The long neck of the ship, because it is plastic, is quite delicate, but there’s little reason to be concerned about it falling from your shelf (well…absent an earthquake I suppose!)
The Official Starships Collection -- K't'inga-Class Klingon Battlecruiser
1 of 17
Overall, if you’re a Klingon fan I think you’ll get a big kick out of the K’t’inga battlecruiser — it’s a beautiful ship, and a great model, that will fire the heart of any Klingon wire.
Stick around for looks at more of the Official Starships Collection — and in case you missed it, check out our exclusive interview with director Ben Robinson about all the upcoming plans the company has for Star Trek publications!
The newest issue of the official Star Trek Magazine is out nowin the United States, and it’s all about the men and women who keep Discovery running: the ship’s bridge crew!
Out now in the US and Canada (and coming to the UK and Europe on December 3), the Star Trek Magazine bridge crew special spends the bulk of its focus on the five main cast members of “lower deckers” of the starship Discovery — that’s Emily Coutts (navigator Keyla Detmer), Oyin Oladejo (ops officer Joann Owosekun), Patrick Kwok-Choon (tactical officer Gen Rhys), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (communications officer R.A. Bryce), and Sara Mitich (Season 1’s Lt. Airiam, and Season 2-3’s Lt. Nilsson).
The Discovery bridge crew: Bryce (Ronnie Rowe Jr.), Nilsson (Sara Mitich), Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo), Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon), and Detmer (Emily Coutts). (CBS All Access)
The five tertiary Star Trek: Discovery cast members have each been floating around the edges of the Discovery story since the show debuted in 2017, each getting minor moments in the spotlight during the show’s first two years — and as Season 3 has begun to widen their participation, especially with Detmer’s trauma and associated outbursts in “Forget Me Not.”
Emily Coutts as Lt. Keyla Detmer. (CBS All Access)
In an excerpt from the new Star Trek Magazine, actor Emily Coutts speaks about Detmer’s Discovery journey so far — from the good old days on the Shenzhou to a flight to the future.
In Season 1, we saw her be one of the only survivors who went from the Shenzhou to the Discovery, where she was thrown into the deep end with Captain Lorca [Jason Isaacs], and adapted very quickly, which was great to play. We didn’t really see, on camera, Keyla and Michael’s [Sonequa Martin-Green] relationship.
We saw a quick glimpse of how I held her responsible, in my mind, for the crash and all the casualties that came from that.
I think Keyla has to learn how to accept that she was someone who’d survived, and that is was for a reason: she was meant to be a part of this new team. Under Lorca, she had to learn a different rhythm on the bridge. She had to meet her new crew. And I think she’s extremely good at what she does, which is why she thrives in intense situations.
In Season 2, we got to see a little bit more of her colors and her personality, with friendships emerging on the bridge. We saw how much Airiam (Hannah Cheesman) meant to her, how close [Owosekun] and she had gotten. I think it gave the audience a bit more to chew on in terms of what her personality is like.
And, at the end of Season 2, it was high-pressure, obviously, extremely scary, for everyone to accept the challenge of flying into the future, and not knowing what that meant.
I think it meant a lot for us on-screen and off-screen, too. It was like, ‘We’re in this together, for real, all of us, and we’re going into the next season together and continue to build this amazing story.
Ronnie Rowe Jr. as Lt. Ronald Altman Bryce. (CBS All Access)
Stoic communications officer, Lt. Ronald Altman Bryce, has been played by Ronnie Rowe, Jr. since “Context is for Kings” — and while he’s not gotten much to do outside of his on-duty responsibilities, the actor hints that Bryce will have a bit more activity in the upcoming episodes of Season 3.
There’s going to be a lot of exploration and you’ll see a lot of enhanced technology.
We are encountering interesting things, and Bryce is doing what he does. He’s just being that piece that the team needs him to be, at the moment they need him. You’ll get to see a little bit more of all of us on a personal level, and doing things that aren’t necessary just on the bridge, which is pretty cool, for Bryce, at least.
It’s been great because the stakes of what has happened are so high. We’re going forward almost 1,000 years, so we’ve lost anybody we had contact with in our own time. It’s this completely new world, and the crew has to get tighter because of it, because we’re in a place unknown.
Oyin Oladejo as Lt. Joann Owosekun. (CBS All Access)
Ops officer Joanne Owosekun, played by Nigerian-born Oyin Oladejo, is in the forefront of most action on the Discovery bridge… but when she first got to set, she had a lot to learn about the Star Trek world.
Honestly, they told me nothing, and I understand, because in the first year I think everybody was frantic. So, I honestly did not know what I was walking into with [the character].
But we did get a huge manual, this whole ‘Star Trek’ manual for all the operation systems, what each button does, what the stations were, what the ranks meant. I’m looking at science diagrams and terms and thinking, ‘What? What? This is like school! This is biology, and chemistry and physics that I didn’t like in school!’
Then, when I sat at my console, I realized, ‘Oh, you are actually a huge part of controlling this ship. I’m the operations officer, and I see everything that happens on the ship. I see everybody’s lifelines’ And I thought, ‘Yes, I have a lot of responsibility in this station of mine.’
Gradually, because she’s not completely there yet, I’m sitting comfortably in my chair, as an operations officer.
This week’s new Star Trek: Discovery introduced the romance between young human Adira and their Trill boyfriend Gray, adding a new dynamic to Season 3’s story and unveiling the mystery of Adira’s hidden past.
*** Spoilers ahead for “Forget Met Not” ***
We learn in “Forget Met Not” that Gray Tal (played by trans actor Ian Alexander) was the most recent host to the Trill symbiont which holds the key to finding the Federation in Discovery’s new future — and that Grey was killed in an accident, forcing Adira (played by non-binary actor Blu del Barrio) to take Tal on as a new host.
While there’s reason to expect he’ll return beyond this episode (though we’ve not yet seen past the first four episodes of the season), it’s hard not to see killing off a character played by the Star Trek franchise’s first explicitly-transgender actor is a pretty serious hurdle for some viewers to get past.
It’s a choice the show itself will need to address and explain — after the character is killed after less than ten minutes of screen time — hopefully in a way much more satisfying than another post-show “Don’t panic!” message from the cast and producers during The Ready Room.
Adira and Gray share a moment, before Gray receives the Tal symbiont. (CBS All Access)
SyFy Wire FANGRRLS writer Riley Silverman — who herself is trans — wrote an extensive, personal opinion piece about Gray’s death, where she describes her disappointment with the way Discovery has returned to the well of killing off an LGBT member of the cast.
[Once] I finally did find out that Star Trek was expanding its inclusivity with some long, long overdue trans characters, I was thrilled. It took the excitement I already had for Discovery Season 3 and punched it into warp nine.
I had some mixed emotions when I learned that both characters would be hosts of a Trill symbiont [which I do not see as adequate representation of the trans experience], but upon speaking to del Barrio about their role, and their emphasis on the fact that both characters were trans prior to the implantation of the Tal symbiont, and remain trans regardless of Tal’s presence, I welcomed it as a solid subversion of my previous concerns. Taking hosts and giving them agency over their own gender identity feels like giving the Trill over to the trans community once and for all.
And yet, when I finally arrived at episode Season 3, Episode 4, “Forget Me Not,” where we get the first deep dive into Adira as a character and an introduction to Gray (Ian Alexander) for the very first time, I was gutted. The episode got me so upset that I had to stop it midway and compose myself before finishing it. Because as those who have seen the episode already know, when we meet Gray he is dead.
Gray’s story in this episode is a traumatic memory from Adira’s past. Their lost love who died and passed the Tal symbiont over to them. If you like burying your queers, well you’ll love burying them inside another queer!
Now, I am on record as saying that I do not believe that immortal queer characters is the solution to burying them. In order to truly gain a justifiable level of diversity in representation we need enough various groups represented in narratives so that one character’s experiences, their loss, and their pain, do not have to act as a stand-in for their entire community.
That said, it’s hard to get to know someone if you just kill them off immediately as if they’re disposable. I’m angry because even while Star Trek has taken great strides to rectify the mistakes of the past, it is frustrating that they chose introduce trans characters into the narrative through the blood-soaked lens of trauma.
Adira in Discovery’s sickbay, ahead of their journey to the Trill homeworld. (CBS All Access)
As part of Silverman’s reaction to the episode’s events, she spoke with Blu del Barrio and about the events of “Forget Met Not,” learning how the actors reacted to the start of their character’s story, and where things will go moving forward from here.
del Barrio responded to the immediate death of Gray, and how both of the actors have voice their concerns to the Discovery production team:
It was hard to hear that Gray is technically dead. It was definitely a difficult thing at first. It’s something that we’ve now talked about a lot. And past mistakes will not be made again.
Gray and Adira’s storyline only moves forward in a positive way. Gray’s storyline individually only moves forward in a positive way. It’s not going to be kept in this sad, sad storyline for both of them. From the beginning, it’s just trauma but it does not last. Which I’m glad about, because I wouldn’t want that to be their whole thing.
It will be OK, [Gray] will be OK. I don’t know how to say anything more without spoiling, but as much as I can take away worry, I want to take away worry. Because Ian and I as actors have both been very vocal about not wanting this to be another sad dramatic story for them.
It can’t be that. I would hate for this to be a trope, just another sad trans story filled with trauma. I feel good now, so I hope that can give some reassurance.
Gray disappears into the Tal symbiont’s memories. (CBS All Access)
In addition, ET’s Philiana Ng spoke with Ian Alexander about his introduction to Star Trek, where the actor revealed that the character came from a failed audition for the part of Adira.
I actually originally auditioned for the part of Adira and yes, I strongly believe Blu is the perfect person for that role. I am so happy that they cast Blu.
They loved my energy, they loved my personality and my own take that I brought to the character, so they said, “You’re not right for Adira, but we’re going to take this character and we’re going to change their name to Gray and you can play Gray. You can be Adira’s partner in crime.”
And I was like, “Wait, you mean, I’ll get to play a character that’s friends with another trans person on the show? That’s amazing,” which has never happened to me before.
I’ve never had the opportunity until Star Trek to work with another trans actor. I’m really, really happy that they gave us that opportunity.
Gray’s ‘transness’ isn’t necessarily explicit right away, but I would say that the more time that you spend with them, the more time that you get to know this character; there will be signs and there will be, in the future, more explicit conversation.
And I think that’s wonderful, in my opinion, because it’s just sort of the same way when meeting any trans person, you wouldn’t just, right off the bat, be like, ‘Oh, I’m trans, by the way, here’s my entire transition history.’
So, you know, you might take some time to get to know someone before diving into the history of their medical transition, if they have or have not transitioned medically.
del Barrio and Alexander filming “Forget Me Not,” with director Hanelle Culpepper (right). (CBS All Access)
Both del Barrio and Alexander also revealed that the pair will be returning for the just-starting-up Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery, meaning that Adira and Gray’s story will continue through the remainder of this year and into the next — so while Gray may have been killed before Adira joined the Discovery crew, there’s still ahead lot to explore.
Without going into anything that is spoilery, I’m going to tread very carefully here. I’m excited for everyone to see how Gray’s story develops, how his connection with Adira strengthens and grows over time. That connection that they have truly is special.
The future of Gray is… There’s a lot of exciting things coming up, especially as Gray’s story progresses into Season 4, which I am currently filming for. I am allowed to talk about that. I can mention Gray is coming back to season 4, you can put that in there.
Gray is going to be coming back throughout the end of Season 3 and then also through Season 4 as well.
Ian is absolutely fantastic as an actor and as a human being. They’re incredible, and I’m really lucky to have them here with me [in Toronto for Season 4], especially now during COVID because we can support each other and spend time with each other. We’re our own little two-person bubble right now, so yeah, it’s been really nice.
[Being on Star Trek] feels really surreal. I thought that at some point in the past year it would start to feel less crazy and overwhelming, but it hasn’t. It still feels like just insane that this is my job, that I get to do this, and that I get to play this character and work with these people.
Now getting to hear all of the LGBTQ+ fans of this show being excited about Gray and Adira just takes it to another level entirely. I know Ian and myself are even more excited now to keep working and keep their story going.
The spectral version of Gray appears to Adira aboard Discovery. (CBS All Access)
We’ll see how Gray and Adira’s story, joined through their shared history with the Tal symbiont, as Star Trek: Discovery continues into 2021 and beyond.
Star Trek: Discovery returns for the fifth episode of the season, “Die Trying,” on November 12 exclusively on CBS All Access (USA) and CTV Sci Fi Channel (Canada); the episode arrives November 13 on Netflix for all other global regions.
“Forget Me Not” sees Adira connecting with hidden past and mourning a lost love, while aboard ship, the Discovery crew confronts their collective trauma during one of the most awkward dinners in Star Trek history.
At least there’s popcorn.
The Trill leadership wants no part of Adira’s situation. (CBS All Access)
After learning about the joined nature of the Trill species in last week’s “People of Earth,” the Discovery jumps to the Trill homeworld in the hopes that Adira (Blu del Barrio) will be able to finally connect with their blocked memories — not only of their symbiont, Tal, but of their own former life.
After joining with Tal a year ago, Adira has been unable to recall anything about their past, and Tal, who had formerly been joined with Starfleet admiral Admiral Senna Tal, has been uncommunicative as well. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Adira take a shuttle down to the surface where they’re met by a small group of Trill diplomats who wear flowy robes and like to hang out in nicely manicured parks where they hand down unilateral judgements on behalf of their entire planet.
What I’m saying is, it all feels very 90s-Trek — in a way that’s simultaneously simplistic and endearing — when the group declares almost immediately, and with only a single dissenter, that the Adira-Tal joining is an abomination.
Adira is taken to the Caves of Mak’ala to uncover her locked-away memories. (CBS All Access)
The initial excitement over meeting a previously-unknown joined pair cools significantly once the group learns that the host is human. Even the severe culling of hosts and symbionts caused by The Burn isn’t enough for them to get over their distaste, especially when they learn that Adira cannot recall the names of Tal’s former hosts.
Michael and Adira make their way back to the shuttle, but are instead ambushed by one of the diplomats and his men, apparently wishing to liberate Tal from the young human. Michael, demonstrating her new and more pragmatic approach to life, swiftly knocks out the attackers and the two humans continue on their way.
Eventually they’re met by the sole dissenter, the earnest Guardian Xi (Andres Apergis), who brings them to the sacred Caves of Mak’ala — last visited by Jadzia Dax in Deep Space Nine’s “Equilibrium” — where unjoined symbionts live in milky, electroconducting pools.
Once they’ve entered the pool, Adira falls into a trance and, with Michael’s help, begins to connect with their own memories — and the memories of Tal’s previous hosts, carried by the symbiont.
Back aboard Discovery, Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) has completed his medical assessment of the crew’s stress levels and come to one conclusion: things are bad.
Some characters, like Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), have been openly working through the grief of leaving everything and everyone they’ve ever known behind. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) his immersed himself in his work even more deeply than usual, reverting to the grouchy lone genius he was in the early Season 1 episodes where we first met the character..
Others, like helmsman Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts), have dissociated to the point of mentally removing themselves from the situation. Detmer is present, but only physically, when it comes to working and socializing with the people around her.
Zora begins to emerge from Discovery’s computer. (CBS All Access)
Newly-minted Captain Saru’s (Doug Jones) attempts to provide the crew with rest, relaxation, and healing — and to find his own style as a captain — brings some welcome attention to the emotional strain of recent events. Consulting with the ship’s computer, as the Kelpien first did back in “Choose Your Pain,” Saru considers and dismisses a long list of suggested relaxation techniques and activities.
During this scene, the alien Sphere Data — inhabiting the Discovery computer systems since last season — takes over the normal computer interface temporarily, speaking and laughing in the voice of Zora (Annabelle Wallis), the artificial intelligence who was the sole (virtual) occupant of the long-abandoned starship Discovery in “Calypso.”
Saru doesn’t seem to be overly concerned to his ready room’s computer display or voice interface; personally, I’d be more than a little wary of the ship’s computer starting to demonstrate self-awareness after Control’s takeover of Airiam last season, but this is something we are likely to revisit as Season 3 progresses.
Eventually, Saru settles on two parallel solutions: most of the crew gets the night off, while the series regulars gets… to attend a mandatory work dinner.
If I was any one of the people at that dinner table, I’d have been pissed to learn that the rest of the crew was spending their time doing literally anything else — and as expected, the dinner goes poorly.
Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) kicks off a round of haiku that begins pleasantly enough… but quickly devolves into Tilly and Stamets snipping at each other, and Detmer loudly and compulsively attempting to compose a haiku about Stamets spilled blood. She never really gets past “Stamets’ blood is everywhere” in an increasingly uncomfortable moment.
The only person who appears to be enjoying themselves is Georgiou, who grins her way through the arguments and absconds with the liquor when the dinner inevitably breaks up.
Adira and Gray Tal in happier times. (CBS All Access)
Diving back into the Trill pools, it’s at this point that we finally meet one of the season’s most highly anticipated new characters: young Trill host Gray (Ian Alexander), who is unjoined when he and Adira begin their relationship aboard a generation ship searching for Federation headquarters. Grey is set to become the newest host of the Tal symbiont — taking over for Senna Tal — which makes Adira understandably unsure of how this will change the nature of their relationship.
After the joining is complete, Adira gifts the newly-named Gray Tal with a handmade quilt chronicling his life experiences. It’s a touching moment, and one that feels like the beginning of getting to know these two characters and their love for one another. It turns out, in a way, to be the opposite… as the blue-haired Gray is suddenly killed during an asteroid collision with the ship. (I have a lot more to say about this below!)
In the last moments of Gray’s life, Adira makes the sudden choice to accept the Tal symbiont, as the closest humanoid available. The surgery is performed by robots, and presumably there is no one else around to answer Adira’s questions after the joining.
Finally able to recall and connect with Tal’s former hosts, Adira emerges from the pool as Adira Tal, ritualistically speaking her names to the gathered Trill congregation — and demonstrating that atypical joinings like theirs are not only possible but maybe even desirable given the worrisome state of the host/symbiont population.
Craft and Georgiou each eat from Starfleet-issue popcorn containers. (CBS All Access)
After that not-so-great crew meal, Saru’s second try for ship-wide stress relief is a Buster Keaton screening in the shuttle bay, complete with Starfleet-issue popcorn buckets — also last seen in “Calypso” — which goes over much better than the dinner. (By the way, if it seemed unbelievable or forced that a bunch of people would be cracking up at a 350 year old silent comedy, you’ve never seen any of Buster Keaton’s films!)
Regardless, the dinner wasn’t a complete bust. Tilly and Stamets work through their conflicts and work better together afterward, and Detmer reaches out to Culber for the help she’d been trying to pretend she didn’t need.
And in the final moments of the episode, Adira starts playing the cello in their quarters — a skill inherited from one of Tal’s past hosts — and in a twist on the typical Trill presentation, we also see a vision of Gray himself sitting with Adira, guiding their cello bow.
Tal’s memories begin to resurface within Adira’s mind. (CBS All Access)
While past Trills like Jadzia and Ezri Dax would often refer to specific past-host memories, or inherit some personality quirks from those former hosts, Discovery looks to present Gray’s memories in the form of an independent and seemingly self-aware entity in — from Adira’s point of view — while still being an integrated part of Adira Tal’s personality.
Given that the presentation of a person’s physical — or outward — self is often a central aspect of the trans experience, the choice to render Gray incorporeal seems significant. To some viewers it may come across as insulting, perhaps liberating to others, and to still others unimportant. Regardless of how it’s received by viewers, I hope Gray’s spectral nature is something the writers discuss and explore in further episodes, particularly with respect to how Gray sees himself.
I also wonder how the other characters are supposed to perceive or interact with him as an independent individual — or if he’ll just be around as a kind of Force ghost (to mix space franchises for a moment) for the rest of Adira’s time on Discovery.
Tal’s past hosts emerge from the symbiont’s memories. (CBS All Access)
There’s much more to Gray as a character, though, than how his death serves the plot, but I worry that rendering a trans character literally invisible within minutes of his introduction undermines the representational value of including him in the first place.
While there’s reason to expect he’ll return beyond this episode (though we’ve not yet seen past the first four episodes of the season), it’s hard not to see killing off a character played by the Star Trek franchise’s first explicitly-transgender actor is a pretty serious hurdle for some viewers to get past.
It’s a choice the show itself will need to address and explain — after the character is killed after less than ten minutes of screen time — hopefully in a way much more satisfying than another post-show “Don’t panic!” message from the cast and producers during The Ready Room.
Adira and Gray reunite within the host-symbiont mindspace. (CBS All Access)
That’s unfortunate, because there are aspects of this shared consciousness that are genuinely fascinating. But as much as I want to focus on the good, at this point Gray’s death just leaves a bad taste in my mouth right now.
But moving on — for now — from the questions and concerns I have about this situation, it’ll be interested to explore what happens when a symbiont moves from one member of a couple to another, and what it might look like to connect on such a deep and fundamental level.
We’ve seen several instances of Trill encountering past loves — Jadzia’s reunion with Lenara Kahn in “Rejoined,” and Curzon’s slightly-gross infatuation with then-protégé Jadzia revealed in “Facets” — but we’ve never seen a Trill symbiont move between members of a couple. I look forward to seeing how the connection between Gray and Adira evolves and how it affects their individuality.
Gray lives on within Adira Tal’s mind…. in more than just memories. (CBS All Access)
Other Observations
In addition to movie night, the Discovery computer suggests crew morale improvement suggestions including: exercise, medication, limited dairy, yoga, use of a hyperbaric chamber, therapeutic coloring books, and interstellar shopping.
Like Commander Nhan, Doctor Pollard (Raven Dauda) wears a ‘skant’ version of the Discovery uniform.
Captain Saru’s ready room features a number of potted plants, including the distinctive red flowers of Kaminar seen in “The Sound of Thunder.”
The Trill neurotransmitter isoboromine— which manages the connection between symbiont and host — gets a mention during the visit to the Caves of Mak’ala.
Kelpian flowers adorn Saru’s ready room table. (CBS All Access)
“Equilibrium” revealed that there are many more suitable hosts among the Trill population than is generally known — one of the most tightly-kept secrets of Trill society. While the Trill population was diminished by the destruction of The Burn, that secret seems to not have gotten out during the last 850 years (or if it did, it’s been lost to time).
Tal has had six previous hosts before Adira — Kasha, Jovar, Madela, Cara, Senna, and Gray — dating all the way back to the Star Trek: Picard era, as one wears a captain’s uniform from that 2399-set series. (Either those are some long-lived hosts, or Tal spent a lot of time floating around in the Caves of Mak’ala.)
Three of Tal’s past hosts have served in Starfleet. In addition to the host wearing a Picard-era uniform and Senna Tal’s grey Admiral’s uniform, one other host wears a powder-blue uniform with a gold operations-division stripe from some in-between era, complete with “modern” 32nd century combadge with commander rank marks.
Past hosts of the Tal symbiont, each Starfleet officers of different eras. (CBS All Access)
Now that the crew is starting to adjust to their new lives in the far future, and Adira Tal’s unlocked memories of the Federation’s collapse are ready for exploration, it seems that the starship Discovery is in a good position to begin picking up the pieces of the United Federation of Planets… to begin solving the big mystery of The Burn.
Star Trek: Discovery returns for the fifth episode of the season, “Die Trying,” on November 12 exclusively on CBS All Access (USA) and CTV Sci Fi Channel (Canada); the episode arrives November 13 on Netflix for all other global regions.
Eleven years after Full Circle — the start of Kirsten Beyer’s ten-book Star Trek: Voyager relaunch — the long-running series finally comes to an end with To Lose the Earth, closing yet another chapter in the last two decades of Star Trek novel continuity.
To Lose the Earth is a beautiful conclusion to the Voyager relaunch. Rather than inspiring an air of finality in its final pages, it creates a sense of new beginnings, and leaves you satisfied with the conclusion of the character arcs started in Full Circle… but aching at the same time for the untold stories that will never follow.
Kirsten Beyer’s career is the ultimate Star Trek fan success story: with the popularity of her Voyager books as a launchpad, Beyer landed a position in the Star Trek: Discovery writers room and has gone on to earn herself a co-creator and co-executive producer title on Star Trek: Picard. Her accolades are well earned, and the Voyager relaunch is probably one of the most exquisite series of Star Trek novels ever published.
Beyer’s books, taken as a whole, expand the Star Trek universe in new and interesting ways, revisit familiar species from the Delta Quadrant with new twists, serve up some truly creative and unique aliens, all while grounded in Voyager’s characters — both new and old. By the end of these ten books, you’ll care just as much about Janeway, Chakotay, and the television Voyager crew as you’ll care about many of the characters created for the relaunch — like Counselor Hugh Cambridge, Lieutenant Devi Patel, Commander Liam O’Donnell, and Captain Regina Farkas.
It’s important to note that this book is set within the “old” continuity — Seven of Nine’s story is very different in the post-series Voyager novels than as depicted in Star Trek: Picard, and it’s expected that Janeway’s time in Star Trek: Prodigy won’t reflect any of the events of the book series.
To Lose the Earth is a direct sequel to 2018’s Architects of Infinity, picking up immediately after the USS Galen, one of Voyager’s companion ships, appears to have been destroyed. Aboard were Lt. Harry Kim, Reg Barclay, the Doctor, and a number of important characters in the books such as Voyager’s new Chief Engineer, Nancy Conlon.
But instead of being destroyed, the Galen was in fact transported halfway across the galaxy by a powerful alien species: the Edrehmaia. The plot of the book involves Voyager’s investigation of the disappearance of the Galen, the Galen’s attempts to discern the intentions of the aliens who transported them, and a challenge to Admiral Janeway’s leadership of the Full Circle fleet from the Department of Temporal Investigations.
In To Lose the Earth, Beyer is juggling a large cast of characters — including each of the Voyager main cast (minus Tuvok, who transferred to the USS Titan years ago) as well as the novel original characters… and because this is the last book in the series, there is a lot to tie up.
Beyer effectively does so for most of the characters, closing this chapter of their lives and in some cases opening a new one. But with so many characters, there are plot threads that get shorter shrift than I would have necessarily liked, such as the relationship between Seven of Nine and Counselor Hugh Cambridge. But some of the character arcs — especially those for Harry Kim and the eccentric captain of the USS Demeter, Commander O’Donnell — are exquisitely handled.
If there’s one relationship that perhaps did not get the space to breathe it deserved in this book given how it ends, it’s the one between Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay, who have become involved romantically since Admiral Janeway was resurrected… it’s a long story. There are only a couple of scenes shared between the two that don’t directly relate to the plot at hand.
And given the ending — the marriage between Janeway and Chakotay — I would have liked a little more time for these two. However, given how central they have been to previous novels in the series, and how it would have detracted from the attention afforded characters like Harry Kim, it is understandable.
The Edrehmaia — an ancient and thoroughly alien species contacted by the Full Circle fleet following the events of Architects of Infinity — are a great concept. Beyer has had a lot of cool ideas in these novels that would never have been possible on a television budget (even a Kurtzman-era Star Trek budget) and the Edrehmaia are no different. Where first their intentions seem hostile, as the book develops we learn that they aren’t hostile, just so alien to us their agenda is a mystery.
By the end of the book, Voyager commits itself to help the Edrehmaia achieve their goal: allowing them to pass beyond the Great Barrier at the edge of the galaxy and into the void between galaxies to new frontiers. And Voyager agrees to accompany them on that journey to the next galaxy, beginning a journey even more fantastical than the one Voyager completed through the Delta Quadrant.
But where that voyage into the unknown was involuntary, Voyager’s trip where no one has gone before is entirely their own choice. To end the series with a new adventure, rather than a return home, is a hopeful and inspiring place to leave this group of explorers.
There is also one subplot that continues throughout the book that is left tantalizingly unresolved. Previous novels included a developing story around the Krenim Imperium (of “Year of Hell” fame) and possible ongoing shenanigans related to altering timelines.
Had Beyer not become a television writer and the Voyager novels continued, one suspects that later books may have explored that further. As it stands, the book ends with a conversation between the new leader of the Full Circle fleet, Captain Farkas, and Starfleet’s Commander in Chief. Admiral Leonard James Akaar, about the threat of the Krenim and the possibility they are continuing to manipulate time.
If one were searching — hypothetically — for a way to reconcile the continuity of the Star Trek novels with the continuity now developing on screen in the latest generation of Star Trek productions, a powerful enemy with the ability to manipulate time might play a role.
Who knows if that’s anywhere close to what Beyer intended, but fellow Star Trek novelists David Mack and Dayton Ward have hinted about wanting to find a way to give the novel continuity a proper send off, and maybe they enlisted Beyer’s help in the process. (Or perhaps I’m just reading too much into it!)
But if To Lose the Earth is the closest we get to a final send off to the 24th century novel continuity enjoyed by fans for almost two decades, as well as the final installment of the Voyager relaunch, you could not ask for better.
To Lose the Earth is an emotionally uplifting conclusion to this incredible series, and I am eagerly looking forward to re-reading the whole thing. Beyer is a master novelist, and I hope amidst her continued and growing success on television, she will have occasion to use her novelist skills again in the future.
Many Star Trek fans know Eaglemoss / Hero Collector as the home of the long-running Official Starships Collection model series, which has been bringing collectors dozens and dozens of miniature starships for the last several years.
Over the last year or two, the company has been branching out into the wider Star Trek universe, expanding their wares from model starships alone to books about the Trek starship fleets of Federation and alien races and beyond — now taking a spotlight look back at Star Trek: Voyager for the series’ 25th anniversary, and more.
To get our arms around all of the upcoming new publications from the Hero Collector team, our own Alex Perry sat down to chat with longtime head of licensed products — and author — Ben Robinson to get a look at what’s coming from the publisher in the next few months.
* * * *
TREKCORE: In recent years, you’ve become known as the admiral of the fleet and public face of Hero Collector’s various Star Trek Starships collections. However, I know that your history with Star Trek books and publishing goes back quite a bit further than that.
I think most people know you as the ‘ships guy,’ so tell me a little bit more about your history as ‘Ben Robinson, the books guy.’
BEN ROBINSON: I got a job in Star Trek because I worked in publishing and I knew about Star Trek, that’s how it came about. I was working at Dorling Kindersley on interactive CD-ROMs, which shows you how long ago it was. The internet had just been invented.
I come from, really, a publishing background I guess, and television and publishing are my past. I’ve always wanted to do books. It’s nice to be able to put stuff back in a book form.
We started out with Star Trek Fact Files, [which] was a printed publication. Then I ran the Star Trek Magazine in the US for four years and did countless interviews and got to know a lot of people doing that.
Publishing is really my beginning and may well be my end but, yes, I think of myself as the books guy who happens to do the ships and the figurines and all that kind of stuff.
TREKCORE: We’ve been seeing some of the material from the Star Trek Fact Files showing up again recently in some of the illustrated handbooks you’ve been doing for the Starships line like the Enterprise, Voyager and upcoming Deep Space 9 books.
I always wanted to take the best material from the Fact Files of those incredible illustrations and put it out in book form. Those illustrated handbooks are really the most thorough attempt to document the ships as they appeared upon screen with illustrations of pretty much every room that you saw on the screen.
I think, when you see the density of illustration in them, it’s really nice to be able to present them in a more modern way as well. I’m very pleased to be able to bring that material out in a format that I think really lets it shine and puts it together as a nice book really.
TREKCORE: After several years of doing ships and the graphic novel line, now, there’s been this big push into doing more published books — the ship books, the encyclopedia books — and then some of these new releases that you have coming up.
It strikes me that it must be difficult, after 30-odd years of working on Star Trek publishing, to find new and interesting approaches to the franchise.
ROBINSON: No, it’s quite the reverse actually. I think, in 23 years, I’ve be constantly thinking of things that I would like to do and I think Star Trek‘s an incredibly rich and fertile thing. There are lots of things that you can do with it that haven’t been done.
I think we’re barely getting started at publishing. There are some things that are kind of obvious that I think we can do in a way that hasn’t been done before. The Shipyards books is a really good example. There’s a Star Trek Encyclopedia but, to make a Star Trek Encyclopedia of ships, which was kind of obvious, given what we’ve been doing for the last seven or eight years, is a different task.
The brilliant website, Ex Astris Scientia, does that but we can make beautiful reference books with CG renders of all the ships and we have got pretty much all the original CG files. For the Voyager ones, we’ve been going through and I’ve been finding ships that are like, “Oh, I didn’t realize that was in that episode. That’s in the background.”
Or “That’s what that looks like.” It was just a blur on the screen. That idea of doing a Jane’s Fighting Ships for Star Trek is something that — it seems kind of obvious once you do it and then you realize, “Well, actually, this is like a 10-volume thing.” I don’t know if it’s actually 10 volumes but it’s something like that.
ROBINSON: Which is in two volumes. There are so many ships in Voyager. That’s when CG really kicks in so then there are a ton of those. Then I guess they’d be — I have to decide how we handle what you have after that because you have different eras.
You have, obviously, the Enterprise era, which there are a lot of ships. The TNG and DS9, basically, and the Original Series, of course, though there aren’t that many ships in that. Whether we do two, maybe even three, volumes of Alpha Quadrant ships as to — I was going to say ‘wrap the series up,’ but they keep making new ships. There are a lot of ships in things that people are going to see in the course of the next year.
We’ve just done this massive book, Star Trek Voyager: A Celebration, which I’m really proud of and really, really pleased with. The original pitch for it, it was like the best ever Star Trek convention in a book so everybody would be there. I think we did 30 interviews for it. It’s built around nine new interviews with the principal cast members and everybody talked to us and everybody was great.
It’s also built around a really substantial interview with Brannon [Braga], Jeri Taylor, and with Ken Biller. You get that sense of the whole story, which I think not many people have really taken that approach.
One of the things I’ve learned from all of these interviews that I’ve done over the years is that there are all these little bits that intersect. It takes a village to make an episode of television, and it’s nice to be able to put that together in a way that doesn’t just have one person’s part of the story.
It’s really interesting looking back at Voyager now, between 25 and 18 years after the fact, and you realize what a really good show it is. Everybody had, as Brannon was saying, at the time, people were giving it a hard time for not being TNG, but actually what was wrong with being TNG? Everybody loved TNG! It is really interesting to look back on something and realize it’s perhaps not exactly the way you remembered.
There are a lot of really nice behind-the-scenes stories in that book that I hadn’t heard. I always figure if I haven’t heard something, then it’s probably — lots of people haven’t heard of it.
TREKCORE: Could you tease something, like one of the behind the scenes revelations in the book?
ROBINSON: My favorite one, there’s just silly stories. I was talking to Bryan Fuller about taking pitches. He was saying that there was this guy who kept coming back and pitching stories in which Debbie Harry came to visit the crew of Voyager. It was always a beautiful alien played by Debbie Harry, because the guy was friends with Debbie Harry. It just made me laugh. There are lots of little stories like that.
It’s just got nice little stories of people talking about what it was like to work on the show. From the interviews, I got a really strong sense of what the cast are like and they’re all lovely, actually, they’re really nice people. Some of the nicest interviews I’ve ever done. That’s a really satisfying experience and I’m really pleased with this hefty book. It’s a proper book.
TREKCORE: That’s great for 25th anniversary of Star TrekVoyager! The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 got themselves substantial companion style books that had the behind the scenes details. Then the Voyager Companion was very underwhelming by comparison.
I personally am really excited to finally get a book that does justice to the show as a whole, by allowing the actors and creatives to speak a bit more about their philosophy and experiences while they were there.
ROBINSON: It’s the book that Voyager always deserved and has never had. I am really pleased that we’ve been able to deliver it. I really hope people enjoy it. I really enjoy writing it and I think it’s really interesting. I think there’s a lot in there, a lot in there. I think you’ll come away with a much stronger sense of who the actors are, who the writers are, and what it took to put the whole thing together and why it was the way it was, and in many cases, why it was as good as it was.
TREKCORE: You mentioned having talked to Bryan Fuller — Bryan’s not talked about much since his departure from Star Trek:Discovery, but in the various different Discovery pieces you’ve done, you’ve managed to pull out of him some different bits of information about his original vision for the show.
Do you ever dream about being able to work with him to tell the full story of what he wanted from the show?
ROBINSON: I think it’s a hidden gem, if you pick up our Designing Starships:Discovery book, what you were talking about is Bryan talks a lot in it about what he intended for the show originally, and why these ships are the way they are. I was talking to him about how everybody complained about the square nacelles, and he was like, “Oh, that was because Discovery was going to disguise itself as a Klingon D-7.” What? He’s like, “Yes, well, it was going to do this and that and the other.” That’s interesting!
I do know quite a lot more about what Bryan was planning for Discovery and it is a really interesting story. Bryan is an extremely nice man and very friendly and very helpful. He sent me all the rejected pitch documents for episodes of Voyager as well… none of which have actually made it into this book.
There’s a little bit about Kes; he was responsible for working out how Kes would leave. There’s like, “Oh, we could have done this. We could have done that, we could have done that.” There’s a wealth of stuff out there and Bryan’s footage has been helpful.
TREKCORE: Let’s talk Quibbles with Tribbles, which is just an incredible name and such a cool idea. A Where’s Waldo? for picky Star Trek fans. Where does an idea like that come from?
ROBINSON: An idea like that comes from my friend and colleague, [Hero Collector Head of Product Development] Stella Bradley. She said, “you love this thing. You’re big fans of it, and all you want to do is complain about what’s wrong with it.” To which we said, “Yes, that’s kind, that the point.”
She had this idea that we would do a search and find, that there would be deliberate mistakes in it. Glenn Dakin, who wrote it, is the main driving force behind it, but we would sit down and say, “Oh yes, we could put this in,” or, “We could put that in.”
We put a spread up on StarTrek.com — there are 22 hidden things in the picture. I think it took people nearly two days to find everything, which I was pleasantly surprised by.
TREKCORE: I consider myself to be pretty good. I think I only got to like 18, 19 on my first go around, it was the last couple that really confounded me.
ROBINSON: Good, that’s what I like to hear! I think it’s a really clever, really fun idea.
It leaves people really happy, I think, which is all you can ask for from anybody, is a bit of happiness. I hope everyone really enjoys it. I think it’s a bit of fun. It’s a perfect gift for anybody who has a Star Trek fan in their life. Of course, it’s incredibly competitive, which is the other thing that we all are.
TREKCORE: The book is also extremely up to date. The spread that was posted on StarTrek.com also had a little bit of Lower Decks content in it as well I noticed.
ROBINSON: It did! At the last minute. We were giving it StarTrek.com and went, “Oh, there’s nothing for Lower Decks on this one. We must put something from Lower Decks.” I can’t tell you what it is then I’d be giving it away.
That is a segue into another book because the Lower Decks element in that spread is remarkably like the cover to our Star Trek Cocktails book, which is another Glenn Dakin book.
TREKCORE: Just from watching the episodes, cocktails are not necessarily something you would think went together with Star Trek. But Star Trek The Experience had a number of beloved Star Trek-themed cocktails, and that tradition has carried on at Star Trek Las Vegas and other Star Trek conventions.
So what’s up with the Star Trek Cocktails book?
ROBINSON: Chris Thompson, who is our brand manager, actually suggested it. If you google ‘Star Trek cocktail,’ you get 4.5 million results. That shows you how many people like a Star Trek cocktail!
I think obviously, there’s Romulan Ale and all that kind of stuff but I think Star Trek fans like a party, and they’re a very sociable bunch of people.
TREKCORE: Despite popular myth.
ROBINSON: Absolutely. I have to say, Star Trek conventions are some of the most inviting and sociable places you could possibly ever be. Star Trek has a philosophy of infinite diversity and infinite combination and that means you can’t be nasty to anybody, basically.
I think on the whole, Star Trek fans are really nice people. I hope they all enjoy a cocktail as well. When this is over, we can all get together and share a cocktail rather than sitting at home and making them for ourselves.
TREKCORE: These are all 100% genuine Earth cocktails that you can make this at home?
ROBINSON: Yes, absolutely. No Tranya required. Basically, it’s a classic cocktail book with a real Star Trek twist. You’ve got Pike’s Mojave Mojito or Sisko Sazerac. That was basically my contribution was telling Glenn where people came from. It was like, “Oh, yes. McCoy, he likes mint juleps.” Then, of course, I forgot Finagle’s Folly.
It’s basically a really good cocktail book. It’s just that they all have a Star Trek twist to it. There’s Bashir’s London Fog. There are 40 recipes in here, including the Earl Grey Martini. They’re all very much real cocktails that you can really make and enjoy, I hope.
TREKCORE: You also have a new release coming out, that does feel very appropriately timed for the situation in which we find ourselves, and that’s Spock’s Little Book of Mindfulness, which I think we could all do with a little more of at the moment.
ROBINSON: Absolutely.
TREKCORE: Again, where does the inspiration for a book like that come from?
ROBINSON: That one I can take the credit/blame for, although again, this is another Glenn book.
Spock’s Little Book of Mindfulness actually came about by accident. We were talking about a book publishing program, which has been a big thing for us for the last couple of years. And someone said, “Have you got anything about mindfulness? Mindfulness is really big right now.”
He didn’t mean anything to do with Star Trek at all, he just meant have we got anything to do with mindfulness. I thought, “Oh, Star Trek mindfulness.” I thought, “Well, there’s nobody more mindful than Spock!”
Glenn and I sat down again and I was like, “I’ve got this idea that Spock would be this logical, sane calm person and how would he react to the world that we’re in.”
Just like, “What do you do if you’re Spock and you turn up in 2020?” You just raise an eyebrow and just go, “Really?” Glenn’s a brilliant cartoonist, as well. He used to have cartoons in national newspapers here in the UK. We did a bit of research together and we found all the bits of wisdom that Spock ever utters and then Glenn took them and worked out how you would apply them to real life, to your own life.
I think it’s everything I hoped it would be. It is very funny. It’s very clever. It’s also actually really rather wise. Again, I think it will make people smile, and it will make them into better people as well. That’s my hope. As I say, Glenn is absolutely the one who deserves all the credit for it. It’s a really timely book, as you say because since we had the idea the world has become a place in which you really need to be mindful.
The other thing we’re going to be doing because Glenn did these beautiful, New Yorker-style cartoons for the book is we’ll have a line of T-shirts and mugs coming that are this impassive Spock in the face of madness.
You were talking earlier about what else can you do with Star Trek. One of the things about it is that you can do something like this, which is just — it’s not “phasers on stun” and that kind of thing at all, but it’s still really Star Trek.
One of the things I love about this is that it turns out that Spock really is a classic cartoon character. He has all the attributes of a perfect cartoon character. He has this point of view. You just can confront him with insanity, which we are all confronted with all the time and he just– he looks impassive and raises an eyebrow.
TREKCORE: The perfect straight man.
ROBINSON: He is but it’s also kind of inherently funny. I think Leonard Nimoy would have liked it, I think it would have appealed to him.
TREKCORE: That’s a pretty packed publishing schedule before the end of this year and obviously some of the starship books are also scheduled to come out next year as well. Anything you can tell us about projects that are on the horizon?
ROBINSON: What am I allowed to tell you? [laughs]
I can tell you that you’re going to be very pleased and excited by the number of ships that there are in the next year, things that people haven’t seen yet, some of which will make people go, “Oh, wow” — and one thing in particular that will make people be like, “Ah, cool!”
The ships continue, even though the main collections ended, we will continue. There’s enough demand there that we’re going to go back and try and fill in some of the gaps of the things that, believe it or not, still got missed after 180 issues.
We got petitions. people were like, “No, I still didn’t get this one,” or “I didn’t get that one.” We’re going to go back and make a few more to fill in those gaps. Obviously, the first goal will be to do the really major gaps.
We did every Starfleet ship, every Klingon ship. Well… I say we did every Starfleet ship, but that’s not quite true. There’s a hint! We have now locked in plans every Starfleet ship, every canon Starfleet ship. There will be about four people who will know straight away which ones I’ve just announced.
There are things that I would love to do that we’re still trying to sort out the rights for. I would, in a heartbeat, do the Franz Joseph ships, and we are making some progress on that front.
I’m afraid it’s a bit of a ‘watch the space’ one, but do watch this space — we’ll get there. It feels like it’s all going in the right direction. It’s just there’s so much going on in the world of Star Trek that it’s not necessarily someone’s priority to go and sort this out. We have that.
We have stuff that you can imagine, I guess, which will be formally announced pretty soon. What can I say?
The regular collection may be coming to an end but we are far from finished with Star Trek ships! What was everyone most unexpected pleasure in the series? https://t.co/SqmAx4yPSS
TREKCORE: For both books and for ships, how has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the things you guys have been doing?
ROBINSON: I’ve worked even harder, only because it’s quite difficult for me to tell the difference between work and pleasure. When there’s nothing else that I can do I have a tendency to think, “Oh, I’ll just file these pictures,” or, “I’ll just talk to this person,” or whatever.
I think the Voyager book, actually, was a massive beneficiary of lockdown because everybody was stuck at home. When you’re like, “Hey, Robbie McNeill, are you free to talk?” and of course he was!
Normally what happens when you do interviews with people, very understandably, you get to the end of your half-hour, 45 minutes and they’re like, “I’ve got to go. This was great but I’ve got to go.” This time they were like, “Have you got any other questions?” I talked to Brannon, we had a marathon interview session, I think it was four and a half hours long.
Going over Voyager stuff and we both had a great time. It was a really fun conversation. Brannon’s so busy, that that would have been really tough otherwise, Roxann Dawson as well. Roxann and Robbie, both are very successful TV directors who are working all the time.
TREKCORE: What else can we talk about before closing out this marathon interview of our own today?
ROBINSON:. I think that these new books, I hope, show a slightly different side to what it means to be a Star Trek fan. Spock’s Little Book of Mindfulness, I think is a book that anybody with a sense of humor could pick up and read and enjoy. If you’re a Star Trek fan, you’ll get all the references and you’ll know, “Yes, he did actually say that in that episode.” If you aren’t, you will still think, “That’s insightful,” or “funny,” or both.
The cocktails book, again, it’s just like Glenn and Paul and Stella, who worked on that book it’s just, they’ve all got impeccable taste, and they’ve made a really beautiful book. Again, it’s very witty.
I always worry with Star Trek that we get a bit isolated as a community. There’s this very sort of a specific idea of what being a Star Trek fan is, and means. I don’t necessarily mean that as the critical — the media just assuming that we’re all in costumes all the time and all of that. I mean that there’s a certain kind of fandom, that sometimes seems like it’s the only kind of fandom… and there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m really keen to show that there’s more.
Going back to your original question of what is there left to do after 30 years, there’s a lot to do and there’s a lot of fun to have, and there’s a lot of very satisfying explanation to do, as well. Stephen Whitfield’s The Making of Star Trek is a classic book, it really is. It’s not just because it’s about Star Trek, it’s because it’s about TV. It’s about how you make a TV show.
I think the Voyager book, will give people an insight into how you actually make a modern TV show. There’s great bits and when people talk about the interaction between the writers and the actors. Now, Jeri Taylor was saying, “You’ve got to understand, when you create a show, particularly at that time, you were just creating potential. You were throwing out things that might work, or might not work,” or whatever.
Then the actors come in, and she said about Kate Mulgrew: “Kate didn’t change how we saw Janeway, she just fulfilled her in ways that we could never have anticipated.” It’s that kind of interplay between the writers seeing what the actors are doing. Brannon said, how difficult it was to write for characters before they’d been cast. He said, “You found yourself as a writer doing Kate Mulgrew impressions as you’re writing the script.”
I think the book really does give you that insight and it’s a great big book about Voyager which is something the show has really deserved. I think that’s it, it’s not the same old same old. There’s plenty of new and interesting stuff to do and new and interesting ways in which to do it. I’m really, really pleased with what we’ve done.
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TREKCORE: In recent years, you’ve become known as the admiral of the fleet and public face of Hero Collector’s various 
