Star Trek: Discovery
Netflix
Jason Isaacs heads the cast of a new space adventure, set 10 years before the events of the original Star
Trek series.
ON A MASSIVE soundstage at Toronto’s Pinewood Studios, Tv & satellite Week is staring with amazement at the life-size starship that has been constructed for the long-awaited new sci-fi series Star Trek: Discovery.
The Netflix drama is one of the major TV events of the year – the first Star Trek series for 12 years – and comes more than 50 years after we were first introduced to Captain James T Kirk, Mr Spock and the rest of the crew of the USS Enterprise.
We’ve been invited on set for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour, and the USS Discovery quickly exceeds expectations, from the sick bay and transporter room to the starship’s bridge with its gleaming consoles and famous captain’s command chair.
Set 10 years before the events of the original series, Star Trek: Discovery is told from the point of view of the USS Shenzhou’s first officer Michael Burnham (The Walking Dead’s Sonequa Martin-green).
As the drama begins, a Klingon named T’kuvma (Chris Obi) is seeking to unite all the Klingon houses into a unified force, thus inciting a major cold war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. As we bodly enter this new uncharted universe, the cold war threatens to turn very hot.
Discovery will also go where no Star Trek show has gone before. It is the first series with not one, but two Starfleet captains, including Bond actress Michelle Yeoh, who plays the captain of the USS Shenzhou.
We sat down with Harry Potter star Jason Isaacs, who plays Gabriel Lorca, captain of the USS Discovery, to hear more…
WERE YOU A Star trek FAN BACK IN YOUR CHILDHOOD? The fighting in my house when I was a kid in Liverpool was about what we were all going to watch on TV. But there was never an argument when Star Trek was on. The whole family would cram on the sofa and we’d let William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy take us to other worlds.
HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN YOU FIRST WALKED ON SET? The first time I went on to the bridge and I sat in the chair, suddenly I was seven years old again. On day three, when I finally got to say ‘Energize’, I almost wet myself.
DO YOU REMEMBER THE ORIGINAL SERIES? I remember it vividly. Now I see the original show through the prism of adulthood and I understand that every single fantastical situation was really a comment on the world we lived in back then.
‘when I finally got to say “energize”, I almost wet myself’ JASON ISAACS
HAVE THE Discovery WRITERS TAKEN THAT ASPECT ON BOARD? They really have. We live in a complicated world and that’s reflected in the series, albeit through science fiction.
WHAT IS YOUR CHARACTER, LORCA, LIKE? He comes from a place which, 400 years ago, had been in the American South, so he has that Southern flavour.
DID YOU BASE HIM ON ANYONE? In 2001, I spent a lot of time at a military base in Georgia, preparing for the film Black Hawk Down. I met Marines and Delta Force, so this character makes a lot of sense to me. The South is a place that provides a lot of America’s military.
HOW DOES HE GET ON WITH OTHER PEOPLE? There’s conflict between Lorca and the crews of both the Discovery and the Shenzhou. Lorca is a great military leader, but he’s not the greatest manager. He’s not without his sharp edges.
WERE YOU NERVOUS ABOUT STARRING IN SUCH AN ICONIC SHOW? I was terrified to step into the gigantic boots of the captains who came before. Nobody should even try to fill one big toe of [Next Generation’s] Patrick Stewart’s boots, but Lorca is a fully-rounded role, not a part where you just have to react to men in rubber suits and green screens. So I could forget the weight of expectation and play a man with challenges and a real internal life.
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PLOT? There are many things that will be familiar to everyone, from diehard Trekkies to the most casual Star Trek viewer. The spirit of [creator] Gene Roddenberry is alive, but this series is a lot more about the characters, rather than plot. Diversity will play a major role. We’re rolling the clock forward to Roddenberry’s vision of how the universe should be, and will be, one day.