‘TREK’ TAKES OFF,
It’s been more than a decade since the last “Star Trek” television series, so fans of the franchise likely are ready to make a new discovery.
CBS recognizes that; a major reason its subscriptionbased All Access streaming service will be the regular home of the new “Star Trek: Discovery” once the scifi show premieres tonight at 8:30, on both CBS All Access and the CBS broadcast network.
A prequel to the original “Trek,” it stars actress Sonequa MartinGreen as the intentionally malenamed Michael Burnham, the first officer aboard the Shenzhou, before the starship Discovery becomes part of her story built around the early conflict between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingons.
“War is the greatest conflict of all, really,” MartinGreen said, adding that “Star Trek: Discovery” also is about “those really deep, profound questions of ‘Who am I, and who are you, and how do I relate to you? How do we live with each other? How do we make acculturation a twoway exchange, rather than me dominating you or you dominating me?,’ which is one of the most beautiful pil lars of ‘Star Trek,’ in my opinion. It’s one thing to tell our kids, ‘Oh, this is what a utopia looks like,’ especially when we are living in a dystopia in a sense ... but to be able to see it in action, to be able to see us aspiring to it, I think that that’s going to be really compelling.”
While many other “Discovery” characters also are new — such as the respective captains of the Discovery and the Shen zhou, played by Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh, and two Discovery crew members who are personal partners (Broadway veteran Anthony Rapp and “My SoCalled Life’s” Wilson Cruz) — some are younger incarnations of figures the “Trek” faithful know well. Among them: Mr. Spock’s Vulcan father, Sarek (now portrayed by James Frain, formerly of “The Tudors” and “True Blood”) and con artist Harry Mudd (“The Office” alum Rainn Wilson).
The debut of “Star Trek: Discovery” was delayed twice from earlier this year, losing cocreator and intended showrunner Bryan Fuller (“American Gods”) along the way, and its remaining makers insist it was in the name of the show’s quality.
“You have to understand that we’re talking about massive sets, an approach that’s almost all practical,” said executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who created the series with Fuller. “Obviously, there’s a lot of (computergenerated) augmentation, but we wanted to build sets that felt immersive and real, where the actors could move around and it didn’t feel like everything was a set extension. And we wanted the costumes to be elaborate, and we needed to cast correctly, and we just wanted to do it right. And that’s the truth. So, we took our time.”
An aftershow will accompany every new “Star Trek: Discovery” episode presented on CBS All Access. Franchise devotees are likely to have much to say about the latest iteration.
Executive producer Aaron Harberts said, “The aim is to not violate things that are very important to a great number of people. We take that very seriously ... but at a certain point, you have to sort of turn off the social media and drill down on what the best moves are for the characters, and what the best stories are, and what the best philosophy is (in) driving the story. What’s the larger discussion? And I think that, so far, we’ve found a way to balance it.”