Following her appearance last night on Late Night With Stephen Colbert, this morning Star Trek: Discovery star Sonequa Martin-Green appeared on CBS This Morning. This longer segment featured Martin-Green talking more about the show’s secrecy, diversity, and craftsmanship. The actress also talked more about her character Michael Burnham being raised as Spock’s adopted sister, saying:
I appreciate how courageous this story is and I appreciate how they have woven me into that family, because Spock is an institution…I am 100% human. My parents were killed when I was very young and it happened at a Vulcan outpost, so they took responsibility for me. And I was commissioned to Sarek and Amanda’s care, so I became their surrogate daughter and thereby Spock’s [sister].
And once again Martin-Green brought a new clip from the show. This time we see more of Michael Burnham and Captain Georgiou on an alien planet. And if you watch closely, they show another new clip at the 4:00 minute mark, although with this one the hosts and Martin-Green continue their discussion. You can watch the full segment below.
UPDATE: A closer look at the new clips
Clip 1: Not exactly a circle
The first clip shown gives us more insight into the scene that kicked off the first trailer released in May with U.S.S. Captain Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) on an alien planet with her first officer, Michael Burnham.
Michael Burnham and Capt. Georgiou on an alien planet
Georgiou asks Burnham what she would do if stuck on the planet
The two discuss what they would do if they were stuck on the planet for 89 years, which seems like a very specific amount of time. Perhaps the planet is only accessible every 89 years? The dialog also reveals a bit more about the nature of these characters.
Burnham says as a xenoanthropologist she would try to “fit in”
Georgiou reveals she would try to escape
The pair then come upon their own footprints.
Burnham thinks they have walked in a circle but Georgiou says “not exactly a circle”
This comment about not exactly a circle is mysterious, so how did they walk? A good guess is Georgiou walked them in a familiar looking pattern, perhaps as a way to signal the U.S.S. Shenzhou. In the trailer from San Diego Comic-Con we saw the ship departing a planet with a Starfleet delta in the sand.
This shot from the SDCC trailer is likely the ‘not exactly the circle’ pattern Georgiou made
Returning to the clip shown on CBS This Morning, the pair hear and then see the U.S.S. Shenzhou emerging from the clouds with a bit of the classic Star Trek fanfare.
Look, up in the sky
Here comes the Shenzhou
Although it appears the ship is coming in for a landing, we saw in the first trailer that the pair actually call up to the ship for a transporter beam out. It is possible that you have to get very close to your target to get a transporter lock on this alien planet.
OK, that is pretty close for a beam out
Clip 2: Michael goes for a space walk
The second clip is shown over Martin-Green’s discussion with the show hosts, but you can see it reveals more of the segment when Michael Burnham goes on an EVA recon from the U.S.S. Shenzhou. Presumably this is the same recon mission that ends up with her encountering the Torchbearer on the Klingon Obelisk (from the clip shown on Colbert last night).
Michael Burnham in her EVA suit readies to go on recon mission
Captain Georgiou observes from the bridge of the U.S.S. Shenzhou
We get a look at the functionality of the EVA suit’s magnetic boots as it releases Burnham to go on her mission.
Red for magnet engaged
Green for magnet off
Burnham now floats free
We then see how with the bridge of the Shenzhou is under the saucer, what is up for Captain Georgiou is down for Michael Burnham.
Georgiou sees Burnham head off on her mission
Georgiou seems pleased with her first officer
Star Trek: Discovery premieres on September 24th on CBS with all subsequent episodes on CBS All Access in the US. In Canada Star Trek: Discovery will premiere on Bell Media’s CTV and the Space Channel on the same night. Netflix will launch Star Trek: Discovery on Monday, September 25 to countries outside of the U.S. and Canada.
She is so darn cute!!
Yeah, she just has a great personality from everything I’ve seen of her. Which is a nice contrast from how dour her character always was on The Walking Dead.
This more conversational dialogue sounds better too. Some of the “one liner” type of snippets used thus far or voice overs seemed a bit wooden but I have no issue with the exchange between these two. Sounds great. Production quality is excellent. Ship looks fantastic coming in.
Still sounds like two people reading lines at rehearsal. Lacks the many subtle nuances of a natural conversation, way too robotic. I’m beginning to think she is being directed to play it this way due to her Vulcan upbringing. But geeze, Amanda was there too for crying out loud. But just as Nimoy directed the horrible delivery of Robin Curtis in Trek 3, this may be the director’s fault as well. Regardless, it’s going to be tough to endure intentional bad acting, even if, by design, it’s supposed to emulate Vulcans. They’re not robots.
Yep, their line delivery’s just not, um, cool. Maybe some Mickey Mouse hands would help.
…couldn’t hurt!
To be fair, all of the lead characters on TWD are dour and unlikable.
She is. And she gets Trek, too.
All right, I don’t want to see the entire pilot episode clip by clip before it premieres. The line must drawn here! This far, no further!
lol. I concur
A line in the sand, you mean? :-)
Not exactly a line…..
If you feel that way about the clips, do what i do, DONT WATCH THEM!
So Ungrateful It won’t Play in my Country…
Where is J.J Abrams when you need him….
In a galaxy far, far away. I hope.
Not far away, unfortunately. Those thrusters? The Klingons warping in? JJ all over that. Although, might not be such a bad thing. Except for the thrusters. Hate those things. Using them as a plot-line in Beyond was just stupid. I mean, where the F do they fit? Ships are not that big! And now I’m ranting. I’m 8mm away from exploding.
Behind the camera with a torch.
Creating lens flares.
Clip by clip? Two clips!
Easy there, Ahab! >D
I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that it all kinda looks like a graphic novel when it’s all framed up like that. Do you think the over saturation and muddy blacks are an issue with the trailer, or will it all be like that in the actual thing?
I’m going to jump out of my skin I’m so excited!
RCS thrusters! Thanks! <3
I’m excited about this, very excited! With that said, I have yet to say one negative thing about DSC… but I have to say I don’t care for Capt. Georgiou’s dialog.
It sounds …bad :/
Her delivery? Someone else mentioned her accent which I think is her real accent. I had no problem with it.
Seems to be a few people upset that she’s using her native accent rather than Americanising it!
Not the accent, I have no problem with that. Something about her lines, I can’t pinpoint it.
Hard to judge based on a few seconds of footage. Same as all the complaints about “cheesy dialogue” in the trailers, which are just snippets and edits. (No film/tv dialogue comes over well the ways trailers are edited these days) Check them out again and from the lip sync (or lack of) you’ll see it.
I know, I know – I’m not damning the whole thing over it. Even if it turns out it this “issue” I have doesn’t change after watching a few episodes, I can overlook it.
For me, it’s not the lines or the accent but the delivery. It sounds more like a table read than good line delivery. But then watching Michelle on Marco Polo, I had the same issue a few times.
I’m sure it’s partially because English is not her native language. People always sound slightly more hesitant when speaking in a non-native language (unless they’re very fluent), since you are thinking about what you’re saying and how you’re saying more.
At least she’s not trying to make up some sort of weird Betazoid accent … that was mostly British, and not quite anything else …
MattR,
In participating in the actual dynamic given and take of a real conversation, no doubt, but in reciting from rote where the give and take is written and known beforehand?
Or are you saying her character’s spent more years speaking Vulcan than English?
Disinvited,
The post I was responding to was referring to Michelle Yeoh’s line delivery.
I feel that pain MattR. Been living in Portugal for 6 years now and even now when I speak Portuguese people sometimes look at me confused by my accent: “Is he foreign, or is he a little ‘special’?”
Whatever. She’s a legend.
MattR,
Thanks. It gets so you can’t keep the characters and their actor’s straight without a program pamphlet on these shows that haven’t aired.
Sometimes an actor will have to redub their own lines due to various things like accent difficulties, background noise on set, voice muffling costuming, and so on. It’s not at all uncommon, Hugo Weaving had to do it for V for Vendetta, for example.
I wish they’d have let Isaacs use his real accent.
Sonequa is so adorable. I love her already.
She really is! Very cute.
Great clip! Even better interview answers from Sonequa! So eloquent and happy and optimistic–she gets it! :)
I also loved hearing the fanfare again on television. Star Trek!!
Yeah, I’m a little misty-eyed right about now. Even if the series tanks, that was totally worth CBS’s money. :-)
That. Moment. That’s when you know it’s Trek.
John Eaves is a talented artist, but the aesthetic of his designs is instantly identifiable and “played” out IMHO. Wish they had used another designer.
Know what you mean, but the Shenzhou is a believable evolution of the NX-Enterprise design (no surprise as Eaves was also responsible for that), and of course Discovery is primarily based on Ken Adams’ 1970’s 1701 redesign for PLANET OF THE TITANS. Wonder if he gets a screen credit?
I think Eaves just did the interiors, that it was Drexler who did the outside of the nx-01. He definitely has a spiky thing going on his exteriors, all the stuff he did for INSURRECTION seemed like the hull detail on the K’tinga from TMP in model kit form.
Eaves does have a specific style. It’s very post TNG (the series). What came before had more elegant lines while what came after all have elegant curves and slopes. I’ve never seen any of his work and thought it would work in a TOS era anything. That said, I still like the look of the ship.
Frankly, I wish there was an identifiable aesthetic for the Klingon ships too!
To be fair, there are only so many ways you can put together the basic design elements of a disc and 2/3 elongated cylinders and make it look aesthetically pleasing.
Beautiful FX laced with terribly forced acting. A “visual” SOS?? Surely not. Will have to wait to see the entire scene in proper context. And green is “on”, red is “off” light indicators on the backs of the gravity boots? Not exactly sure who is supposed to benefit from that. A little more eye candy for the camera I suppose.
I’m more concerned with the colors being backwards. Green should be on and red should be off. (a person behind you can see the colors.. to answer your question. Rarely would one person go on an EVA by him/herself)
I agree, even though that appears to be the case here…but why do I need to see the guy in front of me disengage the magnetic boots?…the floating away lets me know that. lol but I agree the colors are backwards…doesn’t make sense.
Red for “locked” and green for “release”. Makes sense if you look at it like that.
In the second clip, at around 2:50, it looks like someone gets sucked out of the ship due to the explosion. I would have preferred to hear what was going on in those moments too bad they didn’t choose to show the clips back to back.
That’s a previously released trailer being shown at that point in the interview.
Awesome. Go girl!
I’m very excited by all of this and think that shot of the Shenzhou looks awesome but I still have a problem with a vessel of that size fighting the gravity of an M class planet with those tiny little thrusters, just like in the JJ-verse. Still, looking forward to enjoying the show!
Well the TOS Enterprise did the same thing in the Episode “Return to Tomorrow”. And Voyager can actually land on a planet. I have always been under the impression that starfleet ships don’t need thrusters. They can control gravity. Many novels have mentioned this ability.
It was TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY and it wasn’t a controlled descent, the ship was thrown there through time & space (which is even less likely, as how did the ship ‘put on the brakes’ in time to keep from augering in?)
I don’t like the DISC scene as shown (mainly because there’s a digital vagueness to it all, but also because I don’t like the credibility issue when seeing big starships hovering or working in a gravity well unless they are from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND), but have to admit the payoff for all that walking is pretty clever — and THAT is where I would have put the bit of Courage music.
kmart,
Re: ‘put on the brakes’
I always presumed they did the same thing they did in THE NAKED TIME, reversing power slowly, when they first encountered their ship traveling backwards in time:
SULU: My chronometer’s running backwards, sir.
KIRK: Time warp. We’re going backward in time. Helm, begin reversing power. Slowly.
And if we believe the movie TVH, presumably they’ve program their ships to automatically perform this emergency “braking” maneuver ever since?
I thought they were all unconscious and recovering at the start of TiY, so I guess your auto notion is the only thing that makes sense. Either that or the autopilot is an AI with a self-preservation instinct (which is also possible.)
In terms of physics, much less energy is needed to hover above a planet than actually breaking orbit. Aside from the windshear it makes no real difference if they are breaking orbit from the surface or from orbit.
I like so much about this show already.
The uniforms are a great blue equivalent of the maroon TOS movie uniforms and hold up visual continuity to both ENT and the Kelvin / Franklin uniforms.
Phasers, tricorders and communicators are spot-on modern recreations of authentic TOS props.
The diversity of characters, racially and sexually, is absolutely in line with Trek tradition and very much welcome in our day and age.
The exterior and interior ship designs are super exciting.
The attention to HD-relevant details in costumes is astonishing down to the last spot.
Everything I’ve seen so far deserves full affirmation if it wasn’t for those redesigned Klingons and the TV-MA rating.
I know, I’ve done enough rambling on these issues. I’m really trying to keep an open mind to the best of my abilities. Cussing…no issue for me if there is any. Nudity…I’m working on adapting to that possibility.
But I cannot help but ask what my dead father would say about this when it comes to graphic violence. I cannot help but wonder what my 14-year-old self back in the day would have felt about it in the 90s. What would our rating and banning authorities had to say about it back then?
I know, these are days long gone and Star Trek has to adapt. Change is part of life and all that. And yet, there is that part of me that cannot imagine a Star Trek show with a higher rating than NuBSG, Lost, Gotham or Stranger Things… I’m scared of that. Scared of both the implications that rating might involve and my persistance of contemplating about it.
I’m really sorry if I’m getting on anybody’s nerves here…
1000 quatloos says no nudity at all (or nothing you couldn’t get away with on regular broadcast TV), and violence nowhere near what you can get on GoT. We’ll see, but that’s my prediction.
People being upset at TVMA when we have no reason to believe it will be adult oriented content is weird
@Michael Hall,
I’ve no problem with the MA rating, after all I watch a lot of shows with that rating; however, what you are saying makes no sense.
‘Discovery’ didn’t get TV-PG or TV-14 rating, it was rated TV-MA.
That rating is given for very specific reasons:
“This program may contain one or more of the following: crude indecent language (L), explicit sexual activity (S), or graphic violence (V).”
I really like Martin-Green as lead on a new Trek series, but I’m still uncertain about this show. I am looking forward to seeing it though.
HMMMMMMMM still not sold on the delivery of these lines. Not one JJ Trek trailer had a line that sounded poorly delivered, yet all dialogue I’ve heard from the DSC clips so far sounds stilted to my ears. And no I don’t blame anyone’s accent…maybe it’s the writing, the chemistry? Gosh I dunno, just hoping my fears evaporate come 9/24. I got my Shenzhou pin with CBSAA code and can’t wait for the premiere! I’m seeing Paul McCartney on the 21st and Brian Wilson on the 23rd…this will be one action-packed week for me. Long live the 60s and long live Trek!
“Not one JJ Trek trailer had a line that sounded poorly delivered. . .”
Unfortunately, those films had poorly-written lines that were delivered well.
Between this and her Colbert appearance, Sonequa comes across a lively ambassador for this new show, with a great personality – she seems a lot of fun, and I just hope that her character doesn’t turn out to be too po-faced in this, having been brought up in Sarek’s Vulcan household!
I’ve seen enough footage now to confirm that the DISCOVERY show looks highly polished and ‘cinematic’ overall, although there’s nothing substantial in the overall design work that evokes the TOS-era to me whatsoever – including the ‘Shenzhou’ ship which looks a much better fit with some of the later spin-offs and J.J.- verse, like a lot of this show’s re-imaginings.
But I’ve made my peace with that now, seeing as I’ve resolved to view this show as being an ‘alternate universe’ setting, separate from the actual TOS show universe.
And these will definately be the last clips I watch before DISCOVERY begins, so that too much isn’t revealed beforehand.
Careful now! You don’t want to upset the folk complaining that it’s “clearly” badly designed with poor FX, horrific cinematography, terrible music because Jeff Russo is a hack who can only do – I dunno – harpsichord music, and awful acting and dialogue and coffee between takes. Sigh….
I understand that the Shenzhou bridge is on the bottom of the ship…but does that mean that when you’re on the bridge, you’re standing “upside down”? How will that work? That seems very strange to me.
The people on the bridge aren’t “upside-down”, Cmdr. Burnham is. She goes out on the bottom of the saucer, which Capt. Georgiou can see from the bridge, at the bottom of the saucer section. When Burnham is walking on the saucer, she’s “upside-down” relative to the artificial gravity inside the ship.
The saucer extends from the top of the bridge’s viewscreen/window. Make sense now?
OK, yes. That makes sense. The way I read it had me all confused!
Thanks.
How much do you bet that the Courage Fanfare that we heard in that clip is not in that actual scene? Would be amazing if it was, but it seemed a little “Shoe-horned” in there for the clip. I got goose-bumps. I hope I have them when I get to actually see it all in context.
I was pretty surprised to hear it. Maybe it’ll be one time in the pilot as a kind of tribute.
I’m sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong (and I most likely am), but I don’t recall hearing the fanfare in DS9 or Voyager. It’s nice to have for that Trek feel, but not a deal breaker.
The music in that clip sounds damn fine!
I’m sorry to hear that she heard negative feedback because of her race/sex, don’t let the few negative voices drown out the majority of those rooting for her. I for one wasn’t sold on Discovery before the casting but when I heard she was cast for the lead I was on board, she is a wonderful actress not to mention a beautiful, intelligent woman.
The pictures look good but I was dissapointed by the FX, the ship goes from still in the clouds to suddenly out in the next shot. For a reveal like that I expected more. Where did they spend the $$$