Shazad Latif Responds To ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Fan Theory About Lt. Tyler

WARNING: Although this article contains speculation, it should be treated as spoilers in case any of it turns out to be true.

Since being introduced in “Choose Your Pain” last weekend, new Star Trek: Discovery character Lt. Ash Tyler (played by Shazad Latif) has launched a lot of speculation. TrekMovie has already written an extensive analysis of it; the theory that Latif also played the Klingon Voq, even though that character is credited as “Javid Iqbal,” appears to have a lot of merit.

The actor who plays Voq is credited as “Javid Iqbal”

The idea that Latif plays both, and that Lt. Tyler is actually Voq transformed to look human, has become widespread, even getting coverage from outlets like AV Club and Slate. As noted by the TrekMovie analysis, the theory is compelling enough just from the clues within the show itself. But the fact that, unlike the rest of the cast, “Javid Iqbal” has never done any interviews or appeared in public has really piqued the interest of some in the press. Latif, on the other hand, has given quite a few interviews and appeared at multiple events; TrekMovie alone has interviewed Latif twice in the last few months.

Shazad Latif talking to TrekMovie at PaleyFest New York

This all got the attention of Yahoo News, who were able to get CBS to arrange a very brief interview with Latif to talk about Iqbal. The following is from their report:

When we asked Latif whether he’s heard that fans are speculating about whether Iqbal is a real actor or not, he responds, “Well, yeah, if you check IMDb he’s an actor on Star Trek: Discovery.”

That is technically true. However, as noted in our analysis, that IMDb page for Javid Iqbal was only recently created, and Discovery is his sole credit. There are also no images of the actor himself, just pictures of Voq in full Klingon makeup.

Latif pointed to Javid Iqbal’s sparse IMDb page

Yahoo continued to press, but didn’t get far:

Then we asked Latif whether he’s ever had a chance to meet Iqbal — and that’s when the CBS publicist cut in with a cheery, “Sorry, we’re out of time!” before the actor could answer.

Not much clarity added there. There is still no evidence that “Javid Iqbal” exists except in the credits for the three episodes where Voq appeared in Star Trek: Discovery. One has to wonder why CBS put Latif out there to talk about this only to shut it down. Perhaps they are enjoying the buzz around the speculation as much as the fans are creating it.

Clue from a dog?

Another “person” associated with the production of Star Trek: Discovery is weighing in on this. @startrekdog is the Twitter account for Stella, Discovery consulting producer Nick Meyer’s dog.  Stella was asked about the fan theory and had an interesting response.

Of course Nick Meyer, who presumably helps Stella with her tweeting, is an expert on Holmes, having written the Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel The Seven-Per-cent Solution. And Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are two famous classic characters who share the same body. So perhaps there is actually some clarity on this “actor” coming from an account being “written” by a dog.


Star Trek: Discovery Episode 6 will be available on CBS All Access on Sunday, October 22 by 8:30 pm ET. It will air in Canada on the Space Channel at 8:00 pm ET and be available on Netflix outside the USA and Canada on Monday, October 23rd at 8 am BST.

Keep up with all the Star TrekDiscovery news at TrekMovie.

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I find it odd that Shazad Latif and Jason Issacs are both listed in 15 episodes yet, Issacs was not in the first 2 episode and Latif didn’t appear until the 5th episode.

Probably to avoid spoiling introductions and departures/deaths.

Jason Isaacs was credited (in the opening credits) of both “The Vulcan Hello” and “Battle at the Binary Stars”. Some actors still get credited even if they never appear in the episode. Just look at Marina Sirtis in the first season of TNG – she doesn’t appear in all that many episodes but her name is in the credits of them all.

Or Cirroc Lofton and Colm Meaney for DS9.

Originally, Harry Mudd was listed as being in 9 episodes..
So, I really wouldn’t read too much in to the listings.

Stella’s answer also has a double meaning – Shazad Latif has already played Jeckyll and Hyde

Plus it’s probably his most well known role, at least for me it was. I know the Clem Fandango role was pointed out quite a bit but it was a British part I didn’t know anything about. Speaking of that his “American” accent to me as Tyler was surprising. I expected him to be British for some reason. Maybe it’s because I expected a more international feel to the show.

I kind of wish they’d just let Jason Isaacs, e.g., speak with his own accent.

Me too. Not sure why there so many American cast members/ characters. I say this as an American by the way.

Marja,

Just FYI Istaacs has stated on several occasions that the Southern accent was his idea, mainly because he didn’t want to compete with the memory of Patrick Stewart.

Interesting information as I haven’t heard it before. Given how different the character is to Picard I am surprised that people would think he is competing against him. Then again maybe people would have unfairly judged him based on it. I am glad that the writers decided to do things differently with him character wise. It’s so easy to make the captain the “good person.” Not so easy I would think to do someone more “morally grey.”

Maybe Isaacs is speaking with a British accent. If Patrick Stewart’s accent was French, at least. Meanwhile, it turns out that Scotty is from Germany where they all wear kilts and drink scotch and praise Scotland in the 23rd century. ;-)

Please excuse my cynicism, but that would be too diverse for this show! We already have every Officially Designated American Minority (TM) properly (skin-deep) represented, that gotta be enough for the liberal audiences ;-)

Meanwhile out here in the real world, Discovery is the least diverse show, even before Enterprise, which had good ol’ British Reed after all.

Americans only represent 4% of world population, and how many non-American cast members did we have exactly, how many non-American accents, names or even backgrounds? In that light I suppose French captain Picard (with a British accent no less!) was a major fluke thanks to Roddenberry’s religious rebirth in his latter years…

Now, cue the “But it’s an American tv show!!1” whining in 3, 2, 1 …

On the contrary. In modern times, as in the past, American’s have taken the lead in every major, industrial, and technological advance that’s been ever made. It was American’s that industrialized the west, American’s who went to the moon, etc. one can assume that white people will play more of a role in exploration than any other race. I know it’s sounds arrogant, but’s it’s white men who created Star Trek- including Discovery, so it’s safe to assume white people will be the first to explore space, etc.

And the ignorant comment of the year goes to…..”The Trouble With Dribbles”!! Congratulations!

You do realize that industrialization began in England right (not ‘Murica)? Or that rockets were invented in China (not ‘Murica)? Or that the Germans were the first to launch a rocket that reached space (not ‘Murica)? Or that the Russians put the first satellite, living thing, man, woman, and station in space (not ‘Murica)?

Considering the current war on science and the rise of the alternative facts generation in ‘Murica, I wouldn’t be surprised if Starfleet ends up speaking mandarin.

Thank you for sparing me having to write that myself. Apparently Caucasians were first to master everything besides use of the apostrophe.

@Vulcan Soul and@The Trouble With Dribbles

Dafuq did I just read? Begone with ye.

Cept for China you named all “White” nations. Just sayin…

Not to mention the size of the Mandarin-speaking population. Where are the Chinese folk?

And South Asians?

@thetroublewithdribbles

Why do ‘Muricans still use a numerical system designed and created by Arabs?

We use both systems.

What’s that? For the Super Bowl? LOL

@The Trouble With Dribbles
You might want to not only check your facts and adjust your cherry picked timescale, but also re-watch all of Star Trek to understand what it’s all about. You’re WAY off the mark.

You do realize that there’s a world government by the 23rd century, right? That all of the TOS players were Americans by birth? That with the exception of Burnham we really know very little about the backgrounds of these people? Stamets could have been born in Brussels, or the moon, or the Mars Colony for all that we know.

But didn’t Benny invented STAR TREK, back in the 50s?

@Michael Hall,

“That all of the TOS players were Americans by birth?”

False.

The leading actor of TOS was not an American. William Shatner is a Canadian born in Montreal; also James Doohan is another Canadian born in Vancouver.

Thanks for the correction. (See, is that so hard?) But both had resided here for many years by the time they appeared on TOS, and were culturally “American” for all intents and purposes. The accusation I was responding to was that Discovery has less of a diverse cast than its predecessors, which really isn’t the case.

When I moved to the Philippines the very first indication Filipinos were fed and accepted white America racist social propaganda was the constant question my wife and I were subjected to… “is he or are you American or black American”? It didn’t take me long to figure out that American without the destination of skin color meant “white”. Listening to white Americans, you would think they are the majority skin color not only in America but the world. It’s not about liberal or conservative. It’s only about skin color. The entertainment industry is owned and operated by white people and this is one industry institutional racism needs to dominate in order to maintain world domination. In Star Trek, the aliens are almost always depicted as white (good) and (black) as evil and bad. Klingons have always been black (people).

As did I, it’s very American which would not at all reflect the human contingent of Starfleet

Can’t believe Meyer wouldn’t know how to spell Jekyll …

He didn’t teach Stella properly, evidently.

This speculation is delicious.

Agreed. Very healthy and interesting.

Yep. I think he is a spy BTW.

After last night’s episode if he is he sure is a good one. And now I hope he is not, I’m starting to really like him.

Hehe, they’re obviously having a lark here.

I wouldn’t call this “speculation” at this point. It’s 110% sure Latif and Iqbal are the same person and that Tyler is Voq. Your article has pointed out all the relevant details.

The question that remains is: does this “transformation” have anything to do with the creative choices for the Klingon make-up? Because, if they had used the standard make-up, we would have easily recognized the actor. The new design hides enough detail to keep viewers in the dark. But then, the question is whether changing the Klingon appearance just to hide this detail from viewers was worth it.

Also, it’s rather interesting how they are going to write them out of the corner to link these Klingons to traditional ones. I’m wondering if the new appearance was due to a radical genetic cure in order to rid the Klingon race of the Augment virus from ENT. Now with human-looking spies like Voq popping up, maybe they are using the Augmented virus to make them look human, thus changing all Klingons back to their 22nd century ENT look on the long run…

I do wonder if they tried to cure the augment virus…and overcorrected. That’s plausible.

Antaak was talking about cranial reconstruction. Maybe after that incident, they wanted to look as unhuman as possible.

Possible, but I like to think of it as a different Klingon ethnicity. But given Kol is House of Kor, I’m nervous that even Kor will be rebooted.

They may have “overcorrected” by using a therapy that makes makes them look like Klingons used to look 100,000 years ago or more. If Voq and probably Arne Darwin are the result of re-utilizing the Augment virus, maybe that virus set free again combined with the original gene therapy will eventually restore “our” Klingons from ENT / TNG-VOY.

Nothing is 110% sure until Tyler is revealed as Voq.

Tyler pointing his phaser to Michael, and yelling out I AM VOQ, with red alert klaxxon going off and Lorca unconcious and the D7 circling to finish off Discovery…Screen reads to be continued

My thoughts exactly Gary 8.5. Until it’s confirmed, canon wise, who knows what the producers and everyone else has up their sleeve. We are only about a 1/3 of the way through this season and we have only really scratched the surface of what they are trying to say.

Rubbish. You two points are not 110% at all. The second one nowhere near!

No matter how anyone feels about this theory I believe they are clearly enjoying all the attention it’s receving. As for the comments made by a “dog” they could be just making them to stoke the flames. After all why would it be ok to reveal some spoilers but not all of them? I wouldn’t expect anyone to give a truthful answer until canon tells us what’s going on. So in general I still think for me it’s hard to tell at this point. I will say this, from a real world perspective, POWs always get people questioning things like loyalty. Writers have even created shows like Homeland to explore this very idea. So for me the fan speculation feels like a part of the story to some degree. We are all wondering who is he really? Can he be trusted? That to me is something at least positive about all of this stuff.

This also gives rise [in my mind] to the question, “how well can we trust Lorca after his imprisonment?”

I could see that with Lorca. They also made Mudd shaded as well. They are definitely playing with the idea of trust as a plot point.

That implies we trusted Lorca before his imprisonment.

Hee!

very true for all we know the real lorca is still being tortured by light while doppleganger Lorca and Voq is on the Discovery!

Well, yeah. It’s getting the show publicity on mainstream sites like Slate now, which is good news for CBS. If they didn’t plan this–and at this point it sure seems very likely that they did–they sure have lucked into a great publicity hook to keep the show newsworthy after most of the excitement of the premiere had pretty much died down.

I guess my question is what did or didn’t they plan. They could just be maximizing their good fortune. I wouldn’t put it past them.

Until this plot line is resolved (or the season ends) I doubt the producers will be very forthcoming about what they had in mind. In the meantime, why shouldn’t they and CBS make the most out of the speculation, whether it was a happy accident or not? Making people aware of this show is their job.

My question is, will it all pay off dramatically? We’ll see.

There is probably going to be one helluva cliffhanger at season’s end.

I feel like there’s three possibilities here:

1. They are planning to say Voq is Tyler in some big dramatic reveal at some point in the series, at which point the surprise will be completely ruined. If this is their plan, it’s really frustrating that they were so naive as to think no one would see through the Javid Iqbal ruse. ESPECIALLY since the only reason they had to do it was because Shazad Latif played Voq- which was completely unnecessary! Just have someone else play the role, whatever ends up happening Tyler obviously looks dramatically different and has a different voice so it’s not like there’s any inconsistency there, and then no one would have been the wiser.

2. This whole scenario – which indeed feels almost TOO obvious at this point – was devised purposefully so that fans would figure it out and assume the obvious (Voq is Tyler), but is actually misdirection, and he isn’t. I would respect the hell out of this but I sort of doubt it’s what’s happening.

3. Third possibility is sort of a middle ground, and the one that I’m starting to think is most likely – Voq is Tyler, but it’s not going to be the huge twist-ending big-reveal plot point it looks like. For instance, what if it’s figured out in the very next episode, but Discovery crew purposefully don’t out him for some kind of complex counter-espionage purpose, etc.

I’d love for Voq to be Tyler, and to be The Albino.

Me too! If they pull the rug out from under us and reveal that Voq is secretly someone else other than Tyler, I’ll be disappointed.

I also feel Tyler is more of an Mancurian Candidate figure, with his Voq persona being deeply buried so that he is even unaware that is is/was Voq ( until such time as he is “activated” by L’Rell ).

It’s funny. I went from thinking it was crazy and I didn’t like it to now feeling like I’ll be disappointed if it’s not true! Lol

I was wondering the same about the albino.

Or the father of the Albino!

Voq being the albino was one of the things I was wondering about as well. He also had that connection to the house of Kor. Plus other than saying they had to eliminate him and his followers they never gave a specific reason as to why he was a danger to the Klignon Empire.

Wow, this theory is clearly true and I love it. I do feel mad at myself for not working it out though. I’d wondered about the Shazad thing on IMDB, but dismissed my doubts, when I noticed they’d done the same for Jason Isaacs. I also thought it was strange that they had L’rell and Kol on After Trek, but not Voq and moreover, never even mentioned Javid. One thing was mentioned tho: the presenter Matt Mira suggested that the way Tyler hits L’rell is tantamount to Klingon foreplay and they say the L’Rell has a soft spot for Ash.
It explains why L’Rell was on that vessel too: it’s all too convenient. What a great way to infiltrate the enemy camp! I had just assumed Ash was the new love interest for Michael. This idea is sooooo much better writing.
This show has impressed me so much. My hat goes off to everyone involved; loving every aspect!

It’s like getting a large, elongated, wrapped present shaped like a hockey stick. I wonder what it could be…

If ever there was a perfect analogy. LOL

Absolutely love this theory!!!!

I love that they’re having some fun with it. I’d expect them to do the same even if it was not true.

It’ll be funny if they just had him play both characters to save money on hiring another actor, and also as a red herring

Just to add an extra layer of ‘bite’ to the reply from @StarTrekDog -Shazad Latif also played Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in Penny Dreadful – I shared a few scenes opposite him as his grumpy orderly in Bedlam Asylum!

Oh, come on. Everyone knows they’re the sane guy. There’s no mystery here. No one thinks they’re not.

“When we asked Latif whether he’s heard that fans are speculating about whether Iqbal is a real actor or not, he responds, “Well, yeah, if you check IMDb he’s an actor on Star Trek: Discovery.””

Latif was smart to evade the question and not give the reporter an outright lie.

It’s pretty funny that people spend any time worrying about this. :-)

No one is worrying about this, so your point is moot.

You find it amusing that fans are talking about show details on a fan site. Are you new to fandom and planet Earth?

You mean having fun speculating.

Let us also not forget the announcement a while back that Shazad was supposed be playing a Klingon in the first place but was changed to a starfleet character because his skin had a reaction to the makeup or prosthetic glue or whatever it was.

Yeah, bit of an awkward save, that. Actually drew attention to this and helped people figure it out quicker.

Not worrying, just speculating, which is what is done 90% of the time about anything on the internet (although usually there is a lot of worrying as well lol).

It would be even funnier if Voq is Tyler but if they wrote the whole plot to work around the actor’s allergic reaction.

Also dosent add up that L’Rell would take a human boy toy. I mean it possible but highly unlikely since she served T’Kuvma who is all about Klingon purity.

I have thought about this as well. To play devil’s advocate….I was wondering if it’s an attempt to show that L’Rell isn’t as pure as she thinks she is. She could have been unexpectedly turned by encountering Tyler. How many humans does L’Rell even truly know? Her whole belief system could have been based on assumptions and when those got challenged maybe they started to fall apart. Then again I have never accepted her as a devout follower of T’Kuvma because she seems only truly loyal to herself. Therefore she would be willing to do anything necessary to move ahead. Including, I believe, faking a belief system if it meant gaining whatever she wanted.

Let’s say we’ve got this all wrong and Tyler really is human after all. Maybe L’Rell has some sort of sick way of looking at the sexual abuse. Like it’s a way to treat him as an inferior. I could see her using him that way as a way to feel powerful, superior. In control over the feeble person beneath her.

Your theory could be right. How L’Rell personally views humans has never been established. We know she has probably publicly stated she hates them in order to fit in with T’Kuvma but if that’s genuine is still unknown IMO. If Tyler is human, which canon says he is right now, then she could feel either “love” or “hatred” for him. The sexual abuse comes from there. Hopefully we will start to get some more of her personal opinions on this matter on the show. It would help to add some much needed depth to the Klignon story arc.

UAB, Sexual abuse is always about power. Not to overstate the obvious.
Perhaps she’s hoping for Stockholm-syndrome-like obedience from Tyler.

For the record, Meyer wrote three Sherlock Holmes novels and turned the first into a movie.

I love Meyer.

I liked the first one when it came out in 1974. The subsequent ones were not so great, IMO.

I think it will be revealed straight away during the next episode that Voq is Tyler and we as the audience will know but the crew of Discovery won’t. Kind of like in “The Flash” season 1 when we all know Harrison Wells is actually reverse flash but none of the other characters have figured it out yet.

Other possibility is that Voq is so deep undercover that he doesn’t even know he is a spy. A bit like in DS9 “A simple investigation”. He might be programmed or brainwashed a bit like in Manchurian Candidate?

In any case it seems an unexpected consequence of this type of serialised story telling is that we are left speculating what is to come next rather than getting individual plots each week. This is naturally great for the show as it leads to massive amounts of free publicity. The fact that so many people are actually interested in whether or not Voq is Tyler or not is a good thing as it shows people care about the show already.

If he was Voq, the Klingons know an awful lot about Starfleet and how an officer would act and so on. Unless they got Tyler’s “memories” and behavior from another unfortunate Starfleet officer and somehow placed them into Tyler’s mind.

It beggars the imagination.

If all the rumors are true and “Lethe” is an allusion to that old TOS episode then maybe what you’ve outlined is possible. Maybe the Klingons have some kinda mind sifter thing that can extract memories or something? But maybe it leaves the people insane, I dunno.

If it Quacks like a duck…

It’s not the first time this same plot has been used. Heck, how many times it was used in DS9 with Martok and Bashir? Heck even the evil twin switcheroo counts.

Shut up, Wesley! ;)

It would be kind of funny if Tyler, Lorca, and Stamets are all impostors with unrelated plots that contradict one another.

Say, Tyler’s Voq, Lorca is Mirror Lorca, and maybe Stamets is possessed by an energy being.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if this ends up being completely wrong and those are two different characters? Now THAT would be fun :D

I’ve said before that there is a slim chance this is all a double bluff: that there IS a twist, but to avoid being predicted, they planted clues that would lead to the wrong conclusion, and had Latif play Voq as midirection.

It’s an extreme longshot (and I don’t believe that’s what’s happening) but it’s worth bringing up. Producers have gone to great lengths to keep secrets before.

I think the question no longer is, “Does Tyler = Voq?” Because a simple Google search will reveal that they’re played by the same actor. The question now is, “how does all of this fit into the overall story?” Anyone reading this as a novel will find out quickly enough about the connection. However, more questions appear and it’s those questions that intrigue me more than the “Why was that ugly thing called a ‘D-7’ if we’re in the Prime Timeline and how does all of this fit?”

You’re probably right, but the same actor in two roles doesn’t necessarily mean the characters are the same. Witness Jeffrey Combs in DS9 (Weyoun and Brunt in the same episode!)

Wasn’t Combs something?

Presumably,the tribble in Lorca’s ready room will squeal if Tyler is a Klingon.

!!!! This is actually brilliant! I would LOVE if that was how it was semi-revealed. Also, that’s probably why Lorca keeps that tribble in addition to helping with his PTSD.

don’t think it’s known yet that tribbles react to Klingons. The audience would know it but not the crew.

Nothing like a purr to soothe the savage breast.

You know, it really wouldn’t surprise me if the cast & crew of Discovery had a betting pool regarding how soon the audience would catch on. I mean, we Trekkies are a very perceptive bunch after all…

It’s too bad with sources like IMDB and other websites, people have the ability to basically ruin surprises that writers cook up. That’s why all television is so predictable now. You can’t pull something like this off anymore because of all the people who can’t let things play out without analyzing everything.

@bassmaster22,

Most of the time people find out from clues planted within the show itself like the case with Westworld.

This time the producers made it easier, either intentionally or by mistake, for people to figure it out when they didn’t hire two actors to play Voq/Tyler.

Thats just what the internet does these days. It was a reason why they were able to keep secret whose Luke Skywalker’s father was (even though it was actually spoiled a year in a magazine before Empire Strike Back even came out) pre-internet and why despite EVERYTHING Abrams tried to do to keep the secrets of The Force Awakens, 90% of all the reveals were on the internet months before the film came out anyway. The reality is nothing is a cold hard secret anymore because even if you can’t find hard confirmation chances are enough people have just theorized it correctly for no one to be surprised even it was just a guess.

But then again that’s why sites like this even exist. This is what happens.

This is the very reason why I posited that it’s all a double bluff. While I don’t think it is, and believe in the Voq/Tyler theory, it would be really amazing if the producers KNEW how hard it would be to keep a secret, so intentionally misdirected viewers by casting Latif as Voq and Tyler.

Because if I were them, i’d be thinking like you, and do something like that to make sure the big reveal (that Lorca was replaced with a Klingon spy, for example) was kept a secret.

So, we came to the point where we must literally invent fake actors to hide a character’s storyline… I don’t know if it’s clever, or sad.

I’m guessing that Tyler is going to be like BSGs Boomer and be unaware that he is actually not who he believes himself to be.

I really hope that people don’t let this theory somehow dampen their enjoyment
of Discovery.

It’s him. Get over it. Trek is famously terrible about lying about plot points fans easily figure out. John Harrison, those leaked klingons arent klingons.. etc.

Famously terrible since when?
Because both those examples you cited come from the same movie.
Discovery is not STID

The thing is, Trek has had many twists, but usually they were presented and paid off in the same episode. That the Changelings were the founders– introduced and paid off in ‘The Seach.” Bashir is a changeling? Seska as a Cardassian? Eddington and Kassidy as Maquis? All single episode reveals not planned out beforehand, to my knowledge.

Maybe there was one i’m not thinking of off the top of my head, but it’s only in the past 10 years or so that shows have written these kinds of big shocking twists and gone to any kind lengths to hide it from fans. This is a relatively new phenomenon for Trek, and largely due to the proliferation of entertainment sites that cover and review shows in-depth and are read by the mass audience beyond the hardcore fandom.

Bashir as a changeling?
He was genetically enhanced wasn’t he?

He was referring to some episodes where the Dominion captured Bashir and sent him to an internment camp. He was replaced on DS9 by a changeling. The ruse was exposed in the episodes “In purgatory’s shadow” and “By Inerno’s Light.” Interestingly enough Siddig el Fadil had no idea his character was a changeling for the past few episodes until he got the script for these ones. The reason being the writers didn’t even know they were going to do it until they wrote these episode. All in all, Bashir had been replaced by a changeling for about a month or so. To the second part, yes he was genetically engineered.

Precisely.

The other reason that this is a relatively recent phenomenon is that most long-form storytelling on TV until recently were still written episodically. Even LOST and BSG, which had ongoing mysteries (“what’s in the hatch? Who are Dharma Initiative? Who are the final five?”), most of the stories were not planned out in detail before hand. So there was really no secret to leak out that far in advance, and no clues to be spotted, whether in the show or in the real world (it’s no coincidence that that’s why a lot of mysteries on shows like those always felt so forced…).

And the reason they were still written episodically? A product of the network model, where each episode is budgeted, written, filmed, and produced separately, on tight deadlines. This is yet another advantage to streaming: they can more easily plan, write, and produce a single story over the course of a season, lay clues for future reveals, and plan out the story so that it makes a lot more coherent sense.

Its been awhile.
Forgot about the Bashir Changeling storyline.

Nope. Into Darkness and the famous twitter image of DSC Klingons that went viral, everyone said WTF are these creatures? The originator deleted the comment amd execs denied those were new klingons. Keep up MAN!

I remember the picture that you are talking about now.
However, TV or Film, the producers are not required to disclose a secret to you just because you guessed it.

Wrong questions. Should have asked… Shazad, your family name is Iqbal. Also, Javid Iqbal can be translated “live long and prosper”. As “luck” (Iqbal) has it, you’re of “house Iqbal”, aren’t you?

Thanks for that. I knew Latif’s real name is Iqbal so for me that sealed it. I had also looked up the meaning of Javid and found “Alive” or “Living” which I thought okay “Voq living in Iqbal” but when paired with the meaning of Iqbal – Live Long & Prosper. Damn they are too clever for their own good. Or they think we’re stupid.

Shazad Latif play Mr Hyde

Of course it’s him. Do you all need to be hit over the head? Even the dialogue is presaging the inevitable reveal of Ash as Voq.

Look at the pictures, especially the profile pics of Voq. That is Latif’s mouth and the prosthetics don’t disguise it all that much. The number of episodes listed is irrelevant as they seem off for other actors as well.

They couldn’t have been more obvious unless they named the “actor” listed at imdb as Javid H. Iqbal.

I actually think it’s the most interesting thing about the show so far. And if they’ve kept the real Ash Tyler alive in Klingon-ville then even after the reveal they can keep Latif on the show. Are we going to see a half human-half Klingon baby? Now there’s a dilemma for you.

At the end lf the last episode, “Ash” says to Michael: “we’ve already met.” True in more ways than one, considering their intro in the second episode. And earlier, he “picked up a few things” on fighting like a Klingon.

Writers can’t help but give themselves away…