UPDATED: On Thursday night Sonequa Martin-Green was a guest on Late Night With Stephen Colbert. They talked about the secrecy on Star Trek: Discovery, the scale of the show, Vulcan assimilation, and she even schooled Stephen on getting the Vulcan salute just right. Martin-Green also talked about the King of Jordan (a Trek fan who appeared in Star Trek: Voyager) dropping by while they were shooting in Jordan.
And most interestingly, Sonequa brought along a clip from the show. You can watch the full segment from Colbert along with the clip below.
A closer look at the new clip
We have seen Burnham and the Torchbearer before, in fact it was the final moment from the first trailer for the show released in May. This clip shows us what happened shortly before they meet, with Burnham analyzing an object in space while wearing a Federation EVA suit.
Burnham doing recon atop an obelisk
With this clip we find Burnham scanning the Obelisk on a reconnaissance mission (we saw a shot of her leaving the U.S.S. Shenzhou on a recon mission in a promo released yesterday).
Burnham’s suit scans the object
It appears that Burnham did not know the Torchbearer was going to be there and possibly didn’t even know the object she was exploring was Klingon. In that May trailer we can hear Saru announcing the U.S.S. Shenzhou had encountered an “object of unknown origin,” quite likely this is that object.
Burnham’s suit computer identifies a Klingon
And even though it has been discussed that Burnham “starts a war” with the Klingons, at this point in the pilot she seems to still be acting in her role as an explorer and first contact specialist.
Burnham identifies herself being from the Federation
But it appears the Torchbearer is a bit too busy for a friendly chat, and he is armed with a famous Klingon weapon.
Computer identifies bat’leth
According to official info from CBS, this Klingon warrior is “chosen through a sacred ritual to serve as the Torchbearer, enabling him to sound the call for all the Klingon houses to unite by activating a ceremonial obelisk.” Which is why the Torchbearer didn’t seem to have any time to chat with Burnham.
Say hello to my bat’leth human
If you want some more context for that scene, you should read our two recent deep dive analysis articles. The first one was all about Michael Burnham and the second one is all about the Klingons, including the Torchbearer.
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.
Colbert could waste her in Trek trivia, no doubt.
I’ll bet he could!
She’s a lot hotter than he is, though.
Oh, I think Colbert is pretty hot ;^D
So long as we both have leave to be sexist. :-)
He could probably waste Shatner and most Trek actors in Trek trivia no doubt.
Colbert not only could; he did and then went on to reveal who killed her character’s parents without a spoiler alert.
Interesting female computer voice. It’s kind of halting like TOS computers, but more what we would expect from an AI like Siri today …
I feel like it would have been fine with just the HUD text and no computer VO. Seems excessive. That’s a nitpick though.
Agreed, on both counts. :-)
Interesting point. Maybe the tension would have been highen if we could only hear her breathe.
Sounds like the voice from the credits of Quantum Leap.
“Hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home…”
I’m a bit dissapointed that they didn’t use Majel Barret’s voice, but this one was fine.
WOW. OMG. AWESOME. KAPLA!
Qapla’. Not Kapla.
Get over yourself
0:50 Nice…REAL nice…
They really nailed the build up of the tension! Took me by surprise since the trailers were fairly standard fair.
I wonder why they haven’t used Majel’s voice; Fuller spoke about hopefully using it on Discovery. “Majel’s voice is recorded phonetically, & we’re working to get her voice for things such as Siri, maybe voice of the computer on #STDiscovery
6:55 PM – Sep 4, 2016”
They may use it going forward as the upgraded Federation computers. It won’t sound as 60’s robotic as the TOS computer voice but it would be Majel’s voice. Possible if they’re going for that whole shift more towards TOS in color palette and more later in the show.
@PEB with real AIs like Siri, there’s no way they could ever do a robotic voice like TOS and be taken seriously and that right there is the analogy for the entire defense of changing the look of the TOS era. While there’s a hard core faction of the fan base that would love to see DISC use the exact same sets from THE CAGE, Nostalgia blinds them to the fact it looks as dated as the Enterprise computer sounds to modern ears, to say nothing of our current expectations of what 300 years into our future will look like,
Jesus this is corny.
Wow! Amazing clip, very cinematic. Can’t wait!!!
I have to be honest, this is the first piece of ‘Discovery’ footage that has genuinely impressed me. Very cool. Shows promise!
That noise when the scanner identifies the Klingon insignia sounds very much like a shortened version of a warning beep used on the computer on Voyager.
Even the music sounds more cinematic!
Couldn’t help but notice that too! Loved the music bits we heard!
Meh. You can’t tell anything from that, except they used an orchestra, which Jeff Russo doesn’t know how to write for. We’ll see, maybe he’s turned the heavy lifting over to a real composer, like his writing partner doing most of the work on LUCIFER, Ben Decter, and there’ll be some decent score come out of this. Not holding my breath.
I’m excited! Bring it on…
If CBS was smart (?) they would have Colbert do a full Discovery cast show between now and the premiere, like what Conan does sometimes. I think Colbert would be into that.
I was hoping for a longer interview last night, but I told my wife way earlier, “I bet I’m going to stay up to watch this just to see a quick three minute appearance at the very end”.. And damn if I didn’t nail that one :(
Worth it though, that was an awesome scene!
I thought of something about Discovery that could affect how I feel about it.
Every new incarnation of televised Star Trek (except The Animated Series) has been “introduced” by a character from the previous incarnation:
— Dr. McCoy was in the premiere of The Next Generation
— Captain Picard was in the premiere of Deep Space Nine
— Quark was in the premiere of Voyager
— Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) was in the premiere of Enterprise
If the new series follows this tradition — perhaps with a cameo by an aged Enterprise character (e.g., Archer, Phlox, T’Pol) — I will be very, very impressed.
Your “the previous incarnation” pattern would only follow if Cochrane were from Voyager, which he’s not.
OK, “a” previous incarnation. Having a Voyager person on Enterprise wouldn’t have worked chronologically anyway.
@navamske — I really hope they don’t. I think that’s the worst kind of fan pandering they could do …
They already made Burham Spocks adoted sister out of nowhere. You can’t get more fan pandering than that.
And yet it would please the fan base without having to detract from the drama, if done subtly and without that whole WINK WINK approach that some of the other cameos have made. This pattern also applies to Kelvin Trek too — think about how much more legit ST09 seemed with Nimoy than it would’ve without him.
Character crossovers is one of the most fun things about Trek. And in our shared universe era, it would only makes sense to throw out a cameo. And good point about Nimoy. I think his inclusion did make the KT films feel ‘legit’. For Trek fans, his involvement made the first film that more interesting.
It’s Sarek, obviously.
Bad writing is what could tip the balance for me.
So far, from what I have seen, I am not too worried.
That clip was boooooorrrriiiiiing………
Yeah, I don’t know why they chose that one to represent the show. Not much there.