Engineering Image, Connor Speaks, Klingon Proverbs, Hamill Hopes, And More ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Bits

This week there has been a lot of news, clips and promos for Star Trek: Discovery, but believe it or not, there’s more, including a possible first look, a singing ship corridor tour, insights into one of the characters, Klingon demo and proverbs, hopes for a Star Wars connection and more.

Shenzhou engineering revealed

Yesterday we reported on many of the fun elements of Star Trek Day, and here’s a bonus: Discovery co-executive producer Ted Sullivan was given special Star Trek Day permission to share a behind the scenes shot from the show which appears to show an Engineering console from the U.S.S. Shenzhou. This could be from the engine room or possibly one of the rear bridge consoles.

New image revealed today by Ted Sullivan (Twitter/karterhol)

By the way, this image really shows how dominant blue is for the interface design, but as noted from our Fan Expo report last week, the plan is to have these displays add more color as the show goes on to closer match the more colorful look of the original Star Trek.

Ted also shared two more images in honor of #StarTrekDay, one close-up on the floor of the Klingon Sarcophagus Ship and one of actor Jimmy Chimarios, who plays a blue-skinned bridge officer of the U.S.S. Shenzhou (named “Polygon” on IMDB) .

And just today Ted posted this image of actress Mary Chieffo (L’Rell) on the Klingon ship set.

Dreaming of a Skywalker on Discovery

Speaking of Ted’s social media, this morning he shared an image showing that Mark Hamill liked a comment he made on Twitter about how he would “DIE” if actor Mark Hamill made an appearance on Star Trek: Discovery. Ted is a big Star Wars fan and apparently swooned when he spotted Hamill (aka Luke Skywalker) on his way to his guest spot on the CW series The Flash back when Ted was working on Supergirl.

Getting to know Ensign Connor

Star Trek: Discovery actor Sam Vartholomeos did an interview with the official Star Trek website where he gave us a little bit more about his character, the young, straightlaced Ensign Connor.

Well, Ensign Danby Connor is the U.S.S. Shenzhou’s ops officer right up front, and he is Star Trek and Starfleet through and through. That is one thing I can say and one thing I really like about him. Nothing really conflicts with him. He is all about the Prime Directive, and there’s a Captain and there’s a Lieutenant Commander — and everyone follows a code. When that code, and when the Prime Directive, all get crossed, his wires get crossed. He kind of uses Captain Georgiou, played by Michelle Yeoh, as his North Star, and he really wants to learn from her. That is one thing I really wanted to make clear about Connor, is that he wants to learn and move up.

Michelle Yeoh as Capt. Georgiou on the U.S.S. Shenzhou

Sam Vartholomeos on the bridge of the U.S.S. Shenzhou

Discovery lights up Times Square

Speaking of Sam, he shared this this animated gif showing the video billboards for Discovery lighting up Times Square in New York City.

Mitchell shows off his Klingon, gets trolled by Shatner

Canada’s Space Channel show Innerspace hosted the Star Trek: Discovery panel at Fan Expo last weekend and had a chance to speak to some of the actors afterward. You can now watch the full episode online. No news was broken but you can hear about their favorite moments on the set and see actor Ken Mitchell (Kol) show off by speaking some Klingon.

Just speaking Klingon makes Ken look menacing

Even though in our new interview with William Shatner where he claimed to know nothing about Star Trek: Discovery, he does seem to like to mix it up with some of the Discovery actors, including Ken Mitchell. Here is a fun exchange from earlier in the week.

Netflix shares Klingon proverbs

Speaking of Klingons, Netflix, who will air Star Trek: Discovery outside of the U.S.A. and Canada, have been dropping some animated Klingon proverbs on social media. Are these hints about the show or are they just fans of Klingon poetry?

 

Old #Klingon proverb: Only a fool fights in a burning house.

A post shared by Star Trek: Discovery (@startreknetflix) on

 

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

A post shared by Star Trek: Discovery (@startreknetflix) on

 

#Klingon proverb: four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man.

A post shared by Star Trek: Discovery (@startreknetflix) on

Rainn Wilson caterwauls for charity

Entertainment Weekly shared this video of actor Rainn Wilson (Harry Mudd) belting out the original Star Trek theme from set of U.S.S. Discovery, with a little cameo by (Broadway vet) Anthony Rapp (Lt. Stamets). The video was released as part of Wilson’s Lide Hati charity contest for tickets to the Discovery Hollywood premiere.

Shatner and Isaacs discuss his butt

And we will wrap things up with some talk about buttocks, specifically Willam Shatner’s. As we reported earlier this week, at Fan Expo actor Jason Isaacs (Capt. Lorca) talked about how he was reluctant to sit in the captain’s chair because of the “holy buttocks” of captains that came before him including William Shatner. Bill decided to use this remark to poke some fun at Isaacs on Twitter, creating this exchange.

 

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.

21 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Jason Isaacs for the win!

Yep. Kirk’s my hero, always will be–but in duel of wits, my money’s on Isaacs.

Agreed, Isaacs came back with the perfect response.

I think he’s my favorite part of this entire discovery project. He’s hilarious and I love the things he says. Him and SMG tell me they have a great cast.

Looking interesting. Looking forward to first episode.

It’s so strange they haven’t even announced the title of the first episode!

With some newer shows, the pilot doesn’t have another title besides “pilot”. There are even some TV shows that do away completely with episode titles and just use Part 1, Part 2 and so on.

YEah but all Star Trek shows have had title names first episodes. And I don’t think Star Trek has shot a traditional pilot since TOS. From TNG on, they were all given full order seasons before the first episode was even made like Discovery got.

I also expect them to use episode titles. I think most shows still do even if they are heavily serialized. But there are exceptions so anything is possible.

Guillermo de Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’, starring Doug Jones, has just won the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Mostra.

And reading the reviews of Jones’s work in the movie have just raised my enthusiasm for Discovery by a few dozen notches. Saru will be played by somebody who can actually act.

Hamill for Star Trek, yes please !

Anybody else wonder if maybe Starfleet goes from dark lighting and blues to bright lights and pretty colors by TOS time, because Stamets’ space shrooms are a great high? Just me? Okay.

I do wonder if this was the original plan or if it’s due to fan pressure.

I’m thinking it’s an attempt to appease fan pressure.

Or it could be a creative decision planned all along, based in Trek canon, and as a visual allegory of the story being depicted. The Cage was much darker, more monochromatic, blue-hued, and without the bright colors of TOS, so there’s precedent. Then there’s going from a dark time in the federation into a more positive time. It’s the same reason pictures from the 1930s are so drab compared to the bright colors of the 40s and 50s, reflecting a bright optimism of the times. And let’s not forget ENT was pretty drab with gray and blue as their dominant art direction.

If they put hair on the Klingons by the 2nd season, then maybe they’re responding to fan pressure. If they don’t, I suggest this has nothing to do with the fans. And let’s see what they do — I think some people think it’s literally going to morph into a TOS set, right down to jeweled buttons, and static images on the bridge monitor, but that’s not going to happen. That said, telling us about their plans has everything to do with the fans — it’s something they can address to the immediate criticism. But they’re not making the changes because of the fans.

Well argued, Cadet! You’re likely right about that. Personally, I don’t care about jeweled buttons and bright colors. I want good stories, isn’t that why we all watch Star Trek anyway? There’s no reason anyone has any expectation for the design to mimic TOS too much – times change, production standards change. Let’s just enjoy the (hopefully) good stories, y’all.

LOL I can really care less they are going to change the color scheme around. I don’t even get the point if so much of the show just looks so much different and way more advanced. And frankly the people who already against the show isn’t going to turn around because they added red to the bridge when you completely redid the Klingons and uniforms.

I do get serious hippie vibes from this whole space mushroom business, and TOS and the mid 60s in general were awash with psychedelic splendor. Also I’m pretty sure acid and shrooms are making a serious comeback both recreationally and scientifically. Plus the 2010s have been very trippy in terms of media and color. It seems like every movie I see has a visual hallucination on screen. So if discovery is taking a cue from that trend, I’m all for it.

By the way, this image really shows how dominant blue is for the interface design, but as noted from our Fan Expo report last week, the plan is to have these displays add more color as the show goes on to closer match the more colorful look of the original Star Trek.

Why does anything on this show have to be like the Original Series? Many of these fans that expect the same set design as seen in the ’60’s need to get over themselves and their expectations that Discovery has to be like that-this is a show of the 2010’s, and it should be designed, costumed, and shot like a show from the 2010’s, not a show of the 1960’s that had a limited budget.

^^This!

I imagine they can just show a Constitution class ship in this era and that will certainly make some of them happy but overall its clear they went a totally different direction like the KT films. You either accept it or just move on. Its not going to look like TOS nor should.