This morning’s Discovery update has Rapp takling about how the show is handling his character being gay, more insight into Lorca, details on the PaleyFest panel this weekend and a little detail about that code from “Context Is for Kings.”
Lorca has big plans for Michael Burnham
The latest official character video focuses on Captain Gabriel Lorca. Actors Jason Isaacs and Sonequa Martin-Green and executive producer Aaron Harberts giving more insights into why Lorca brought Burnham on board the Discovery.
Rapp: On Star Trek divisions between people have ‘melted away’
In a new interview with the Daily Beast actor Anthony Rapp (Lt. Stamets) talks about how Discovery is handling portraying his character being gay:
Well, I think that the writers and producers knew they were going to cast a black woman as the lead and that’s not just virtue signaling. It’s game-changing to have a black woman in the lead, and those facts are not a factor in the Star Trek universe. In the world of Star Trek, the fact that she’s female, the fact that she’s non-Caucasian, has no effect on how anyone in Starfleet treats her. What matters is what you do and what you say. That’s the aspect of the vision of the future that is more utopian—that these divisions, these silly divisions between people on Earth, have pretty much melted away. And no one’s really concerned anymore with where you come from, or what your ethnic heritage is, or what your gender is. Or in the case of Stamets, what your sexual orientation is. All of that is sort of settled and then it’s just a matter of: are you a good person or are you a bad person? Are you good at your job or bad at your job? Do you do things that send the Federation into war or not? We’re all very mindful and celebratory of that. You have to make a conscious effort to do this, because you have to balance out years and years and years of sameness in depictions. So yeah, it’s something that we’re very proud of.
Anthony Rapp as Lieutenant Paul Stamets
PaleyFest panel details
As reported before, this weekend there will be a special PaleyFest panel for Star Trek: Discovery in New York on Saturday (same day as the NYCC panel). Now the Paley Center has released details on the panel. On stage will be actors Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs, Shazad Latif, Doug Jones, Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, Mary Chieffo, and Wilson Cruz. Joining them will be executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Gretchen J. Berg, Aaron Harberts, Akiva Goldsman, and Heather Kadin. There will also be an exclusive sneak preview of Discovery. General public tickets cost $50 with discounted tickets available to Paley members. You can buy tickets at ticketweb.com.
Discovery has a virus?
In “Context Is for Kings” Lt. Stamets has Burnham analyze some data. Well an eagle-eyed fan at MovieCode on Tumblr spotted something familiar with the code shown on Discovery and apparently it is from the Stuxnet virus. Maybe the bigger issue is, does the USS Discovery still use Windows?
Is the Disco infected?
Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusive in the US on CBS All Access with new episodes released Sundays at 8:30 pm ET. In Canada Star Trek: Discovery airs on the Space Channel at the same time. Discovery is available on Netflix outside the USA and Canada with new episodes made available Monday at 8 am BST.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
This is gonna sound stupid but after I watched the first 2 episodes – I remembered that Sonnequa was a black woman. I was just watching a character called Michael Burnham on screen.
The fact that some people have called out the diversity as pandering is completely antithetical to Star Trek.
The fact that some so called ” Star Trek Fans ” have done nothing but bitch about the show since it’s inception
is completely anti Star Trek.
But all that aside – I just want to see that monster from the Glenn beamed onto a Klingon ship – even though it would be a bit too close to a scene from Galaxy Quest. The “Star Trek Fans TM” would LOVE that……. But it would be cool to see.
Isn’t that pretty much guaranteed to be in the bag. LOL
It is pandering when you know that is what they did. They admitted it. They said they were only looking for black or Hispanic female actors. What does that tell you? It tells you race and gender and not acting ability alone was driving their decision.
What that doesn’t tell me is why you have a problem with this.
” It tells you race and gender and not acting ability alone was driving their decision.”
So like being white and male and not acting ability alone was driving their decision in the past just to pander some viewers???
I’m still waiting for a LOGICAL explanation why or how white male in the 23rd century could or should represent the “average human” when they DON’T represent the majority of the world. Or how many percent of the world are white english-speaking males so that they could be the majority of human characters in the star trek universe?
it’s a fair discussion on both sides of the issue. I love the choice and I don’t mind that they were looking to cast a female “minority” in the role, but I don’t think those that agree with me should complain if a show is looking to cast a white male and call it racism/sexism or whatever.
I have no problem with diversity in Star Trek.
And whats wrong with that? You sound too much like the people that often say “Im not racist but…” and then launch into some racist and bigoted nonsense.
If you dont know why diversity is important today, thats ok. You dont have to demonstrate your ignorance for everyone. You always have the option of keeping quiet.
Early on, Bryan Fuller was commenting that we are going to have a black, female commander and a gay Star Fleet officer. Also, an Asian Captain commanding an ship with an Asian name. I was concerned that he diversity was driving the story rather than the story driving diversity.
I am happy to say that the latter was not the case.
I also can’t help to wonder if Star Trek Discovery creators are a little miffed that The Orville bested them with the gay Kingon-ish couple.
Id strongly suspect the Discovery creators dont give a single thought to the tripe that is Orville. lol
It’s only being called out as pandering because activists won’t shut up about it. If everyone just let it be what it is without making a fuss over it in the first place, then the flame wars will end.
Horseapples. The producers mentioned they were going for a diverse crew, and the alt-right and Reddit sewer-dwellers had a conniption. That was the story, and the history. You might at least wait a decade or two before attempting to re-write it.
Absolutely! Audiences usually root for the main character, no matter who that person is or what they look like (unless the character is a creep … and sometimes even that doesn’t break the root-for-the-hero mindset).
As far as I can tell so far, Michael Burnham believes totally in Federation ideals and did what she thought was the right thing at the time. The fact that it didn’t work out doesn’t undermine that she WANTED to do the right thing, and I think anyone with normal human empathy will feel sorry for the situation she finds herself in and will root for her to regain both her confidence and the respect and affection of her peers.
I currently like her character. However I think the point stands that most people will judge based on someone’s personality/character while other things will not matter. Or if it does matter it may not be in a negative way. There has been some commentary about how Staments will be written and portrayed but that’s because there are so many stereotypical gay characters that people would like to see that change. That’s not necessarily negative as much as it is wanting to see more diversity in how gay characters are represented. (I hope I am making sense.)
Yes, you are making sense. Gay men aren’t all the same, anymore than straight men are, and of course we’d like to see a variety of gay men — and a variety of lesbians and bisexuals — in the media.
Very Babylon 5-ish for these characters, and Lorca in particular, to have hidden motives and agendas. I’ll have to look in on Joe Strycinski’s Twitter or Facebook to see if he has any thoughts on the show so far, especially as he had proposed his own Trek reboot many years ago.
Or just drama-ish in general?
[Deleted and banned by admin]
I don’t know if I can begin to explain how racist this is, but let’s give it a shot:
“Absolutely nothing, that’s what. For all we know, minorities of the 24th century could still be in the same position as they are today: sitting at home living off government handouts because they simply don’t qualify for any meaningful job.”
This is not an accurate reflection of what life is like for the average minority in America. It’s a racist fantasy created to make white racists feel superior.
“You either qualify for the job by your own effort and ability, or you don’t qualify at all; you won’t be able to use your minority status as a free lunch ticket anymore.”
The point of affirmative action is not to give minorities an unfair advantage and boost them into jobs for which they’re unqualified. It’s to force employers to consider and hire qualified applicants from groups they may otherwise overlook, whether because of personal bias, historical bias, etc. Two concrete examples:
Numerous studies have shown that employers are more likely to request interviews of applicants with “white” sounding names even if the application/resume is identical.
Where employers advertise job listings will effect who they hire. If 99% of their employees are white and they get 90% of their new hires through employee referrals, white people are going to get most/all of those jobs, and potentially equally or more qualified minority candidates will hit be considered.
“Even the most advanced post-scarcity society needs only a limited number of athletes and rappers and creole chefs.”
The racism here hopefully goes without saying?
I mean, maaaaybe this is a troll, but in the age of the Alt-Right and white supremacists running over civil libertarians, these kinds of noxious views (which are antithetical to everything Trek stands for) really shouldn’t go unchallenged.
So based upon what you have written, you are a racist, Paul. I hope through some self-reflection and through seeking the empathy that you currently lack, you will someday change. I don’t know how someone like you could ever find a fictional universe like Star Trek agreeable, but to lack the simple self-awareness that Star Trek’s philosophy is antithetical to your point-of-view… it’s quite astounding that you are even here on this message board.
I obviously missed something awful. Good Lord.
Sometimes fate can be kind. Think I know who the poster was, and yeah, he’s quite an ass.
How things have apparently changed. I remember back in about 2014/15 when this site was semi-dead, No tv news and the movie in difficulty. Now, 3 years later, a deluge of Trek-News and interviews and stuff.
…and stuff.
“…the fact that she’s female, the fact that she’s non-Caucasian, has no effect on how anyone in Starfleet treats her.” Yeah, we know. Same in real life. The rest of us have moved on from this ridiculous issue but the creators of this show keep harping on it as if they are being so enlightened. That is why a lot of people have a problem with it. The race, gender and sexual orientation of character is so heavy handed and in your face.
But you have to agree that the majority of HUMANS is not white and male. So, if humans are represented in Starfleet in the 24th century in a BELIEVABLE way, HOW might the “average human” look like in starfleet?
I go one step further – while the main characters are meant to represent diversity, the rest of the characters doesn’t. With a few exceptions almost everyone walking on the discovery happens to be human. No andorians, no vulcans…
Or is he Federation thought to be a “homo sapiens club” like the klingons said in Star Trek IV?
“The race, gender and sexual orientation of character is so heavy handed and in your face.”
You are right, especially the sexual orientation of J.T.Kirk or Will Riker which was soooo heavy handed and in your face…
It is avery strange that viewers have no problems seeing couples of DIFFERENT species.
Kirk mating with a green-skinned orion girl? No problem! Totally representive since 95% of humans prefer having interspecies relationships (roll eyes) – what would that be in real life?
I still haven’t read any logical explanation or even a serious attempt to that unlogical attitude.
so you don’t like the characters of Kirk and Riker? They exist for a reason. It’s called marketing.
Did I say that? No.
But it’s very hypocritical whining about the existence of a gay character (“oooo noooo it’s sooooo heavy handed in your face mimimimimi…”) while fully accepting that humans mate non-human species. And then defend their view with the bible. The same sort of bigots people were whining when Kirk kissed Uhura but had no problem implying Kirk having had sex with an green-skinned orion girl…
How is that logic?
Jack D – We get it, Jack D. You’re an unrelenting racist and a proud sexist. No need to keep reaffirming this with every bigoted string of nonsense you post here.
Admins, can you please clean up this place? Do we really have to deal with bigots around here? PLEASE do something!
Did you read and understand JackDs comment?
Sad to say, yes, I did. Five seconds of my life I’ll never get back.
“The rest of us?” Got news for you, Jack. A hell of a lot of people have demonstrably NOT “moved on” from this, which any woman or person of color living in present-day America could tell you. Or, you know, ten minutes of reading the news could tell you that too, if you bothered.
I don’t know for sure you’re a white male, but if so, your life is set to the lowest possible difficulty setting. Stop your damned whining.
How is the race of a character (or the actor portraying such) “in your face”? Has Burnham even once, in the context of the show itself, mentioned that she’s black? I call bull$hit.
As for “the rest of us have moved on from this ridiculous issue,” I would assume two things: that you’re not female, or non-Caucasion. In addition to being really clueless.
“Same in real life.”
This is demonstrably not so.
“The rest of us have moved on from this ridiculous issue.”
Who are you speaking for? Why is having a diverse cast such an issue for you? Some self-reflections would seem to be in order…
I like the fact that Lorca is the kind of man that makes you think about his decisions. There are no easy answers with him but then again war isn’t always easy so for me his character works. I also think they did a nice job of establishing why Lorca would want Burnham to work with him. Sometimes character setups don’t always go so well.
SECTION 31
yep. it’s almost too obvious at this point.
From Isaacs’s interview with TVLine, it sounds like Lorca is going to be a major pain in the a$$ to the rest of the crew:
“Also, Lorca has no patience for the Science Officer, poor Stamets who is just a f–king idiot who would run double blind tests forever … he might be brilliant at the science, but he’s a moron when it comes to recognizing the situation we’re in, why we’re in it, what needs to be done practically, and what new standards need to be set when someone’s actually shooting at your head. That’s why I feel like I’m dealing with idiots left, right and center, but I’m going to do my best to knock them in to shape”
Lol they caught the Stux
My comment here has little to do with black/white, male/female, but more to call out what I think was some bad writing to serve a plot device. At the end of episode two, Georgiou and Burnham, beam over to ‘capture’ T’Kuvma. Despite the fact that any “Number One” would be very unlikely to let her captain beam over there with her, they took no physically stronger crew members over there to do battle with physically superior Klingon warriors? To me that was just a jive plot device to get Georgiou over there to get her killed. Those two beaming over there alone, at the very least with no with no security to protect them, really took me out of the moment. They were bound to get creamed.
I mentioned that too, about not taking security. Beaming over with a tactical team that could have immediately secured the Bridge, set up a perimeter and taken T’Kuvma alive would have made more sense.
I cant complain about the Captain going since it was common in TOS for the Captain to go on dangerous away missions.
I agree. They should at least have take some redshirts along. One of the weakest aspects of the pilot, absolutely.
Are there really bigots in the Trek Fandom??? Sickening.
A small minority, but the stench is all out of proportion to their numbers.
as usual, a vocal but very small minority.
The prevalence of that these days is disturbing.
Does anyone else feel like it was incredibly lazy to name Lt. Paul Stamets… well, Paul Stamets. I get having a character named in homage to the real life scientist and all that but… his exact name? Really? It’d be like having Lt. Alan Turing developing a new form of cryptography. It’s just… weird and lazy.
This article seems pretty pointless, or at least largely redundant. I think focusing on her gender and race is counterproductive. It seems like rave is Lee’s if an issue when people aren’t talking about it every 15 minutes.
The first interracial kiss was a big deal on TOS 50 years ago. But to keep saying that it’s so important that she’s a non-white female is much ado about what should be nothing.
And as for Lorca, anyone watching the show wouldn’t learn anything new from that video.