‘After Trek’ Hints At What’s Next On ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ + Ted Sullivan Talks Canon Challenge

On Sunday’s episode of After Trek host Matt Mira spoke to Jayne Brook (Admiral Cornwell), co-executive producer Ted Sullivan and Doug Jones (Saru) about the latest episode, “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.” We have highlights and clips from the show.

Jones and Sullivan talk future of Pahvo, Saru and the Kelpians

 “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” ended with Planet Pahvo sending invitations out, bringing together the Federation and the Klingons. When asked by Matt Mara if Pahvo will “harmonize a truce,” Sullivan poured some cold water on the notion, saying:

I think the Federation needs to fix their own problems

So it looks like Pahvo isn’t going to pull an Organians and make the Federation and the Klingons come to peace.

Joining in the conversation via Skype, Doug Jones talked about Saru’s emotional journey in this episode, citing how it was the first time in Saru’s life that he was able to function completely without fear. When asked if Jones thought this experience would change Saru, Jones had this to say.

“I think from here on in – yes – I think we’ve seen him evolve throughout the whole season. Going from a scaredy-cat to exploring his leadership ability and that it is okay to take a risk here or there. He learned he has a good donkey kick in him.”

You can see a clip of that below.

When Matt asked Ted Sullivan if we will ever see the predator species on Saru’s home planet. Sullivan told Matt that he has high hopes they explore the Kelpiens next season.

“I hope so. Think about that. You’d wanna see how a new Saru, an evolved Saru, deals with them. You would want to see how his crew mates and friends deal with this culture. That would be a fascinating story.”

Brook reveals deleted scene, Sullivan talks Lorca motivations

While talking to Matt Mira, Jayne Brook discussed Admiral Cornwell’s dynamic with L’Rell in “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.” She revealed the brig scene was originally longer with a cut moment from before Cornwell says to L’Rell “You are not what I thought you were.” Here is how she described it:

We had a much longer scene in the brig where I really assess her. I say to her “You don’t have the markings of House of Kol. You don’t speak the language and you haven’t killed me yet. So, what’s up?”

Watch the moment below.

One of the questions that came from episode 6 was if Lorca’s suggestion to have Cornwell go on the peace mission to the Klingons was intended to get her captured. Brook seemed to think it was, saying: “He knew the Klingons couldn’t be trusted and so sends her off… he doesn’t want his ship taken away from him.” Sullivan nodded in agreement and then added:

He is very protective of his command and he also believes he can win this war. So, why is he going to let anyone stop him from doing his job?

Brook also mentioned how she did not expect to get invited to join the cast of Discovery and thought she was going to get killed off “much sooner”. However, as she was discussing Cornwell with Mira and producer Ted Sullivan, Brook kept on referring to Cornwell in the past tense, seemingly alluding that Cornwell does not make it past the mid-season finale next week, “Into the Forest I Go.”

After Trek indicates Lorca had an idea Cornwell may not come back from the peace mission

Sullivan sees canon as his biggest challenge

Responding to a fan question on what is the greatest challenge in making an episode, Ted Sullivan revealed for him it was dealing with Trek’s lore, saying:

For me, canon is the hardest thing. Tracking canon and trying to write within the confines of canon, but also still tell a story where you have the freedom to explore the themes and characters and push things in the way that you want.

Ted Sullivan and Jayne Brook on After Trek

Behind-the-scenes clip from “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”

After Trek also featured a behind-the-scenes look at location shooting for the latest episode.

Star Trek tech feature

They also had a brief segment called “From Phaser to Laser” examining how laser technology is being currently implemented by the military. You can check out that video below.

Mid-season finale gets a clip and some hype

In regards to this Sunday’s episode (“Into the Forest I Go”) the show offered a clip which revealed Michael Burnham contesting the orders of Captain Lorca. Producer Ted Sullivan made sure to give a shout-out to the episode’s writers on the show, Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, and raved about the episode saying it was “‘Balance of Terror’ good” and saying “people’s head’s will explode” when they watch it. Kim and Lippoldt will appear on next week’s After Trek along with Sonequa Martin-Green and Mary Wiseman.

Preview of episode 9 of Discovery shown on After Trek


Star Trek: Discovery is available on CBS All Access on in the US and airs in Canada on the Space Channel. It is available on Netflix outside the USA and Canada.

Keep up with all the Star TrekDiscovery news at TrekMovie.

 
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“Producer Ted Sullivan made sure to give a shout-out to the episode’s writers on the show, Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, and raved about the episode saying it was “Balance of Terror good” and “people’s head will explode” watching it.

Yeah, highly doubt it!

Sullivan’s overhyping of upcoming episodes only guarantees that some people will be disappointed by the end of the overhyped episodes when they don’t deliver.

But why do you doubt it? The show is awesome so far.

I agree. Love the show so far! Looking forward to next week’s episode. I’d like to see burnham eventually get the captaincy of the ship. As much as i like lorca, he’s a bit of an arsehole and i can see him doing something in the medium term that gets him court martialled. Maybe he pushes stametts with the spore jumps despite knowing it would likely kill him? You can see several actions he would take that could be worthy of court martial – he’s a loose cannon.

… As opposed to loose Canon, which likely sums up the entire series in two words :)

They have said that canon will line up when its all over and they just got started.
A little early to expect everything to be perfectly lined up.

I agree. And it was not boasting when it was said that this was better than any other first season. That is without a doubt, that this season is better than TNG, DS9, VOY or ENT first seasons. It is not comparable to TOS, because the stories in TOS were SO good and had to be made from nothing, it remains beyond incredible what the first season TOS producers and Roddenberry were able to achieve.

If Star Trek Discovery somehow cured Cancer, you can rely on Ahmed to come here and find a criticism.

He wouldn’t even test the cure. He would just say it won’t work.

@Disco lol you’re right! or complain that it doesnt cure it fast enough.

I would have been happy seeing the adventures of Georgio and Burnham. Such a pity they killed off Georgio. I love the Discovery and Lorca etc but the chemistry between Georgio and Burnham was nice. I would love to see their adventures of their 7 yrs together.

It would have been good for this first chapter to be 8-9 episodes of Burnham and Georgio and then to cliffhang to the second chapter of Georgio dying and the Burnham going to Discovery.

yes

I have enjoyed the majority of episodes except for the hippy planet and crack head Saru. The Discovery ship is filled with flawed characters and to me that is getting old.

Nothing I’ve seen so far this season has come close to the tension generated by “Balance of Terror,” imo. Good luck with that, I’ll be watching.

Somewhat agree Ahmed in that they really shouldn’t overhype the show like that. It only causes viewers to have higher expectations.

This is one of the reasons I haven’t taken in the After Trek show. My guess was it would be little more than everyone stroking themselves over how awesome the show is. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the show as much as you seem to. But I’m not blindly drooling all over it like some of its defenders are either. For me it has been overall a mediocre show and thus far has had one superior episode.

Yes, Im looking forward to them saying “hey, watch it if you want but, meh, its ok. Nothing great”. Jesus…the whiners are now complaining about the producers being excited for their work. Good lord.

Thinking about it, I’ve never seen Ahmed say anything positive about Star Trek. That’s kinda sad.

On last After Trek, they offer “Cadet Training” of salient yesteryear episodes vis-à-vis “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” – recommending “Errand of Mercy”, “Prime Factors”, and “The Paradise Syndrome” – ha ha ha ha ha ha, I am guessing they meant to type “This Side of Paradise” as Saru gets doped up like Spock does back in the day- but instead they are telling noobz to watch Shatner dressed like sixties Squanto reenacting a Rudyard Kipling tale. (Granted, there are some similarities to both episodes, as one can tell from noticing they both have “Paradise” in their titles.) PS – “This Side of Paradise” is also the debut novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Because Dorothy Fontana is fancy that way. PPS – F. Scott Fitzgerald took the line from a Rupert Brooke poem.

After watching After Trek it became clear to me the Admiral Cornwell is not dead at all. Watch the last three minutes, after host asked Jayne Brook how she felt about joining the Star Trek franchise she answered that it came out of the blue and she expected to be killed off… She then looked horrified as to have spoilt the outcome of episode 8, looks at writer Sullivan who looks totally awkward and then almost screamingly adds ‘much sooner, killed off much sooner’. But by then, the cat was out of the bag.

Good observation, I just went back and watched it and you’re totally right. Sullivan takes an awkward sip of his coffee and she touched his arm as if to apologize for something.

“For me, canon is the hardest thing. Tracking canon and trying to write within the confines of canon, but also still tell a story where you have the freedom to explore the themes and characters and push things in the way that you want.”

Yes so let’s set a show 10 years before TOS and after Enterprise and make our jobs really really harder when they could’ve made the show post Voyager and not worry about every little line said from a 50 year old TV show.

Thank you! Exactly.

All, I know is I thank God my generation wasn’t seduced by the facile such as the taking of the easy way out.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” — JFK

They only went to the moon to investigate the cigar shaped alien craft left there for millions of years along with ancient alien base. It was a joint mission with Russia to study the threat to earth. The alien cigar shaped craft appeared in sat scans from earlier missions of the moon. Lots of top secret stuff the public is not privy too out of concerns for national security and public panic and violation of religious beliefs.

Ummmmm yeah Its too bad there is no way for the public to see whats on the moon.

?!?!

Yes! Let’s set the show in an era where canon will be the most difficult to keep straight then complain about how hard it is! Even post TUC (I keep going there because that is an era I personally would like to see a Trek show use) would be easier to write in.

yes, that wouod be a nice tos sequel and they can even have Shatner come in as a guest star

He’s making a statement, not complaining. And it was Fuller’s idea to go to this era. Has your boss ever given you an assignment and you had challenges with it? It doesnt make it YOUR fault does it?

You guys will grab onto anything to be critical lol Canon has been fine in Discovery.

I hope this show bombs, the way cbs has done this. CBS app is not worth the monthly payment

Spoken like a true Star Trek fan! haha

always been my favorite thing on this site, people that seem to hate Star Trek. Makes a lot of sense. TUP check out Positive Fans of Star Trek: Discovery on Facebook. It’s well administered and really good dialogue. It isn’t an ass kissing fest. people have opinions, but all are fans and don’t seem to wish death on others.

@DiscoTrek

It would seem to be all fans here too. There are some who bash the show repeatedly and others who blindly defend it. In my mind all views are worthwhile. Until it reaches the level of trolling. Which it has with perhaps a couple of posters. (And they know who they are) I know many want to engage but the best way to handle trolls is to not feed them.

I hope it succeeds so much that CBS decides to run another Trek show too.

Aaaghh!! Doug Jones… he’s growing his hair back!

Well, if he doesn’t have to wear Saru’s make up for a while…

“For me, canon is the hardest thing. Tracking canon and trying to write within the confines of canon, but also still tell a story where you have the freedom to explore the themes and characters and push things in the way that you want.”

Here’s a tip: Write NEW canon, in a NEW era rather than shoe-horning DSC into existing canon, without breaking ENT or TOS canon (both of which are violated in every episode). In short, you guys brought this on yourselves. Set it 100 years after VOY, problem solved. But nooo…

Let the downvote/hate-bashing commence!

Upvote. You are absolutely right, Meurik. The time period they set it in is what bothers me the most about DSC, and is taking me out of the story in a big way. That, and the abysmal space battle/ship designs and shots.

You don’t get out much, do you? It’s not news that Trek started violating its own canon almost from the start, so this idea we need to be slavishly devoted to it now is…cute. Personally, I don’t need to see an episode devoted to explaining gel buttons and a resurgence of analog computing in the 23rd century. If you do, may I suggest fan fiction?

@Phil – agreed. This focus on canon is just a way for the vocal minority who either didnt get what they wanted or never wanted to like Discovery to complain.

Discovery has been remarkably devoted to maintaining canon considering they are exploring an era that hasnt been seen in 50 years.

I agree! It’s done a better job of adhereing to canon in 8 episodes than Enterprise did in 4 seasons.

Quite why some fans feel the need to accuse the producers of violating canon is beyond me, especially when Enterprise featured episodes with the Ferengi and the Borg- and a K’Tinga-class starship over 170 years early…

I agree, not sure why they have a hard on for a show set before TOS. A show set after The Undiscovered Country would have been amazing. That would be amazing as there arw 80 years to fill before TNG and the retirement home luxury D.

Absolutely the direction I think they should have gone in, somethoughts. So many years unaccounted for there, endless possibilities.

Enterprise B was my preferred choice. Its an unexplored era. You can put it on the Enterprise (which in itself is a big draw). You can pretty much go hog wild with ship designs since we didnt see much between Excelsior and Enterprise C.

Seeing the iconic movie unis on weekly TV would be awesome too.

And the over-arching theme is obvious – a disgraced Captain trying to find his way after “losing” James Kirk.

yes, this

And there would be a Sulu at the helm too.

Agreed. A lot of arguments here seem to ignore the level of canon inconsistency happening now by pointing to minor inconsistencies in the past. Basically, “there was a candle in the house before so we can burn the whole place down because it’s the same thing.”

He actually makes a great point about working harder to make sense within existing sandbox. But also, he’s not the guy that picked this era so its a moot point to complain about his remarks about canon.

100 years after Voyager is laughable and ridiculous. So glad they didnt do that. And besides, CANON STILL EXISTS even when you’re in the future. Klingons looking different would still result in the vocal minority losing their minds. lol

Agreed. Especially when its pretty obvious there is no real reason to even place the show in this era other than giving Burnham Sarek as her father figure. Outside of that I don’t see a single reason why the show is in this era outside of marketing purposes. But as I said before no one would have a clue the show takes place in the 23rd century if they didn’t throw in a few references here and there. I mean you certainly wouldn’t know watching the show itself since everything looks so different and advanced.

And to make this clear I like the show so far and its just nice to have Trek back. But there was no reason to put the show in this era and IMO it doesn’t enhance canon it only distract from it because you’re constantly reconciling why so and so is different from what we known before. But its a decent show in general if not perfect.

The Navy has a laser now that can shoot small stuff down. Shooting down bigger stuff will happen in my lifetime, and I’m not that young any more.

I bet they can shoot larger stuff down now. You just don’t know about it.

It’s pretty easy to accept everything if you pretend there’s no other Star Trek. If you’re willing to overlook the existence of transporters and spore drives, you should have no issue forgetting about canon. As we’ve seen time and time again, a story or a character is only worth the Trek reset button that proceeds them.

Im not sure I understand. How do transporters and spore drives connect with canon?

There really has been no issues with canon in Discovery yet. Every series sort of stepped on canon to a degree or twisted it for its own use. And thats fine.

It’s imperative to get canon right- but not just for fans. In fact, it’s more important to get it right for the integrity and continuity of the Star Trek universe as a whole. Every aspect has to mesh together in order to remain a part of it’s creators original concept.
“Based on Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry,” which is proudly, and graphically displayed in the opening credits of EVERY incarnation of the original premise. In fact, the words ‘Star Trek’ seem less important than the creators name itself. For example: Enterprise left the Star Trek moniker out of the opening credits in it’s first series as an attempt to show the fans that it’s a prequel- before Star Trek, but low ratings caused them to quickly add the name Star Trek in hopes to gain further attention.
Time and time again, attempts have been made to ignore canon in it’s simplest forms, yet history has proven that if the ST universe is to exist as a whole it must be believable, and have fluid continuity. The Kelvin-timeline is the farthest departure from this, yet still contained the name Star Trek, and the Gene Roddenberry credit. When the producer laments about following canon he couldn’t be more truthful. No other series-other than ST- has had to walk such a fine line of creativity while having to please both the powers that be, and the fans alike.
I think if the producers would turn to the fans more, the could come away with a wealth of creative canon. That’s not to say the producers aren’t fans, because I know they are, and the majority of the writers as well, but I highly suspect that once they get on the production side of the fence they begin to create in a constrictive tunnel that has a tendency for the creative curve to distance itself from what the fans, and much of the general audience wants.
Star Trek Discovery, IMO is the finest made ST series in history, with the potential to launch the franchise ‘literally’ into orbit.
That being said, CBS, and Paramount should merge into one entity with Star Trek movies, and series at the tip of it’s creative spear. The fact that they are separate entities is the only thing that is stifling it’s growth, and preventing it from surpassing the revenue that Star Wars pulls in.
Kudos to the producers, and writers of Star Trek Discovery for keeping the dream alive for this long-time Trek fan. Keep up the great work.