Episode 11 of Star Trek: Discovery (“The Wolf Inside”) finally revealed the truth about the character of Lt. Tyler, confirming the fan theory that he was actually the Klingon Voq, who had been transformed to look human by L’Rell and act as a sleeper agent on board the USS Discovery. Actor Shazad Latif played both parts, the Klingon Voq and the human Lt. Tyler. He was a guest on Sunday’s After Trek along with co-exeuctive prouder Ted Sullivan, and the pair were finally able to talk about the big secret.
Latif said that it was a “stressful dream” to play both parts, which allowed him to “delve into so many things.” Sullivan also clarified that it was Voq who was transformed into Tyler and not the other way around, noting that Klingons have an “established methodology” to make Klingons pass as human.
You can watch the moment below.
Later in the show Latif revealed that he picked the name “Javid Iqbal”, who had been credited as playing Voq in order to keep the secret. When asked by the producers to come up with the name, the actor chose Javid Iqbal, which was the name of his late father.
Sullivan talks diversity behind “The Wolf Inside”
When asked about his favorite part of the episode, Sullivan noted it was written by a woman (Lisa Randolph) and produced by two women of color (Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt). He saw this as exemplifying the diversity of the show, a theme also picked up by Latif who told his own inspiring diversity story.
Watch that below.
Behind the scenes on Harlak
CBS also released video from the After Trek segment which gave a closer look at creating the rebel camp on Harlak from “The Wolf Inside.”
Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on the Space Channel and on Netflix outside the USA and Canada.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
great acting range Mr Latif, hopefully we get to see more of you in the future
Is it clear that the real Ash is dead or is he still a POW? Be a great way to bring the actor back. And crate some dramatic tension between him and Burnham
I think it’s certainly possible that the real (original) Ash Tyler is still alive. It might even make sense to say that he was kept alive for the process of installing a copy of his mind into Voq — if something went wrong during the process, it would be sensible to keep the “original” as intact as possible, as a “control”.
Possible, but why would the Klingons take the chance? They’d kill him to eliminate the possibility of his escape and revealing his doppelganger.
@Josiah Rowe — “installing a copy”? Seems unlikely the Klingons would have such benign technology. Just looking at their mind probe from Errand of Mercy, it would seem they are unconcerned with preserving the original. Then again, it’s all fiction. Turning Voq into a human rather than putting his consciousness into Ash just seems ridiculous. If the original mind could be preserved, that would have been the way to go, and seems to be just as effective without a way to access the buried original personality. But I guess the physical transformation is more dramatic? And perhaps leaves the door open to bringing Ash back after Voq is inevitably killed? Heck for that matter, they may be able to find a way to destroy Voq’s personality, and let Ash’s fully take over the altered body. Or maybe they transfer Ash’s consciousness to his Mirror Universe body. I mean, this is Star Trek — anything could happen …
I prefer that they turned Voq into Ash, this fits better and adds a dark twist to the Arne Darvin character in The Trouble With Tribbles. I’m also hoping they don’t kill Voq as I still harbour hope that he turns out to be the albino from DS9.
In the flashbacks, was it showing Voq and Ash side by side being worked on? if so, it seemed like they were cutting up Ash as a result of the procedure.
I thought they were taking Tyler’s organs and transplanting them to Voq. I can’t see any reason why they would keep Tyler alive by moving Voq’s organs to him. Just surprised they didn’t have the technology to just do a brain transplant.
I thought it was Tyler still remembering himself AS Tyler instead of remembering that he was VOQ
Yes, it wasn’t *exactly* clear but they attempted to do some Fight Club-style “OMG it was him all along” reshoots of the same shot with the different character in place for each ‘memory’
yeah, thats what I wasnt sure about. It was sufficiently creepy though.
Voq-Ash is still around right? Alive and well in the brig?
How about this. They guy turns on LRell, because his new found love for Burnham is too strong. Burnham forgives him, they marry and live happily ever after.
And have a baby. A female baby. Half Human Half Klingon… maybe called K’Ehleyr? :-)
You have the chronology all wrong. This is a century before The Next Generation, so they couldn’t possible by K’Ehleyr’s parents.
Ash redemption is hard unless he sacrifices himself and dies. He killed Culber.
I assumed the story would be him knowing he’s Voq but deciding to switch sides and BE Ash. But that cant happen now.
I agree, I don’t think he can be trusted or redeemed at this point. He’ll go off and make sure the klingon’s houses are in order which will end the war.
Oh, wow! I’ve been saying this to my friends for a while. Great minds think alike, ha.
Each series has had the quirky ‘is this how it is to be human?’ character. Tyler, looking human, having a human’s implanted memories, but being Klingon with all those memories as well, would make an interesting, slightly perverse take on that generic character.
Damn! I’m loving this show! I disliked all the other spinoff TV shows. This is the best Star Trek since STVI for me!
I could see him being alive, but close to insane due to his POW status and the procedure of copying his memories. Though, I also feel like after a successful attempt, the Klingons would have probably killed him. I mean why not?
Agreed. A bravura performance from Latif. That scene on the planet in which he plays both parts simultaneously is amazing, I actually momentarily forgot that he was also playing Voq during all of that.
I think it’s safe to say that Lt. Ash Tyler was Voq’ed up pretty bad.
LOL. Yeah, somewhat ;)
I Love the attention to detail.
Pretty good episode, not as good as 10, but solid. My only disappointment is that it wasn’t Lorca’s tribble who outed Tyler, as I thought would happen.
I get the feeling that they made the whole Voq/Tyler very obvious on purpose, so that people get distracted from the upcoming real conspiracy/twist: Lorca is actually from the MU. That’s why he changed the coordinates of the last spore jump. That’s why he looks completely fine with killing people in the MU. Sounds plausible and I hope I’m wrong :-)
I am looking forward the seeing the Defiant as the Empress ship, but specially, seeing Stamets and Stamets talk spore stuff.
Yeah I was hoping the dribble would go off and it just went unexplained, as a hint for the fans jibe episode or so before the “general” reveal, but from a writing standpoint it would have been silly. They’d have to waste time explaining how Tribbles do t like Klingons for some reason, which would feel like a Deus ex machina to new fans.
@Victorinox — I was thinking the same thing, but I think you’ll be disappointed expecting to see the Defiant. It’s a 100 year old ship, and they’ve clearly been able to build newer better versions of it at a minimum by this time. The previews suggests she’s in an even bigger more massive ship, and that would make sense. Enterprise was a basic workhorse ship during this period in the MU, and given the culture, one would expect the Emperor would have something even bigger and better. Probably something we’ve never seen before, at least in this era. I do wonder if they aren’t saving the Defiant for some later reveal (though I’m not sure why that would be necessary since the Defiant itself is not key to finding a way home), but I’m not expecting it to be the Emperor’s ship.
The outed by a tribble thing worked in TOS because it was a comedy episode. This would have completely killed the drama and been laughable. They handled the revelation superbly :)
I think Saru might have picked up on it in last weeks episode or at least sensed something wasn’t right. Near the start of the episode, when Tyler enters the bridge, the threat ganglia on the back of Saru’s neck suddenly stand out. This was just after his encounter with L’Rell in the brig. It’s hard to know if this was a reaction to Tyler or to the approaching Vulcan ship.
Its just…. the Lorca is from the MU Theorie is in the net since Weeks.
If this is true too… geez, they are bad at keeping secrets.
I’m still have trouble buying Voq got changed into tyler. The real Tyler has to be dead. Too dangerous to Voq’s mission if he was found.
If Tyler is alive, we will find out that he is a bit of
A screwup.
Not exactly a model officer.
But capable of being better.
Just a theory.
It’s entirely possible that Ash Tyler never existed. If you remember L’Rell is partially from a house of spies- Mo’Kai. It’s entirely possible that House Mo’Kai transformed Voq and then infiltrated the Federation and Starfleet databases and entered data about “Ash Tyler” that correlated with false memories implanted in Voq.
@AdAstra — that’s about the only plausible reason for why they surgically altered Voq. But then why implant memories over Voq’s? I mean, was Arne Darvin’s Klingon consciousness surprised?
*suppressed?
Darvin wasnt infiltrating a Starfleet ship in a command position. And maybe the fact the memory over-write didnt work as planned is why they didnt do it again with Darvin.
I think he did exist. It’s a while since I watched the episode in question but just after Tyler had been in the holographic shooting range with the captain he kind of stumbled when talking about his hometown and Lorca picked him up on it. This implied that the Star Trek service records were more detailed than the Klingon intelligence used to create his identity.
@Rich C — I agree. This is the least plausible route they could have taken, so I really hope there’s a good reason that pans out.
The only reason I can think of is that the real Tyler is still alive somewhere and will play an important role soon. Otherwise, this way too convoluted plot development doesn’t make any sense.
Its not convoluted at all. The technology used might seem too advanced but that doesnt make the plot convoluted. Its pretty straight forward.
They had a Starfleet POW (Ash) and surgically altered Voq to look like him. We’ve seen that several times before in Star Trek. Very simple actually. They just added some realism to it in showing (and discussing) the procedure and having some PTSD elements to the trauma of it all. Which was a positive thing.
Sure, there have strained plot points in Trek before but my frustration here is that it’s *unnecessarily* convoluted–and I am referring not just to the procedure but all the misdirection leading up to this point (like Tyler fooling the medical scans earlier). Plus all the questions about why Voq seemed so comfortable as Tyler, spoke the language so well, etc. Yes, it’s all iffy sci-fi at the end of the day, but the brainwashing angle would have achieved the same end result, and in a less implausible way. But if the real Tyler is still out there and will play an important role coming up (or some other plot twist to explain this), then I will understand better why they choose this route. I am keeping an open mind.
Thats not convoluted.
Tyler didnt fool a close examination as we saw. This procedure was obviously quite involved. So, general exam? Sure.
Remember this was a POW who was tortured. So does he have broken bones that healed (and maybe not perfectly)? yes. Did he have cuts or scars or other trauma? yes, to be expected.
Only when Culber looked closer did he find it. So, not fooled.
As far as knowing the language, he had Tyler’s memories impanted. Tyler knew how to speak English.
I understand the show’s logic, I am just not convinced it was necessary for the story or that it doesn’t cause more narrative problems than it solves.
Also having memories of the English language is different from being able to physically speak and replicate it.
@Holden — totall agree. There had better be an amazing payoff to go to all this trouble …
There was. We just saw it.
You’re implying that it was an active plot point that he “fooled” medical exams. That is simply not the case. It never came up. We saw him in sickbay one time. I’ve been to the doctor many times and they dont always do a complete physical…if I break my leg, they dont do a physical. The fix my leg.
It makes perfect sense that injuries described by Culber would be explained as injuries suffered as a result of six months of torture by the Klingons.
Further, he DID NOT fool the medics. Culber FOUND HIM OUT.
@Holden If they can install a foreign personality into a brain then it’s not much of a leap to assume they could program another language as well. Having Voq transformed into Tyler fits with the existing continuity as it has clearly been established that this is a technique used by the Klingons of this era. Having Tyler’s personality placed over Voq’s makes perfect sense from a story point of view as it creates a conflict within the character and makes him more sympathetic to the audience. Although the Voq personality seems to have regained control I’d be surprised if we don’t see the Tyler persona again.
Agree with you Holden. Unnecessarily convoluted is how I would describe it too. Honestly I’m not sure why they just couldn’t brain wash the real Tyler to get basically the same results? And it would get rid of all those pesky questions of how a Klingon whose never been around humans can suddenly just fit around them like he’s always been there.
But like you I’m keeping an open mind too. I’m finally truly enjoying the show but the Tyler/Voq thing was REALLY sloppy IMO to a ridiculous degree, especially since I can’t really figure out what any of it actually accomplished?
A “big reveal”? You’re funny, Trekmovie. :-)
Still a big reveal for the show itself.
Plus, a lot of commenters here and other internet places didn’t believe it.
They were in denial, then. It was obvious to anyone with a higher IQ than Donald Trump’s–which is to say, two digits.
And here I thought he was a stable genius.
Nice Trump reference, very relevant.
Thank you, Fritz. This ‘reveal’ was painfully obvious (even with checking in with Trekmovie every day). I don’t get how this is so compelling to people. It was obvious since she said Voq would have to sacrifice everything. The show isn’t bad, but it hardly has me on the edge of my seat.
If Georgiou has the Defiant could she be related to Empress Sato?
Or, she killed Sato and took the Defiant for herself.
@DennisR — The Defiant is likely not even much of a ship by this time, being a 100 year old prototype, on which the entire Empire is based. So it probably doesn’t even figure into this. That said, Georgiou is alsmost certainly related to Sato, as a direct descendant. It would be a missed opportunity, even if it just worked out to be a coincidence that they cast an Asian woman as Burnam’s mentor and killed her off.
They could have a lot of fun with the Defiant as a battle-worn 100 year old ship. Should have sets that look stitched together, some old familiar items and “new” as well. I’d keep the Captains chair exactly the same…I think that would be fun.
But yeah, 100 years old. Its going to have needed a lot of repairs and replacements. And obviously, they’d now have other Constitution Class ships.
Even though our heroes have bigger fish to fry, if they are concerned about the Prime Directive, they’d want to destroy the Defiance since it seems to have been what allowed the Empire to grow so powerful (not that it really matters at this point).
It would probably resembled how the E2 Enterprise looked when it was flung back in time 100 years and the ship bascially became a generational ship.
Yes I can hear you Clem Fandango….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5chS2lndaJk
I’m pretty sure Voq Tyler said that the original Ash Tyler died.
One thing I wasnt clear about on first viewing…in the flashbacks to the surgery, did they show both Voq and Tyler side by side? So, we’d then know they had the real Ash Tyler. And might still.
Bringing the real Ash to the show would be something.
the organs had to come from somewhere. More than likely from the real Ash Tyler
Okay, thats what I was wondering. They transplanted human organs into the Klingon body? Interesting.
One wonders if it would have been easier to put Voq’s memories over Tyler’s body…lol But then I guess he wouldnt be Voq.
I still don’t like how they did it. It just feels WAY too convoluted to the point you have to create a pretzel to make it work. So a KLingon who never spoke English to another person before suddenly speaks it with ease, but wait maybe because Tyler’s memories helped him? But of course he didn’t even know he was Voq at all so Voq just became Tyler? How does that work IF the real Tyler was never there? And you can create a human body including the brain? Or was that Tyler’s brain inserted in Voq’s new body? And how do Klingons know how to do all this to the point they can pass medical exams and yet has not even been around humans for a century? Where did L’rell find these expert physicians when they were on a ship that floated through space? And why aren’t there more of these agents? If they can do that to Voq by taking a Starfleet officer, I imagine they can kidnap the higher ups and do the same.
It still doesn’t gel with me but yes Shazad Latif did a great job playing both for sure. I just wish the explanation made a bit more sense.
Agreed. The “brainwashing” idea would have been so much simpler and more believable. I don’t see what the point of this convolution was, unless there’s another big twist coming (like the real Ash appearing).
@Holden — agreed. The only reason to physically transform Voq is to keep Tyler around, one way or the other, depending on what happened.
1) Tyler was never real, but made up by Klingons and inserted into Starfleet databases.
2) Tyler was killed during the conversion process.
3) Voq will be killed and Tyler rescued.
4) Voq will be transformed back into Voq (insult to injury), and Tyler rescued.
5) Voq will continue to live in Tyler’s body, and real Tyler rescued.
6)) Mirror Tyler ends up on Discovery in the Prime Universe, possibly along with Mirror Voq, and Prime Voq/Tyler remains in the MU, among other permutations of that scenario.
7) Voq’s consciousness is purged leaving only Tyler’s personality.
8) Tyler’s personality is transferred from dying Voq to Mirror Tyler.
Etc.
The point would be perhaps a more religious angle. To make Voq actually become Tyler rather then just brainwashing Tyler. Plus, someone brainwashed can be de-programmed. The assumption would be, once Voq was awakened, he was Voq.
Plus, I dont know, its a TV show…this isnt like we’re dissecting the evening news. Dramatic license.
It works.
But we can take the most acclaimed films or shows and nitpick them all day long if we want to.
Its Star Trek. Its things we’ve seen before in the franchise. It works fine.
Yeah but it still feel like a ridiculous stretch to me. How do you make someone able to sound so fluent in English like he’s been around humans all his life if he’s never been around them? I just don’t buy it because you have to believe Voq has some kind of super spy skills to be so at ease with everything like he’s been on starships before. But the whole thing is just confusing. OK so they took some of Tyler’s actual memories and placed them in Voq which could explain how he seems to know so much, but if Tyler’s own consciousness was never there how did he not know he was even Voq? Why would Voq have to forget who he is?
It just feels like a cheap way to trick the audience instead of a logical plot line of how this guy manage to get into the fold. I would be ok with that if how they did it didn’t feel so absurd.
Please rewatch the consultation with Culber in episode 10. Tylers entire consciousness lays above Voq’s, who is inactive for this time. The blackouts of Tyler are the short episodes when Voq is awake after the prayer with L’Rell. It is like a replicant believing to be human ;D
Its overly convoluted and for no real reason other than to ‘surprise’ the audience. And as we can see no one was even surprised.
Ash spoke English, right? Thats how he knew how to speak english.
People are trying way too hard to look for something to complain about in Star Trek.
Exactly. What would be the point of genetically modifying him and imprinting a new personality on to him just to have him blow his cover by speaking in Klingon all the time.
Have you ever seen Total Recall? Tyler was basically Doug Quaid to Carl Hauser. Voq didn’t have super spy skills, his own consciousness was suppressed by the ‘Ash Tyler’ personality placed on top of it. In short he actually believed he was Ash Tyler
They didn’t make Doug Quaid physically a completely different species and implanted someone elses memories. They just wiped his memory and gave him new ones.
The whole thing just feels ridiculous to me.
An arch enemy of the Federation, the Borg lost Seven of Nine to the Voyager crew.
Her fight to become human over her Borg upbringing and instincts became the feature of that show.
I am expecting the same for Tyler / Voq in Discovery.
There were no big surprises in this episode. It was obvious from the beginning that Tyler was a spy and it was even more obvious who they would use to be the emperor. The writing is not great. I remain interested in this series but also underwhelmed. The Mirror Universe is intriguing, but let’s have better writing. Oh, and the spore drive thing remains stupid. Just my opinions, I could be wrong.
Definitely wrong.
Definitely right
I’m not sure why the spore drive is stupid, but a mirror universe is totally cool. Most of what Trek routinely introduces to us is beyond silly in concept. It’s science fiction, and as Arthur Clark once wrote, if you’re vision of the future is believable it cannot possibly be accurate.
As for the “surprises” I agree that we’ve all pretty much well predicted these turn of events. I attribute this to us being a savvy group of fans, the writers leaving intentional clues, and wanting us to figure it out. They want the buzz and discussion, and if that means sacrificing a shocking twist, so be it.
The internet has changed even since 2005. No doubt even the most well hidden plot twist will be discovered by some fan out there and be quickly deceminated and become a popular fan theory.
Besides, since when is a big shocking twist the be-all-end-all of storytelling? Many writers find that kind of thing hackneyed and gimmicky. I mean how many times in Trek history has there even been a big shocking twist? Commander Sela maybe? And even then, Crosby’s involvement was known to us diehard fans who read Starlog and scoured magazines for every bit of Trek news. Frankly, shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones rely too much on surprise deaths, resurrections and shocking twists, and the writing leans on them far too much.
On its own merits the writing of Discovery has been strong, though it certainly has its weak spots like most shows. But there had been a marked improvement since the premiere, as the writers and actors settle into these Characters, and I’m sure that will continue.
I disagree with everything you said. The writing is amazing. Spore drive is based in science. Warp drive works for you though?
I love when whiners get mad about the science-based stuff. They’d rather have complete fantasy.
You are free to disagrees that would be your opinion and you could be wrong. See how that works? As for the science, prove it.
then it wouldn’t be a theory would it. google it and read the book. they didn’t just pull it out of their ass
I read all about it when the show premiered. It is still stupid. They have pulled a lot out of their asses.
Then find another franchise that you’re actually a fan of.
That was a stupid and homophobic comment.
Homophobic?
Do you want a candy for being so smart?
Agreed. Especially about the spore drive.
Oh I don’t think there’s anything wrong with comparing a multidimensional network to spores, but tying it directly to spores is very silly. It’s like an astrophysicist learning about stars by studying Florida oranges. Well, they’re round and orange and bright. They must be the same thing! ;-)
Actually, the spore drive makes a lot of sense. The technology even makes more sense if it were applied to the transporters as well.
So far Latif has established himself as one of the best actors on the show. I’d hate it if the wrote his character(s) out.
True, but that’s exactly what the producers promised us some months ago… main characters will be killed off like on GoT. Culber is gone, Voq Tyler might follow… only that way we could really fear for Stamets etc… now we know main characters are going to be sacrificed. Apart from Tasha and Jadzia, that never happened on any of the other shows…
But Tyler may not even get a full season! At least Ned Stark got that ;)
Harlak feels a lot like Earth in some of the ongoing dystopian TV shows like The 100, Defiance, Into the Badlands, Shannara etc, just better :-) Loved it.
Welcome to Planet Toronto :)
I cheered is when Michael actually spaced Tyler. I felt it was, “A great decision.” I was happy to see him go so that she/we could move on.
I don’t really love that character as written. The showrunners use and avoid and attempt to put a new spin on POW and sleeper cell tropes and cover it over with love interest, never really using it to it fullest potential until this one scene in tonight’s episode. I guess they saved Tyler to keep fueling this guessing game. Will it help understand a full season of war in the prime universe?
For sure Voq is actually more interesting as written as an MU rebel. That convo on the ground will play out later when rebel Voq returns since Michael likes to learn things and she connected with this version of Sarek. This was all awesome despite crappy mid1990/dystopian rebel base location. It did not look otherworldly- could have used some dramatic physical looks. Like why not throw some blobs in the sky just because?
Still loved the episode, and watched some of it twice.
Is it possible that Tyler is the reason there are “human” looking Klingons in TOS?
Perhaps if he lives after the season, he starts a new house and those who follow become like him.
Just a silly thought.
@BB — no. Not enough time, unless you mean he “manufactures them” which would be silly. We have a canon explanation, as much as I hate they did it. So far it appears as though they have ignored it in DISC. Why surgically alter Voq, if they could have just used the augment gene sequencing that created them in the first place? And we’ve seen no humanoid Klingons otherwise, despite their ubiquity in TOS.
I hope we never see humanoid Klingons in this series and forget the stupid chapter from DS9/ENT era, and chalk it up to what it is, visual limitations of 1960s TV budgets.
Agreed. It is time to let go of the 1960s style and production values. The stories should matter more than anything else. (Except for the Enterprise. JJ ruined her instead of improving her.)
I think a very big problem for the show is that the makers did not have the force of the internet in mind.
Online the theory spread like wildfire, if that was not the case I´d estimate that 70% of the people who were now sure that Tyler is in fact Voq would have been totally oblivious to this and THEN this would have been a real shocker.
They tried their best, even created a nonexistent actor just to to fool the net, but nontheless underestimated what a large number of people can manage to do and find out.
I wish I could see the reaction in a parallel world where internet was not a thing, just to see the fandom´s reaction to this.
There is no way the show runners were surprised by the existence of the Internet.
This whole narrative that they should have tried harder to preserve the surprise or “it sucked cause everyone knew” is ridiculous.
They could’ve preserved the surprise by simply hiring another actor to play Voq. Making up an actor on IMDB? Come on, guys.
Of course. They could make twists and turns totally unpredictable. But thats not true to the performance. And would have made the reveal less satisfying.
I think it would’ve been more satisfying had they been upfront about it. Show us Voq’s transformation into Tyler and make his inner conflict take center stage instead of placing it in this foggy, mystery box gimmick. But to each his own.
They did show us his inner conflict. In this episode.
And people cant have it both ways. They cant complain that they saw it coming while also saying they should have just told us. What difference does it make if you knew? None.
If Tyler knew he was Voq the entire time and was maliciously seducing Michael, its simply not the same story. The heartbreak is not just that Michael was betrayed, but that Tyler was betrayed by his own self.
They said we’d see the war from the Klingons’ perspective as well. here is an example. Voq sacrificed the most important thing to him – Klingon purity, to try to win. And as a result, had to sacrifice again.
I don’t believe for a second the producers really wanted this to stay a complete secret. They wanted fans to see the clues and figure it out. They wanted us ahead of the rest of the characters, they wanted us to know or have guessed what Burnham and co didn’t.
And contrary to your assertion, they not only knew about the power of the web and social media, they were counting on it, and openly used it to get fans talking after every episode, theorizing on Ash Tyler, Lorca, and more.
I am scratching my head here, I don’t know why every one wants this to be a full of shocking twists and surprises.
A testament to the quality of the show is how everything has played out just as fans had theorized, and yet the shows are still filled with tension and leaving us excited to see more. They’re not using twists as a gimmick to draw an audience.
It’s a problem a lot of shows have these days: shows that cover up mediocre writing with secrets, twists and mysteries lose their rewatch value because all the value is in figuring stuff out. once you know the secrets, if the writing isn’t good, there’s no reason to watch the show again.
Already I’ve rewatched multiple episodes of Discovery and I can see myself binging this show at least once a year just like TNG, DS9 and VOY.
I think it has less to do with the internet and more to do with the familiarity of Star Trek. A prequel, unless focusing on something entirely unfamiliar, leaves few surprises. There was an expectation and those expectations panned out, not because of leaks or discussions on the internet but because there was already an expectation of where the story was probably going.
I only started to think about it after watching choose your pain then reading online from one of the show runners saying that episode planted a big seed for things to come later on in the season.
The 1st clue was that you had a federation prisoner alive for 6mths and L’rell on the same prisoner ship and connecting the dots about how Voq had to give up everything. As time went on we did guess most likely manchurian type with trigger word being Kayless. How the dramatic irony of 2 people falling in love, who had a hand in killing each others mentor. That arc played out beutifully and hats off for them on pulling it off.
I usually find I have to watch each episode of this series more than once as my attention tends to drift off during its frequent drab, tedious or overly technical sections. I do this out of loyalty for the concept I once knew to be Star Trek, and the ability I remember it for having at its best of being able to tell genuinely emotionally affecting stories, to a wide audience in a genre that usually delivers very few of them. I did the same with the last three years of Voyager and the first of Enterprise. Loyalty has its limits though, and in the end I had to bury those memories of the previous great years and move on. Sadly, it’s looking like I might now have to do the same with Discovery. Which is a shame as I had such high hopes for it.
I ask simply then: how did veering this show into an even darker universe than the one it was already in create any real drama? In the old shows if the mirror universe was shown it had some bite as we saw on a weekly basis the numerous good deeds of the Federation, how it worked, and what its principles were. Therefore there was some entertainment value to garnered by an occasion flash of a crazy alternative. This show has felt dark from the beginning though, with things like numerous violent battle scenes, alien torturing security chiefs, and main Captains happy to send their old flames off to be captured by murderous Klingons, just so long as they get to stay in the big chair.
I imagine if I had no loyalty to Star Trek I would of bailed on Discovery after the second or third episode. I couldn’t care much what happens at this point and I’ve really tried to. If that’s my feeling on Discovery lord knows what somebody would think who just casually tuned in expecting any of the old humour, camaraderie or you know, just general belief in…..niceness, that Star Trek used to be able to give out in spades would think of it.
I guess niceness must being something that just isn’t a ‘thing’ anymore.
Watching with headphones, shutting off all distractions and treating it like a movie in a movie theater not only helps, but does give it more of the cinematic experience they shooting for.
You must have hated Deep Space Nine then. What with a Starfleet CO who willingly allowed a Cardassian spy to murder somebody in order to lure the Romulans into the Dominion War, the fact that agents acting on behalf of the Federation knowingly developed a virus and infected an entire species with it.
And you must have loathed The Undiscovered Country where members of Starfleet conspired to and carried out an assassination and let an innocent man take the fall for it.
Let’s not pretend that darkness In Trek is a new thing- because it isn’t.
Janeway was also a pretty unethical captain. She downright murdered Tuvix against his will, because she wanted her friend back. I always thought a better ending to that episode would have been Neelix telling her, after she killed Tuvix, “you made the wrong decision. I remember being Tuvix and I remember you killing me. I do not forgive your betrayal.”
She was such a terrible, amoral captain. Frankly I agreed with Ray Wise in “Hope and Fear,” another man she murdered.
Tuvix is a bad example. Her decision to split Tuvix couldn’t have been easy, but it was certainly logical. She saved two people instead of one. And why would Neelix act that way even if he had Tuvix’s memories? He’d still have his own and would undoubtedly prefer to not be spliced with Tuvok for the rest of his life..
Her actions against Species 8472 are questionable though. Even if she saw them as a potential threat, it wasn’t her call to wage war against them. However, I wouldn’t side with Arturis either. You act as if he were innocent in trying to get Voyager’s crew assimilated. And how can you defend him when Janeway was just trying to save herself and Seven, and in doing so caused him to suffer the same fate he had in store for them? Or would you have preferred the Voyager crew get assimilated? I’d love to hear your moral justifications for that…
You’re wrong about Tuvix. Tuvok and Neelix were already gone. He has their memories and feelings, and he still wanted to live. She was a veritable executioner, a cold blooded homicidal killer. She should fry for what she did.
Yes, there have been dark moments previously. And most times they’ve been held up by the producers behind them as edgy rebellious acts against a tested and proven formula. Of course as is the case a lot of times with such behaviour there is a law of diminishing returns with such things though. Each time they do it the audience becomes just that little more desensitised, and the horror, violence or unethical behaviour becomes just that bit more the norm. The logical conclusion of all this “hey look at me” gimmickry is in the end the original tenets of what made the shows a success gets completely destroyed. My advice to the producers now would be to avoid such lazy or egotistical thinking, look at those series which had the most success (TOS and TNG) and stay true to those. If they think that lame or dated, then obviously they are allowing themselves to be swayed by factors other than what is most likely to deliver popularity to the franchise once again.
Soren,
That’s a very good point you raise. If TOS had endings like PRIVATE LITTLE WAR 80% of the time (not that they’d have been able to get away with that), it wouldn’t really still be TOS at all. And having those edgier moments on DS9 were hallmarks on a show that also still had more traditional gems mined in a different vein. I remember DS9 best for those darker episodes, but when I spend another moment thinking about it, I also recall the terrific comedy ensemble work in S2ep2, when most of the cast pile up to say goodbye to Kira, and the sheer fun of watching the group get in character and march to the holodeck to help out Vic.
I haven’t seen this new series yet, outside of 20 or so minutes of the opener that left me largely indifferent, but now that Amazon has it and is offering a free three day trial, I’m thinking of doing a binge in a couple of months, when I have a window of time and they’ve aired the rest of the season. CBS kept saying they weren’t going to keep all 15 available simultaneously before the series started, and if that becomes true (it hasn’t been the case thus far, much to my surprise – I think maybe they’re worried about alienating the rewatch audience), I’d rather get to see the last 10 eps than the first 10. I can certainly manage to do 5 eps a day — shoot, I once rewatched the entire 17 episodes of THE PRISONER in one day about 25 years back, though I doubt I’ll ever go to that extreme again.
That’s all assuming I like DISCOVERY enough to keep watching, which to be honest, I’m not sure will happen. The visual compromises (which I guess some folks think of as a modern look) that appear to be in the Abrams vein are quite unappealing to me, so the characters better be more compelling than I expect them to be just to offset that offensively-awful style.
POSSIBLE SPOILER
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Mirror Lorca confirmed. When Michael bows to the emperor, it looks like Lorca is simply watching the scenario play out…. but it looks to be like he is doing a very slight bow of the head to the emperor as well.
Im not sure you know what “confirmed” means. But he was smirking.
Not sure if you know what “possible” means. Guess we will have to wait and see.
Okay, now I know you dont know what “confirmed” means. Thats like saying “this guarantee is possible”.
Its either a possible spoiler or its confirmed. Which is it?
I’ve seen actual headlines of movie news articles that state things like “character X has maybe been confirmed for upcoming movie.” I shake my head. People have seemingly forgotten the definitions of words.
Yup lol “Confirmed as possible!” haha
Dude I wasn’t speaking literally. Just because this is Star Trek doesn’t mean you have to be such a dork. GFY.
Sure you were. I mean, I get that you’re being dismissive because you look foolish. But your reply indicates your intent. Grow up lol
I don’t remember: did Michael tell Lorca about Tyler? Seems strange that he wouldn’t be more surprised or angry that he got played by a Klingon so easily.
Yes, she did.
She did. Lorca clearly had other things on his mind.
Voq had to become his enemy in a convoluted plan to keep the Klingon race pure and united. I suspect that his imprinted “humanity” is going to radically change that plan and his beliefs. [Insert Kirk monologue about the human capacity here]
A big twist would be for Tyler to have gotten Michael knocked up. She gives birth to a klingon hybird.
They really can never be any surprises in Trek….because you will have the diehard fanatics freeze frame every second of video….picking apart things. Then they go on social media and a firestorm is started. Not everything has to be written with shock value in mind. Some viewers just can’t go along for a good ride. We got Trek back. It may not be everyone’s cup of Romulan ale…but it still is Trek.
Exactly. Plus, no one is going to your house and forcing you to learn all the surprises. These fans are whining that they learned the spoiler while reading Trek fan sites or listening to fan podcasts. lol
Plus, it’s easy to say it was obvious after the fact. Didnt we all know the twist in the Sixth Sense? yeah…after we watched it.
The fact that some were surprised by Georgiou being the Empress is amazing to me. It’s a fine show in it’s own right, but so far I find the writing to be by-the-numbers.
I’ll give you that one if you can cite another example (in Trek or elsewhere) of a woman being called “Emperor” instead of “Empress”.
Why SHOULD she be called Empress and not Emperor? You have the standardization of titles of male and female characters in TREK called “sir” and “Mr.”. This isn’t really a valid point.
Captain Ransom,
Re: … You have the standardization of titles of male and female …
Because the Terran Empire was the result of the Nazi Patriarchal Reich winning WW II and its subsequent Roman Patriarchal Empire Renaissance which had totally suppressed its civil rights, women’s rights, apartheid, etc. movements so that no such standardization of titles occurred in its timeline.
Disinvited…. False. They used standardized titles in the TOS movies and in TNG.
Captain Ransom… False. The Terran Empire was not featured in any Trek movie so that its extended repressive patriarchal Reich and its Mirrored subsequent Roman PATRIARCHAL Renaissance histories were rewritten such that its successful suppression of the women’s rights movement and its neutral titles did not occur.
I would also be remiss not to point out that even our current UK which did experience both the successful neutral titles women’s movement and the STAR TREK entertainment franchise still maintains the non-neutral titles of King and Queen, Prince and Princess, etc. which goes hand in glove with Japan’s Emperor and Empress in our current “enlightened” century.
Disinvited… Have you ever watched Star Trek before? I’m not talking about in the Mirror Universe. I’m talking in TOS movies (particularly TWOK) and the TNG era… The standardized titles were Mr and Sir for men and women. Maybe you should watch an episode or two of Star Trek and learn something.
Captain Ransom,
Those standardized titles for men and woman had only to do with the paramilitary titles of Starfleet.
STAR TREK did establish the existence of Orion Slave Girls and the Romulan Empire did have Empresses, etc. so I’m not sure what your point is about such non-military designations in the rulers of the 23rd+ centuries of the Prime or Mirror Universes?
1. It is a twisted universe, so the rule might not apply.
2. Mirror Hoshi Sato referred to herself as Empress Sato
Sometimes the best surprise is doing what makes the most sense. I guess it could have been Worf. That would have surprised everyone. Would make zero sense and be absurd but would be a surprise. Im sure no one here would complaint either, they’d all be so mesmerized by the surprise…. hahahaha
So here is a question. If the Discovery travels back to the prime universe by way of interphase space(like the Defiant), then does it return to the “normal” period of time, 10 years in the future when the Defiant disappeared, or 100 or so years in the future(thus placing it in TNG era)?
They may not even need to use interphase space if Stamets gets his head straightened out enough in time.
The thing I most loved about this episode – one of the promo photos or the trailer showed the silhouette of someone in a corridor and it was thought it might be the Emperor and it was actually just a Discovery crew with a welding helmet on. :)
Some people thought Voq was sitting next to a TNG Klingon but it was a Tellarite. Gotta love fans and their desperation!
I really liked the design of the tellarite.
Yeah I liked that, too.
One of the better misdirects that I have seen.
Shazad Latif is a good actor, I can only praise his acting. (I can only praise and thank everyone involved with Discovery!)
The characters Voq and Ash, are both compelling. Voq, for all his differences to us, seems so honourable and genuine in his beliefs, I can’t help but like him. Ash seems to be truly torn in loyalties between his love for Burnham – which I think is real and the need to obey the Klingon within.
I’m sure he as Ash -and- Voq, is not finished yet, and I think he could play an instrumental role in ending the Klingon War.
The idea that simply brainwashing the real Tyler and sending him back to Starfleet as a spy is anywhere near equivalent to what they actually did is bogus. The way they actually did it is far more emotional and horrifying and dramatic, there’s really no “fixing” Tyler now, he IS Voq, he was never Tyler. I’m glad they did it the way they did, much more impactful. Not only is “Tyler” actually a Klingon, he’s a religious zealot Klingon. Messed up.
It *is* way more horrifying and dramatic on a visceral level. But the problem is also, on a narrative one, that it’s much less believable, since there are so many plot questions to answer that didn’t need to be here. Everything you mentioned could have still been addressed through the consciousness implant theory. Couldn’t the possibility of thinking they could somehow save Tyler offer its own dramatic rewards? (and the episode’s ending suggests they are still trying to save Voq/Tyler anyway).
Or just dip back into “Enterprise” which touches upon the transformation in the appearance of Klingons. It all starts to get a bit convoluted after awhile.
Not convoluted.
No, its not less believable. This is Star Trek! lol They should have just pushed some glowing coloured lights on a styrofoam rock and had spooky music play with flash close ups of their faces and voila, they have transferred bodies. lol
What they did was take something crazy and make it MORE realistic.
People are splitting hairs now.
@Mawazi — but what difference does it make, if Voq’s body has been turned into a human body? Now it boils down to implanting Tyler’s memories over Voq’s, or Voq’s over Tyler’s — which is just two sides of the same coin. Prime Voq couldn’t even physically stand up to his unaltered Mirror counterpart. So the fact some physical part of him was ever Voq is just pointless. All that matters is the consciousness, and there’s no reason Voq’s couldn’t have been supplanted over Tyler’s just as effectively if they’ve got that kind of technology (assuming there is even a real Tyler and not a fabricated implant). So no, Tyler is not Voq, now. its basically Tyler’s body, or at worst a hybrid likely comprised more of Tyler’s body than Voq’s. If Tyler’s consciousness is inside Voq at all, then there’s no reason why they can’t suppress Voq’s in favor of Tyler’s or remove Voq’s altogether. So they haven’t really gained anything by implausibly turning a Klingon physically into a human. Imagine a storyline where they physically altered Worf turning him into a human. The spine alteration alone makes that implausible — they couldn’t even repair Worf’s broken spine in the 24th Century. And these new Klingons have elongated heads, yet somehow the brain inside is identical to a human brain? The bottom line is this is all fiction, so if they want to save Tyler, they will, and just as plausibly as they turned Voq into Tyler.
“Big” Reveal …. i cant stop lauging.
Casual fans said they felt it was shocking. So, there’s that…
I know, do you think they believe their own PR BS or just hope we do?
You’re literally the least intelligent person posting here. Do you think everyone is an obsessed Trek fan? No. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Its not like we have obsessed Trek haters that obsessively troll these forums. Oh wait…hi Trekboi!
I need a Shazad Latif in my life. Like seriously.
What Big Reveal- did anybody not know in his first episode?
Are you still playing this gimmick?
It wasn’t a well kept secret, but without the internet it would have been a big reveal. But then again, since it is a prequel and well established in TOS that there are klingon spies transformed into humans (atleast one), it is difficult to create such twists.
Worst lead up and reveal ever. They telegraphed it the entire season.