Today, Star Trek: Discovery co-executive producer again took his time waiting for a plane to answer some questions from fans on Twitter. We have pulled out some of the highlights below.
Fuller wanted to go mirror sooner
Discovery introduced a Mirror Universe arc in episode 10. Sullivan reveals that this idea wasn’t added after co-creator and original show-runner Bryan Fuller left the show and in fact, Fuller wanted to do it earlier.
Bryan Fuller always planned to go to Mirror in S1. When he left, we adjusted to make it happen later in the season because we wanted to live with the characters more
— Ted Sullivan (@karterhol) January 27, 2018
Where is Prime universe Lorca?
Last weekend’s episode revealed that the Lorca we know was always from the Mirror Universe, and Sullivan hints that the fate of the prime universe’s Lorca will be addressed on the show.
It seems like a million years ago, but yes – literally every avenue has been discussed/explored
— Ted Sullivan (@karterhol) January 27, 2018
How Lorca got those scars
In the episode “Lethe” some scars were revealed on Lorca’s back, which are now revealed to be related to the hard life in the Terran Empire.
True…BUT… How about HAND AGONIZERS (which are pressed directly to the flesh)??? Plus… that straight scar looked A LOT like he was stabbed in the back by a dagger. You know… kinda like the one @SamVartholomeos tried to use on @SonequaMG in that elevator fight?
— Ted Sullivan (@karterhol) January 27, 2018
Lorca’s scars
New relationships for Season 2
Discovery embraced Star Trek’s diversity by featuring a same sex couple and Sullivan says the writers are open to more inclusiveness on the show for the next season.
Everything is on the table. The @StarTrekRoom is intent on going where no Star Trek has gone before
— Ted Sullivan (@karterhol) January 27, 2018
We’ll see more of engineering in Season 2
Much of season one has featured a set where Lt. Stamets controls the Spore drive, which also includes a glimpse into the warp drive. However, this is apparently not the main engineering section of the USS Discovery. The writer indicates we could see more of engineering and possibly the chief of engineering in the future.
Stamets is NOT The CoE. I wonder who he or she is…?
— Ted Sullivan (@karterhol) January 27, 2018
Also follow up – that’s an engineering lab. It’s not main engineering. We’ll definitely see more of engineering in S2. What we’ve seen is his personal work space
— Ted Sullivan (@karterhol) January 27, 2018
This is an engineering lab, not main engineering
Episode 13 of Star Trek: Discovery will be available on CBS All Access on Sunday, January 28th by 8:30 pm ET. It will air in Canada on the Space Channel at 8:00 pm ET the same day and be available on Netflix outside the USA and Canada on Monday, January 29th at 8 am GMT.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
Here’s hoping Mirror Lorca left his Prime counterpart alive somewhere. It’d be nice to see how that version of him would Captain the Discovery. I don’t think Mirror Lorca will survive and even if he does I don’t think he’s going to be allowed back to his post on the ship. Jason Isaacs is a good actor, it’s going to suck if this is his only season.
If Lorca isn’t back for season 2 I feel I will be less likely to watch. I some of the other characters all right, but Lorca is why I’m in front of my tv as soon as the episode posts week to week.
Same here. He’s been a great character and even though PU Lorca would be different, I would still love to see him in the Discovery captain’s chair for season 2.
Agreed. Lorca’s the draw for me as well. Edgy, over the top and interesting.
A Prime Lorca could be equally intriguing in different ways. How does he cope with damage to his reputation? How does he cope with loss of the Buran? So many questions … and possibilities.
I’m hoping PU Lorca was kept alive as a bargaining chip in case MU Lorca’s plan went awry…
Hearsay but a guess: I think we’ve been groomed from the beginning to start to accept that Burnham will be the captain of Discovery. Ketwolsky and TrekYards have the same theory: we’re going to hit one big reset via a time travel/Stametz/SporeDrive MacGuffin in the next few episodes and Burnham will be captain of DISCO either by the end of the season or going into season 2.
I like Jason Isaacs A LOT – and yes it would suck if this is his only season. But he plays villains very well. I don’t think I want to see a Prime Lorca, though it would be an awesome challenge for Isaacs to play someone who wasn’t a bad guy. I just don’t see it happening though, maybe I’m wrong (if so, delightfully so).
As much as I like Burnham I really don’t want her in the Captains chair. PU Lorca comes in and completes the “humanizing” Georgiou had started. They’ve had plenty of “good guy/perfect” captains. Ready to have the not so perfect/grey area ones for a while.
I can agree with that. If JI is available to reprise the role, I won’t complain at all.
Toni, I think during next season she should become First Officer, either to Saru or Prime Lorca.
Thing is, is MU Lorca truly a bad guy? We’ll find out in these next two episodes, but I don’t think his time on Discovery and the Prime universe was all blowing smoke up people’s rears. Clearly he’s very results oriented and very “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” in his leadership, but that doesn’t mean he’s evil per se.
His speech to the ship could just be more smoke blowing to get people behind him. I think if he genuinely hated alien species and believed in racial purity and all that, that it would have shown with his interactions with the crew, particularly Saru since Kelpians are slaves and food in the MU.
It’s possible MU Lorca isn’t evil and is part of the resistance. Maybe he wants to overthrow the emperor in order to reshape it into the Federation? He didnt seem completely like a typical Terran Empire captain. But maybe it was all part of his act, being “nice”. He had to fit in.
But I’m not ruling out a double twist with his character in some way. The idea that he’s just a power hungry Terran is too ordinary and turns him into a one dimensional villain. I’m rooting for a layered anti hero, personally.
Is the implication not that he killed Prime Lorca and his entire crew? That’s what I’m assuming, in which case, he’s pretty bad.
Yes, he plays villains very well, but he’s also quite capable of playing good people. I would love to see him play a many-layered Prime Lorca who not everyone in Starfleet likes.
I think Prime Lorca would be a bit like Jellico, a by-the-book, results-oriented guy who keeps his distance a bit, to contrast with Mirror Lorca’s more reckless results-oriented approach.
Just get it done!
Jason Isaacs has been completely RIVETING, and it would suck if this were his only season with Discovery.
In the current climate do you think the head honcho of the ship is going to be a white, middle aged, heterosexual man?
Ribbita…I don’t see why not. If we truly want to get over our problems with diversity we need to stop stunt casting or creating characters specifically a certain way, just because you want to appear progressive. Shouldn’t the quality of the actor trump skin color, gender and sexual preference?
Giving the command of Discovery to Michael Burnham makes no sense even in a time reset. Are you going to trust her with an advanced ship like that? Rookie captains usually get a smaller, older ship to prove themselves.
It’s far more likely the trajectory is very similar in a timeline reset though. Lorca from Prime universe gets Discovery, Burnham gets maybe something else. However, the showrunners have said this show focuses on the first officer of the ship, not the captain.
If they promote Burnham then they can’t focus on her any more can they? Also the show is named after the hero ship so if she’s a a different one and you focus on her it also makes no sense.
that’s not how it work. you don’t create characters to appear progressive. you create space where there has purposefully been none, except for white hetro cis men. we dont live in a meritocracy, we live in a white supremacist, cisgender heteronormative patriarchal ablestic etc society. and its not that way because white straight cis men are inherently better. you are basically echoing Lorcas ideology that certain races and species are inherently stronger, and that weaker ones know their place and like it. you just have a lot to learn, and its more than likely that you believe that everything is inherently equal, or the way it is, because you fall in the groups that have the power and are blinded by your own privilege. if you were truly “mr. vulcan”, you would absolutely understand this. because the power structures are not logical, they are coerced and built by the people in power to remain in power at the expense of everyone else
Sorry to say but that is an absolutely bigoted statement you’ve just made. The road goes both ways.
Sort of unrelated, but has there been any indication from CBS if this is being posted in 4K for a UHD Blu-ray release or even UHD streaming in the future?
A Bu-ray release would allow the show to reach even more people in the U.S who were reluctant to subscribe to All Access is I think it’s pretty much a given.
A 4K Dolby Vision release would be even nicer.
Exactly. I haven’t seen the show yet. If I’m going to have to pay $10-20 to see one show I’d just as soon it not expire after viewing it.
From some of the behind the scenes photos shared by folks like Ted, we’ve seen that the show appears to be shot on a few different ARRI Alexa cameras, given the resolutions shown on the viewfinder, they appear to the typical models that shoot at 2.6k or 3.4k depending on the sensor mode and output format. I don’t know what they’re post-producing at (I wish CBS would let their production team talk to the press), but if I had to guess they’re doing the final output at 1080p. I’d love it if they were spending the extra money to render the VFX and do the post in a UHD workflow, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
@ Matt Wright – I thought Netflix demands 4K acquisitions. I dug around a little and suspect I am wrong.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9DJydDVOVKKazAySjVwTF90STA/view
It’s filmed in 4K. For Netflix viewers, if you’re watching on a 4K TV it switches to their HDR mode.
It’s only available on Netflix at 1080p HDR which I assume means it’s being mastered at 2K.
@Chris E — that seems short-sighted to me. But Inagree 2K is better than nothing, and pretty standard. But for such a lush, EFX driven show, they’re not protecting that well for the future. You’d think CBS would have figured that out given the TOS and TNG remastered series, with two other evergreens sitting in the vault, growing older and less acceptable by modern TV standards every day …
I’m glad to hear it’s at least in HDR. It’s so dark, I bet it looks amazing. Too bad CBSAA doesn’t support HDR!
yeah… it’s too bad AA doesn’t even support surround sound, let alone nicer bitrate encodes, and HDR. And better streaming consistency without odd hiccups after the spot where a commercial would be inserted. Folks getting DSC from Netflix are getting a superior experience.
So many possibilities.
Bring on season 2!
Too bad there’s not one episode in between seasons (similar to the Doctor Who x-mas special) or an animated series in between (!). But OK I’m happy with a season two :-)
Yeah, I really am not looking forward to the long wait for season 2.
Lorca is also the reason I’m watching. I won’t be interested to see Season 2 if he’s not in it :(
He is such a charismatic character and steals every scene he’s in.
I am with the show until the end.
But,I hope Lorca remains a part of the story in some capacity.
Time will tell.
Fingers Crossed.
Time to uncross them buddy.
So, place your bets… is Scotty on Discovery’s engineering deck as CoE or one of the team?
@Dom — ha! That would be awesome. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of time to spend with a character later to have never brought up the Spore Drive, much less discuss the Mirror Universe upon visiting it for the second time in Mirror Mirror. But it’s a nice idea.
An eventual Section 31 mindwipe of all crewmembers?
Scotty had a hidden agenda in Mirror Mirror and was up to other things offscreen in the episode and perhaps was directly responsible for the crossover?
Scotty was Section 31’s representative on the Enterprise and always knew more than he was telling. His abilities as a ‘miracle worker’ come from the Discovery and the fact he was always hiding something made him look even more suspicious in Wolf in the Fold?
All sort of possibilities exist… ;)
Spock has never mentioned a human adoptive sister. Kirk has named Garth of Izar as the hero of the battle of Axanar. Sarek/Amanda never mention Burnham. Sorry, gang, but I suspect that she dies without redemption.
We shall see.
This kind of assertion irritates me. It presumes that fiction is created in its final form from the beginning, when that isn’t how it works at all. Yes, writers make it up as they go along. That’s simply how it works. There will be inconsistencies and retcons as a result. Even moreso for long-running series like Star Trek. It’s just the nature of the beast.
Yet more reason why setting it 15 – 20 years post Nemesis would have made so much more sense.
Dennis, how much time did we really spend with these characters? When we watch an episode or movie featuring, say, Amanda and Sarek, we see them for the bits that are relevant to that story. Offscreen, they could have talked about Michael, but we’d have been too busy seeing what Kirk and he is gang were up to. Similarly, Spock never mentioned Sybok or Sarek’s Vulcan marriage until TFF, because they were never previously relevant.
As for Garth… he was a shapeshifter. Maybe Burnham develops shapeshifting abilities and is really Captain Garth… ;)
It’s interesting Fuller wanted to get to the MU sooner. While I respect the surviving producers desire to “live with the characters” a bit longer, it would have mitigated some of the early fan angst, and gotten more on board sooner … I think Fuller had the better instincts here.
I don’t think we would have been as invested in the characters if the MU was introduced as early as Fuller hoped. The first nine episodes gave us a chance to get to know these characters much better.
Lorca has become my favourite of all the captains. He is just an amazing character.
Jason is such a fab actor!
Pretty much my only hope for S2 is that it’s NOT in the MU. I’ve enjoyed S1 but i don’t want 7 seasons of death and torture every week.
That’s it.
Roddenberry’s noble vision for the future of mankind was basically turned into a Kung-Fu movie. Burnham’s big plan to save the day was to resort to fisticuffs and not even a Kirk shoulder roll! Blah. It has been so dark that I actually found myself rooting for The Empire to win it all in one verse and the Klingons to take it all in another. One out of two ain’t bad. I enjoyed watching the pitiful and useless Landry die again, this time it was less stupid.
I had speculated that the Spore Drive room was distinct from Main Engineering, and Stamets was distinct from the Chief Engineer, so I’m happy to get word-of-god (if not onscreen) confirmation. The first five Trek series established a mold for the command crew and sets aboard a starship, and DSC has thrown all those assumptions out the airlock — but because they’re not even *mentioned* it’s hard to tell if (a) the writers rolled the functions into new characters without explanation, (b) forgot those functions exist, or (c) are uninterested in their existence. (We can now adapt the joke that “toilets must exist on a starship, even if they’re not seen” to Main Engineering. And possibly Sickbay — we’ve seen a room *with* biobeds, yes, but they’re unconvincingly short and narrow.)