Rainn Wilson Says The Harry Mudd ‘Star Trek: Short Treks’ Mini-Episode Is Going To Be Fun And Different

Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd

It’s time once again to round up interesting Star Trek: Discovery-related goings-on.

Rainn Wilson talks Short Treks twists and Discovery improvisations

Over the weekend Rainn Wilson teased a photo from what was presumably his upcoming episode of Star Trek: Short Treks, which he is directing. The mini-episode features his return as Harry Mudd and today the official Star Trek site posted an interview with Wilson conducted at Star Trek Las Vegas in August, where he gave some more details:

There’s going to be that 10, 15% of fans that go, “Oh, no way. I’m not going to watch a short film about Star Trek. This isn’t how it works.” But I love that they’re breaking molds and breaking new ground, and it’s a terrific mini Harry Mudd adventure. It goes to a lot of different places, from different aliens to a lot of fun situations, with some great twists and turns, and I get to direct it and star in it. It’s like a dream come true. It’s like, “Write me a dream job.”

Rainn Wilson teased this image of himself as Harry Mudd over the weekend (Twitter/Rainn Wilson)

Another thing we reported over the weekend was that Rick and Morty writer–and author of Warped: An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season (Star Trek: The Next Generation)Mike McMahan was also on set for the Harry Mudd episode of Star Trek: Short Treks, as the writer for the episode. Today Rainn Wilson asked his 4.3 million followers to start following Mike McMahan on Twitter. Wilson’s compliment for the “twisted comedic genius” of McMahan may be another indication that the Mudd episode of Short Treks is going to be something different for Star Trek.

In the StarTrek.com interview Wilson also discussed the time-looping “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” which featured his second visit to Discovery as Mudd, and one in which he was allowed more flexibility to use his comedic expertise:

It was a blast. Don’t get me wrong, it was a tough episode. It’s really, really hard to write a time-travel episode with a time loop. If you’ve ever thought about writing a time-travel screenplay, or anything like that, it makes your head start to hurt. It’s really, really difficult. They struggled with how to make him come back. What are the rules of the time travel? But, ultimately, at the end of the day, they figured it out brilliantly. And David Barrett, the director, did a fantastic job. He’s a very visual director, and that helped it a ton. The flashback replay of shooting Lorca over and over again, killing Lorca in all these different ways, was fun. The cast was game, fun, collaborative. They let me improvise a bunch of lines and have creative input. It was a dream job.

Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd departing the USS Discovery in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”

More Disco Bits: Frakes’ plans, kale salads, and dancing Trek stars

Here are some more Star Trek: Discovery-related bits of interest from social media.

Frakes still at work on episode 9

Last week we reported that Jonathan Frakes was back on the set of Discovery to shoot his second show (episode 9) of the second season. This week, Frakes shared a nice image of him on the bridge and the words “Plotting the course.”

Behind-the-scenes details of the day: Disco cast eats kale

Captain Pike actor Anson Mount shared some tidbits from set life on Discovery, describing what was for lunch yesterday. Luckily the usually vegan offerings were augmented for his dog Mac.

More fun from the Emmys

Star Trek: Voyager actress Jeri Ryan shared this dancing animated GIF from backstage at the Emmys with Discovery star Sonequa Martin-Green and executive producer Alex Kurtzman along with fellow Trek vets Walter Koenig (Star Trek), Linda Park (Enterprise), and LeVar Burton (The Next Generation) .

More Torchbearer BTS

As he often does, Neville Page shares images of behind-the-scenes work from the first season of Discovery. Recently he showed off what the 3D printed leg for the Torchbearer looked like before being painted.

 


Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.

The first season of Star Trek: Discovery will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on November 13th.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news here at TrekMovie.

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Definitely looking forward to streaming this… when new STD is also available.

Good thing it will not be boring and predictable!

So what happens if a person is not vegan – shouldn’t they have types of food for different kinds of people and not just one style? If I am not a vegan or I don’t like kale, would I be forced to go hungry on the Discovery set? This doesn’t seem like a very good business practice. If you are running a business you should consider all the options for everyone.

It was the “vegan option”. I’m sure there are other “options.”

Probably, but the wording of the article made it seem like the guys are usually only offering “vegan options” and nothing else.

I would guess that they have more than one food option but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all vegan (the food options, not the people). Before you get too enraged non-vegans wouldn’t be forced to go hungry because non-vegans can eat vegan food. Everybody eats plant-based food regularly. People who are not vegan just eat animal-based food in addition to plant-based food. Basically, you just leave out the animal-based stuff. Doesn’t mean you go hungry.

But my point is that you shouldn’t force people to eat things that they don’t like or want to. I know they’ll probably not go hungry, but they should be able to eat whatever they want. I mean no one should force me to eat salad if I don’t like it.

They are not forcing you to eat anything. They are offering food for free. If you like it you can eat it. If you don’t like it leave it. If you want to eat something else no one is stopping you from ordering it for yourself.

“There’s going to be that 10, 15% of fans that go, “Oh, no way. I’m not going to watch a short film about Star Trek. This isn’t how it works.” ”

Not sure I see it that way… I actually kinda like the idea of the Short Treks and haven’t heard anyone poo poo the concept at all. The negative things I’ve heard about them was about the fact that they were all Discovery related. Not that they were 15 minute bits.