Jonathan Frakes Wraps Episode 9 Of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 2

Jonathan Frakes on the bridge of the USS Discovery

| September 30, 2018 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 47 comments so far

Another week has brought another milestone for the second season of Star Trek: Discovery. We have a rundown on the Discovery news as we count down to the NYCC panel on Saturday, October 6th.

Frakes shares set image as he wraps his third time helming Discovery

On Saturday, director and former TNG star  Jonathan Frakes shared another tweet from the set of Star Trek: Discovery with the message: “Thanks to exceptional cast and crew on ⁦@startrekcbs⁩ for another successful voyage.” Presumably, this was Frakes’ way of thanking the team as they wrapped episode 9 of the second season. This was Frakes’ third time in the director’s chair, having previously helmed the second episode of season two and the tenth episode of season one.

Work on episode nine started on September 13th, so it took just over two weeks for production. With the tight lid CBS has kept over spoilers, we don’t have any, but we do know it was written by Michelle Paradise, and is her first Discovery script. Most recently, Paradise has been working as a writer and co-executive producer on the CW Vampire Diaries spin-off The Originals.

Production on the second season of Discovery began in mid-April, with the season premiere directed by showrunner Alex Kurtzman. Now with nine episodes shot, production is running over two weeks for each, but that includes breaks for conventions, as well as the production of four Star Trek: Short Treks during the same period. Assuming they are shooting in order, there are still four episodes remaining. Production on the second season was planned to wrap up in about six weeks, but if there are indeed four episodes left to shoot, it is likely they will need to extend the schedule.

More Disco Bits: Coutts touts S2 scripts, Disco headed to Destination,

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

Coutts talks season two and Detmer eyepiece

The official Star Trek website has posted an interview they conducted at STLV in August with bridge crew actress Emily Coutts (Keyla Detmer). The actress maintained the cone of silence regarding spoilers but did talk up the scripts for the second season, saying:

[Season two is] going well. Very well. I love the scripts. Every time we read a script, we’re all just sitting in the room after, tears or laughter, everything in between. It’s going to be a great season.

The actress also talked a bit about the backstory on Detmer’s distinctive eyepiece:

It’s fixing an injury from the Battle of the Binary Stars. But we will hopefully find out more about the piece soon.

Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer, as seen in the SDCC 2018 season two teaser

Discovoery cast to appear at Destination Star Trek UK

Cast from Star Trek: Discovery are headed to Destination Star Trek, Europe’s official Star Trek convention. Sonequal Martin-Green, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Wilson Cruz will all be headed to the UK for the event, which is held on October 19th-21st in Birmingham. More details on Destination Star Trek at the official site.

Discovery cast and crew stand up for their causes

Like many celebrities, the Star Trek cast often use their social media platforms for advocacy, as Mary Chieffo did today sharing a fan-made “Social Justice Klingon Warrior” pin.

And last week as part of a social media event to show support for survivors of sexual assault and harassment, Star Trek: Discovery costume designer Gersha Phillips shared a picture of her team along with star Sonequa Martin-Green on Instagram.

Disco Meme of the week: Distracted Voqler

If you are familiar with the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme, you will get a kick out of this Discovery version, which has been personalized for the complicated relationship of Voq/Tyler and Michael Burnham and L’Rell. The image was shared on Twitter by the Far Beyond The Stars twitter account, and re-tweeted by L’Rell herself, Mary Chieffo, with the message “Well this just made my Sunday.”

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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My god it’s great to see that man standing on the bridge of a starship.

Hopefully we’ll see him again this time on the Picard series, as an actor/director. I believe by 2399, Riker is already an Admiral and can get his own ship. 😊🖖

If it fits into his schedule I’m sure he’d enjoy directing an episode of the Picard show. As for returning as Riker, he seems to really focus on directing now. According to his IMDB page, his few acting roles during the last 5 years have almost exclusively been voice acting.

Seems to have lost some weight and is looking particularly fit and well trimmed. For a role of some sort perhaps???

I thought the same thing, I posted it before I saw your post, sorry

Haha! I was thinking exactly the same, of course, he may just have hit the gym and been looking after himself after a doctor mentioned cholesterol or something

Yes, it is indeed.

Yes Melllvar, definitely agree. For many people Frakes embodies Trek! I can’t imagine the franchise without Riker or Frakes popping up somewhere.

And now with the Picard show coming he will probably be both behind and in front of the camera. In fact it’s crazy to know the same week we saw Stewart in the writer’s room working on his show Frakes was directing this episode. I can imagine these two must be shaking their heads when they talk they are both working on Star Trek again. It’s pretty surreal in some ways.

And I really want to see Riker again, even if he just appears in an episode or two on the new show but my guess is he’ll be there. Fingers crossed though.

It’s funny, because Riker probably had it better than all the other cast outside Stewart and Spiner in the 4 TNG movies, in terms of screen time and character involvement. He had a fairly healthy screen presence in Generations. He was centre stage in the B Plot of First Contact, and also in Insurrection. Nemesis was his weakest one, but he still had his B Plot fight with the viceroy! Riker is the B Plot specialist!

Yes Riker had a lot of story in the films, agreed. I actually think he got the most screen time in First Contact which is crazy considering that was Frakes first time directing a feature as well.

And Frakes actually has the record of appearing on the most shows outside of his own showing up on DS9, VOY and ENT. It would be truly bizarre they found a way to sneak him on VOY and ENT but for some reason he would be a complete no-show on the Picard show lol. That would seem bizarre to a lot of people, especially since him directing that show is all but a foregone conclusion at this point.

‘yeah, you’re blended alright!’

Ummm does Frakes look like he is losing weight? He looks like he is losing weight to me. Admiral Riker possibly?

Yeah I thought the same. Looks like he’s gotten in shape.

LOL, Maybe he and Deanna are going to look back at the Voyages of NCC-1701-D in a holodeck sim.

But I hope you’re right, and he appears on The Picard Show. I’d like to see a number of the old cast on it, but that’s not likely to be, so I won’t hold my breath.

I don’t know Marja I feel its going to happen to some degree. I watched the Murphy Brown revival and every old cast member that wasn’t dead ended up on the new show. In fact ALL these revivals from X-Files to Will and Grace they pack in all the old characters as much as possible.

And I now have a feeling CBS probably wanted a TNG revival altogether but maybe decided it may be too costly to try and bring them all back so just brought back Stewart as the main character with the others to cameo or guest star. Again I can be 100% wrong but I’m just looking at the TV landscape right now and most seem to want as much as the old cast as back on these old shows BECAUSE the ratings have gone through the roof with all of them (I don’t know how Murphy Brown did with its first episode though).

To me it just tells them the more cast members they get back, the more fans will react. And this being Star Trek I just don’t buy it will be Picard without any of the other characters because that doesn’t seem to be the trend on any of these shows. MAYBE they have a radically different idea of where to take the character but I have a feeling it will be a TNG reunion of some sort even if the show is about new characters, which it should be about.

Let us remember that Nemesis was a complete bomb. And yes I know it was generally mostly franchise fatigue kicking in. But still, clearly general audiences were pretty uninterested and a great many of the TNG fan base from the mid 90s had all but moved on at that point. Then we had bluray releases of TNG which did not do as well as CBS hoped. I love TNG, but it is not some kind of phenomenon like even TOS was, it is more of a cult show with a very loyal but limited audience now. The Picard show will be aimed first and foremost at fans of Discovery and bringing in new fans (hopefully).

Again if that was the case we wouldn’t be talking a Picard show now lol. This is just a weird argument. Picard IS TNG. And there was an interview printed and published on this very site they WANTED to do a TNG show again. Here:

“It came to us, as do all things Trek now, through Alex Kurtzman, with the idea of, wouldn’t it be cool to do something Next Gen-oriented, and/or get Patrick Stewart and/or any of those iconic Next Gen characters. As Patrick himself has said, he was of the opinion that “I’ve done that character,” but he got a meeting with Alex and some of the other guys and they won him over. The deal didn’t take that long once he decided to do it.”

That makes it pretty clear, it wasn’t JUST about getting Stewart, they clearly wanted the TNG era back in general. They wanted him first though but it’s clear they were interested in any of them and why I have a feeling we will see them in some form.

And I don’t buy this is for DIS viewers. Quite the opposite actually or they would’ve just made a show that took place in DIS time period just like they did for DS9 and VOY in the TNG era. I think the show is for people who DON’T like DIS or just want to go forward again.

And TNG is not a cult show lol. In fact I’m pretty convinced more people are watching TNG in reruns now 30 years later in America than people are watching Discovery right now. But that’s due to access as well as popularity since TNG still airs in reruns on TV and is on every major streaming site in America along with the other Star Trek shows minus DIS. That’s only on All Access which many people still has never even heard of.

There are still literally people out there who doesn’t know Discovery even exists. DIS is really the cult show in this scenario because so few people still has AA and my guess is CBS knows that, hence all the things they are doing like bringing Spock on that show and obviously the Picard show.

The thing that most excites me about Frakes’ image is the fact that the set is brighter than it has been. We trekkies want to see all the great detailed work done on ship interiors and exteriors and last season was very dark, making that difficult.

I’d also love to see close up of bridge crew members operating those consoles. Such interesting details with digital screens mixed with various bright toggles connects the show in subtle ways to TOS.

More DIRECTED light to create a high-contrast image, but not directed into the camera, which is the really bad part of the image above.

would love to see insert shots of hands on controls, so long as they don’t pull in weird out-of-place inserts like a couple in the ‘energize defense screens’ in TWOK, where they go from nice shots of the bridge to what looks like people playing with their stereo or home electronics kits.

kmart,

OT, but I’m not sure how else to get in touch. You had expressed an interest in obtaining a 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY film clip included in the Taschen book I was interested in purchasing, assuming it came with one. Well, I haven’t ordered it yet, but I was cleaning out my storage unit over the weekend and came across my old collection of mounted film clips, including some from 2001. Not the moonbase shot you talked about, but some pretty great ones from the original trailer. I don’t collect such things anymore, so you’re welcome to them if you want them. Let me know.

Also TOS (from Lincoln Enterprises, natch), FORBIDDEN PLANET, LOGAN’S RUN, STAR WARS, and FORBIDDEN PLANET.

I think the easiest way is through the folks who run stuff here, who have emailed me directly in the past. I hereby authorize, blah blah blah, MIchael Hall access to my email, signed KHM/Kmart.

Am very interested.

Okay, I sent one of the site managers the request.

I sent an email to the address provided by the mods, but haven’t heard back from you. Please let me know if you haven’t received it.

That insert of what looked like an ’80s Pioneer amplifier was just plain weird!

Why is that the bad part of the image? I just see a nice image of course,so really don’t get your technical look on it,lol! But if you could shed some light on why,I’d be grateful. OH,and that wasn’t a joke…..just realized what I wrote there,lol.

By pretty much any conventional standard, you avoid flaring an image because it degrades said image, reducing contrast and resolution in the area around the flare and sometimes the entire composition. As a change of pace or for a special moment (refit emerging from vger transcendence) or desired effect (tiny work lights in space at drydock in TMP), using that kind of image defect is fine, but when you rely upon it extensively, it indicates a failure in living up to standards in execution. Or at least such a break from established norm that you are either inventing with such brilliance that you are above such standards (not true in the Abrams instance by a country light-year) or you’re delivering a bad visual, much the same as if you took a finished painting and then cut a hole in it so light came through (again, novel approach if you’re genius, absurd if not in most cases.)

For the sake of comparison, look at the group pic of the folks outside further down the top of the page. If they were standing in front of a big mirror reflecting the sun, that glare would be obliterating some of them and obscuring other parts of the frame. Unless you’re trying to hide some part of the image (useful when dealing with creatures sometimes), you wouldn’t choose to deliberately do that, unless you were, well, crazy, All IMO of course, but I don’t see the virtue of throwing out the aesthetics of photography in favor of gumming up the image just to be trendy.

Ah I see. Thanks for the nice long explanation. Was kinda curious about it.

Yeah, push the wrong button on me and it is like the hot air machine in public restroom, you get a 5minute speech from bad politician of your choice!!! (hot air)

That joke, which was then directed at LBJ, was repeated by Arthur C. Clarke in Jerome Agel’s book about the making of 2001. Great read, if you’ve never checked it out.

LOL! Well I did ask and wanted an explanation,don’t care if it was a 5 minute speech,lol! Wrong button?! Nah,it was defo the right one,lol!

The bridge is Discovery was ridiculously dark at times.
And then you watch TNG and its like the opposite problem, it’s often too bright!

Except in Generations. When someone decided to darken everything…

I thought Frakes was doing episode 2 and 10 of this season?.

https://trekmovie.com/2018/04/14/jonathan-frakes-reveals-details-on-second-episode-of-star-trek-discovery-season-2/

Schedules change. As this article notes, Season 2 is a bit behind schedule. Yes early on (before shooting had even started) it was going to be 2 and 10, then things slipped, so now he’s doing 9.

Hope he gets to do another for the back half of the season. Frakes is gold.

…and he has a neat “Riker beard” again…

I think they should get Johnathan Frakes to direct the season premieres and finales. He is a solid director that gets the job done and has two Trek films under his belt. He needs to be used more efficiently.

Unfortunately I suspect it’s down to his own availability. Between this and Orville and the rumoured role in the Picard series he probably only has so much time

Scrolled down expecting the usual people triggered by Klingon SJW pin… but found none.

I’m gonna call this progress.

OFFS

Grrrr!!!!! Klingon SJW keyboard warriors! Grrr!!!! Hate ‘em!!!

That on?

Damn fine pic of you on the set, John. Lose the glasses, trim the whiskers a smidge, and I could see you sitting in that center seat again. Here’s to hoping that wise heads prevail, and at least give you a background part in a story arc in Patrick’s upcoming series. We’d all like to see that big mutha Titan drop out of warp at the right moment to reinforce some Picard-esque ‘cowboy diplomacy’.

I thought it was Kirk who engaged in “cowboy diplomacy.”

When I first saw that picture I was amazed at how great he looks. Then I started reading the comments and how many other folks noticed too! Jonathan Frakes IS Star Trek!!

‘its been an honor serving with you’
‘the honor was mine’