Watch ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Cast Talk Hot Spock, Tackle Hugs On Set And Why Skeptics Should Watch Season 2

The premiere of Discovery season two is tomorrow, so today we round up the latest interviews and promotional images.

Watch the cast chat about season two

The red carpet premiere of season two will be held in New York City, much of the cast is already there and they did a live stream for BUILD Series NYC earlier today. Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Anson Mount, and Sonequa Martin-Green were in studio and had a nice rather informal chat about filming season two and having fun on set, and answering some fan questions from Twitter.

Some fun things we learned from their stream:

  • Anson Mount’s nickname for Ethan Peck on set was “Hot Spock,” Anthony Rapp joined in by singing — he’d put “Hot Spock” into to the jingle for the Hot Pockets commercials.
  • There will be a one-on-one scene between science officers Stamets and Spock.
  • Mount wasn’t told what role he was auditioning for, they used a fake name of “Captain Parker.”
  • Sonequa is a “tackle hugger”, she likes to come up behind people and surprise hug them.
  • Mount on Pike’s relationship to Spock: “we kind of had to build that out for ourselves, I found myself for reasons I can’t explain, to one of JJ’s movies, I know it’s a different timeline, the relationship that I saw between Kirk and Bones, every now and then they just need to have a whiskey and talk things out, I think that Pike has tried to develop that relationship with Spock, because he does value him as a mind but also sees the humanity in him, perhaps even more so than Spock himself sees it.”

Anthony Rapp reaches out to Disco skeptics

Anthony Rapp spoke to Buzzfeed about season two, among many other topics, where he spoke about connecting up to canon.

…there are certain moments in our story that feed into things we already know that as a long-time fan of it, are very, very satisfying to me. And I would be very surprised if the people who are understandably a little skeptical and wondering how we fit in to the great whole, I believe very strongly that all of that is going to get settled.

Full video – Discovery talk starts 6:45

Anthony Rapp Took On Kevin Spacey. Now, He's Facing The Trolls.

Anthony Rapp explains how he’s had to shut down trolls after being the first person to publicly accuse Kevin Spacey of sexual misconduct. Plus, he shares the joys of being gay in space on "Star Trek: Discovery." 🚀

Posted by PROFILE by BuzzFeed News on Tuesday, January 15, 2019

New Posters

These new pieces of key art have been used for billboards in select markets and also as part of online advertisements for Discovery season 2.

New photos from “Brother”

The premiere episode is titled “Brother” and CBS has released three new photos for the episode.

More cast interviews

The official Star Trek site has been releasing cast interviews over the past week, we’ve rounded them up below:

Doug Jones and Mary Wiseman

Mary Chieffo and Shazad Latif 

Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz

Anson Mount

Ethan Peck 

Sonequa Martin-Green

Plus, here are two more video interviews with the cast from Syfy Wire.

Even more to come this week

After the new episode is released we’ll be posting our full review of the premiere episode “Brother.” If you haven’t already read it, we published our spoiler free review last week, to whet your appetite for the new season.

There will be a red carpet premiere in New York tomorrow evening. TrekMovie will be there and will be posting our interviews starting Friday. Also be sure to keep up with events on Twitter at @trekmovie.

Discovery at PaleyFest LA

On March 24th the cast and crew of Discovery will be on stage to talk about season two at PaleyFest LA 2019. If you’re in the Los Angeles area there are tickets available at paleyfest.org. TrekMovie intends to be there to report on the panel.

 


Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 premieres Thursday, January 17 in the USA on CBS All Access at 5:30PM PT/8:30PM ET. It will air in Canada on Space at 5:00PM PT/8:00 PM ET the same day. For all other regions, the premiere will be available on Netflix within 24-hours (January 18).

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

55 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

have they got 12 foot ceilings on this ship? she looks like a dwarf in that one still.

She’s in the distance. The doors are closer to us. It’s called “Perspective”.

The reflection on the ground shows she’s in the room…

But seriously, why wouldn’t that be the normal size of a starship corridor in the future? You’ve developed warp speed and materials that will hold up to the stress of space and combat then giving a little extra space in corridors shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s going to be jarring lol kind of like playing Star Trek Online at first but I also get the aesthetic they’re going for.

Because, as David Gerrold pointed out so long ago, space is going to be at a premium on a ship. When you have wasted space, it indicates you should never have life-support as an issue, because you’re choosing to include all that wasted space. In an area like engineering, you may need it due to radiation or whatever, but in hallways, there is no ready reason for it. If you don’t have some nods to practicality, the whole thing becomes a failure with the suspension of disbelief thing, and you might as well be watching FLASH GORDON.

Plus, the further they get away from the sub feel, the easier they lose me — and that’s true for nearly any sf entry with shiups. And again, except for wide corridors (necessary to fit camera through back then), TOS didn’t look anything like this.

I admit I never really cared about stuff like this because in my mind these ships are all basically luxury cruisers. People didn’t like ENT-D because it looked too nice and had carpeting but I never saw the the original Constitution class as some kind of hardship post. It was just a ship built with a 1960s sensibility (and more limited budget) with maybe a little more ruggedness but it still comes off as a cruise liner in space to me. It’s not exactly serving aboard a freighter where there are 100 people and two bathrooms. The JJ movies turned the Enterprise into a hip luxury mall.

What’s funny is the NX-01 is really the only ship that truly seems to correspond to what you’re describing here. Every inch of that ship’s space is used, it does feel more cramped and its susceptible to the hostile environments you never see the other ships go through. Like the episode The Catwalk where they took shelter in the nacelles space because a radiation storm was coming and didn’t have strong enough protection with the hull plating and the ship was too slow to out run it since it was traveling at warp 7. It really felt like a ship where resources and space was limited.

There is a poster here who is always yelling WAGON TRAIN TO THE STARS and I have not felt that about the Kelvin movies and certainly not with Discovery in the least. The last show that had a true rugged feel where things felt like the ship can fall apart in the vacuum of open space was Enterprise. In the Discovery universe the ships all look too big, sleek and advance to feel that way at all. I’m not shocked their version of the Enterprise is similar.

My hearing might be a bit off, but I thought he said “Captain Partner” not “Captain Parker”? That would explain Sonequa’s facial expression and all the laughing.

I loved Anthony Rapp’s description of fan responses.

Anyway, cannot wait until season two!

I hope the episodes are longer this season. No sub 40min please!

Yes. You go to the sub 44 minute category and if feels like it ought to be on standard over the air TV. If we are paying for this we need to feel like it is something special.

I had to listen to what Mount said a couple of times while helping to write that section of the article, I swear he said “Captain Porker”, which seems like it would be a funny gag name related to The Muppet Show sketch “Pigs in Space” :-)
https://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Pigs_in_Space

“Captain Parker” comes from the YouTube closed captions, which are hardly the shining example of accuracy, but seemed to make the most sense.

LOL. Maybe you’re right. Captain Porker might be what he said. It’s certainly silly enough to elicit laughs.

I still stand by “Captain Partner,” though, for it seems like an apt (albeit ridiculous) description of Pike. They’ve painted their iteration of him as a team player, a supportive role model, and some one who is all about fostering positive relationships.

Either way, I’d love to know what Spock’s name on the audition sides were.

Either way, I’d love to know what Spock’s name on the audition sides were.

Me too. I don’t think Peck has said in any interviews what the fake name was, just that he wasn’t told what role he was auditioning for.

Spork

I worry that they’re trying too hard to fix things that ain’t broken:

https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/star-trek-discovery-season-2-review.html

Trying to please the fans and playing it safe has never led to good Star Trek.

That was an interesting review. The first (sort of) negative one I read so far. But it mainly sounds like the tone has gone too light for them and miss the seriousness and edge. But that was made clear in the first new trailer thats what they were going for. I do think fans probably complained it was just too dark and brooding (and it was, at least for Star Trek) so they wanted to liven things up a lot. But they did say it would still be dark in places so probably other episodes of the season it will have a darker tone. AFAIK everyone reviewed it only saw the first episode.

Correct. CBS only shared the first episode with the press.

Thanks! And maybe you can answer this question (no spoilers), but since you guys seen it, can you tell us how long it is? That review said it was an hour long but they could be speaking in general. Is it a full hour or close to it?

It’s almost exactly 1 hour, that of course includes the titles and end credits.

Perfect, thanks!

I would be disappointed if it was just another 45 mins like we got in that sad, sad finale.

Totally. When they made the episodes the same length (or even less in a couple of cases) as a network TV show with commercials it’s kind of disappointing.

Do you know what happened to After Trek? I can’t find any recent news on it besides the “reimagining” rumored last summer.

More details coming soon.

Cool. Thank you.

Well THAT is really good to hear. While the show length was never as important as plotting and writing it was still on the list of things that were disappointing about S1. VERY disappointing.

I hope for real conflict. TOS, especially the first season, was rarely light and breezy. There was conflict and struggle (internal and external).

I don’t thats going to be an issue. It’s a story about someone who wants to destroy the galaxy, that’s going to bring conflict lol. I think it just going to be more light moments inbetween and watching the characters enjoy being around each other instead of constant bickering or mistrust which season one did a lot.

In fact I had a similar issue with DS9 first season and it felt like everyone either didn’t like each other or constantly fighting over something. They finally started to lighten up and feel more like a family in later seasons while the conflicts and issues were as high as ever. But that show had amazing writers.

I just heard the NPR review and it sounds like Season 2 of Disco is even better than the first (for fans like me who like the show) while it also will make a lot of the naysayers happy as well. Sounds good to me.

There are elements of that article that I find ring true. And others that don’t. And I’m talking about S2. Not the premier of 2, obviously. While I do applaud STD for trying something different, something I endorse, the end result was just a mass of bad writing, mostly disappointing characters and atrocious plot twists. That is the risk you take. If you do something as radically different as S1 was, it better be good.

I was not a fan of the first season at all, and downright hated — loathed, even — certain aspects of it (if no further exploration of the Mirror Universe EVER happens, that’ll be fine by me).

And yet, dadgum it, here we are on the verge of a new season launching, and what am I? Excited about it. Reactivated my All Access a couple of nights ago and burned through the four Short Treks, which were a mixed bag (liked 2 and 4, didn’t care for 1 or 3) for me, but still, there I was, happily consuming new Star Trek.

And this time tomorrow night, there I’ll be again, hopefully hanging onto this excitement for the full hour.

Still don’t give Crap One about a Georgiou series, though.

Wow. We are both on similar pages. I would love to never hear about the MU again myself. And I am now kinda looking forward to the show with a cautious optimism. Although I do not plan to activate my account until this weekend. No reason to spend an extra $10 when I don’t need to, right?

Still not paying this stuff.

I had a lot of problems with Season 1, in particular how it ended (and actually the whole second half of the season if I’m honest) but like all Trek before it, a failure of a first season is no reason to discount it getting better.

There are some things I see in Season 2 already that I don’t love (I find Emperor Georgiou’s continued presence particularly silly – how would someone previously an Emperor be so fine with the demotion of working for Section 31? Makes no sense) but other things that I think can work. The new Spock, from what little we’ve seen of him, strikes me as more “Spock-like” than Quinto, whose portrayal I always felt was more asshole than alien and was by far the worst of the Kelvin cast. Pike seems good too.

But of course here’s the problem… I’m looking forward to seeing Pike and Spock, not the Discovery crew. By pulling this Enterprise crossover so early into the run, particularly after what was for me a fairly disappointing first season, I’m not really invested in the main cast. It’s like if they’d brought in the TNG crew for recurring roles in Season 2 of DS9.

Or the TNG crew to close out “Enterprise” after four seasons…

or the first season of TNG. It’s like watching your child fail and looking forward to the next opportunity for them to shine

There are some good points made here. IMHO they really should have dumped the evil-Georgeau character. At this point she is just a reminder of a terrible production mistake from season 1. A season that was by far the worst opening season any Trek show ever had.

And I feel you. I, too, am finding myself far more interested in Pike, Spock, No. 1 and the Enterprise than anyone on Discovery. Now we all know why this is happening. But I just feel like it’s a bit of a dis-service to the Discovery crew. They should have been given a true chance to do something on their own with less help from original characters. Even Sarek should never have shown his face in S1. But, it is what it is. And the ploy worked. I find myself curious to see where this goes. So I guess a win for CBSAA.

With the exception of a few “toxic” reviews (ones posted by haters which are easy to spot), almost everything else I’ve heard or read (including an NPR review a few mins ago) has been pretty positive. That said, I have tried to avoid specific review details in order to maximize the surprise level of tonight’s premiere. SEMI-SPOILER – I accidentally did hear that the new season will win over a lot of the naysayers. Whether or not that is true, reaching out to those fans IMO is a good thing. I really liked the first season of Disco and I personally know nobody who disliked the show but boards such as this indicate there are SOME Trek fans who weren’t very happy with Discovery. If the producers can win some of them over without losing the aspects that made Disco good, then so be it. It would be nice to see the naysayers happy too. That can only add more eyeballs and that is a good thing for all of us. LLAP and enjoy the show everyone!!

It says a lot when virtually everyone associated with the show keeps driving home the idea that ‘naysayers will be won over’ and ‘you’ll see how it all connects’ and so on. Season 1 had its fans but it seems that virtually everyone associated with the show realizes that they missed the mark.

It is hard to determine just how much they missed their mark. I am a long time Trek fan since being a kid in the late 60s and myself and all my friends and family who are Star Trek fans actually really like Discovery. And I have not met anyone at various conventions who dislikes Disco. There is no doubt that SOME fans on boards and social media do not like the show, but any marketing person knows that social media represents just a very small percentage of a fanbase and there is a long tradition that people only take time to send negative comments about anything. In the end, if they can win over some of the naysayers, then great because it means more eyeballs on Star Trek and that is good for all of us. But I hope this happens without just replicating shows and things that we have already seen.

But it looks like they were paying attention to those boards and social media since the show has taken a tonal shift, Klingons got their mojo back with hair and they insist on telling anyone who will listen that this season will connect with the established canon of the original series. You can have 2000 fans cheering you at Comic Con or other conventions but that’s never the best gauge of fan enthusiasm for the show you’re putting out.

Hey, if the show continues and they make some changes to please the “legit naysayer”, then that is great. The more viewers, the better it is for everyone and that will hopefully mean a nice long run for Disco.

I agree Denny C!

What’s funny is people keep saying its only a tiny minority of people who don’t like the show, its actually overwhelmingly popular, etc, etc and yet to ME it looks they are bending over backwards to appeal to allllll the complaints people had about the show. Even TM said the first episode felt like a new show because they changed so much. And as you said in nearly every interview I’ve seen of them they talk about two things over and over: reassuring people the show will match canon and that they believe critics of the show will be satisfied. It’s incredible how often its brought up.

I honestly think either a lot of people dropped AA even before the show ended OR they went out and did researched and realized more people weren’t signing up because it didn’t fit their version of Trek enough, ie, Klingons not having hair, etc.

And I’m not complaining, improving it for fans only keeps it on longer, but even I’m surprised how much it keeps coming up. They obviously felt they did miss the mark with a lot of fans.

“reassuring people the show will match canon ”

This part ought to confirm that even the show runners realize they did not align themselves with Trek canon all that much. If they did, as some of those who love S1 attest, this comment would not come from people associated with the show as often as it does.

That said, I do care about canon but as a viewer I could live with some canon fudging if the story was compelling. Canon violations in S1 are ripped on because the show was just not good as a whole. So such things REALLY stand out. Even though the canon issues are NOT the real problem with the show. In a perfect world we would get a fantastic show that lines up perfectly with Trek canon. But I would be happy with a good show that more often than not lines up with it.

A prequel is always a bit dicey and sandwiching a show between Enterprise and TOS just seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth.

Well, there is about 150 years between Enterprise and TOS. And only 10 from Discovery S1 to TOS. That’s a lot of room for a sandwich, yet they decided to make it so close to TOS that it may as well be considered in the TOS era.

I think they even feel that way now Denny C lol!

But you do have to remind yourself it was Fuller who wanted to do it and he left before they even started shooting it so they are doing the best they can. It’s not exactly a secret I hate the prequel idea too but I agree with ML31, its just how CLOSE they put it to TOS thats the real issue because we already know how this period is suppose to look. At least with Enterprise they put it in a period that was completely foreign to us so it made it easier to do whatever you wanted even if you still had to abide by certain looks and standards.

But putting this show between two others just made their jobs so much harder when it didn’t have to be. Especially since nothing in season 1 couldn’t fit into later seasons and in fact would make MORE sense if it was.

That is a fair complaint. I just get tired of the canon complainers on the web who use that as the reason they didn’t like the show. As I said below, IMO 99 percent of Star Trek fans couldn’t care less about certain canon issues.

First impressions count and it’s difficult to come back to a show to enjoy it if it’s been terrible before.

I know that Anthony Rapp’s comments yesterday afternoon in NYC were in response to a polite audience question. Regardless of what I think about SOME of the naysayers complaints, it was good for him to address the issue because if they can win over SOME of those fans, that is good for Disco, the franchise and all of us. TNG made some great strides and improvements in their second season and they went on for a nice long run. Let’s hope the same happens for Disco.

I don’t agree. They wanted to tell their own story. They said from Day 1 that people will have Canon questions and they ALWAYS said they would address Canon over time.

Canon has always been somewhat of a moving target. I know some people treat it as historical fact (for a tv show!!) but all you have to do is look at TOS and TNG and the first 5 movies and there are so many holes you can fit a cannon ball through them. Roddenberry seemed to have the right idea. Apparently he used canon when it is convenient and ignored it when it suited him. I personally could care less that the Enterprise A was just a renamed Yorktown. I would imagine 99 plus percent of the Star Trek audience feels the same way, but that one percent (which reps thousands of fans) is a vociferous minority and the producers of Discovery etc., have to try to take care of their concerns because of the optics.

Well, first they said the issues would be sorted out by the end of the season. They they told us it would have to wait for S2. But the people who said that are no longer with the show. But is a funny thing… If S2 is good had they been quiet about the canon issues it would not have been a problem for me. But since THEY keep bringing it up, I am now more curious than ever to see how they resolve them.

I would love a jaw dropping reveal that utterly surprises everyone but I suspect that it will be something far more subdued.

I’ll wait till the dust has settled and the hype has died down before declaring this season a success…like last season apparently was…

So the promotion begins…

Spock and Burnham look like they’re throwing-up gang signs in those posters… 🤔