This morning CBS released six new images from “Saints of Imperfection,” the fifth episode of the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, which feature the return of some familiar faces.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
Synopsis
Burnham and the crew navigate a dangerous alien landscape in a race against time to save Tilly’s life, but Stamets is not at all prepared for what they find in the process. Section 31 is assigned to help track down Spock, much to Pike’s dismay.
Culber Returns
One of the new images features Wilson Cruz as Culber. Shortly after the character of Dr. Hugh Culber was killed off last season, it was announced he would return. He has appeared in some mycelial visions since his death and showed up in a recording in the season two premiere, but Cruz has clearly stated he will be a main character in season two.
“Saints of Imperfection” — Episode #205 — Pictured: Wilson Cruz as Culber (CBS)
Last week Anthony Rapp spoke about Cruz returning to play Culber, saying:
It was really special. I was very, very happy for him. We knew it was going to happen, but I was very happy for him in the way that it happens and what he gets to do with that story, what I get to do with that story. It was very, very satisfying and rich, the way that it was brought to life by the writers. If this is going to happen – that he comes back in a way – the manner that he comes back, it has to have been earned. It has to be meaningful. It has to have consequences. And thankfully everyone on board said “yes” to that. I haven’t seen everything yet, because I have seen as many episodes as everyone in the world, I have seen four episodes. But I know what we shot, and I look forward to seeing how it came together.
More new images
“Saints of Imperfection” — Episode #205 — Pictured (l-r): Mary Wiseman as Tilly; Bahia Watson as May (CBS)
“Saints of Imperfection” — Episode #205 — Pictured: Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou(CBS)
“Saints of Imperfection” — Episode #205 — Pictured (l-r): Mary Wiseman as Tilly; Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham; Bahia Watson as May; Anthony Rapp as Stamets (CBS)
“Saints of Imperfection” — Episode #205 — Pictured: Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. Photo Cr: Michael Gibson/CBS é2018 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved(CBS)
“Saints of Imperfection” — Episode #205 — Pictured (l-r): Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham; Anson Mount as Captain Pike (CBS)
Previously released image
Ep #205 РPictured (l-r): Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham; Michelle Yeoh as Captain Philippa Georgiou; Anson Mount as Captain Pike; of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. Photo Cr: Michael Gibson/CBS ̩ 2018 CBS Interactive. All Rights Reserved.
Trailer
Earlier CBS released the trailer for “Saints of Imperfection” exclusively on the official Star Trek site (for USA only). Netflix has also released the trailer on social media. You can watch the trailer below from their Instagram post (viewable globally).
How to watch “Saints of Imperfection”
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.
“Saints of Imperfection” will be released on All Access on Thursday, February 14th, 2019 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT. It will air on Space at 8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT on the same day. It will be available on Netflix the next morning, Friday, February 15th, 2019.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
That pic of Culber looks like it’s in the same spot where he was killed.
I think that’s where Paul held his body. Culber was killed in Sickbay.
OMG! How freaking sad!
As usual for season 2, looking forward to see the next step in the story. Culber was one of the few bright spots last season and I was genuinely stunned when he was offed. Not happy that immediately after came word that he would be back the following season. As much as I liked the character I truly hope he is not back as living breathing real Culber. Better if he is some sort of spore manifestation or as Stammet’s memory or anything but the real person. I know it’s been done with a major character already but I’m not a huge fan of resurrection in Trek. I also seriously hope to be wrong with the Evil-Lyn (Georgeau) and the Section 31 part of the story. I suspect it will induce a face palm but so much of the show has been improved so maybe it won’t be…
Good to see that you’re looking forward to your trek again dude!
He’s just looking forward to saying something bad about it.
We’re all fans here A34, there’s room for different points of view.
Enough A34. Start making actual contributions to the discussion here in the comments or you’re done.
Interesting. Culber was, in my opinion, mediocre – the weakest actor in the first season by far. But if you didn’t have many bright spots and I thought the show was for the most part the most interesting, exciting, and well-acted Star Trek show ever, (sorry, but I’ve only been watching since the original run of the original series on NBC in the 1960s) then we probably won’t agree on much at all ;-)
I suppose we are going to disagree about season 1 then. The only character I sorta latched onto from the start was Culber. (Don’t ask me why. We never really knew much about him so it’s admittedly just a first impression) Saru I did not care for at first but grew on me. Lorca was fascinating. At first. Until… You know. The rest of the characters just felt tired or dull.
For the record, I don’t go back to the original run but I go back to TAS and the TOS reruns in the 70’s.
I wasn’t in love with Culber (or any of them really except captain Georgiou who I loved from the start in her first appearance…oh well) but he was growing on me at least. I suspect if he made it to the end of the season I would’ve liked him a lot more. But yeah in reality he did feel pretty bland IMO. I like the actor and I like his chemistry with Stamets but I wasn’t exactly waiting for him to show up in scenes either.
It looks like they are in the Upside Down…which also conveniently had spores floating through the air.
Maybe there is an actual canon connection between Stranger Things and the Star Trek Universe ;) might be material for a IDW issue alá “Star Trek vs. Transformers” though
I was about to post the same thing.
Yeah, that shot of Tilly apparently freeing herself of the jahSepp-“cocoon” really has “Stranger Things” written all over it. Who knows, maybe she will manage to bring back Barb…
Oh no, wait… Barb was ultimately certified to be dead – like STONE DEAD – wasn’t she?
Maybe they will run into Spock’s mom from the other timeline and they FINALLY connect both universes! ;)
Very, very subtle detail: The uniform that this Culber is wearing, while also distressed, is subtly different. We have never seen Culber in a dark blue uniform, only white; he also died in white. While medical officers probably do wear standard blue from time to time, the choice of the producers says something. The uniform does not have metallic piping (gold, silver, or bronze). Neither do the shoes. At first I thought it might be the tactical jumpsuit, but this is a two piece like the standard duty.
Is he, Terran, from the mirror universe? Maybe, but the officers in those shows wore a black, one piece uniform. I cannot tell if the uniform is black or navy.
My Theory: this Culber is from another, previously unseen, alternate universe.
I don’t know about the jacket, but he’s definitely wearing the standard Disco crew (blue) pants and boots.
Not sure. What color are the shoe soles and the piping on the pants? Are they gold, silver, or blue? On every other standard uniform they are one of those three. Its not clear here. Plus again, we have never seen Culber in the standard duty uniform.
Good spot Eric.
Great point.
Weeeee, science. This is the power of Math People.
I shook my head at that one. Awkward!
It was cringeworthy
Am I the only one who would love to see the names of the episodes after (or in) the title sequence, just like the old days?
I think streaming makes that redundant now.
I would like that.
Nope; I miss ’em, too.
I miss them as well. The shows can all have different characters but I sorta feel like that is something that connects them all. Even the animated show did it and I would hope that “Lower Decks” does it as well.
No, you’re definitely not the only one! I feel like I keep forgetting the names of the episodes because they don’t show up on screen.
That’s not “normal” Culber. I agree with ML31. Never should’ve killed him and never should’ve immediately said he was coming back. But those decision makers are gone, so we shall see.
Actually this upcoming episode was their last episode. After this point it’s all Kurtzman.
It’s hardly so clear cut. Yes they were shown the door about the time this episode was being produced. But the writing for episodes was going on for months before. And in the larger sense, the entire season arc was mapped out by Harberts and Berg back in early 2018. So there’s no clean break. We won’t really know what a season of Discovery without their influence looks like until season three.
Fair
Reminds me a little of the Twilight Zone episode “Little Girl Lost,” and by extension Poltergeist.
I can’t wait for this episode. I love me some #Culmets. The whole episode looks great. The ship caught looks exciting. The mycelial May kidnapping storyline looks great! Thursday cannot come soon enough!
By God, the soap opera AND Space Hitler are back, this cannot bode well ;)
Azz chaps?
Man I miss the gold uniform Pike was wearing. Really made everything pop.
I miss the TOS color shirts too. Discovery Blue is enervating. It gives me the blues.
GarySeven, I am just the opposite, LOL. Truly YMMV :^)
Yeah what a fantastic uniform! But those millennials don’t like their grimdark interrupted by anything less, uh, grimdark apparently ;)
I think the art direction on this show took a lot more inspiration from TWOK through TUC in terms of uniforms and set design. The uniforms look more like military uniforms, rather than a bunch of people wearing sweaters.
I enjoy the mix of the two more than either the TOS uniforms or the Disco uniforms. Hopefully that’s where they end this season.
Actually, it looks very much like they took their cues from Enterprise far more than WoK. In fact, the uniforms look like something that came 10 years after the Enterprise finale rather than 10 years before Kirk’s Enterprise.
That makes sense too!
Except the best Trek uniforms were darker/more-serious approaches (TWOK uniform and the FC uniform) so….don’t blame millennials. The red, blue, and gold are classic and I liked them on Disco and even think they’ll transition to them before it’s all over but I like the navy blue jumpsuits a lot.
And no intentional snark towards you Vulcan Soul lol, I noticed the wink at the end there
Here as well. Pike said they were the “new” uniforms. Seems logical to me that he would just continue wearing it. The Discovery crew should be the ones getting the new ones. Not the temp captain going “retro”. (But yes, the true reason is a production one, not an in universe one)
I believe Pike said they were the new uniforms for the constellation class ships.so discovery would keep their boring ones.i could be wrong.
Here’s a little thing that I’ve been wondering about over the course of the last few episodes: Can anyone pinpoint May’s accent?
When I watched “New Eden”, at first I was almost certain that it was supposed to be a South African accent. But in that same episode, May was stated to be either from California or at least California-based. That doesn’t sound like a West Coast accent though, does it?
Now, the actress portraying her is Canadian, but I never heard any Canadian who sounded like that (but then again: I haven’t really had a close, active look at Canadian accents yet). The last name Ahearn would suggest Irish ancestry, but if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that hers is not an Irish accent. Although it seems to unite a variety of Northern English characteristics that can actually also be found in Irish English: like the high number of monophthongized vowels, which is most prevalent in dialects like Geordie, many varieties of Scots but also, as I’ve mentioned, in many Irish English varieties.
But now I’m just rambling on about something I have no real grasp of, so I’m just gonna repeat the question: What’s up with May’s accent?
She sounds and looks Indian to me.
Indian… strangely, that hadn’t even crossed my mind. You know, the main reason why I thought of South African is that South African English unites traits of northern and southern accents and has certain very unique traits like very drawn-out (compared to Standard English) open and close e-sounds – something I wouldn’t usually associate with an Indian accent. Buuut, in terms of prosody her accent does indeed have that slight singsong cadence.
Well, looks-wise I would’ve simply deemed her mixed-race, but you might actually be right.
Bahia Watson is Canadian, her mother is from the Caribbean, Guyana specifically.
https://torontoist.com/2015/01/being-bahia-watson/
She recently said on Twitter that she based May’s accent on a friend from Trinidad
https://twitter.com/ckrisbrooke/status/1094370208704352256
LOL thought she was Indian, at least her ethnicity.
Interestingly, Trinidad is made up people from Africa (freed slaves) and Indians (indentured laborers). Trinidad was a British colony, so the English spoken there is heavily influenced by the European colonialists, which includes French and Spanish. Once I met someone with a strong Welsh accent that could be mistaken for someone from Trinidad. It was uncanny.
Folks, you’re all sort of right because colonialism is such a powerful force in our history.
Heyyy, thanks for the info, Matt! A Caribbean accent of some variety would’ve been like… my fourth guess or something. It all makes sense now
Hmm.. (Raising an eyebrow) Interesting.
This is a legitimate Caribbean/Trinidad accent. I know because I have family from Trinidad and Guyana. Honestly, it was a little disconcerting to hear an actual Trinidad accent on TV that wasn’t totally butchered. And I enjoyed how much this character pestered “Stilly.”
On Bahia’s Twitter a number of folks from the Caribbean have given her props, and she’s proud of her Caribbean heritage, so I think she’s trying to represent and do it right :-)
Please, leave that Culber idiot character out!!!
A) Whining about it isn’t going to happen and B) the actor said last season Culber was set dressing for Stamets, this season we find out about Culber’s wants and ambitions. I’d give the character a chance on his own terms before you dismiss him.
I’d be happy for both Stamets and Culber to never appear in another episode. Especially Stamets. (And I say this as a gay man before anyone starts on me). So cowardly of the show to not only kill Culber and then bring him back, but to announce that they’re bringing him back literally ten minutes later in the after show. The world we live in, sadly. Obsessed with “representation” and public relations.