Mary Chieffo Really Wants To Play Chancellor L’Rell On ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’

Since it was announced two months ago, there hasn’t been much news regarding the CBS All Access series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but there still is a lot of fan interest in this reportedly optimistic and episodic return to the 23rd-century era USS Enterprise under the command of Christopher Pike. One person interested in the show is  actress Mary Chieffo, who has already faced off with Anson Mount’s Captain Pike, and hopes to do so again.

L’Rell and Pike together again?

On Friday, Mary Chieffo (L’Rell) had a live Instagram chat with her friend and artist Steffi Hochriegl to talk about artistic inspiration and expose more fans to Steffi’s work, which includes a lot of drawings of characters from Star Trek: Discovery. The chat included some Q&A from fans who were watching on Instagram and when the subject of Strange New Worlds came up, Chieffo made her enthusiasm for the show clear:

Someone was asking if I would want to reprise my role [of Chancellor L’Rell] in the Pike series. I would be so down! [laughs] I just wanted to let everyone know, I am 100 percent on board, if they’ll have me.

Mary Chieffo’s L’Rell was introduced during the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, and she also appeared in a number of episodes in season two, where L’Rell solidified her position as Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. L’Rell interacted directly with Captain Pike, helping with his mission and fight against Control. She assisted Pike with obtaining a critical time crystal, and led a Klingon task force to fight alongside Pike’s Enterprise in the season finale.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will likely pick up shortly after the USS Discovery left for the far future, and it would be entirely plausible that L’Rell is still an important player in Galactic politics—plus, Klingons tend to show up on shows and movies with the name Star Trek in them.

L’Rell meets Captain Pike in “Through the Valley of the Shadows”

But Chieffo wasn’t done speculating about a possible return to Star Trek. When Steffi suggested that maybe L’Rell might team up with Lorca, the actress was immediately taken with the notion:

Oh my gosh, can you imagine the two of us?… I am just imagining, it is L’Rell and Prime Lorca team up to find a way to save Cornwell. Go back in time with the time crystals.

Jason Isaacs has recently hinted he could return to Star Trek playing Prime Lorca. If this did happen, perhaps as a limited series, it would also be plausible to include L’Rell. As for the time travel story to save his ex, Admiral Cornwell? Let us know what you think about that idea in the comments below. But if such a thing ever came to pass, it’s probably best if L’Rell doesn’t mention how she tortured Lorca’s Mirror counterpart (who she thought was the real Captain Lorca) in an elaborate plot to get her mole (Tyler) on board the USS Discovery.

L’Rell and Lorca in the season one episode “Choose Your Pain”

Watch Mary’s Instagram chat

For more from Mary and Steffi, the full hour-long live chat can be watched below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCeW1mtJLdT/

 


Keep up with all the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds news at TrekMovie.com.

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I think Chieffo’s great and did an incredible job through all that makeup – the character, as written, wasn’t super-interesting/three-dimensional, IHO. They could change that (and maybe lighten up on the makeup)

Thanks Jack. I agree that Chieffo deserves credit for bringing as much as possible through makeup and costumes that provided negligible scope for movement.

I’m like to see her and the character back. We’ve had so few Klingon female main characters that she’s one I’d like to see explored further.

The actor also seems to be a delightful and effervescent person. She’s really promoted the franchise in a positive way without getting offside of the EPs or accidentally spoiling anything. Definitely an asset.

Oh, dear Gawd, when Strange New Worlds is on the air, PLEASE, NO KLINGONS!! THEY HAVE BEEN DONE TO DEATH!! THEY ARE BORING!!!

Absolutely agreed! Sick to death of them hogging screen time. Prevents more episodes being devoted to exploration and strange new civilisations… Frankly I had tired of Klingons after Star Trek 6!

Thanks, John-M73! I’m glad I’m not the only one!

Chieffo’s portrayal was one dimensional and monotone, interspersed with sporadic screaming. Her Russian accent was just plain baffling too. I’ve seen more convincing Klingons given away with packets of Wheaty Flakes!

Her voice didn’t sound Russian but her mouth sounded like it was full of cotton or something.

Were the Klingon voices electronically distorted/altered? (maybe in an attempt to keep the Tyler/Voq secret?)

Her accent wasn’t anything even CLOSE to a Russian accent. If you can’t identify accents, it’s best not to try.

Oh dear you poor person. Russian accents stretch beyond the Moscow metropolitan district. Go to Kazan then thank me later.

At this risk of decloaking: I’ve been to Kazan multiple times and done business in Tatarstan on an ongoing basis. L’Rell doesn’t have a Tatar accent, either. (That would display telltale signs of vowel harmony.)

To the extent that Klingon accents are reminiscent of anything, to my ear, it’s the hard “s,” “t,” “z” and “d” and “h” consonants in Arabic (“sod,” “Ta”, “za,” “dod,” etc.) — sorry, I know there’s a linguistic term to distinguish these from the conventional consonants, but I forget what it is.

As an aside, I do understand that Klingon grammar is agglutinative, like Turkish, so grammatically, yes, there might be a similarity with Tatar.

Have you been to Chechnya?

Tatarstan is a Turkic speaking region in Russia. Russian is a Slavic language. English is a Germanic language. French and Spanish are Romance languages.

I’ve never been to Russia. Would like to go to Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria… Those Eastern European places.

LOL. Sully you are so right.

Rios, Russia is a huge multiethnic country much like the United States — and it takes a 9 hour nonstop flight to get to the far coast instead of 6.

Standard Muscovite Russian may be the aspiration of the educated (other than in St Petersburg) but outside the metropolis you’ll find as strong regional accents as you do in the US. More, like in the UK, France and other European countries, regional/local dialects still remain strong in some places, especially as one goes eastward.

You know a lot about Russia TG47. Russia is a nice country but I don’t like the Russian government. Vladimir Putin is a criminal running Russia to oblivion.

I hope the Russian people remove Vladimir Putin from power and Russia becomes a free and Democratic country again.

Russia and the United States are not so different. Both countries are pretty similar.

Must politics get injected into the threads as often as it does? And completely out of nowhere, too. It’s one thing for someone to say they hear a Russian accent in an actor or even that a part of the world is nice or unpleasant, but quite another to start offering opinions of world governments.

Sounds great!

Nothing against her as an actor, but I had a difficult time with her voice. Maybe it was the teeth or some other effect. She sounded like she had a mouthful of cotton.

She was covered in too much makeup.

Totally agree. Way too much . The prosthetics were heavy and her Klingon voice hard to listen for a whole season.

Interesting.

We know a lot of people with hearing issues and L’Rell’s accent wasn’t an issue.

Lack of facial movement for most of the actors in protheses definitely was. Lipreading and more generally full-face speechreading weren’t really possible.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a return to form. Star Trek is not so optimistic anymore. Discovery and Picard don’t have any optimism at all and that’s disappointing.

Captain Pike is our optimist in chief. Mary Chieffo is a great actress and I like her Klingon character. Maybe she could return in Strange New Worlds.

Resurrection isn’t optimism? Is it possible your standards are a trifle high?

Star Trek represents optimism…

Amen. Or at least it used to until 2009 onwards… Hoping Strange NEW Worlds might mark the departure from emo/grim-dark-Trek at last…

I will bet you that once Strange New Worlds takes off with the original Enterprise with Pike and Spock that many viewers will not care for Discovery or Picard much.

You are, of course, wrong about that. All three shows will do just fine.

Exactly. You made a point.

You are absolutely wrong about that. All three shows can coexist.

But the track record of Star Trek shows coexisting at the same time — TNG and DS9, and later DS9 and VOY — is not bright. Paramount is forgetting the tale of the goose that laid the golden eggs.

STD and Picard are far from golden eggs. They’re actually turds, but SNW has the potential to be a bronze egg and watchable at least.

The TV landscape has changed quite a bit since the 80’s/90’s with shared universes being all the rage. Even so I do have to challenge your assessment of the track record of Star Trek shows coexisting at the same time. Those 3 series amassed 21 seasons, that’s 519 episodes of television alongside 4 cinematic releases and not one of those shows was cancelled! That’s not a failure, it’s a resounding success!

I would argue that the Berman era ultimately failed because Enterprise didn’t deliver what it promised i.e something different. Those that were enticed by the lure of watching something that was ‘not your fathers Trek’ were left sorely disappointed when they were presented with their fathers Trek transplanted into another century and those that wanted more of the same were not happy that they we’re basically presented with a 22nd century that looked pretty much like the 24th. They’d have been happy with the show if it was set after Voyager, they just didn’t like that a prequel show looked more advanced than what came after it in terms of design lineage etc.

Now you could argue that SH didn’t learn from that latter lesson when they rebooted the franchise with Discovery but I disagree with the assessment that multiple shows cannot coexist, at the least for the American market. The majority of Trek fans that subscribe to CBS AA do so for that one franchise. Sure, some stick around but in the highly competitive and crowded streaming market the one compelling incentive for taking out and maintaining a subscription is Star Trek. Now we know that in the case of the streaming wars it’s actually content that is king. I therefore find it highly unlikely that we have US based Star Trek fans that have stumped up cash to watch CBS All Access that are saying: ‘give me less content or I will cancel my subscription!’. I’d be surprised if there’s a single one.

This is not to say Star Trek is guaranteed to prosper. Far from it, the hardcore fanbase is ageing and therefore dwindling. For the new shows or movies to be successful they clearly need to bring in new blood but at the same time they’ve got to appeal to long term fans. Juggling the expectations of two diverse audiences is clearly no easy task as we’ve seen with the reception of Discovery and Picard. I for one hope that they’re successful enough for the experiment to continue. Sure,I don’t mind admitting that I miss the comfort of the Berman era.For me it was my favourite period as a long term fan but I’m still seeing enough with the new product to be generally happy with the direction of modern Trek. I just hope enough old and new fans come along for the ride.

Interesting analysis Corinthian7.

The market is so different now, as is SH and ViacomCBS strategy for the franchise.

First, streaming shows are producing half or less episodes per year as compared to 90s syndicated series. Basically, it would take 4 live-action shows to match the doubling up when TNG and DS9 were both runners or DS9 and Voyager.

Second, the fundamental strategy that the shows have to be very different and targeted to different audience niches is the critical one. DS9 was and remains a different Trek product so it was a very effective complement and increased the span of offerings. Enterprise and Voyager were too similar in delivery if not in premise.

So, I strongly believe that Kurtzman has the strategy right, and with that strategy they should be able to support a minimum of 4 live-action streaming series plus targeted animated series.

Execution of the fundamental principles of this strategy remains a persistent issue nonetheless. I can accept that many fans remain to be convinced that SH can pull it off.

Here is where I think that Kurtzman and the CBS executives need to adjust the execution of their STar Trek strategy.

1) Tight and coherent plotting is the bedrock of good novels and therefore good streaming series. This has to be given top priority. If that means nothing is produced until a season of scripts is locked down, make it so.

2) True distinctiveness of different products is non-negotiable.

– That means that the creatives have to be different people. That means SH must engage people that are different for each show, including people that think differently and have different styles and come from different cultures.

This will also enable the entire Trek production to actually walk the talk of authentic representation. Despite everything, most of the department heads and senior staff are still white men. So are most of the directors.

– Jeff Russo shouldn’t be doing the music for more than one or two shows, neither should the vfx firm, nor the makeup artists etc. Todd Cherniawski should not be given first go on production design on any more series. Eaves should be thanked for his work, but no further shows should use him. He’s made his mark and it’s time to move on.

-Kurtzman himself should not be editing every series. Final review maybe, but his trying to stretch too thin is is likely a principal cause of the incoherence in plotting and is definitely a barrier to differentiating the series. Even if he can do it all, he shouldn’t. Trying to cut all the shows to fit his vision is the antithesis of product differentiation.

– They really need more creatives from outside the LA area, and non-American ones in particular. Star Trek is supposed to be a global future: to make that feel real and fresh, global talent is needed.
Farscape really benefited from creatives in Australia who gave the show a fresh look. The Expanse has worked very hard to bring in global talent and not settle for someone familiar and close to the LA guilds. CBS Studios has a major facility in Mississauga now that could provide a base for CBS and Paramount to bring in New and diverse creatives and give them power and leadership from the start. Discovery has benefited from some Canadian production design but Deverell and her successors are having to work within what Cherniawski established.

– Last, and probably most controversial, this means setting up writers rooms outside LA and at least one outside the United States. If anything, Covid has demonstrated that TPTB can have oversight at a distance. Kurtzman needs to get writers that aren’t all locked into the current Hollywood streaming series formula. He also needs to get writers who don’t rigidly believe that the only way to optimism is through a path of darkness. Working harder to reach beyond the LA comfort bubble of writers who the WGA agents promote would be a really important first step.

Excellent points TG and to add one more to it, Kurtzman should just let the showrunners make the show they want to make and not the one that Kurtzman wants to make. So far I haven’t seen that distinctiveness in the shows. Yes they must be in the Trek universe but each showrunner should be able to effectively put his/her own stamp on the show. Basically what I am trying to say is that he shouldn’t micromanage the shows as much as he seems to be doing.

Interesting points TG. And I can buy into much of it. I definitely agree that it vitally important that each show have its own voice. Kurtzman should not be personally involved in all of them and quite frankly, I agree there should be little to no overlap in BTS people between shows apart from perhaps set dressers and that sort of thing. The writers and producers need to focus on that ONE show only. Having producers oversee multiple Trek products invites sameness. If one show is not good that sort of thing increases the odds the other show won’t be good either.

There absolutely needs to be diversity of ideas and styles. If they need to get that by finding people from different cultures, so be it. But if they can get that without having to then that is fine too. The bottom line is they should do whatever they can to have GOOD shows with different styles and feels. They absolutely should NOT feel compelled to go with a producer only because of that person’s ethnicity. If that person brings something unique to the table then by all means include them. But if that person’s voice is just another like everyone else’s than such diversity does NOTHING for anyone.

I completely disagree with your assessment of Enterprise. They had a difficult task production wise of the show being over a century before TOS but still making it look futuristic enough for audiences of the early 00’s. Production wise, I think they succeeded in creating a “feel” that worked for both eras. The costumes and the ship looked like they could evolve into what we saw on TOS. Some may not have liked the characters or the plotting or writing, but the production sure did a good job with the designs. Admittedly a difficult task.

It was Discovery that looked completely out of place for the time they said it was in. They were a 23rd century ship that looked like it belonged in the 25th! The lesson SH did not learn was how to make a prequel LOOK right. The consensus for Discovery’s look was had it been set post Nemesis no one would have questioned the look as it would have easily fit. Or, it should have been a complete reboot or it should have been set in the KU. Discovery was a mistake way before any hammer was put to nails in the studio.

Discovery, Picard, and SNW will not be running concurrently, they’ll be running successively. Audience burnout will be much less of a risk.

I think that is more semantics. They won’t be running concurrently because the seasons are so very short. They can have 5 shows a year and not have a single show overlap the other. What I think the writer meant is on in the same vicinity of other Trek shows, even without the overlapping.

Maybe you should be in charge of Star Trek.

DIS Klingons were so bad. The worst incarnation of that race so far and they haven’t been done well since the start of TNG.

Personally I hope that SNW stays away as far as possible from DIS connections. Obviously some characters started on the show, but they really don’t need to bring back all the other DIS characters who stayed in the past. I hope especially they will not mention Section 31 at all. SNW should ideally have not more in common with DIS than that it is part of the same franchise. I really hope the series will have a completely different tone and spirit to it than DIS.

Hear hear! You took the words from my mouth.

STD is an abomination of a show. I’ll be generous and say that CBS managed to get some traction with it though (albeit just reminding the general public ‘Star Trek’ is back in production). Out of the burning incoherent wreckage that is STD though, perhaps a decent tale can emerge with SNW.

Star Trek Discovery is good, you’re wrong

Subjective. And I would argue he’s right even still.

Yes. I posted the same thing before I started reading the comments! The best thing for SNW is to completely ignore EVERYTHING done in STD. That includes Section 31, Sarek, and L’Rell. They can involved Klingons but don’t even mention her name. If they reference her they should just say, “The Chancellor” or something generic.

SNW MUST distance itself from the Discovery universe as much as possible if only to foster their own credibility if nothing else.

No, just no. I got mentally nauseous looking at that weird L’Rell thing which was supposed to represent a Klingon. I want Discovery era Klingon’s and their muffled dialog to disappear into the sordid past. Whenever a Klingon talks they sound like they have a mouth full of marbles – when they open their hardened prosthetic gobs I always half expected to see a slew of Tom Bowlers roll out onto the ground.

The “Klingon” accents on DIS harkened back to those of Kern, Azetbur, Klagg and several of his cremates from “A Matter of Honor,” Gowron and Martok, K’mtar, and probably others I’ve forgotten. Even Worf had a touch of it, and you’d think if he grew up in the Klingon Empire, he’d have had a stronger accent as well. DISCO got the prosthetics all wrong, but the accents were right.

Pretty sure it was the over-the-top prosthetics that stopped the actors from being able to move their mouths in ways that are necessary to express coherent speech.

I don’t think so. Look at the way Kern says “I’ve never killed anyone at the supper table, Mr. LaForge,” in “Sins of the Father.” He enunciates all of the consonants — the “p” is highly fricative. Part of that is his distinctive voice, but the consonants are much sharper than when he plays Jake Sisko in “The Visitor.”

Klaa from TFF was another example.

I hope so too. And Tyler should join the crew of Pike’s Enterprise as Chief of Security.

Chief of Security or Klingon ambassador

As an ambassador, he’d only make sporadic appearances, though. Since he’s an Starfleet officer, chief of security-slash-head of Section 31 works best.

I suspect that we will see more of L’Rell. Her story doesn’t feel over yet. At this point, she is somewhat sympathetic to the Federation, and she rules Q’O’nos completely. By TOS, hostilities between the Federation and the Klingons have ramped back up, and she has definitely been replaced as chancellor by TUC. I suspect that L’Rell will lose power sometime in between Dis and TOS, and it would be cool to see that on SNW.

“She’s definitely been replaced” is quite the hasty assumption. In 2000, there was evidence that Vladimir Putin was a liberal reformer, such as the introduction of new land and property codes. Many liberal reformers from the 1990s supported him. On 9/11, he was the first foreign leader to call Pres. Bush with condolences. And yet obviously something changed dramatically between 2002 and 2008 (the year of the Georgia war), to say nothing of his “re-election” in 2012 and the utter collapse in relations after Crimea in 2014. And even then there was an interlude from roughly 2009-2011 when his placeholder, Medevdev, showed some liberal reformist tendencies.

So, ideology can be somewhat…fluid. L’Rell did, initially, follow Trum^H^H^H T’Kuvma. There’s every reason to think she could follow the Putin path after a reformist interlude. (Indeed, in-universe, Gowron kind of followed the Putin path, too.)

Vladimir Putin is the Joseph Stalin of our time. Vladimir Putin is not a liberal reformer. Stop telling lies.

@Faze, I believe you posted earlier saying you’re about to enter college in the fall. So, with due respect, a pro tip: if you’re going to major in the social sciences, the quality of your argumentation ought to be more robust than “stop telling lies.”

First off, I didn’t *say* that Putin was a liberal reformer. I *said* that in the early 2000s, there was evidence that he was such (which clearly didn’t pan out). I also cited two examples — the introduction of new land and property codes (neither of which was a “lie”; they were real laws), and at least some overtures to upgrade relations with the US. Moreover, until around 2004 and the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin was coy about his ideology and had some support among reformist politicians, including Anatoly Chubais, who supports him to this day. Around 2004 he openly veered away from the posture, and of course by 2012 had abandoned it entirely.

Now, *why* that happened is grist for debate. Perhaps from 2000-04, he never really had any reformist inclinations, and his reforms were superficial or a feint. Perhaps he was an “illiberal reformer” during that period. Perhaps liberal advisors within his administration lost influence vis-a-vis his hawkish elements from the security services. All of these theories are a subject for a real debate; none of them are “lies.”

Second, beyond “they’re both dictators,” the Putin model of statecraft bears little resemblance to Stalin’s. Stalin was the architect of mass terror. Putin engages in *selective*, *targeted* terror — the Yukos affair, the arrests at Bolotnaya Square. There was a famous article by Fareed Zakaria in FOREIGN AFFAIRS in 1997 entitled “Illiberal Democracy” about regimes that are democratic on paper, but authoritarian in practice; obviously he was on to a trend that exploded in this century. There are opposition parties in Russia today; people voice their opinions, both to each other and in public; the Russian-language blogosphere is raucous; liberal journals can still more or less publish what they like, even if they have modest circulations; taxi drivers give random foreigners a piece of their mind (whether that’s “our president is an idiot” or “Crimean Tatars should secede” or “gay people should be shot”). All of this would have gotten you gulaged or shot under Stalin. By and large, that doesn’t happen to ordinary citizens today. It’s just that today, none of it matters very much.

My point: if you want to engage in a social science debate, you need to muster arguments, chiefly by citing examples or authors (like Zakaria or McFaul or whoever) to buttress your position. “Stop telling lies” isn’t that. Neither are conclusory statements (“Putin=Stalin”) that lack any analysis. If it hasn’t become clear already, I have a great deal more expertise on post-communist comparative politics than the average bear. That doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with me — far from it; that’s how social science works, with the prevailing wisdom constantly being challenged. But it does mean you’re not going to get far by lobbying conclusory statements and ad-hominem attacks against folks with some expertise. You’re not Donald Trump, and even for him, this tactic is wearing mighty thin.

To bring this back to the topic of this board, Star Trek fandom: the TOS Klingons were a metaphor for the USSR, right up to the perestroika theme of TUC. In TNG, they were a metaphor for the crumbling of the USSR. It would not surprise me in the slightest if STRANGE NEW WORLDS explored some of the themes above. Perhaps L’Rell’s cordial relations with the Federation are a feint. Perhaps its’ real, and hawkish advisors from the security services persuade her to turn away from advisors like Voq/Ash. Perhaps she gets ousted and assassinated, like Boris Nemtsov.

Chieffo’s portrayal has been one of the best parts of DISCO, and there’s zero reason why
she can’t keep the role fresh and important. The eventual deterioration of relations between the Feds and the Klingons does not mean she inevitably gets deposed; far from it. There’s ample historical precedent for reformers (genuine or otherwise) to become more authoritarian over time. (The above doesn’t even touch on Yeltsin.) Why not keep her on?

What you suggest for L’Rell here would be a wonderfully nuanced portrayal of real-world politics: how do we go from apparent allies to a war?

It would be lovely to watch Pike navigating those waters, trying to keep the peace, and have a Prime Lorca come in who had disappeared while the Klingons and the Federation were still at war. So he would be suspicious of them [much like the Hawks were about the re-formed Russia].

Love your knowledge of Russian politics, history and long perspective. Thanks!

Interestingly enough, L’Rell’s house, Mokai, dominated the Klingon intelligence services. You could see an almost Shakespearean tragedy as her peeps sideline Voq and Pike and convince her to lead the Klingons into tyranny and isolation. It kind of tracks the Molor myth, too.

Who knows, perhaps that failure was what led Pike to hand Enterprise over to Kirk and focus instead on training cadets.

Sounds a trifle like our last two ambassadors to Russia, and you gotta say Anson Mount looks a tad like Jon Huntsman!

Fascinating speculation on where they could take this Termac.

Russian history is so fraught, and there have been so many leaders that have tried to advance the society followed by disastrous tyranny. L’Rell’s empire has ethos of enlightened despots of earlier pre-Soviet history.

That was a perfectly composed reply. Excellent!

She has definitely been replaced by TUC, because we saw that Gorkon was the chancellor in that movie. I agree that it is perfectly possible that she is still in charge during TOS.

I hope we see more of L’Rell too! ;) More of those Klingon tits!

Lol

Some might try to cancel you for that comment, NoMad, but I won’t.

Oh, hardy-har-har.

I’d definitely like to see more of Chieffo’s acting. She is superb. Please don’t reduce her to a body part.

I reckon I’m supposed to “have a sense of humor”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has my blessing. I wish we get it sooner but could take a bit longer. Maybe in 2 years by the year 2022 SNW is released.

L’Rell won’t be the chancellor much longer. By TOS, hostilities between the Klingons and the Federation are at the brink of war.

Strange New World is what modern Star Trek should have been from the get go.

“Errand of Mercy” is 10-ish years down the road, though. SNW will likely start immediately after the events of “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” (why limit the show by setting it in the last year or two of Pike’s command?)

Don’t understand that but Strange New Worlds is a blessing from heaven.

They showed Spock reporting aboard as a fresh-faced Ensign in Q&A Short Trek, so I imagine they plan to show the 13-year interval before Kirk takes command of Enterprise.

[Spock served under Pike for 13 years, see TOS “Menagerie”]

Yeah, but they’ll probably start after Such Sweet Sorrow, which is already a few years into Spock’s time under Pike.

Also, its been a while since I’ve seen the Menagerie. Did Spock say that he served under Pike for 13 years, or that The Cage was 13 years before The Menagerie?

Personally, I’d like to see the story leap around in time a bit, along the lines of what we see in BETTER CALL SAUL, where we see both a prequel to BREAKING BAD and a sequel in terms of Saul’s life in Omaha. There’s no reason why Pike’s story necessarily ends at “The Menagerie”; the Talosians are powerful enough to ensure that.

Every time that a new iteration of Star Trek has been released, I have written to the producers and literally begged them to have the Bridge crew wear baseball caps with ‘Star Trek’ written in the front.

Maybe SNW’s will finally feature this?

Why? It would be extremely corny, rather as if the crew had seen genuine Star Trek memorabilia in TVH.

The closest we’ve seen to that is the caps on Enterprise that had “NX-01” on them.

I’ve a ton of problems with the production of CBSTrek (the space visual effects, the ship designs, the spinning cameras during conversations) but the Klingon makeup is just ridiculous to me. Seriously, did no one realise that putting so much on would make acting/emoting a challenge and mostly superfluous?

See also the waste of Idris Elba in “Star Trek: Beyond”.

People used to criticize Michael Westmore’s makeup in the Berman era shows but at least his approach allowed the actors to act. This modern makeup trend of making everything too complicated and too detailed for HD screens seems to have a negative effect on acting in general. I mean I get that you want your creation to look good on TV, but as a makeup designer I think your main duty should be to the actors.

Season Two L’Rell had less facial makeup, and Chieffo is well able to act with it.

NO.

Thumbs up to that.

I hope L’Rell saved Admiral Cornwell and beamed her out before the explosion. The Admiral was a good Teamplayer with the Enterprise-Crew

Ooh, I really hope so! It would be nice to have one friendly Admiral at Starfleet. They always seem so hostile to ship captains; now that she’s worked with Pike personally I’d love to see the dynamic she would bring.

Plus, if Prime Lorca appears, I’d love to see them interacting :^D

As much as I like L’Rell and Mary Chiefo, they really need to reboot the Klingons for Strange New Worlds. The makeup really impaired the actors and they just have to tone it down and get it back to familiarity in more ways than just adding hair back.

The only exception is Kennth Mitchell who was incredible in his various Klingon rolls, he was the only one that made it work.

Klingons need pretty big performances to overcome the makeup.

Please no, just no!

Yes, please just yes.

I can’t see how they could move the story forward without encountering L’Rell and advancing the Klingon storyline.

Hopefully this can be accomplished with the occasional episode over a many seasons. I’d even be up for a L’Rell focused Short Trek.

No Prime Lorca. No no no no no. Best to forget about all of that. And ideally it would be best to not involve L’Rell in any Klingon encounters that may come in SNW. SNW would be wise to distance themselves from Discovery as much as possible.