The eighth episode of the third season of Star Trek: Discovery arrives on Thursday, and it is directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jonathan Frakes. We have a first look at some new images and in case you missed it, a promo video and a clip too.
“The Sanctuary”
Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 8 “The Sanctuary” will be available to stream on CBS All Access on Thursday, December 3.
Synopsis:
Burnham and the U.S.S. Discovery crew travel to Book’s home planet to help rescue it from Osyraa, the formidable leader of the Emerald Chain. Meanwhile, Stamets and Adira continue their search for valuable information on the origin of the Burn.
New Images:
David Ajala as Book
Sonequa Martin-Green as Commander Burnham and David Ajala as Book
Sonequa Martin-Green as Commander Burnham
Avaah Blackwell as Osnullus
Ronnie Rowe Jr. as Lt. Bryce
Sara Mitich as Lt. Nilsson
Oyin Oladejo as Lt. Joann Owosekun
Mary Wiseman as Ensign Tilly
Doug Jones as Capt. Saru
David Ajala as Book
Oyin Oladejo as Lt. Joann Owosekun and Emily Coutts as Lt. Keyla Detmer
Sonequa Martin-Green as Commander Burnham and David Ajala as Book
Wilson Cruz as Dr. Hugh Culber
Michelle Yeoh as Capt. Georgiou
Wilson Cruz as Dr. Hugh Culber
Episode 308 preview videos
“The Sanctuary” promo.
A clip from “The Sanctuary” was shown at the end of the latest episode of The Ready Room. The clip starts at 32:00.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes will be available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
First! “Osnullus” is an interesting name. It is latin for “no bone”. ;-)
I’m intrigued too.
I thought that Osnullus was the name of the species rather than that particular character.
The captain of the same species in 306 was referred to in the credits as Osnullus captain I believe.
There had been a second bluish headed Osnullus on the bridge of Discovery in season 2. They were shown as having died (wheeled out on a stretcher) during the transit during 302.
It would be really great to have the species and it’s culture developed a bit as its one of a very few new species we’ve seen in Discovery. I’m wondering whether the decision to do a still shot of the character means that we’ll be getting a bit more background or interaction.
By the way, in one of the Moments of Discovery videos last year, Kurtzman was shown working with Avkah Blackman on movement with the Osnullus head. It’s evidently difficult, even for a trained dancer (which Blackman is). The same actor also played the Osnullus captain.
The make up/design is fantastic… very alien!
So now we have Sanctuary and The Sanctuary as Trek episode titles
Joining “The Emissary” and “Emissary”.
Don’t forget “The Muse” and “Muse”.
And don’t forget we had the movie “First Contact” and the TNG episode with the same name.
Same deal with Nemesis.
Lower decks?
I think Osnullus is the name of the spices, not a name of a character.
Are you a Terran?
Something I’ve wondered about… after 930 years, can’t Starfleet replace Detmer’s cybernetic implant with something more modern and concealed?
Great idea. Also, can’t wait to see everyone with the new uniforms.
My guess is the writers are waiting for the ‘right moment’ for melodramatic payoff, like they did with Spock in the last episode. Either that or they don’t care enough about the character to think beyond the needs of the plot at the moment. Still waiting to see what’s up with her, and how she’s doing now.
You know what might be great is if… nothing was wrong. She was just feeling meh and now she’s feeling great.
From what Detmer said in the season finale in her final message to a friend before battle, it sounds as though the surgery and rehabilitation were traumatic in their own right.
Layering a new physical trauma and cybernetic integration now, when Detmer already has active PTSD symptoms wouldn’t be something the medical officers would avoid and defer.
But they’re quite happy putting the lives of the crew in her hands…..
One of the main things my wife and I keep coming back to when we discuss Discovery is that if the writers want us to care about the bridge crew, which they obviously do, it’s time to give them some actual development. Maybe a short trek dedicated to each one or something (Saru benefited a lot as a character from getting backstory in a short trek). At this point it feels like a joke when they keep showing them but we still know next nothing about them or arent given much of a reason to care about them.
Suggesting Detmer has ptsd isn’t really enough when they don’t dig into it more or give us more understanding of her.as a character. And (season two spoilers) they didn’t give any backstory to cyborg lady until the episode they decided to kill her off, which just felt like a cheap way to manipulate the audience into quickly caring about a character so we could feel bad when she died.
If they were better developed one of them could have been made first officer (maybe the blonde gal who seems to be the senior officer on the bridge and takes the con sometimes?) instead of tilly which would have been easier for the audience to swallow and would have avoided the cheesy say yes scene.
I say all this as someone who has generally liked and defended the show. This season I’ve liked overall better than the previous two, but the problems the show has had since the beginning of developing characters is starting to get more and more annoying to me.
To make it even worse: Ronnie Rowe Jr. is a fantastic actor! He plays Lt. Bryce, comms officer.
Ronnie starred in one of this year’s best Hallmark Xmas movies, Jingle Bell Bride. I highly recommend it because it’s sadly, so far, the best way to get to know the Disco comms officer.
If you haven’t seen him in his feature film lead, “Black Cop” PeachesXtreme, you should definitely try to track it down. (It’s on CBC Gem free in Canada – Amazon had it on Prime in the US.)
Black Cop is a low budget indie film, but it got festival awards and the director/EP won the national award in Canada for best first feature film.
Definitely, Ronnie Rowe Jr is a very strong actor. So is Raven Dauda (Dr. Pollard) who has theatre awards.
The thing is that Discovery arguably has the strongest cast with the exception of DS9, but they’re not getting the same opportunities to shine.
OMG, thanks for the tip, TG47! I just started watching it on CBC Gem. You’re absolutely right, Ronnie is an amazing actor and is criminally underused on Disco.
It’s absolutely a key failing of Discovery- we’re into season 3 and we need to see those characters fleshed out. We’re seeing some really nice hints here and there, but would it really kill them to give us an episode centered on Owosekun or Rhys?
Heck, I don’t even know these characters’ names. I always need to look them up. None of them matter in the slightest.
This is the first season I actually know and remember all their names. Pretty proud of myself.
This is the first Star Trek series I don’t know and can’t remember all their names…
Discovery isn’t about the bridge crew. Very refreshing. TNG would have been a much better show if we saw less of the bridge crew.
to be fair… it took 40 years to get Sulu’s first name.
And after more than half of a century most don’t know Spock’s full name. ;-)
Agreed! Such a waste of talent. 3 seasons in and I struggle to rememeber all their names.
I agree.
I think the major issue with serious character development is how short the seasons are and how focused they are on the arc story.
TNG, DS9, VOY all had 20+ episode seasons. This allowed the writers to explore each character in-depth. The short season does not allow that, as the writers need to focus mostly on the arc story. It seems this season, they’re making an effort to get us to care more about the characters.
I suspect that when SNW comes on the air with a story of the week format, we will get more character development type stories for those characters.
So it seems that the production stills with Culber and Georgiou that we saw last week really belong to 308.
Wonder if Control is back for this episode. Keep thinking about Pike and Tyler and those torpedoes from the future.
I hope not. The whole Control plot was garbage. I’m assuming the squid probes were a result of the now defunct timeline where Control won.
I agree. But watching the trailer and looking at the Emperor all pixelated, quickly reminded me Pike and Tyler and the torpedoes. Hope Control stay in the past.
I’m not sure. Georgiou looked stretched, not just pixelated.
I’m wondering if there is an issue with her having both crossed universes and nearly a millennium in time.
Only Kovich will have the answer.
Absolutely… I really hope we will see David Cronenberg back this episode.
Totally impressed with his character. I’ve never seen Cronenberg before. But the few scenes with Phillipa were very cool. Even the script for those scenes were in a different level.
I’m finding Maja Vrvilo is one of their best directors, especially for tense interpersonal revelations.
She had two of the best episodes in Picard as well.
Some people have magic. Like Doug Jones, Robert Picardo, Armin Shimerman, Jonathan Frakes. They are smart, have good vibes, and it seems they make life easy for writers and directors.
Cronenberg is one of these people. You can tell is a success, right from the start.
ehm… isn’t “stretched” = “pixelated” in 3D?
Not exactly, but it seems as though the vfx chosen has a some pixelation.
Frakes. This episode is going to be better than the previous two.
so why are they not using new uniforms?
It’s so strange considering that the uniforms drew a fair bit of criticism along with how Discovery didn’t fit within canon. The time jump was admittedly a way to get over the latter, why not the former. Surely can’t be budgetary as the show is a phenomenal success apparently.
In the story, I understand Vance makes the comment that people from the past can’t affect the future (which seems silly to me, but hey, never mind). If they gave Discovery a refit to conceal its time jump, it seems a bit silly again to have the crew knocking about in 900 year old uniforms.
As Malcolm Reed says “another item on our list to ponder”.
I’m sure the real-world answer is budget. Even with the decent-sized budget the show has, they probably have a ton of those costumes made that will never get used again if Discovery stops using them (strange new worlds would be using the tos-esque ones). Re outfitting all the characters and all the extras wouldn’t be a minor task.
It’s not just budget, but stretching the design and sewing team.
Not to mention the new Starfleet uniforms, Burnham had an entire wardrobe flash by in th open flashback montage in 303.
There have also been new costumes for Earth, Trill, and Ni’Var.
The quality of the costumes has been high, if not as extremely novel as some had hoped for. I’d rather high quality than the shoddy workmanship we saw in the early episodes of Picard.
The enterprise uniforms are the just modified Disco uniforms.
Yes, but they tried an entire range of options (some of which we saw in the Short Trek with Tribbles) before they landed on the Discovery uniforms in bright primary colours.
A lot of work and screen testing was involved even if the final version wasn’t that different.
The designer has said that they made and screen tested the pastels of The Cage, with and without the black collar, and they just didn’t work.
They also tried skirts and sports. The skirt over high-topped boots option that Nahn wore, and Lieutenant Amin (Enterprise navigator) wore were new for S2.
The thing is that the Enterprise uniforms just seem to look and fit better. It’s astonishing how the “off-the-rack” cosplay versions look so good on so many different people of diverse body types, but the blue Discovery versions seem so unforgiving.
Budget.
All those Lieutenants and the Ensign gets made XO
Burnham the science officer on an away mission front and centre…CHECK!
Burnham saving the day on her own…LIKELY!
Burnham emotional and teary…UNKNOWN FOR A CHANGE
Bridge crew acting like cardboard cutouts and pretending they have something useful to do…CHECK!
The actual interesting characters simply moving forward Burnham storylines…CHECK!
The crew praising Burnham endlessly…LIKELY!
Whining Star Trek fan… CHECK!
Checkmate! 😆
It’s ok, you can continue to hug the TV when Burnham cries!
You seem upset, K.
In TOS Kirk was the center of every story.
In TNG where Pickard was or DS9 where Sisco was the same in DS9.
How many times were they the saviors of the universe or the federation.
Without them the Federation would have fallen apart many times.
Eliminate their screen time and you’d end up with a half dozen shows out of there entire run.
Those shows would completely and totally fall apart if their lead character was eliminated.
Yet you only notice the singular obsession Discovery has with its main character as if that never happened in any previous ST series.
Honestly, it’s not the focus on Burnam that sticks in your gullet is it. You can’t identify with a female lead.
To you only men should be the focus of future fiction with women fill decorative, shallow and pointless roles where they serve to accent the adventures of the male leads like in Bladerunner or any of a number of future fiction dramas where the fate of women in the future is to become the endlessly compliant, the ultimate irrelevant sexual entertainment of the male leads especially at the end where they serve as the reward for winning whatever they saught, or defeating whoever they were fighting.
Oh and please don’t claim to be a woman, because that would be an obvious lie and not make you right for only thinking men should always be portrayed as leaders.
I just re-watched the SG1 episode Singularity today (where they discover Cassandra alone on the planet, implanted with a naquada explosive). It was really emotional and Carter cried, but the crying worked in this story. While Carter is a strong female lead, but not team lead, she was not central to saving Earth in this episode.
An episode can be produced with the right amount of emotion/crying and with a female lead; without having the entire universe surround that person, in which the character cries in EVERY single episode of the season.
Janeway was captain of Voyager but we still had stories and rescues lead by Chakotay, Paris, Kim, Seven, the Doctor, Torres, Suder, Icheb…
Similarly on DS9, Voyager, Enterprise and even TOS (not every story resolved around Kirk).
Do we even know all the bridge crew member names on Discovery?
it was 40 years and how many movies later to learn Uhura’s or Sulu’s first names?
That was a deep reach to pull Suder’s name out for Voyager. I bet you had to look that one up.
It strikes me that the folks who are the most vocal about the amount of crying on the show are probably also the most uncomfortable expressing emotion in real life.
Some people are just more demonstrable than others. IDIC and all that.
Oh what absolute rubbish, nothing to do with a female lead. Go and check every series before (outwith TOS, which was from a completely different era to the rest). The writers have destroyed SMG’s character with absolutely stupid storylines. It might as well be Star Trek: Wonder Woman. All other series were a lead WITH other characters being developed. 3 series in, do you still know who the bridge crew are?? Are you ok with constant Gen-Z emotions every week? Hugs and tears and emotional breakdowns? They were apparent in every other series but with more intelligence that you can actually feel for the characters. I can’t sympathise with Burnham.
Kirk relied on his crew. So did Picard, and the others. Burnham relies on herself, which is why she saves the crew and the universe often by herself, and even disobeys orders at the drop of a hat to do so. Discovery following her through the wormhole could be seen as a metaphor… They follow her, and they’re just along for the ride. They’re utterly expendable. What would the series be without Burnham? A blank slate, because they haven’t developed the rest of the characters enough. TNG on the other hand could have gone on with Riker as captain when Picard was assimilated. He was a competent leader, and the senior staff was developed enough that they weren’t dependent on Picard to carry the show. The big problem with Burnham established in the first episode is that she thinks she’s right, sometimes to the point of being a detriment to everyone else. And the crew just goes along with it. The writers have even gone on to point out her flaws as a joke, allude to character growth, and then default to the same actions, and the crew praising her or having absolute trust in her. That’s why I’m wary of Burnham’s demotion sticking.. Season 3 episode 2 actually had a chance for Discovery to get out of a situation on their own, only to be subverted at the last moment by Burnham rescuing them. She doesn’t need them, but they need her. No other Trek has been written that way as much as you like to believe Kirk and Picard were written the same way.
Burnham has a blind spot, agreed. Learning to get past it would be character development. Let’s hope it happens soon. The fact that other characters are calling her on her BS is a great step. It’s not as if the show is condoning it, she is facing consequences of her actions.
Kirk did the same thing, he was lucky that he saved the universe a few times or he’d be in the brig, too. Oh wait, he was stripped of his admiral rank for disobeying orders. If T’Pau hadn’t pulled strings, he would have been court marshaled for taking Spock to Vulcan.
then there was the whole “Hijack the Enterprise and take Pike to Talos 4″…naughty Spock
what Burnham is doing isn’t new. her behavior isn’t any more out of line than any other Trek lead character
Why did you leave out Voyager which had 2-3 female leads?
Some people just can’t stand having a woman as the main character in a sci show. They still criticize Janeway every chance they get.
I predict that Burnham will make a passionate plea to Saru, in her whisper tone.
Burnham will rescue the planet, but someone Book cares for may perish. Burnham will cry and console Book. Burnham will also cry and whisper with Georgiou and after she recovers from treatment.
You forgot that Burnham will also shed a tear when somebody tells her how fantastic she is. Perhaps it’ll be a hollow (deliberately misspelled) recording of old Picard saying she was his inspiration with the writers forgetting that they classified her existence at the end of the last season.
Picard would probably know about her since he mind-melded with both Sarek and Spock.
Sadly it seems we are returning to the forgettable generic action plots this week! Apart from all other problems mentioned this resort to cookie cutter action is a definite weakness this season, and entirely forgettable villains come with it (I even stated recently its good season 3 doesn’t have a big baddie this season because this “Ossyra” character entirely didnt register for me!)
Seriously, did we come all that way to the 32nd century to see the shenanigans of crime syndicates which seem to be the same in any century, and the villain-equivalent of the Kazon of this century?
(Maybe one of the new Trek shows CBS has yet to greenlight is ‘CSI: Subspace’, a procedural entirely about this criminal nonsense ;)
I’ve been feeling let down that we’re getting to see Ossyra this week.
If we’re going to have a single individual as the apex baddie, it seems we need a bit more build up. Especially, when Georgiou the not-quite-tame apex predator is on Discovery.
But I have a suspicion, based on the vidscreen image in the trailer, that it’s Hannah Cheesman (last seen as Airiam 2.0) under Ossyra’s Orion prosthetic makeup. If so, we know we’ll have someone who can carry it off.
Vorak the nephew looks like he’s going to be making an appearance as well. (… Ian Lake – another classical Shakespearean actor, better known for lead roles on the mainstage at Stratford having fun as a baddie on Discovery.)
I have a feeling Ossyra and the Orions/Andorians are just a front for whoever the real villain is his season. My guess is whoever caused the Burn is the real baddie, but just in the shadows for now.
I think that the line in 302 where the villain said that The Burn was the best thing that happened for him may have been a clue/foreshadowing.
It seems likely that whoever is the real villain is someone who is was seeking chaos instead of the order and good of the Federation.
Maybe, maybe not. For every life-altering societal event there are those who profit and those who lose from it. It wouldn’t be exactly a narrative lapse if this turned out to be a throwaway line. Otherwise it’s like insinuating Amazon must have been behind the Virus because the Pandemic is the best thing that happened to them ;)
A Burnham Vs Ossyra conflict, building up to it.
Was hoping Ossyra would of been her mother, alas.
I’m nostalgic for mysterious, long-term enemies like the Borg, TNG Romulans or TOS Klingons and Romulans.
Those opponents were profound and long term.
But instead I’m fearful that it will be the embodied comic book villain of the season instead.
I agree absolutely! Kurtzman is consulting the Marvel superhero movie playbook, of course (in more than one respect), and that’s not a good fit for Trek at all, sadly!
The Emerald Chain…
Oo, maybe the Osnullus will finally get a meaty part, thereby culminating in a tragic, teary, heart-rending goodbye/death to our plucky Osnullus.
Where is the new girl in the pics above? The writers aren’t using her well; her appearances have been minimal in several eps.