The second episode of season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery debuted last Thursday and featured an away mission to a jungle planet. It turns out “Under the Twin Moons” also featured an unexpected cameo from the episode’s director.
Director gets into the action
The USS Discovery visited the jungle planet Lyrek, where Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Saru (Doug Jones) searched an ancient necropolis for clues to solve the season’s big mystery. As Burnham and Saru were being chased by drones from an automated defense system, they found shelter beneath a giant stone hand from a fallen statue. And for less than a second, you can spot something a bit unexpected in the alien forest: a person wearing a baseball cap.
Spot the hat in the upper left
Eagle-eyed fan Jörg Hillebrand noticed the hat and posted about it on Twitter/X, noting how Discovery had joined a Trek tradition of crewmembers inadvertently finding themselves in the shot.
There's indeed a crewmember briefly visible in this shot in #StarTrekDiscovery's "Under the Twin Moons"⬆️⬅️, as first pointed out by @MD_Builds. Well, let's just say: he's in good company! 😜
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture"➡️#StarTrekTNG's "Unification I"↙️ + "Birthright I"↘️.😅 pic.twitter.com/cOrU1JvCZL— Jörg Hillebrand (@gaghyogi49) April 6, 2024
Hillebrand suggested the hat belonged to episode director Doug Aarniokoski, and it turns out he was right. Aarniokoski fessed up with “guilty as charged,” apologizing for the error not being spotted and removed in post-production, adding “shit happens – it’s a jungle out there.”
I know that baseball hat !!! Jorg – guilty as charged – nice spotting sir –
Apologies this wasn’t caught and removed – shit happens . It’s a jungle out there 😬— Doug Aarniokoski (@dougaa) April 7, 2024
It is not known if Paramount will later digitally remove Doug and his hat from the episode. That is how Disney dealt with “jeans guy” spotted in an episode of The Mandalorian.
Spotting members of the crew on camera is a subgenre of the larger pantheon of flubs. The site Ex Astris Scientia has an extensive gallery of Trek’s visual bloopers.
Shooting a jungle in Toronto
Paramount has released a behind-the-scenes video feature on how the jungle of Lyrek was created by redressing a forest in a Toronto park.
The fifth and final season of Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria. Discovery will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Worst show ever!
Nah, it’s all good. If it happens this rarely, it’s not a big deal to me. Maybe they nix him from the Blu-Ray, hah.
They may remove him from the episode now. Disney did when they found the person in that Mandalorian episode.
Nothing worse than that GoT Starbucks cup.
Season 5 DISCO time travel confirmed! LOL (not really)
This is hilarious. Can’t imagine all the jokes now between them. He will always be remembered! :D Go Sox!
Paramount posts a video of how they recreated a jungle in Canada that isn’t available to view in the country of Canada
That’s just silly of them. 🤫 Pssst, you can always use either 9convert.com or yt5s.com to get them!
It is a long and stories Trek tradition. :-)