A new week and a new set of actors who have committed their careers to the Star Trek franchise.
However, in a rather interesting twist these are main characters who are NOT based on a Federation starship indeed these my friends are Klingons!
Three new names are now linked with the Fuller-lite Discovery series in the form of Chris Obi, Shazad Latif and Mary Chieffo. All three will be facing a longer filming day as they will be heading under prosthetics to become members of Star Trek's honourable warrior race. Obi, who includes an appearance in Doctor Who on his CV will be playing Klingon 'leader' T'Kumva who is loo,img to bring order to the Empire. Now why is he referred to as a leader rather than Chancellor? Is this title something he will grow into during the series perhaps?
Second on that list of newbies is Shazad Latif, most well known for Black Mirror and Penny Dreadful. His role is Kol, a Klingon commander (perhaps their military commander from the way its worded on startrek.com) and protégé to Obi's T'Kumva. I expect that this will bring in a lot of conflict and more background on the Klingon people at a time we know very little about.
Finally Mary Chieffo - not someone I've heard of at all if I'm honest but her inclusion does mean that there will be a strong female Klingon presence in the first season (at least) as she will be playing L'Rell, another Klingon commander. The suggestion within the startrek.com article hints that we will have one specific Klingon ship that will be featured in the first season alongside the Shenzhou and, of course, Discovery.
Having three prominent Klingon characters does cement the notion that Discovery is not going to be just about the voyages of one ship rather that it's the main craft within a circle of events, races and individuals which will make it distinctly different from any previous incarnation.
We are now coming to the end of 2016 and if we were on track we would now be just one month away from premiere date. Due to all sorts of issues - which should actually reassure fans that this project will be right for airing rather than rushed for January - we now still have five months left to wait. Casting announcements will probably be coming thick and fast now and we still seem to have a lot of the major Discovery crew parts left to be revealed including that pivotal lead character.
Also to date there is no suggestion of any actor who has previously worked on the Star Trek franchise - of course now I've said that the next announcements will all be people who've guest-starred in Voyager. They're also very exciting because they're bringing a lot of new faces to Star Trek and looking to a new generation to carry the torch just as Roddenberry did when he created The Next Generation in 1987 - imagine what would have happened if fans hadn't given that a chance?!
In other side Discovery news author David Mack has just finished writing his latest Titan novel for the franchise and his Facebook page has him noting that the onsale date for the novelisation of the first episode is May 23rd so I'd think that will come out after the pilot airs. Note too that Mack faces the highly daunting challenge of writing a book based on characters that have not yet been fully realised in the TV format they are designed for!
And finally, illustrator and ship creator John Eaves revealed on his Facebook page that he has named a Federation starship in honour of the late astronaut John Glenn for the new show and that it is a vessel in the Mercury Class. He had named the ship before Glenn sadly passed away last week.
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