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News Jason Isaacs Joins Star Trek: Discovery as Captain Lorca

The casting of an Academy student kinda kills the rumours that this is a section 31 project, doesn't it? They don't seem the type to have internship programs with the Academy. Recruiting, yes, but official assignments would be a little too, well, official for them....
 
You know it's possible to enjoy the casting while still acknowledging the underlying issue, especially the early cries and Fuller's championing of "diversity." But do the math, it's the least diverse cast since TOS. And that's given that, of the collective cast of the four spin-offs, white men was the largest group.
 
Does anybody know how long it's taking them to film an individual episode? Because knowing that would give us an idea as to how quickly Captain Lorca shows up in the series relative to its overall narrative and seasonal episode count.

The standard is 8 shoot days for a one-hour episode of network TV, but these days, who knows... maybe the Klingons and the Discovery and the Shenzhou are very separate on-screen, so they'll be block-shooting instead.

In terms of cast parity, it's worth noting that, beyond Sonequa Martin Green being the lead, we have no idea of the prominence of these various roles. TNG through ENT are all from the era of TV where your (non-Jake-Sisko) regulars reliably appeared in every episode. Nowadays, these all-shows-produced deals are less universal for supporting cast. This will be our first Trek series since it became common to have series regulars signed to only 7 or 10 out of 13 episodes. I suspect a lot of these people will not be seen every week.

Also, IIRC, only the first few cast announcements explicitly IDed the actors in them as series regulars. Since then they've been using language like so-and-so has "been cast" in this role. But a lot of them could just be heavy recurs and not on series regular contracts at all. So there's a lot of room for the final product here to feel more or less diverse, just depending on who among this group of 13 is seen every week, and who pops in and out as story dictates.
 
The casting of an Academy student kinda kills the rumours that this is a section 31 project, doesn't it? They don't seem the type to have internship programs with the Academy. Recruiting, yes, but official assignments would be a little too, well, official for them....

Red Squad seemed very section 31ish to me. They were involved in a coup on Earth for goodness sake, and at least some apparently escaped significant punishment in order to wind up on Valiant.
 
@Emilia As of now, we have 12 main or recurring characters cast, 4 of which are women; that works out to, as I noted, about "half of the characters, main or recurring" being women.

This is so cute!
I checked, and way more than half the announced actors in various roles are male. I'm still hoping this won't be the case since obviously imdb isn't giving us the full picture right now.

Last I checked 4 out of 12 is a third. Not "half". In other words we've had twice as many male actors announced.

I said "about half".

Yeah, and having twice as many male actors announced isn't even remotely "about half".
4 out of 12, give me a break.
4 vs 8.
About half, eh?
Last time I checked 8 was twice as many as 4.

When it come to this discussion, I agree with Emilia, that DigificWriter's math is bad.
And by the way 4 out of 12 is better than the current reality. It is only 4 out of 13 right now.
That isn't even a third.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Discovery#Cast_and_characters

Main
  • Sonequa Martin-Green as Rainsford: A lieutenant commander assigned to the USS Discovery, referred to as "Number One".[6][7] The decision to not make the series' protagonist a starship captain, like those of previous Star Trek series, was made "to see a character from a different perspective on the starship—one who has different dynamic relationships with a captain, with subordinates, it gave us richer context".[3] The decision to call her Number One was made in honor of the character of the same name portrayed by Majel Barrett in the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage". The character was initially pitched to CBS as only being called Number One in the series.[7]
  • Jason Isaacs as Captain Lorca: The commanding officer of the Discovery.[8]
  • Doug Jones as Saru: A Science Officer serving as a lieutenant aboard the Discovery.[9] Jones, portraying a member of a species created for the series, was excited that he was able to, "from the ground up, develop and find this character and his species" and not have to honor a previous fan-favorite representation.[10]
  • Anthony Rapp as Stamets: A Science Officer specializing in astromycology (the study of fungi in space).[9]
  • James Frain as Sarek: A Vulcan astrophysicist, and the father of Spock. Frain appears as a younger version of the character who was first portrayed by Mark Lenard in the original Star Trek series.[11][12]
  • Terry Serpico as Anderson: A Starfleet admiral.[13]
  • Maulik Pancholy as Nambue: Chief Medical Officer of the USS Shenzhou.[13]
  • Sam Vartholomeos as Connor: A junior officer in Starfleet Academy, assigned to the Shenzhou.[13]
  • Mary Wiseman as Cadet Tilly: A Starfleet Academy Cadet in her final year of study, assigned to the Discovery.[14]
Recurring
  • Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou: Captain of the Shenzhou.[9][15]
  • Shazad Latif as Kol: Commanding Officer of the Klingons,[16] and protege of T'Kuvma.[17]
  • Chris Obi as T'Kuvma: A Klingon leader who is looking to unite the Klingon houses.[17]
  • Mary Chieffo as L'Rell: Battle Deck Commander of the Klingon ship.[17]
 
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Should we start a pool on how long until he is killed and Number One has to take over?

My bet it during the episode prior to the season finale.

More Netflix influence I wonder with his casting?
I'd give it about the same if that's the way it's going.
 
Can't say I've ever heard of him or consciously noticed his acting, but I'm glad most of you are so enthusiastic. I'm looking forward to his performance.
 
The initial episode is often given a longer production schedule than later shows.
 
Stargate managed alright having the lead be the person who goes on the missions while the big boss stays behind. Before Discovery was even announced I thought that such an approach would be interesting for Star Trek.

True enough but Hammond, Landry and eventually O'Neil were all generals. Most generals stay at home and fly a desk as do most Admirals. Only a few are actually out in the field. We're talking about the Captain of a starship boldly going. Since I doubt this show will be taking its lead from TNG, what are the chances that the Captain's going to delegate every away mission or dangerous task to the First Officer?
 
Since I doubt this show will be taking its lead from TNG, what are the chances that the Captain's going to delegate every away mission or dangerous task to the First Officer?

Kirk was the action hero of TOS. Therefore Kirk went on the dangerous missions.

Riker was supposed to be the action lead of TNG. Therefore Picard stayed at home (mostly).

Rainsford will be the lead in this show. There's a pattern here.
 
Stargate managed alright having the lead be the person who goes on the missions while the big boss stays behind. Before Discovery was even announced I thought that such an approach would be interesting for Star Trek.
The main focus of the series is about the viewpoint of Number One. So, I don´t think that the captain will die quickly, forcing Rainsford to take command. Quite the contrary, I think there will be conflict of interest or conflicting decisions between the two.
 
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