Has Season 2 made use of any of the background characters?

You know, like Detmer or anybody else? (I honestly don't know any of their names because they're basically just set dressing all though season 1.)

Given them an actual prominent role in an episode, or something to do besides just sitting there and spewing technobabble? Or has the introduction of Pike and crew just pushed them further into the background?

I'd like to see them fleshed out at least a little more than they have. I'm getting bored with The Adventures of Burnham, with nobody else really being of consequence.

 

Just curious, have you watched season 2 yet?

 

Yes.

 

The answer is yes, but barely. Most are still speaking props at this point.

 

Owosekun was part of the away team in New Eden, but didn't really contribute much. She's also gotten a nickname, Owo. The entire bridge crew are seen attending an officer's briefing two weeks ago, but that ended with them getting up and leaving at the start of the scene.

 

They are still just co-stars in the credits. Until that changes, they will not be given any prominent story time. That said, Detmer and Owosekun have had more character flavor this season. More brief glimpses into their personality. They also introduced a new lower tier character called Linus who is Saurian.

Owosekun actually broke them out of captivity on New Eden. That was a pretty decent contribution.

 

Airiam is suppose to have more screen time this season.

She's also the focus of one of this week's episode Promo images.

 

I don’t know how or why this expectation that the entire bridge crew have entire episodes devoted to them came about. They’re glorified extras who are popular. Admittedly I quite like them and would love to see them more but don’t expect it. It’s like being upset that the regular Helm officers in TNG or Ayala in VOY didn’t have more to do. Don’t get it.

 

Uh, no. Or I wouldn't be asking the question. Lol

And mr.peany, sorry but I don't agree. I'm not expecting whole episodes devoted to them, but fleshing out the background characters makes the show more interesting. In season 1 they are just there. As of where I am in the series, they contribute waaaaay less than Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura did on TOS.

You can tell better stories if you have more characters to play off of.

 

We're getting a little bit of a feel for Detmer as well. We know she got her pilot's license at age 12 and she was pretty awestruck by the appearance of the Enterprise ("What a beauty," or words to the effect). This tells me that she has a very Tom Paris-esque love of flying and flying machines.

 

It's just another example of criticising discovery for things other shows got away with.

 

Actually, no it isn't. I just want to know more about all these interesting background characters they have floating around.

 

While I do recall episodes devoted to say...Wesley, Ro, and Paris, I don't so much recall dedicated episodes about Ensigns Gates, Lin, Allenby, Rager, McKnight, or any of the other conn officers I can't remember off the top of my head.

So having a conn/helm officer, for instance, have major character building episodes isn't the norm...it is the norm that characters credited in the opening titles get those episodes, or the special recurring characters.

Detmer, for all her glory, is still just a background character, who happens to be more fleshed out than say Ensign Rager. They aren't presented as even recurring characters because they don't have independent storylines running. I wouldn't mind learning more about her, but I'm not expecting it or upset if it doesn't happen, because the story has not set expectations of it. All these background characters are just better-presented extras and I'm okay with that. But to say that they haven't been made useful is something different; they've all been useful for what they're suppose to do; push buttons and respond to the credited characters. And they do that very well if you ask me.

 

Exactly. I mentioned this in another thread. Discovery is not an ensemble in the way that the Berma-Trek series were. it's much closer to the original series in that it focuses on a core group. The original series had the "big three" of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. And Discovery has a "core four" of Burnham, Tilly, Stamets and Saru. Those are the characters that the stories will grow from. Just like in the original series Sulu, Chekov in Uhura were never the focus, but we learned about them gradually through little character bits along the way.

 

I would even go on to say that it wouldn't even work to use them as recurring characters because we're always seeing them do background stuff; to give them an episode and then have them sidelined by the Core-4 (thanks @Turtletrekker I'm totally using that from now on) again would be weird since they don't rotate other officers in these positions when we see the bridge. Afterwards it'd be frustrating as a viewer to say, "why isn't Detmer doing more after she got her whole episode??" and for a writer to say, "Well we went and made Detmer important now we gotta give her more things to say."

In DS9 we had recurring characters like Keiko and Garak, but they were only used when the story could work them in, and they aren't sitting up in OPS every day collecting dust and noticeably not utilized in episodes not about them. Barclay was only seen in episodes where he takes a prominent role, not in episodes where he just delivers PADDS to Geordi. The most I am expecting is that they start helping out with more off-bridge stuff to give them personalities, but giving them dedicated episodes and storylines will require any one of them be promoted to main cast or be moved off the bridge. We don't have 24 episodes a season to use up on character building unless it's going to be season-plot integral.

 

I think its certainly more than in season one. At least it FEELS more, though I haven't measured it. They appear to have more lines, though they are mostly "yes sir" and the like but that is fine by me. They are included just a bit more than before. I would like to see even more. Doesn't have to be much. A convo here and there, an away mission. I am liking the interactions more than in the first season.

 

I think it’s just because fans are so used to background characters being plain humans that it’s off putting to have a new show actually spend money on background characters to show a diverse crew. Makes me think of how TAS was able to include weird aliens in the crew and treat them no differently than human extras.

 

But the bridge crew aren't equivalent to Sulu, Chekov, or Uhura, who were credited as co-stars; the bridge crew in Discovery are equivalent to (maybe) Leslie or Kyle, or Gates and Jae from Next Gen. They're bit parts outside the main cast, and the main cast is the already the same size as that of The Original Series, with far fewer episodes per season.

It'd be lovely to get more from them, but this is already a big cast, with eleven-ish major roles this season.

 

We got Connolly! What more could a fan ask for?

Jason

 

Less Connolly.
Or...more Connolly smashing asteroids