Newbie here who has spent hours ploughing through quite a lot of Discovery threads recently but can hardly claim full knowledge so go easy on me if this point has been raised already. It concerns Jason Isaacs (Lorca) the actor. Now, don’t get me wrong, casting him was in some ways inspired – IMHO he is, along with Patrick Stewart, the finest actor to sit in the Star Trek centre seat (or stand near it a lot as he does). However, let’s get real here – he was NEVER going to last long. Why? Because he is the most critically and commercially acclaimed (famous) actor ever to be cast in the centre seat at the START of a Star Trek iteration – in all three media of movies, TV and the theatre. Now, he’s definitely been in box office duds – I watched “A Cure for Wellness” last night and although he personally was excellent that was 2.5 hours of my life I’ll never get back – but he’s entering that period of a great actor’s career in which very successful stage, movie and TV roles were being won. Scott Bakula was perhaps equivalent in TV but certainly not equivalent OVERALL. Patrick Stewart was (outside of the theatre) a nobody when TNG started and regrets that “losing” those 7 years meant he was too old to play a lot of Shakespearian theatre roles he really wanted to play. Of course Stewart got his 2nd wind (due to TNG, which he graciously now acknowledges) in all three media but I’m willing to bet Isaacs’ contract was “one season only; if DISC hits the ball out of the park then one more, but 2 seasons MAX”. He (IMHO) will NOT want to close off other opportunities when it’s clear his star has been rising so fast.
Now I won’t claim I predicted he was actually the MU Lorca early on – but I did think there’d be a big story arc to get rid of him, maybe as an anti-hero that Starfleet pensions off, or as a big reveal baddie who dies....or something. But I knew he wouldn’t be around for more than a season or two....him going was a better bet even than a Sean Bean character dying ;-)
FWIW I don’t think they’ll kill him....I think they want to leave open the possibility of guest appearances in future without going to convoluted-Tasha-Yar explanations! But given the lack of an engaging ensemble cast otherwise (I say with regret – I really like the show) I can’t help but wonder if CBS DO in fact recast every couple of seasons to set up a “new” iteration to fill gaps in the timeline as originally envisaged. Let’s face it, they don’t seem to be powering toward a long-term viable/believable iteration of ST with the cast who’ll remain around....I do acknowledge that DISC has hit its stride a LOT earlier than previous iterations of ST (as various regulars have noted)....but when people are more explicitly paying to watch this (compared to the old TV model), the bar is higher and I worry that “better than season one in the others” is simply not enough. I wondered what others thought about where the show will go without him....and if Fuller's original concept might end up being followed if they can't forge a good ensemble cast once the "necessary deaths/write-offs" have happened?
Now I won’t claim I predicted he was actually the MU Lorca early on – but I did think there’d be a big story arc to get rid of him, maybe as an anti-hero that Starfleet pensions off, or as a big reveal baddie who dies....or something. But I knew he wouldn’t be around for more than a season or two....him going was a better bet even than a Sean Bean character dying ;-)
FWIW I don’t think they’ll kill him....I think they want to leave open the possibility of guest appearances in future without going to convoluted-Tasha-Yar explanations! But given the lack of an engaging ensemble cast otherwise (I say with regret – I really like the show) I can’t help but wonder if CBS DO in fact recast every couple of seasons to set up a “new” iteration to fill gaps in the timeline as originally envisaged. Let’s face it, they don’t seem to be powering toward a long-term viable/believable iteration of ST with the cast who’ll remain around....I do acknowledge that DISC has hit its stride a LOT earlier than previous iterations of ST (as various regulars have noted)....but when people are more explicitly paying to watch this (compared to the old TV model), the bar is higher and I worry that “better than season one in the others” is simply not enough. I wondered what others thought about where the show will go without him....and if Fuller's original concept might end up being followed if they can't forge a good ensemble cast once the "necessary deaths/write-offs" have happened?
Why would they not?
