Is the guest cast of the show too small?

[eschaton]

After posting my other thread about antagonists, I considered a related issue - the universe that Discovery is within seems remarkably small in terms of the cast of characters we get to regularly see. I'm not talking about the main cast being unusually small (It's not), nor complaining about not seeing much of the bridge crew. Instead my concern here is that the number of "guest characters" in the series has been pitifully low.

This is not an episodic Trek, so I don't expect to see a new guest star each and every week. But the series is repeatedly going back to the well by bringing back characters seen only a few episodes earlier. I initially believed that no new characters had been introduced since Lethe but I remembered that Admiral Cornwell had a small speaking bit in The Butchers Knife..., which means that after episode five (Choose Your Pain) introduced Ash Tyler and Mudd there have not been any substantive new characters (e.g., discounting things like Stella's brief appearance, or random admirals). This was particularly notable in the eighth episode with the choice of making the Pahvans energy beings. While it might have been hard to tell Saru's story if the Pahvans were humanoid aliens, it would have at least resulted in the introduction of characters, not more blue sparkles.

Regardless, this seems an issue to me because Discovery is winnowing its cast of characters, not expanding it. Many characters, including Georgiou, T'Kumva, Landry, and now Kol are dead. Discovery is seemingly stuck in a parallel universe, which puts Sarek, Mudd, Cornwell, and others out of reach as well. I'm worried that rather than explore new characters, Discovery is going to double down with alternate versions of the main cast and few established guest characters (particularly the dead ones). We won't be exploring new worlds and seeing new life, only variations on what has come before. Worse, it falls into "small universe" syndrome, and really stretches credulity.

 

[Mudd]

I imagine that you can assume that a great many new guest characters will be introduced at the beginning of the second season. The utility of several you mention was pretty much limited to the current story line.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

No, only because they have so few episodes

if we were getting a solid 20+ I'd agree but what the heck are they going to do with so few episodes?

 

[XCV330]

Kind of a nitpick. Discovery has had so many characters we dont even know much about, say most of the bridge crew.

They tend to introduce a lot of characters and then winnow them down (most of the Shenzou, etc)
New named characters occur but don't last long, just the nature of the series: Captain Kovil for instance, or they are only there and have a few lines like Barron and Stella Grimes.

 

[eschaton]

I imagine that you can assume that a great many new guest characters will be introduced at the beginning of the second season. The utility of several you mention was pretty much limited to the current story line.

I have to say, I wonder if because the show blew so much money in pre-production if CBS instructed them to keep the casting costs on the lower side, which is why stories are constructed to require only one or two recurring guest characters rather than a larger number of extras and actors with only a few lines.

Kind of a nitpick. Discovery has had so many characters we dont even know much about, say most of the bridge crew.

I admit it's a nitpick. But it leads to the world seeming kind of contrived. the Alpha and Beta quadrants have trillions of people, and we keep running into the same 5-10.

 

[Cyrus]

Same thing I said about the wooden acting thread. This is another nominee for the worst criticism of the show award.

Wait until Pike, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty make guest appearances, though in second season. Maybe even Q or Trelane

 

[The Wormhole]

Discovery has had so many characters we dont even know much about, say most of the bridge crew.

To be fair, it's not like we ever learned much about Harry Kim or Travis Mayweather, the difference they were in the main casts so it is rather appalling we learned so little about them, while Discovery's bridge officers only warrant co-star credits, in other words, bottom tier.

 

[GeekUSACarl]

To be fair, it's not like we ever learned much about Harry Kim or Travis Mayweather, the difference they were in the main casts so it is rather appalling we learned so little about them, while Discovery's bridge officers only warrant co-star credits, in other words, bottom tier.

Oh come on, It's Harry, he has a tiger mom, ........ plays the clarinet..... uh..... ya know.... digs hard to catch chicks......

ok so yeah we don't know dick about Harry Kim.

 

[F. King Daniel]

To be fair, it's not like we ever learned much about Harry Kim or Travis Mayweather, the difference they were in the main casts so it is rather appalling we learned so little about them, while Discovery's bridge officers only warrant co-star credits, in other words, bottom tier.

Try series lead Captain Archer. Aside from being from New York and the events of "First Flight", what did he do prior to being made captain of Starfleet's flagship? We know so much more about Captain Lorca after just 8 episodes.

 

[dahj]

what did he do prior to being made captain of Starfleet's flagship?

He played water polo.

 

[Jinn]

Travis Mayweather

Who?

 

[The Wormhole]

My point exactly

 

[eschaton]

We know so much more about Captain Lorca after just 8 episodes.

We do?

What are his hobbies? Does he have any surviving family? What were his years in the academy like? Did anything interesting happen in his childhood? Does he like to cook? Does he like children? The man seems like a mystery to me, with only the smallest amount of information gleaned about him (mostly from his interactions with Cornwell).

In general, Discovery is a show being driven by its plot rather than its characters. Characters are being given development to suit the plot of the week (or the overarching plot) rather than the focus starting with the character and the plot flowing from that.

I mean, I'm not saying Discovery isn't doing this better than Enterprise did, but if you compare the character moments to say DS9, it's pretty lacking.

 

[XCV330]

Well, Mayweather is the best stick-and-rudder pilot in ECS or Starfleet. He grew up on the Horizon. Saw some three breasted aliens. He likes to find the sweet-spot on a ship's grav plating. He's logged more star hours than anyone in Starfleet, most likely, unless they have other boomers in uniform. Has issues with his dead dad and his brother. Used to date an Earth reporter. He prefers nutripacks to home cooking, especially the strawberry shortcake neutripacks. He may have inadvertently led to that Gangster planet in TOS due to a book in his cabin on the ECS Horizon. He shows the kind of steely-eyed missile man resolve that is both boring and probably means he went on to greater things in Starfleet.

I can't think of anything else. Admittedly most of that came from just a couple of episodes and it took 4 years to get there. Like Reed, he was left two one or two lines most of the time, which was unfortunate. Maybe we'll know more about the Discos later.

 

[The Wormhole]

I mean, I'm not saying Discovery isn't doing this better than Enterprise did, but if you compare the character moments to say DS9, it's pretty lacking.

Loathe though I am to speak up about Discovery over DS9, I feel it should be pointed out that within DS9's first nine episodes (Emissary to The Passenger) we didn't know much about their cast either.

 

[eschaton]

Loathe though I am to speak up about Discovery over DS9, I feel it should be pointed out that within DS9's first nine episodes (Emissary to The Passenger) we didn't know much about their cast either.

I feel like Emissary gave us a pretty good idea what made Sisko tick - and was by far the most character-focused of the Trek pilots. I think Past Prologue was a pretty good introduction to Kira's character complexity as well. Most of the rest of the early run only gave us hints of what was to come, but still, elements like the Odo/Quark banter were there from day one.

As I've said before, DS9 was great when it came to "character moments" - those small comversations between two characters which were often unrelated to the plot, but gave you insight into the character. That was basically all of the "lunch dates" of Bashir and Garak, for example. And sometimes it made a bad episode modestly tolerable, such as during that nauseating Risa episode, where Worf explains to Jadzia the central mystery of his character - why he's such a dour stick-in-the mud compared to every other Klingon. I really wish Discovery would have some more of these moments where it stepped back and just let the characters be the characters and not plot conveyances. But aside from to a limited extent with Stamets and Tilly, we haven't seen much of this.

 

[MvRojo]

I'm happier with a smaller, well-developed group of characters than a bunch of people who aren't developed.

 

[cultcross]

Well, Mayweather is the best stick-and-rudder pilot in ECS or Starfleet. He grew up on the Horizon. Saw some three breasted aliens. He likes to find the sweet-spot on a ship's grav plating. He's logged more star hours than anyone in Starfleet, most likely, unless they have other boomers in uniform. Has issues with his dead dad and his brother. Used to date an Earth reporter. He prefers nutripacks to home cooking, especially the strawberry shortcake neutripacks. He may have inadvertently led to that Gangster planet in TOS due to a book in his cabin on the ECS Horizon. He shows the kind of steely-eyed missile man resolve that is both boring and probably means he went on to greater things in Starfleet.

I can't think of anything else. Admittedly most of that came from just a couple of episodes and it took 4 years to get there. Like Reed, he was left two one or two lines most of the time, which was unfortunate. Maybe we'll know more about the Discos later.

And most of that is from the script to Broken Bow which in turn lifted wholesale from the description in the show bible. Seems they forgot he existed after the credits rolled on the pilot.

I'm all for keeping Trek casts to essential characters. Both voyager and ENT had characters they didn't know what to do with because they just filled a spot in the crew roster. TNG did this a little bit but could have been worse (the rotating helm ensign is the right way to do superfluous seat filling). Only really TOS and DS9 were largely immune to it.

 

[GhostLoveScore]

Yes and not only that they don't have new characters, they don't go anywhere. And so far I haven't really seen any exterior shots of the ship. All I saw was shaky blurry mess.

When I remember how in previous Star Trek, in every episode we've seen somebody new, went to some new place, explored another space anomaly...

The name of the series is Discovery, but it's not discovering very much.

 

[cultcross]

When I remember how in previous Star Trek, in every episode we've seen somebody new, went to some new place, explored another space anomaly...

Well that isn't close to true.

The name of the series is Discovery, but it's not discovering very much.

Apart from a brand new way to travel and a multiverse.