Spoilers Why do the same recurring characters implausibly keep popping up?

One of the odd elements of Discovery is how unlike most modern dramas, it's got a very, very small cast. I'm not just talking about the six (well, now five I guess) main cast members, along with the glorified extras which make up the bridge crew. I'm talking about the people who are not even stationed on Discovery, but we keep running into again and again and again.

In the first act, for example, there were only essentially four Klingons - T'Kumva, Voq, L'Rell, and Kol. After these four were introduced by the end of the second episode, the show never introduced an additional Klingon again which was anything more than an extra. With T'Kumva and Kol dead, and Voq/Ash and L'Rell onboard the Discovery, the only free Klingon left that even has a name is Dennas (the woman who wears the jewelry veil).

In terms of non-Klingon guest characters in Act 1, besides extras and those on the Discovery, virtually all the show has is Admiral Cornwell, Mudd, and Sarek. Okay, Amanda Grayson appeared once, and some other characters like Stella, the convicts who try to beat up Burnham in the third episode, and rando admirals make brief appearances, but they can barely be called characters.

So, we go to the mirror universe. Obviously the shtick is seeing mirror versions of characters from the prime universe, so it's not that surprising to see mirror versions of Georgiou, Sarek, Voq, Stamets, Landry, Detmer, Owosekun, Connor, etc. It stretches credulity, but so does every single effing thing in the mirrorverse, so I was willing to let it slide.

But in the trailer for next week, what do we see? We see upon the return to the Prime Universe that Cornwell, Sarek transport onboard - seemingly with the PU versions of the MU rebels which accompanied Voq! Presuming that Mudd can't get away from Stella's tender TLC, this means that literally the only Prime Universe characters which were given more than two lines of dialogue suddenly appear - together - as the first contact Discovery has with the Federation.

Okay, I know this isn't procedural Trek any longer - that it's serialized. And I realize the seasons are a lot shorter these days. But the need to shoehorn the same rotating group of five guest characters into the plot is getting ridiculous, considering how huge the Federation actually is supposed to be. I'd much rather some new characters get introduced at this point - characters we can learn more about from the second season onward. It also feels like it hurts the show greatly, insofar as the "worldbuilding" aspect of this Trek has been very lacking. Instead of feeling like I'm watching a real world somewhere, I feel like I'm watching a stage play where a small cast has to keep filling up the arc.

 

I really don't see the issue at all.

 

It's like TNG. It was always more interesting when Nechayev showed up instead of random Admiral Person #123.

 

Me neither. Don't most shows, including serialized ones, have reoccurring characters?

 

Molehill, please become mountain.

 

I don't see it as the same, because Nechayev appeared six times over the last two seasons of TNG and two of DS9 - which were of course the old-style, long seasons of 26 episodes.

The only Trek series which used guest characters as frequently was DS9. But in that case it was more plausible because:

1. It was stationary, and most of the frequent guest characters (Garak, Rom, Keiko, Leeta) lived onboard.
2. Even though it was fairly heavily serialized, there were still plenty of new characters being introduced each season.

Again, my main issue with Discovery repeatedly falling back on bringing in actors who began appearing in or before the sixth episode is it makes it feel like a very, very small quadrant. If I watched this show alone, the Federation would seem like a very small, constrained place.

 

Still not seeing the problem.

 

Because it's a television show that has a fixed cast. It's not an historical documentary. Why did that Hound guy keep popping up everywhere in Game of Thrones? This is a ridiculous complaint.

 

This really is a total non-issue.

 

i think this is a good thing. i rather see recurring characters than one-offs.

 

Better than wondering what happen to all those chief engineers on Enterprise D.

 

It's only the first season... most of DS9's recurring cast weren't introduced when its first season ended and many of them even started off as one-shot guest characters.

 

I normally really like your posts even if i disagree with them, but this is some serious straw clutching. Obviously Sarek and Cornwall are integral to plot of next weeks episode are being used because they have established relationships with the main characters which is more meaningful for the audience than some random new characters we have no connection to. It's pretty standard in Trek, especially DS9.

 

We're 13 episodes in to a new series. Given the makeup of the cast and the MU storyline; as well as Burnham's familial relation to Sarek; I too don't see what was so implausible about certain people showing up. Hell, Mudd had a valid vendetta against Lorca, so even him showing up twice worked.

Bottom Line: Are you really surprised they made full use of the cast they hired for the first season?

 

The United Federation of Planets in 2256 is in fact made up of 11 people.

 

Star Trek has always had a problem with scale. In DS9 we're told essentially the Federation population is within the trillions, yet fleet size are like a few thousand ships (a few dozen in TNG) and planets have colonies of like 20 people. This is why I find the criticism of Yorktown laughable, there should be MORE things of that scale in the Federation, not less.

One of the things I really do not like about Discovery is Burnham being the sister of Spock, could have been just raised by Vulcans but the "Spocks sister" seems really Mary-sueish and makes the universe much smaller than it is. There are 6 billion Vulcans, why did she have to be SPOCKS sister?

 

Seems a strange criticism. Cornwell appears to have jurisdiction over Discovery - it's like how you see your area manager fairly regularly. She's Lorca's boss. It's better than the Admiral-of-the-week formula of TNG, which seemed to have no chain of command consistency, at least until they introduced Nechayev.

Sarek is no massive surprise given his connection with Burnham, and the fact that he's a Vulcan diplomat in a time of war who is presumably trying to end the conflict. He may have been hanging around Cornwell's starbase.

 

Absolutely!

DISCO went on about the Battle Of The Binary Stars like it was the equivalent to how damaging the Somme was to the British Empire. The loss of 8k is barely a skirmish. Likewise a few episodes later the war death toll was 10k. So bascially it's proportionately the least deadly war in history!

 

You have come to the forum filled with Discovery fans. You will only get the answer like "better than in TNG when..." or "better than in ENT..."
Discovery here is treated like second coming of jesus. It's all Trek fans ever needed. You will not get serious answer here.