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Chosen One of the Day: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as the Pendari champion on Star Trek: Voyager

Credit: Paramount

All beloved genre series contain at least one episode almost unilaterally reviled by fans. In Star Trek: Voyager , it's the Season 6 episode "Tsunkatse," a sweeps-week episode that featured a crossover with WWF Smackdown . "But...why?" you ask. Because it was 2000, is the only answer I can give you. It was a very weird time. After Y2K everyone was all, "WE HAVE CHEATED DEATH AND ARE NOW INVINCIBLE" and spent that sense of invincibility doing stuff like crossing over Voyager with Smackdown . 

But the episode did give us one precious thing: a very, very early performance from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, only his third onscreen acting role and a year before his first film, The Mummy Returns . In the episode, Seven of Nine gets blackmailed into fighting in an arena match. Her opponent? A Pendari man who does the eyebrow thing and throws Seven down with the "Rock Bottom." So essentially, he's The Rock but with a bigger forehead. Also, he's dressed like this:

I mean those suspenders don't seem to be especially useful for anything beyond preventing one's opponent from engaging in "purple nurples" but the pants are definitely from Buffy Summers' wardrobe (maybe that's what inspired UPN to pick up Buffy the Vampire Slayer — leather pant synergy) and his cuff bracelets are very on-trend with the then-dawning emo-pop-punk aesthetic.

Dwayne Johnson: Actor. Trendsetter. Nipple coverer.

• Chosen One Of The Day
• Star Trek: Voyager

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Jeri Ryan recalls fighting Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson on Star Trek: Voyager

Dwayne Johnson's appearance in Star Trek: Voyager was one of his earliest acting roles. He wasn't yet the biggest star in the world but the Seven of Nine actress could definitely smell what was cooking...

Transport back in time to the year 2000. WWE was still called WWF, and fast becoming its biggest star was Dwayne Johnson, or as he was better known, The Rock. It was inevitable that his charm, charisma and acting chops would be tested in dramatic roles, and so The Rock beamed into the 15th episode of the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager .

The plot saw ex-Borg crew member Seven of Nine kidnapped and forced to fight in an arena for entertainment. Her first opponent is a Pendari champion who looks good in silver spandex. Here’s what goes down:

In the hundreds of people Dwayne Johnson has battled with in film and TV over the years, Seven of Nine was the very first (leaving aside his exploits in the wrestling ring).

Seven of Nine actress Jeri Ryan, who reprises the role in Star Trek: Picard , remembers making the episode. Did she know who The Rock was at the time?

“No, I had no idea,” Ryan admits. “It was his first or maybe second acting job ever [The Rock’s only previous TV role was playing his father as a cameo in That ’70s Sho w].

“I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t watch wrestling. I wasn’t aware of his character of ‘The Rock’.

“So the first time I met him was a fight rehearsal and he came in and he was just a super sweet, unassuming gentle guy named Dwayne. We’re talking about our kids and he’s just lovely. We had a nice time working together.”

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After filming had finished for the day, it turned out that Johnson had left a present for his co-star, one that she found very confusing.

“When I got to my trailer he had left a signed picture in character as The Rock – and it said ‘The Rock smells what you’re cooking’. Like, what?! It’s the weirdest thing I’d ever seen somebody write.”

Luckily others on set could explain his famous catchphrase.

“The makeup guys in the prosthetic trailer were like, ‘Dude, it’s The Rock, that’s his thing! He smells what you’re cooking!'” she laughs.

“He was very sweet and lovely. And the few times over the years I’ve run into him since, he’s been just as lovely, just as sweet and just as down to earth. I couldn’t be happier for him.”

To read more from Jeri Ryan, and whether she thinks the Borg on Star Trek predicted the way the internet and social media would end up connecting all of our minds together, with less than positive results, click here !

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The Untold Truth Of Star Trek: Voyager

Part of the problem with exploring the final frontier? There's just  so much  of it. That's the challenge the crew of the USS  Voyager  had to contend with in  Star Trek: Voyager 's two-part premiere "Caretaker," when the ship was tossed so deep into the distant Delta Quadrant that the crew believed it would take them the better part of a century to get home. Cut off from Starfleet and the Federation, Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) — the first female captain to lead a  Trek  series — struggled to get her crew home while at the same time upholding the Federation's values and even using the opportunity to expand their knowledge of unexplored space.

Voyager  followed the adventures of its crew for seven seasons until they finally made their way home in the two-part finale "Endgame." And through all the space battles, the romance, and the debates between  Voyager 's principled officers, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than you know. Resentments ran high between certain cast members, some characters were created to pay tribute to fallen heroes, and other characters were revealed to have surprising connections to other series.  Voyager also   helped to launch the blockbuster career of one actor while proving a singular triumph for a young network. 

To learn about all these things and more, keep reading for the untold truth of  Star Trek: Voyager .

Star Trek: Voyager was the jewel of UPN's crown

Paramount used  Star Trek: Voyager  to help launch its new mini-network UPN (United Paramount Network) in January 1995. UPN only had a small number of shows when it launched and only aired programming Monday and Tuesday nights between 8 PM and 10 PM. That same month,  Voyager  was joined by the sitcom  Pig Sty , comedian Richard Jeni's  Platypus Man , the Richard Grieco-led drama  Marker , and the sci-fi/Western series  Legend . 

Voyager 's "Caretaker" was UPN's first telecast on January 16, 1995, and it had 21.3 million viewers tuning in. Of the network's five inaugural series,  Voyager was the only program to survive its first year . Yes, believe it or not, even a show with a name like Platypus Man  got the ax. Voyager  went on to outlive other early UPN series like  The Sentinel , the sci-fi drama  Nowhere Man , and the hit teen sitcom  Moesha . Although, to be fair, its final episode aired only a week after  Moesha 's . However, Voyager  was the only of UPN's early series to last as long as seven seasons. 

Kate Mulgrew almost wasn't Janeway

When it came time to cast Janeway,  Voyager 's casting team looked at a lot of actresses. Among the candidates was Linda Hamilton of the  Terminator  films , Susan Gibney who'd played the recurring role of Dr. Leah Brahms on  Star Trek: The Next Generation  ( TNG ), and the  Buck Rogers  alum Erin Gray. Of course, as we all know, eventually Kate Mulgrew auditioned for the role, and the part went to ... Canadian actress Geneviève Bujold .

That's right. In her 2015 memoir  Born with Teeth , Mulgrew wrote that her first audition for the role went so poorly that she actually apologized for her subpar performance. She explained that she was distracted by having just fallen in love with a man — Tim Hagan, who she married in 1999 — and that she was meeting him later. Instead of Mulgrew, Bujold was cast in the role of the character who was then named Elizabeth Janeway. 

However, Bujold didn't last much of the voyage. She quit after a day and a half of filming.  Voyager  co-creator Rick Berman said of Bujold's departure, "This was a woman who, in no way, was going to be able to deal with the rigors of episodic television." Considering  Star Trek  documentaries like What We Left Behind  and  The Captains  include cast and crew talking about 16-hour work days, it's tough to blame Bujold too much for leaving the crew to deal with the Delta Quadrant without her.

Star Trek: Voyager helped launch Dwayne Johnson's acting career

Star Trek  has helped launch plenty of acting careers, and  Voyager  gave an early role to someone known today for leading blockbuster action flicks. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson  — still mostly known as a WWF wrestler in those days — made one of his first non-wrestling television appearances in the  Voyager  season six episode "Tsunkatse."

While the rest of the crew is enjoying shore leave, Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) take a shuttle to examine a nearby nebula. While out on their own, they're attacked and captured by aliens running a popular fighting arena. Tuvok is badly injured, and the arena's owner uses the injured Vulcan as leverage to make Seven fight for him. Her first opponent is the Rock, who plays an unnamed Pendari champion. In a fun fourth wall-breaking moment, the Rock gives his signature eyebrow raise to the crowd before defeating Seven in the ring. 

Speaking to  StarTrek.com  in 2018, Rick Berman expressed a lot of pride for his part in building the foundation for Johnson's acting career, saying, "It makes me feel terrific ... that there are some actors that we gave a first job to that have become successful. People like Dwayne Johnson, whose first acting job I think was on Voyager , and he's a world-renowned movie star now." Technically, Berman wasn't right about that. Johnson showed up on  That '70s Show  a year before "Tsunkatse," but we're guessing the appearance on  Voyager  didn't hurt his resume.

On Netflix, Voyager is the Trek champion

Most  Trek  fans have their own pick for their favorite  Trek  series. So if a  Trek  fan ever tells you "everyone hates this series" or "everyone loves this one," never believe them. For every fan who loves  Deep Space Nine , there are plenty who can't stand it. For every Trekkie   who wishes  Discovery  had never been made, there are old school fans and new who love it. So we're not trying to tell you  Voyager  is the best  Star Trek  show, but some numbers have revealed something interesting about the series' 21st-century popularity. 

In 2017, Netflix reviewed data (via Business Insider ) from over 100 million subscribers in close to 200 countries to figure which episodes of  Star Trek were watched more than any others. At the time, Netflix carried all the franchise's series produced between  Star Trek: The Original Series  and the 2005 finale of  Star Trek: Enterprise . And during its research, Netflix didn't count first or second episodes of series, because those generally have more views than others. 

Voyager  and  The Next Generation  were the only two series with episodes in the top ten most watched, and of those ten episodes,  six  belong to  Voyager . Those six episodes help to prove the enduring popularity of both the Borg and  Voyager 's season four newcomer, Seven of Nine . Most of the six episodes are very Seven and Borg-centric. They include the series finale "Endgame," the two-parters "Scorpion" and "Dark Frontiers," and "The Gift," which is the episode immediately following Seven's first appearance.

Behind the camera, Janeway and Seven didn't assimilate well

Behind the scenes of Voyager , Mulgrew resented the addition of Seven of Nine, whose sex appeal helped to boost Voyager 's ratings. And on 2013's Girl on Gu y podcast (via TrekCore ), Ryan talked about feeling physically ill at the thought of doing scenes with a particular Voyager  co-star. She didn't name Mulgrew, but she mentioned details making it clear it could be no one other than the lead actress.

While researching his book  The Fifty-Year Mission , co-writer Ed Gross looked into the feud and got more answers than he expected. One unnamed cast member claimed Mulgrew tried to enforce a rule that Ryan wouldn't be allowed to use the bathroom during work because it took "too much time" to get her in and out of costume. Harry Kim actor Garrett Wang said Mulgrew's anger wasn't initially directed toward Ryan, but once it was, "it became horrible." Chakotay actor Robert Beltran told Gross, "If ... it was me being insulted and Kate was a man, I probably would have taken a swipe at the guy." 

To her credit, the  Voyager  captain owned up her behavior toward Ryan. Mulgrew told Gross, "This is on me , not Jeri [Ryan]. . ..  I'd hoped against hope that Janeway would be sufficient. That we didn't have to bring a beautiful, sexy girl in." She went on to say she regretted her treatment of Ryan. "I probably should have comported myself better. I should have been more philosophical about it, but in the moment, it was difficult."

Ensign Wildman paid tribute to a young hero

One of the more prominent recurring characters on  Voyager  was Ensign Samantha Wildman (Nancy Hower).  Voyager 's unexpected journey to the Delta Quadrant separated the pregnant Ensign Wildman from her husband by about 70,000 light years. But on the bright side, her half-alien daughter, Naomi, eventually turned into another favorite recurring figure on  Voyager , becoming close friends with Neelix (Ethan Phillips) and even the usually socially resistant Seven of Nine. 

Interestingly, Samantha Wildman's name has a special meaning. Wildman first appeared in the second season episode "Elogium," co-written by Jimmy Diggs. The same year he sold the script, Diggs' wife almost died. A kidney transplant saved her life, and Diggs learned the donor was a seven-year-old girl. He wrote a letter to  Voyager 's producers, asking them to name the episode's new character "Samantha" after the little girl whose kidney saved his wife. "The ancient Greeks believed the gods would reward heroic mortals by placing them in the stars," Diggs wrote. "By honoring the memory of this child, the producers of Star Trek  will accomplish the same thing."   Because the young girl adored animals, Ensign Wildman was not only given her name but made part of the ship's xenobiology department. 

The Doctor channeled Bones without knowing it

One of the more popular characters on  Voyager  was also its best source of comic relief — the Doctor played by Robert Picardo. The Doctor is an Emergency Medical Hologram meant only for short-term use, but his job gets much more involved when  Voyager 's human doctor dies after the ship is thrown into the Delta Quadrant. Often cranky and arrogant, the Doctor also told some powerful stories in his attempts to be recognized as deserving equal rights with the rest of the crew. 

Speaking to  StarTrek.com  in January 2020, Picardo said he used a unique tactic in his audition for the role of the Doctor without even knowing he was using it. After reading the last scripted line, "I believe someone has failed to terminate my program," Picardo improvised with, "I'm a doctor, not a nightlight." Picardo said the line "got a big laugh, and [he] was hired the next day."

Of course, what makes the ad-libbed line funny is the play on Dr. McCoy's (DeForest Kelley) penchant for saying, "I'm a doctor, not a _____." But apparently, Picardo had no idea about Kelley's famous catchphrase. He said, "I faked my way through the audition and ad-libbed a DeForest Kelley joke without knowing it was a DeForest Kelley joke." Apparently, the gods of cranky  Star Trek  physicians were with him that day.

Tuvok came close to being a TNG regular

Tim Russ actually had a few  Trek one-off   gigs before landing the role of Security Chief Tuvok on  Voyager . On  DS9 , he was a Klingon mercenary who helps take the station hostage in "Invasive Procedures," and in  TNG 's "Starship Mine," he's one of a group of criminals trying to steal trilithium resin from the  Enterprise . In 1994's  Star Trek: Generations , Russ plays a lieutenant on the bridge of the  Enterprise- B in the film's opening. 

But before he did any of that work, he auditioned for the part of Geordi La Forge on  TNG . Speaking to  TrekMovie.com  in 2018, Russ said he was ultimately relieved to have lost the Geordi role to Levar Burton. Why? The dialogue. "The role [of Tuvok] was somewhat more organic and much easier in terms of dialogue," Russ said . "I am glad I didn't get stuck with all that engineering tech talk. ... That kind of dialogue doesn't do anything for me."

Russ also had the distinction of getting to appear in one of the few episodes in which  Voyager  characters could cross over into other series. Tuvok shows up in the  DS9  season three episode "Through the Looking Glass," though it's not quite the same Tuvok. The episode takes place in the mirror universe first made famous by  Star Trek: The Original Series ' "Mirror, Mirror." That universe's version of Tuvok appears as a member of the Terran resistance fighting against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.

Vorik may have a brother on the Enterprise

One of  Voyager 's recurring characters was Ensign Vorik, played by Alexander Enberg. Vorik is a Vulcan engineer who often worked closely with B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson). And Vorik developed a romantic interest in B'Elanna with violent consequences. In perhaps Vorik's most memorable appearance — in season three's "Blood Fever" — Vorik experiences the Vulcan mating period of pon farr and chooses B'Elanna as his mate. He forms a telepathic connection with B'Elanna, causing her violent Klingon mating instincts to emerge. The situation ends in a duel between B'Elanna and Vorik, which both thankfully survive. 

Between 1997 and 2001, Enberg appears in nine episodes of  Voyager as Vorik, but it wasn't the first time he appeared in a  Trek  show or even the first time he appeared as a Vulcan. Enberg was cast as a Vulcan named Taurik in "The Lower Decks," an episode in the middle of  TNG 's final season focusing on the rank and file aboard the  Enterprise . 

With Enberg not only playing Vulcans on both shows but with both Vulcans sharing rhyming names, some fans have wondered if there could be a connection between Vorik and Taurik. According to  Voyager  co-creator Jeri Taylor — who also happens to be Enberg's mother — there could be. In the 2012 book  Star Trek: The Next Generation 365 , Taylor implies Taurik and Vorik may very well be twin brothers. And since she's their mother, we guess she would know.

Chakotay spoke his mind both on and off Star Trek: Voyager

As  Voyager 's first officer, Commander Chakotay is often forced to tell Captain Janeway things she doesn't want to hear. Fittingly, actor Robert Beltran is known for speaking his mind on what he likes and doesn't like about  Voyager , regardless of the consequences, even when the show was still on the air. By 2000, Beltran had aired enough dirty laundry in public that producer Kenneth Biller told  SFX Magazine  (via  TrekToday ) that he thought the actor "should stop whining and do his job."

Speaking to  StarTrek.com  in 2012, Beltran talked about not feeling fulfilled on  Voyager . "You're doing the same thing every week, with a new variation," the actor said , later adding, "I didn't like some of the things that were going towards the last three years, and I risked being fired because I wasn't happy creatively."   According to Beltran , Chakotay didn't have a lot of interesting relationships after the departure of Seska (Martha Hackett), his former lover who's eventually revealed to be a Cardassian. "After Seska left, it was only that relationship with the captain that had depth to it. ... Chakotay and the other characters, there wasn't much of a relationship there."

And Beltran has one problem with  Trek  a lot of fans may consider downright sacrilegious. Beltran hates the Prime Directive. In 2016, he told CNET , "The idea of leaving any species to die in its own filth when you have the ability to help them ... it's a bunch of fascist crap."

All these years after Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway is still making an impact

Decades after Captain Janeway was sent to the Delta Quadrant with the rest of  Voyager 's crew, it can be easy to forget how big of a deal it was in 1995 for a woman to be leading a  Star Trek  series as its ship's captain. While there's sadly still resistance to the idea, we're getting used to female-led action films and series , including  Star Wars  epics and superhero blockbusters. But in the mid-90's, for a woman to not only be the lead in a science fiction adventure series but playing a character regularly giving men orders, it was a big deal. Mulgrew left an important mark on our culture, and it's felt far beyond the world of television.

Speaking to  TrekMovie  in 2019 about the 25th anniversary of  Voyager , Mulgrew was asked about highly visible female politicians like Stacey Abrams and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who'd named Captain Janeway as an early influence. Mulgrew said she made a surprise appearance at one of Ocasio-Cortez's rallies, and that when they announced Mulgrew, "[Ocasio-Cortez] gasped, she turned. And when I approached her, I think she kind of fell." Mulgrew said Ocasio-Cortez related stories of watching  Voyager  as a child and that "when they lost their screen — they had bad reception in their house, and often the television was just black and white — she'd listen to it, like a radio show. "

Screen Rant

The rock's forgotten star trek cameo explained.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson made a brief cameo in a season 6 episode of Star Trek: Voyager, a role that was one of his first forays into acting.

During his time as a professional wrestler, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson made one of his first forays into acting with a cameo appearance on  Star Trek: Voyager . Johnson, who was born in 1972, left a career in football to pursue professional wrestling in 1996 and began working for World Wrestling Entertainment , which at the time was called the World Wrestling Federation . During his time with WWE , Johnson gained worldwide fame as "The Rock" and is still regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. Today, Johnson is also an acclaimed actor who has played roles in the Fast & Furious franchise,  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle  and its sequel, and  Moana .

Johnson had already begun branching out into acting as early as 1999; his first official role was in an episode of That 70s Show , followed quickly by his appearance on Star Trek: Voyager in 2000. Johnson guest-starred in Voyager  season 6 in an episode entitled "Tsunkatse", portraying an unnamed alien from a race called the Pendari. Johnson's character faced off against Seven of Nine after she was captured while on an away mission and forced to fight in broadcasted matches of the alien martial art that gave the episode its name. The scene where Johnson appeared was towards the beginning of the episode, and was brief, with Johnson's Pendari Champion easily winning his match against a reluctant Seven.

Related: Star Trek Theory: Seven Of Nine Was Rejected From Starfleet

Johnson's cameo on Star Trek: Voyager would have been immensely enjoyable for both Star Trek and WWF  fans at the time, and his appearance on Voyager also had an interesting reason behind it. In 2000, Voyager was airing on the United Paramount Network, having been one of UPN's flagship shows since season 1 premiered in 1995. The year before, WWF's  newest show  WWF Smackdown!  had also joined UPN, airing on Thursday nights. Johnson's appearance on Voyager was a bit of a cross-promotional venture for both shows, made easier by the fact that they were on the same network. Indeed, getting someone as famous as The Rock in "Tsunkatse" earned Voyager its highest Neilsen rating for the whole season, clocking in at 4.1 million homes.

The scene where the Pendari and Seven of Nine fight also contained a couple of important nods to Johnson's career with WWE . When the Pendari first entered the ring, he did "The People's Eyebrow", one of The Rock's signature facial gestures, for the crowd of cheering fans. Additionally, The Pendari ended the fight with Seven by executing "The Rock Bottom" which was Johnson's often used finishing move during his pro wrestling matches. These moves would have been instantly recognizable to his fans at the time, and today are enjoyable Easter eggs for anyone who continues to appreciate Johnson's career in professional wrestling.

Johnson was the first pro wrestler to appear in a Star Trek show , but interestingly enough, would not be the last. Two other WWE stars, Tommy "Tiny" Lister, Jr. and The Big Show would both go on to cameo in separate episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise , the series that came after Voyager . It is also likely that Star Trek  was one of the things that helped Johnson realize that he was interested in acting as a more full-time career since he began moving away from wrestling and on to bigger acting roles shortly after. One thing is certain: while Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's cameo in Star Trek: Voyager might not be a well-remembered part of  Star Trek history, it will always be a memorable moment for diehard Voyager  and WWE fans.

More: Why Voyager Failed To Create Good Star Trek Villains

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A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

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Pendari system

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• 1 History and specifics
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History and specifics [ ]

Pendari's orbit was the location of a planetary system that included the Pendari homeworld . ( VOY episode : " Tsunkatse ", ST reference : Star Charts )

Appendices [ ]

Connections [ ], references [ ].

• VOY episode : " Tsunkatse "
• ST reference : Star Charts
• 1 The Chase
• 2 Preserver (race)
• 3 Totality (Andromeda)

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Published Feb 6, 2020

Finally, Own a Tsunkatse Ship of Your Own!

Hero Collector brings you the newest ship in their collection.

StarTrek.com

In Star Trek: Voyager ’s sixth season episode ‘Tsunkatse’, an illegal arena-ship played host to a Norcadian pit fight between Seven of Nine and a Pendari champion — played by none other than Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson! We can only hope that Borg are insulated, considering she was up against the most electrifying man in sports entertainment.

Now we’re getting ready to rumble with the latest entry in Hero Collector’s Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection!

This die-cast model recreates the arena-ship’s intriguing appearance in hand-painted detail – but where did its design come from? In the magazine page below, the ship’s designer Rick Sternbach explains the thought process that led him to the starship’s unique look.

The full magazine accompanies the Tsunkatse Starship Model, and includes the ship’s specs, trivia from the episode’s story and production, and an interview with Star Trek: Voyager writer Robert J. Doherty.

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Why ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Built Season 5 Around a Classic Episode From a Legacy Series

By Adam B. Vary

Adam B. Vary

Senior Entertainment Writer

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SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot developments in Season 5, Episode 1 of “ Star Trek : Discovery,” now streaming on Paramount+.

By the end of the episode, however, the mission has pushed Burnham and her crew to their limits, including slamming the USS Discovery into the path of a massive landslide threatening a nearby city. Before they risk their lives any further pursuing this object, Burnham demands that Kovich at least tell her why. (MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW.)

Kovich’s explanation evokes the classic “ Star Trek: The Next Generation ” episode “The Chase” from 1993 in which Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) — along with teams of Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians — learn that all humanoid life in the galaxy was created by a single species that existed billions of years earlier, and seeded thousands of planets with the DNA to pass along their legacy. (Along with presenting a profound vision of the origins of life, the episode also provided an imaginative explanation for why almost all the aliens in “Star Trek” basically look like humans with different kinds of forehead ridges.)

Kovich tells Burnham that the Romulan scientist was part of a team sent to discover exactly how these aliens — whom they call the Progenitors — made this happen; the object they’re seeking winds up being one part of a brand new “chase,” this time in the 32nd century, to find the Progenitors’ technology before it can fall into the wrong hands. 

“I remember watching that episode and at the end of it just being blown away that there was this huge idea where we all come from,” Paradise says. “And then they’re going to have another mission the next week. I found myself wondering, ‘Well, then what? What happened? What do we do with this information? What does it mean?’”

Originally, Paradise says the “Discovery” writers’ room discussed evoking the Progenitors in Season 4, when the Discovery meets an alien species, the 10-C, who live outside of the galaxy and are as radically different from humans as one could imagine. “As we dug deeper into the season itself, we realized that it was too much to try and get in,” Paradise says.

Instead, they made the Progenitors the engine for Season 5. “Burnham and some of our other characters are on this quest for personal meaning,” Paradise says. Searching for the origins of life itself, she adds, “feels like a big thematic idea that fits right in with what we’re exploring over the course of the season, and what our characters are going through.”

That meant that Paradise finally got to help come up with the answers to the questions about “The Chase” that had preoccupied her when she was younger. “We had a lot of fun talking about what might’ve happened when [Picard] called back to headquarters and had to say, ‘Here’s what happened today,’” she says. “We just built the story out from there.”

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Watch The Rock Kick Seven of Nine's Borg Butt on Star Trek: Voyager

If you smell what the rock... is... trekkin..

If you'd like, check out last week's Time Capsule, featuring a video documenting George Lucas' first day writing Star Wars: The Phantom Menace .

Let's slingshot around the nearest star and travel back in time to investigate a mysterious '90s anomaly known as UPN -- a partially Viacom-owned TV network that lasted roughly a decade before Viacom split in two (like Captain Kirk in "The Enemy Within") and then merged its UPN half with competitor The WB to create -- ta da! -- The CW in 2006.

UPN happened to be both the home of Star Trek: Voyager, which was the show used to launch the network in 1995, and WWE's second primetime series, SmackDown -- aka "The Rock's Show" -- which debuted in 1999. By 2000, the two worlds mightily merged as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson guest-starred on a Voyager episode called "Tsunkatse," where the future biggest, and most beloved, box office star in the world would play a Pendari fighter who goes one on o.n.e. with Jeri Ryan's former Borg drone Seven of Nine.

Yup, "It doesn't matter what your name is!" was both a credo for The Rock and The Borg.

For those asking, the Pendari came from the planet Pendari, in the system of Pendari. They're the Star Trek equivalent of the band Living in a Box having a single called "Living in a Box" off their album Living in a Box.

Anyhow, the following video is a fun behind-the-scenes look at The Rock's action-packed cameo, featuring some lovely words from EP Rick Berman, visual effects supervisor Dan Curry, and -- of course -- "The Great One" himself.

Berman notes that they hadn't seen Rock do any acting "other than playing The Rock" so it's painfully obvious they never saw Johnson portray his own father, Rocky Johnson, on That '70s Show or some jabroni named Brody (ja-brody?) on The Net, which was a TV series adapted from the Sandra Bullock movie about the wild and dangerous world of cyberspace. You know, the information superhighway? Earth backslash angelfire dot geocities?

Naturally, The Rock's fight with Seven of Nine ends with a Rock Bottom, which was his wrestling finisher at the time. Sure, he's the highest-paid actor in the world right now, and one of the most respected celebrities of all time, but the real way you know Dwayne Johnson's made it big is that he, a former wrestler, no longer has to do his signature mat moves in action movies. That's how you really know a wrestler's broken through.

Also... get a load of how much Rocky puts over Jeri Ryan! That's some serious shine right there. "She's probably one of the toughest, if not, dare I say, the toughest The Rock has ever faced."

She truly is the People's Borg.

Ryan actually returned to the Trek universe recently, reprising her  Seven of Nine role on Star Trek: Picard . You can read our review of her episode, "Stardust Rag City," here , where we give it the highest score of the series to date.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at  @TheMattFowler  and Facebook at  Facebook.com/MattBFowler .

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Why 'Star Trek: Discovery' deserves more credit as a barrier-breaking series

Starship Discovery will soon be ending its mission, and what a journey it's been.

“Star Trek: Discovery,” which premiered in 2017, is entering its fifth and final season Thursday on Paramount+. And you’ll need the Captain’s Log to remember all the twists, turns and transformations the show has gone through since it began.

One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the hate the series has received from some Trek fans. (“Discovery” has an overall audience score of 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, a stark difference from the 87% critic rating.)

While the show is far from free of legitimate criticism, many of the complaints seem unfairly – though perhaps tellingly – placed on the show’s focus on a Black woman commander, its LGBTQ+ stars and allies and its inclusive storylines. “Woke agenda” and other dog whistles frequently surface on Reddit and social media posts about the series.

That so much of the negativity is rooted in a backlash against inclusivity raises questions. After all, the "Star Trek" franchise has long emphasized and celebrated culture, diversity and humanity coming together and preserving the integrity of beings they meet across the galaxy.

"It doesn't make any sense, because (these fans) say they love this franchise," series star Sonequa Martin-Green says in an interview. The show “has always been about breaking those boundaries. It's always been about diversity and equality. And our world has changed since the last iteration of 'Trek.' We have a responsibility to push that needle forward and to stay true to that."

More: Issa Rae says Hollywood needs to be accountable. Here's why diverse shows are so important

The series is originally set before the events of NBC's original “Star Trek: The Original Series” (later jumping to the future) and follows Michael Burnham (Martin-Green), who became the starship’s captain, and the rest of the crew of the USS Discovery: first officer Saru (Doug Jones), chief engineer Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), lieutenant and now Starfleet Academy teacher Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), medical officer Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), courier and Burnham’s love interest Cleveland “Book” Booker (David Ajala) and ensign Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio).

Many more characters have stood on the bridge, battled with Burnham, or otherwise make up the world of "Discovery." The series had some trouble finding the right footing, but it’s always had heart, especially in its recurring theme of redemption. And it deserves more support for what it has meant for the entire "Star Trek" franchise.

Here’s why “Star Trek: Discovery” deserves more credit:

Prioritizing diversity and inclusivity

A Vulcan philosophy (and one espoused by “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry) is IDIC, or “infinite diversity in infinite combinations,” and many of the related series, movies and books underscore this belief. “Discovery” also has diversity at its core: the show focuses on a Black woman who becomes captain. Stamets and Culber are an openly gay couple, and engineer Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) is a lesbian. And the show introduced a few franchise firsts: Adira Tal as the first nonbinary character in "Star Trek ," and their boyfriend, Gray ( Ian Alexander ), is the first transgender character , both introduced in Season 3.

More: 'Star Trek' documentary unveils star Nichelle Nichols' impactful NASA connection

Starting a new age of Star Trek

“Discovery” helped launch the CBS All Access streaming platform, a CBS subscription service that would eventually become Paramount+, as well as a new era of "Star Trek" series including “Lower Decks” and “Picard.” Before “Discovery,” the last Trek series was “Star Trek: Enterprise,” which ended in 2005.

Exploring strange new worlds

The second season of “Discovery” also served as a launching pad for the well-received spinoff, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” which resurfaced popular characters from the original series including Spock (Ethan Peck), Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Number One (Rebecca Romijn).

Finding time for the simple things

In a few scenes scattered throughout "Discovery," we see characters like Culber and Stamets sharing a meal or talking about their day while brushing their teeth. It’s almost mundane, but there’s also something so lovely about watching LGBTQ+ characters who rarely are the focus in movies or television simply living their lives, being their whole selves. Burnham rocking braids at the beginning of Season 3 speaks cultural volumes. The subtle amid the big battles and overarching plots do have meaning, especially for those whose voices often go unheard.

Going boldly

The first season of “Discovery” went out of its way to highlight its connections to the original series: Burnham is Spock’s adopted sister, and there's a brief appearance by Spock’s father, Sarek. But it wasn’t always so neatly woven, sometimes seeming more like it was using franchise lore as a crutch. But “Discovery” wasn’t afraid to try new things, turning itself around after an overcomplicated first season and again after a very “TOS”-inspired second, slowly building up its own universe without relying too heavily on the old. 

The first episodes of Season 5 are a little rocky before it settles into a comfortable speed. 

"This time around, we wanted to bring in some levity," Martin-Green says. "But there's a grand sort of epicness to Season 5, even though we didn't know it was our last season when we were shooting it. I think looking back on it, and when we share it with the world, it'll seem that way because the season is so big. So people can expect a lot of fun. They can expect it to go really fast." 

It will be interesting to see if “Discovery” sticks the landing through the remainder of the season.

“The good outweighs the bad,” Burnham says in an upcoming episode about a mission, and that’s also true of “Discovery."

The fifth and final season of "Star Trek: Discovery" (two episodes now streaming, then weekly on Thursdays) streams on Paramount+.

• The Inventory

Discovery Is Opening Star Trek 's Biggest Pandora's Box

The fifth and final season of star trek: discovery has put a reveal that even the next generation dared not touch at its heart, in some fascinating ways..

This week, Star Trek: Discovery kicked off its final season with a bold adventure—one with intimate ties to a classic Star Trek: The Next Generation story no other show in the franchise has dared to follow up on. In doing so, it’s opening up the kinds of opportunities that only Discovery really can—but it requires a delicate balancing act in the process.

It’s fitting that Discovery ’s fifth season premiere opened on the week of what is known as First Contact Day to Star Trek fans. Just under four decades from today, during the events of, well, Star Trek: First Contact , humankind meets its first alien civilization in the Vulcans, and finds itself thrust into a much bigger galaxy than it could have ever imagined after years of devastating nuclear conflict. What better reveal then, that Discovery ’s last season will build itself around the mystery of the ultimate first contact—a chase for the alien civilization that kickstarted humanoid life across the galaxy in the first place?

This is the twist Michael Burnham discovers at the climax of Discovery season five’s first episode, “Red Directive.” The mysterious mission she’s been kept in the dark about all episode, racing after mysterious pirates and a centuries-old Romulan puzzlebox, involves a species now dubbed “The Progenitors,” an ancient precursor civilization that first became known to Starfleet and other galactic societies during the Next Generation season six episode, “The Chase”.

It’s an episode with fascinating parallels to the season-arching narrative Discovery wants to go out on, though it’s an adventure in just one hour of TV instead of a whole season. After crossing paths with his old archaeology professor, Captain Picard finds himself on a treasure hunt across the galaxy, with rival factions in the Klingons, Cardassians, and eventually the Romulans (leading to Discovery ’s way in, fictional centuries and actual decades later), after it’s discovered that the professor had discovered a secret that could either bind the whole of galactic civilization together—or shatter it to pieces, just as Burnham is warned of her own mission. While his rivals believe they’re on the hunt of an almighty weapon, ultimately what Picard and the other powers at play discover on Vilmor II is truth, and knowledge.

A holographic message from a bald, humanoid being—played beautifully such a short time by Salome Jens, who would go on to play a similar looking but altogether more horrifying Star Trek alien in her role as the Female Changeling heading the Dominion’s invasion of the Alpha Quadrant in Deep Space Nine —reveals that her species, long dead, evolved too soon to meet similar sentient life in the galaxy. So, in the hopes of spreading their legacy across the stars, they seeded life in their image—bipedal, humanoid, smooth-skinned, and (for the most part) hairless—across the galaxy, and left clues so that one day when that life evolved and took to the stars as they had, they could discover their shared origin, and do so together .

“The Chase” concludes on an optimistic, but non-committal note, in spite of the gravity of its reveal that intelligence design doesn’t just exist in Star Trek , but is both a fun metatextual answer to why most aliens in the franchise conveniently look like humans in various color palettes and with extraneous latex bits, and also a piece of worldbuilding that fundamentally reshapes its whole universe. While the Klingons and Cardassians, who’d assumed they were hunting for power and technology, are disgusted by the thought of common ancestry, Captain Picard and his Romulan counterpart express that the revelation could one day bring peace—not just between their own civilizations, but across the entire galaxy.

Star Trek promptly never went there again, boldly or otherwise.

There have been Star Trek stories since that examine the evolution of life across its universe—like Voyager ’s fascinating “Distant Origin,” where a scientist from a Delta quadrant species called the Voth discovers they are descended from Earth’s dinosaurs—but it took three decades for the franchise to pick up directly where “The Chase” left things off as Discovery did this week. It’s already expanded upon the episode, giving the alien species an alternative name in the “Progenitors,” as well as the revelation from Michael’s quest that they did not just leave behind their knowledge, but elements of the actual technology they used to shape life after the decline of their civilization... technology that yes, now, as the Klingons and Cardassians dreamed of in “The Chase,” could be weaponized in certain hands.

It’s already interesting that Discovery would take what was, well, a discovery of knowledge, and turn it into a more tangible, galaxy-threatening object. But it’s also interesting in what Star Trek says about itself only just picking up on the potential of “The Chase” now , not just in terms of the actual, literal decades its been since that TNG episode, but in picking it up in Star Trek: Discovery , a series now set in the furthest point of time any series of the show has regularly taken place in, the 32nd century. We already know that the Progenitors’ dream of unity among its myriad descendants has not happened—just four years after “The Chase,” the Alpha Quadrant is torn apart with Salome Jens’ return as the Female Changeling, and with her the start of the Dominion War . We know further still that, by the time Burnham and her crew have jettisoned themselves into the 32nd century, the galaxy is no more united that in was in their original time—if anything, it’s more divided than it had been in centuries, the Federation and Starfleet shattered into disparate pieces by the impact of “The Burn” and the diminishment of warp travel explored in Discovery season three.

Star Trek is forever in the process of progress toward the utopia it’s always maintained it has attained in the first place— always challenging its ideals to strengthen them, and challenging them through conflict and division. But it says a lot that 30 years ago the franchise laid out the ultimate pathway to peace, and that utopic aim across the stars, and then simply... did not touch it again until now.

And yet, perhaps it’s perfect that it is Star Trek: Discovery that’s decided to pick up the pieces. Time will tell just what happens in Michael and her crew’s adventure across the galaxy to find all the puzzle pieces they need, and just what shape this Progenitor technology will eventually take. But Star Trek: Discovery has, across its lifetime, always championed the power of connection—on individual and galactic scales—in the face of adversity, and come out on top time and time again. In season four , Captain Burnham already achieved the seeming impossibility of peaceful first contact with an extragalactic race unlike anything the shared-ancestry siblings of Star Trek ’s galaxy had ever really known before. After that, exploring the untouched legacy of one of The Next Generation ’s most fascinating episodes—and perhaps finding a way to make that power of connection really tangible across its universe—is definitely something that could be on the cards. For a show that has pushed Star Trek ’s continuity further and further forward across its life, doing so would be a fitting achievement to go out on.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel , Star Wars , and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who .

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‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Showrunner Explains Why They Reopened A TNG Mystery To Start Season 5

| April 6, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 61 comments so far

The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery debuted on Thursday with two episodes that dove into the season’s big story, linking directly back to Star Trek: The Next Generation . TrekMovie spoke to co-showrunner Michelle Paradise about why they got to the big mystery right away. The executive producer also talked about how this TNG episode helps build on the season’s themes and gives it a structure.

SPOILERS WARNING

Not waiting to open up the mystery box

In previous seasons Star Trek: Discovery has tended to draw out big mysteries, such as the source of “The Burn” in season 3 or who was behind the DMA in season 4. But as part of the stated plan to pivot the show with a new sense of adventure in season 5, the producers chose to make a big reveal in episode 1. They even seemed to be hanging a lantern on the show’s previous penchant for “mystery box” storytelling by making the McGuffin in the season premiere a literal puzzle box, which was opened about halfway through the episode by an eccentric old Soong-type android named Fred.

Speaking to TrekMovie at the SXSW premiere of season 5, Michelle Paradise explained why they didn’t wait to open that puzzle box:

“Because we’re sending our heroes on a quest this season, we wanted to make sure that by the end of the first episode the audience understood exactly what that question was, exactly what our heroes were after, exactly what we were going to be following. There are of course, some other mysteries to solve and some cards to turn over as we go into the next few episodes. But it was really important to just be upfront—this this is what we’re doing with this season, and we have our audience go along for the ride.”

Fred opens up the Romulan puzzle box in “Red Directive”

Return to “The Chase”

The box contained the diary of a 24th-century Romulan scientist called Vellek, giving a name to what was a background character in the season 6 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “ The Chase .” By the end of “Red Directive,” Kovich put all the pieces together, revealing the quest for this season: to discover the source of the power of the ancient beings who revealed themselves (via an ancient recording) to Captain Jean-Luc Picard and representatives from other species.

In “Red Directive,” Kovich briefs Captain Burnham with a shot from “The Chase”

At SXSW, Paradise talked about why this TNG episode from 1993 was a perfect fit for their plans for season 5:

“‘The Chase’ is an episode that had stuck with many of us because it addresses such huge ideas and huge themes. Where do we come from? The creation of life. And then it was this one episode, and then then that was it. And then they had another episode after that. And it just felt like that was something that just left us with many, many questions. What happened after that? What if? And so when we were thinking about this season in particular, and what we were going to be doing thematically and our characters looking at questions of meaning questions of purpose, it felt like that was a really great place to go back to as a launching point for this adventure, and that it was thematically resonant.”

Star Trek: The Next Generation was designed to be episodic, so naturally, the show did move on to other stories. But introducing the notion that a single race (the Progenitors) seeded the galaxy with what became sentient humanoid life like Humans, Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans, and beyond is quite intriguing. The Progenitors were explored in the (non-canon) extended Star Trek Universe, but now Discovery is picking up the story and using it as the basis for the fifth and final season.

In “Under the Twin Moons,” Captain Burnham views a Progenitor from “The Chase”

“The Chase” is the starting point

At the WonderCon early screening of the season premiere, Paradise talked about how they have been thinking about the Progenitors for a while:

“We had been talking about the Progenitors, actually, in season 4, and it wasn’t something that ended up playing out. But the episode ‘The Chase’ is an episode that had stuck with many of us because it explores such big ideas and big themes and yet at the end of the episode, they’re just done and they’re going to go on another mission. And it was it was something that felt like it was something that we could expand on when we were coming into this season… it felt like just a really interesting place to explore for the missions themselves. It felt very rich, this idea of life itself and meaning and using that as a starting point for this adventure.”

In “Red Directive,” Kovich identifies Dr. Vellek from “The Chase”

So “The Chase” is on again. This time Captain Burnham and the USS Discovery are racing against former couriers Moll and L’ak who could be looking to sell the Progenitor technology to the highest bidder. The first two episodes already name-dropped some potential threats to the Federation, including the Breen, the Tholians, and the Orions.

A 24th-century recording of Dr. Vellek restarts “The Chase” in Discovery season 5

The fifth and final season of  Discovery  debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on  Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery  will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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So I hope this will be a fun chat about what all of this season will end up being!

So far… This seems like it’s going to be the “fetch quest” of Rise of Skywalker used as filler for multiple episodes.

Beyond that, there’s two things about this that make little sense.

1) What is the value/threat of this tech? The Dominion had the ability to create entire species genetically engineered to act as their servants while hardcorded to serve specific functions and a tendency towards obedience because of an ingrained belief the Changelings were living gods.The Ancient Humanoids seeded worlds over huge timescales to produce humanoid species (unless we’re going to retcon TNG’s “The Chase”).

2) The implication from Kovich is this information has been classified for centuries under a “Red Directive” and wasn’t released to the public. I just CANNOT see Picard going along with a coverup of this entire thing. The same guy that berated Wesley for how wearing a Starfleet uniform means a commitment to personal truth and scientific truth went along with a coverup that hid the origin of humanoid life? That just doesn’t seem consistent with Picard’s character or feel like it jives with everything we’ve been shown pre- Discovery .

I made a similar argument about the Genesis device from Khan. In that case tho, the device could create entire new worlds and life, but no one ever said anything about sentient beings.

As for the Founders, well, maybe they did have the tech but they were lost over time as well. I know everyone hates me pointing this out, but Salome Jens played both the OG Progenitor as well as the female changeling. And both had the same makeup. It’s quickly becoming my head canon that the founders are the descendants of the Progenitors.

Picard has flat out lied to Moriarty, his ethics definitely can float as circumstances dictate.

I wonder if this was as much inspired by the engineer race in prometheus as by the progenitors, just minus the former’s malevolent jerkfulness.

Did Picard really lie? When Barkaly brought Moriarty back he said that the Federations best minds were working on a way to free him but had not solved anything. What else was he supposed to do?

He said holo matter couldn’t leave the holodeck, yet the note Data took him was holo-matter and it left the deck.

That sounds more like a mistake with the writing staff than it does Picard’s issue. Even the Doctor from Voyager had the same issue without his emitter. So that would have to mean that Janeway and B’elanna and everyone else was lying too.

The director of the episode, Rob Bowman, was on record in CINEFANTASTIQUE over this, kinda freaking out over Picard lying while also admitting that Moriarty is the baddest MF in space.

Hmmm, interesting, ,

you can assume that inanimate matter made on the holodeck is no different than replicated meals or food or other physical stuff. you can take it with you. it’s just the people that cant leave. if you were shot on the holodeck with the safety off, the bullet is still there when you get to sickbay. the arch would act as a replicator

I’m not sure that is true tho. If you get shot on the holodeck, the bullet hole would still be there but have we ever seen an instance where the actual bullet was?

You make an excellent point about replicators vs holodecks. And I can’t think of a reason to refute it except to say those are just the laws of treknology and their canon is canon.

I didn’t realize the arch did anything except function as a control panel and EXIT signpost.

I think the TNG writer’s guide that had all the tech stuff in it (around season 4 anyway, which is when I got one) denoted a difference between the levels of resolution (reality?) on replifood versus holomatter. I won’t swear to that, but wherever I came by the info, it actually wound up influencing one of my pitches rather heavily, called THE HOLLOW MEN, where a principal in the origin of the holodeck comes aboard and almost does some serious damage when he decides to intercede in a PD situation and send down a mobilized repli-army to stop the fighting. (Best of intentions and all that, but we know from TOS how that usually works out.)

It doesn’t sound like much (and out of the stories I pitched, I think it was next to last), but it did have a runner/c-plot — the only thing in my pitches Jeri Taylor liked as I recall — about Picard trying to get off the ship to avoid a birthday party. I remember the holo-army looked kind of like Easter Island faces, and that at the end there’s supposed to be an intentionally humorous moment when they are reprogrammed to sing ‘happy birthday’ to the captain, which I thought would look scarily funny, sort of like Max-Headroom-gone-Kabuki.

I’ve always thought this was how holodecks worked as well. Anything you could feel, touch, and taste was replicated matter (animated by tractor beams like marionettes in the case of “living” things,) while everything out of reach was a hologram.

Otherwise… could you imagine going on a holodeck, gorging yourself on a meal (and how would a hologram project taste into your closed mouth?) and then leaving only to have the holographic meal “disappear” from your stomach the moment you walked out?

I’m just picturing all the eating disorders people would have in the future!

Why would you assume Picard knew? Just because he is pivotal to the episode of the Chase. It sounds like Intelligence found that the Romulans had found something more. If so why on Earth would we assume Picard had any knowledge whatsoever about it.

I 100% loved the episode. Super excited about the season. Poor Fred!!!!!

LOL Fred should have chosen to take after Data instead of Lore :-P

A lot of people think they will find a way to bring Fred back. I hope so.

And it’s the 32nd century it can’t be that hard lol.

A thought about Coppelius androids….aren’t they conceived as twins?

To be honest, I find the first two Discovery episodes to be pretty decent–neither bad nor great–but fun, IMHO. More power to those who loved them more than I do, yet more power to those who were like “Curse that junk! I’m sticking with Star Trek classics from 1966 to 2005.” I’m still more hyped about season two of Prodigy, but I’m ready to see how things do with the Discovery heroes.

I think that’s a fair assessment. People do seem to be liking the season overall but I seen plenty of people who still think it’s just more of the same from Discovery and wasn’t impressed at all.

I am currently in the former camp and I see a lot of potential here. But yes of it just falls into more melodrama, filler episodes or something lame like someone wearing a Section 31 time travel suit or a crying Kelpian kid causing the Burn then I will be deeply disappointed… again.

But I do think the premise has intrigued most people at least.

And I’m more excited for Prodigy as well!

I think this was a brilliant idea to do. The Chase was always one of those stories they could’ve done much more with but the nature of the show made it difficult.

And that’s the crazy thing about Star Trek, it really does go for these grand ideas but because they are encountering so many of them it really does feel like just another day at the office. Everyone goes ‘wow cool, OK, let’s send the report to Starfleet we just uncovered the origins of humanoid life in the galaxy but we’re late for the Cetis III conference to discuss agriculture trade and I hear they are passing out T-shirts for everyone who attends. Step on it Mr. Data we don’t want to miss out.”

Now is it just more nostalgia bait and a way to get more TNG fans onboard, of course; but I don’t look at it as a negative the way I do as yet another version of TWOK the movies constantly do. This is as Trek as you can get and a great reminder why we love this franchise so much to tackle big themes like this.

So I am generally excited and really did like the first two episodes. But same time I been here basically every season with this show and it always shows a lot of promise in the beginning just to fall flat by the end. I’m really really hoping this sticks to landing this time since this is the last time they can get it right.

We’ll see.

The t-shirt at Cetis III joke had me laughing out loud! It truly described how TNG approached stories. So thanks for that!

I do like the creative decision to expand on the concept rather than try to remake it. It’s helping keep the story fresh. Although, I will say I haven’t seen any big discussions about the tech. We know the Federation classified it as a red directive, but the main characters haven’t actually discussed the implications of it. Then again, there are quite a few episodes left to go, so maybe this will pop up in the future.

Lol you’re welcome! But yes true.

And yeah I like that it feels more like a sequel, just one set 800 years later lol. That’s what makes Star Trek unique and these stories can be revisited literally centuries later like the MU episodes on DS9 or the Borg showing up in Enterprise.

It is odd no one has bothered to tell us what a Red Directive even means..I guess they will explain it eventually but I’m guessing it’s tech related and obviously dangerous.

Truth be told I think every trek that came after TOS was a bit of nostalgia bait. But there is nothing wrong with that. People care about nostalgia for a reason because we are finite and like being reminded me have ties to our past and it isn’t gone if we remember it (Just IMHO)

True but I do agree NuTrek probably does it a bit TOO much at times but we’ve had that discussion more times to count.

I don’t mind it as long as it fits into the story well and not feel too shoe horned like other stories in the past .

Yeah that’s true too. TBH I don’t think this is just a Trek problem but a problem in all of Hollywood. Heck, even beyond Hollywood in business.

Discovery relies too much on its past.

Star Trek 14 can’t get made because, let’s be real here, they tried something new and after 3 movies it failed and they have no clue what to do next except rehash the past.

I could say the same of the Law and Order franchise (welcome back Stabler) or the now cancelled Quantum Leap show (OMGOMGOMG when is Bakula coming back!) or pretty much anything else I can think of.

Beyond even Hollywood, when was the last time we had a revolutionary new invention like the iPhone that changed the world.

Frankly those that are the creatives of the world, whether they be inventors or writers, have just become complacent. It’s sad but IMHO that’s where we are.

Oh yeah I have said this myself many times, it’s not a Star Trek issue but a Hollywood franchise issue. Everyone seems to know this but the complaints about legacy characters and appeasing old fans continues. But Kurtzman made it clear in that recently Vanity Fair article, they know Trek needs new fans to grow also know turning their back on the old fans would be detrimental to say the least.

And while I don’t think the Kelvin movies did that and really did try to appeal to old fans (with mixed results) they also proved it’s just not easy to get new fans invested on a deeper level or those movies should’ve been bigger hits and seen with a wider lens but I digress.

As for the shows my guess is the fan service aspect will probably never go away for one simple reason and every time they do it, the response is usually beyond positive and always met with great fanfare. Look at Discovery season 2. SNW and Picard season 3. Picard in general had huge fanfare just having Picard himself back but marred by the first two seasons.

As long as fans keep reacting positively to it why would they stop? It’s exactly why I’m 100% confident a Legacy show will eventually happen because it’s everything they know the fan base wants.

Yeah it sucks Quantum Leap got cancelled but I bet if Bakula returnned even just in a smaller guest star role the ratings would’ve been so much higher. I think his absence really felt too much of a hole for a lot of older fans to accept. Just proves the point again and again.

Yuppers about everything you said. Don’t get me wrong, I would like a Legacy show myself because I don’t think nostalgia is a bad thing. The problem is when you have to ONLY rely on nostalgia and the past to ironically try to move forward you are spinning your wheels. If we need the old to keep some people remembering their childhoods so be it but we can’t be stuck there. We have to move forward.

And ya about Quantum I would bet anything if Bakula was even remotely interested in returning we’d get a season 3. But if you look across the net and such SO MANY people are like when is Sam coming back and everyone else keeps saying stop asking Scott already said no and IMHO it just created negative attention and hurt ratings.

Bakula’s involvement wouldn’t change the ratings. i mean , he was NEVER going to be the lead again. \

Perhaps but if the old fans who never ended up tuning in did so because he was going to be there it might have given them a chance to like the show.

I don’t know if I completely agree with that. I’m certain interest would’ve spiked higher if he was announced to show up this season even in just a guest star role. For most QL fans, Bakula is the show even if they liked the new cast.

But that said I still don’t know if the ratings would’ve been high enough to save the show so you may have still been right in the end.

I’m waiting until the end of the season to decide whether to watch it or not. I find that your views on Discovery usually mirror mine, so will be following your reviews as a metric to decide whether it is worth a 10 hour investment.

Wow I appreciate that! 😊

HOPEFULLY you’ll be reading a lot more positive reviews from me through the finale. But if it ends up going south I won’t sugarcoat it either.

But honestly I wish I had your will power. And before we heard the show was cancelled I did consider just waiting to binge this season too. I probably would’ve just watched it though especially with no new Trek on for this long now.

Normally I would do the same but there has been too much of a breadth of Trek lately and I will take what I can get. Having said that I am enjoying what I have seen thus far.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised in the best way possible by the end of season four, I don’t trust this production team in this writing staff to handle philosophical big issues in a meaningful or resonant way.

The quotes here are so generic. Big ideas, huge themes… could you say something more specific? Something more intriguing?

The Chase is on of my favorite episodes of TNG. I’m not sure it was crying out for a sequel.

I love the idea of a treasure hunt with deep philosophical ideas. But I’m afraid it will be more philosophmorical

Agreed! Not every good idea needs a sequel, let alone a reboot, reimagining, or remake.

Honestly I haven’t seen yet how this season is a reboot, reimagine or remake but simply a continuance. If they undo cannon in some way then, hey, I am the first one to always call that out. But the best continuances in history (Wrath of Khan, Emipre) prove that the ideas work.

I mistyped. Apologies. I meant to include “sequelized” but forgot.

All of my old man on a porch griping aside, I’m curious where they’re going with this, hoping beyond all hope they don’t tie it into the Dominion.

I don’t think the dominion will be involved but my thoughts (which are always wrong) are that this will somehow bring them back to the 23rd century and reset the Temporal Cold War and this version of the 32nd century, burn included.

Hmmmmm…..

“The Chase” is one of those TNG stories that really should have been set aside for a feature film. I can understand that at the time of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” they weren’t thinking that far ahead, but by the time of “The Chase” (and “Relics” ) they should have realized it had big screen potential. The origin of all humanoid life in the galaxy, you don’t get much bigger than that!

Totally. A story that epic in scope deserved to be explored and I am happy DISCO is doing it, as long as they do not screw it up.

I’m with the Klingon. “That’s it?!”

I think TPTB realized it had potential as a feature, or at the very least a season-ender, but they were totally strapped for shootable scripts and had to put it into the pipeline immediately. That’s how it was reported in CINEFANTASTIQUE volume 24 issue 3/4 anyway.

Re Yesterdays Enterprise as a feature , they could’ve simply used a similar scenario but reversed the ships for ‘Generations’ and had the Ent D going back in time to the 23rd Century encountering the Ent A .Basically ‘Tomorrow’s Enterprise’ with the two casts (the ToS films frequently pillaged episodes for plots TMP, TVH, TFF, so it’d have been no different), but ZOMG how could they ever afford them all?! Both casts on screen, at the same time?! Why it would cost BILLIONS! Shatner & Nimoys favored nation clause alone for them to share the screen with Stewart/Spiner would surely eat up the entire budget! And ILM’s fees to have the all important Enterprises locked in combat (to go on the 27×40 one sheet ) would be so astronomical it’d cause Rick Berman to fall out of his chair with a heart attack!

The Star Trek: Generations budget was $35 million and that included two Enterprises (B and D.) They tried to get Nimoy but he didn’t like the script and said no. Yesterday was a much, much stronger story. Add a few million more for the rest of the TOS cast and proceed. Star Trek: Yesterday’s Enterprise coming to theaters, June 1995. Box Office goodness!

Certainly, it’s a legit move. Very happy to see they’re picked this thread up again. In TNG, they basically found the ultimate key to the question of our existence and never bothered to stick it in the lock.

The Chase was Star Trek V done right. Picard found the actual God that created life in the universe. Not through divine abilities, but through actual science.

Now, how do the Progenitors link with the origin of life on Earth as seen in All Good Things and, for that matter, WHERE were they when Q took Picard to the moment life was first created on Earth? Were they watching from orbit in their ship or something?

I think in episode 2 there has been some loose language thrown around about “the creators of all life” or something similar. But that is not what The Chase established. Note the words of the hologram of the Ur-humanoid (not then called “Progenitor”) in The Chase:

Our scientists seeded the primordial oceans of many worlds, where life was in its infancy. These seed codes directed your evolution toward a physical form resembling ours — this body you see before you.

This is consistent with Q’s messing around with the primordial “goop” in All Good Things.

As others have observed, no mention was made in The Chase about some sort of mind-boggling, let alone destructive, technology the Progenitors possessed, though presumably they were extremely advanced having a million-year-head start and being able to do what they claimed to have done. We’ll see how this develops as the season unfolds.

I hope they link it all up.

Agree totally!

FINGERS CROSSED!

This is what I alluded to elsewhere in the thread when I mentioned PROMETHEUS, where you see an actual seeding of the oceans with DNA and whatever other genetic stew.

Of course, also known as “The Preservers” in The Paradise Syndrome. I am Kirok!

I kept thinking that progenitors were probably Sargon’s people (who I guess could also be the preservers, now that I think about it again.) Sargon’s backstory with them coming to believe they were gods and it being their undoing would have dovetailed better with the potentially destructive technology of this new storyline, plus it could have paid off as being more related to intellect and emotion than to gadgetry (or that it was a consciousness-emboldening gadget a la FORBIDDEN PLANET, which kind of gets me excited further thinking about it.)

Actually, finding some other consciousness-in-a-ball containing one of The Sargon Bunch could be the basis for something cool in a new series. Though I don’t think current acting styles would allow for the spirited debate about sharing consciousness the way TOS’ ‘risk is our business’ does, which is a way I initially found cringe-worthy but grew to admire — in spite of the melodramatic excess of both performance and underscore — as a different but equally valid form of Pure Kirk, which I typically think of as s1 understated, like CHARLIE X and BALANCE OF TERROR.

That’s an interesting idea. You’ll recall that Sargon kept calling the Enterprise folks “my children” or “my child.” — But then so did Apollo, I think :-)

But it was definitely not because they were short for other ideas.

The whole thing about WHEN to open up the mystery box is really a biggie with Trek. It’s the suspense vs. surprise thing that Bennett talks about in THE MAKING OF STAR TREK II book by Allan Asherman (or maybe it is the same author’s THE STAR TREK INTERVIEW BOOK.)

I mean, before TMP became TMP, when it was the IN THY IMAGE tv pilot, they figure out what vger is just past the midpoint in the film (which to me works better and avoids the letdown, which was voiced by a disappointed friend of mine in the theater opening day as ‘it’s a dish .’)

Bennett was right to push the ‘search for God’ aspect of TFF back to the end of act 2, because otherwise it is unsustainable.

It might be that the ideal way to reveal stuff is in TWOK, because you hear about Genesis off&on, get hints about what it does and potential badassedness of it, and then find out about it fully right before the first big shootout, which puts it and everything at risk, and then leads to his getting hold of it. And then you actually get a payoff where it is deployed rather than just serve as a macguffin.

I actually like the idea of opening the box early on this season of the series (though I doubt I’ll watch it, been too disappointed to even watch s3 and 4 at all outside of a couple youtube clips), because then it gives you time to get a sense of wonder about possibilities inherent (sort of like the middle part of THE CHASE, when there’s an overwhelming sense of intellectual excitement being voiced.)

So now they follow up on The Progenitors. I was genuine surprised about that.

I don’t have a problem Discovery picking up the plot thread from The Chase. It’s not a bad idea at all.

I wonder what they will do with it? Is there going to be any amazing revelation or will the technology or whatever just be destroyed at the end?

For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed the season 4 ending. I felt like they stuck the landing there, whereas the Burn ending for season 3 just failed.

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Star Trek: Discovery is cracking open a box Next Gen closed on purpose

The USS Discovery is on a mad chase across the galaxy for one of Star Trek’s biggest secrets

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Calling back to a single 30-year-old episode of television is a time-honored Star Trek tradition , one that’s led the franchise to some of its most fascinating detours. And in its two-episode season premiere, Star Trek: Discovery seems to be kicking off an entire season calling back to one particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

And not just any episode! The 1993 installment of Next Gen in question delivered a revelation so seemingly earth-shaking that it should have rewritten galactic politics on a massive scale. But then, as was the way in the 1990s era of episodic TV, nobody ever mentioned it again.

At least until now.

[ Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.]

Writer Michelle Paradise and director Olatunde Osunsanmi lay out the connection at the end of the first of two episodes released this week, “Red Directive.” Discovery’s mission is to follow a series of ancient clues leading to a cache of ancient technology, and to get there before a couple of professional thieves, Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis), do.

The technology, as Doctor Kovich (David Cronenberg) explains, belongs to the so-called Progenitors, a barely understood ancient spacefaring species that “created life as we know it […] every humanoid species in the galaxy.” Presumably such tech holds the key to understanding how the Progenitors did that, and how that power could be used again.

The Progenitors are from the Star Trek episode “The Chase”

Kovich also calls up a helpful video presentation of the moment the Progenitors were discovered by an assembled group of Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian captains, including Jean-Luc Picard. But you don’t have to be a Star Trek lore nerd to know you’re actually just looking at clips from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Specifically, from the 20th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s sixth season, “The Chase,” in which Picard and crew discover pieces of a computer program hidden inside the DNA of species from dozens of different planets. Questions abound: What does the program do? And what kind of entity could have been so ancient and powerful that it had determined the genetic legacy of most of the known galaxy before sentient life had even evolved here — and then left no trace of its existence except the genetic codes themselves?

In a nutshell, the mysterious death of Captain Picard’s old archeology professor (did you know that if he hadn’t gone into Starfleet, Jean-Luc was studying to be a space archeologist? Well, now you do) sets the captain and the Enterprise on a search for the missing DNA fragments necessary to complete his unfinished work.

The action of the episode becomes a grand chase, as Klingon and Cardassian captains come to believe the program must be a great weapon or dangerous secret. Eventually Picard and his rivals all discover the lonely planet with the final DNA strain — and when they get there, some Romulans who’ve been secretly following all of them show up, too, just to make things even more tense.

In the end, the program isn’t a weapon or a secret, but a message from an ancient race of humanoids that apparently created sentient life in our galaxy as we know it.

Actor Salome Jens appears as a Progenitor hologram, and delivers a speech that’s stirring by any standard of Star Trek monologues, telling the story of a race of sentients that took to the stars and found them empty. They had evolved too early to meet other forms of sentient life, and knew that their time was too limited to ever expect to.

“We knew that one day we would be gone; that nothing of us would survive, so we left you,” Jens’ Progenitor explains. The Progenitors seeded humanoid life across the galaxy in their own image; life that tended to evolve into bipedal, tailless, largely hairless creatures with two eyes and two arms and five fingers on each hand. And they left clues in the genetic signature of their work, broken up among the stars.

Wait, was this really all about lampshading the limits of Star Trek’s alien design?

Kinda, yes! The writers of “The Chase,” Ron Moore and Joe Menosky, were inspired by elements of Carl Sagan’s Contact , but also by Menosky’s pet fascination creating an in-universe explanation for why all the common alien species in Star Trek are basically shaped like humans (albeit with latex on their faces).

In other hands, it would be hokey and trite, but even under heavy makeup, Jens sells the hell out of her single scene on voice and stance alone — it’s no wonder she was asked back to the Trek fold to play a major antagonist role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

“It was our hope that you would have to come together in fellowship and companionship to hear this message, and if you can see and hear me, our hope has been fulfilled,” the Progenitor hologram concludes, with gentle compassion. “You are a monument, not to our greatness, but to our existence. That was our wish: That you, too, would know life. [...] There is something of us in each of you, and so something of you in each other.”

But though “The Chase” carried a sweeping revelation, nothing ever really panned out from it. You’d think that a message of togetherness that fundamentally rewrote the origin of life in the universe would have to have tweaked Star Trek’s galactic politics a bit, right? Seems like this would give the Star Trek setting a radically different understanding of the origins of life than we have in the real world — this is literally intelligent design! At the very least there’d be some other characters talking about how humans and Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans and Ferengi and Cardassians and Trill and Bajorans, all share the same genetic ancestor.

But nope: The Pandora’s box of Progenitor lore remained closed. Gene Roddenberry’s successor and Trek producer Rick Berman seems to have been disenchanted with the episode’s reveal — and you can’t really blame him for not wanting to rock the whole cosmology of Star Trek in an episode that’s mostly about explaining how if you turn the DNA snippets like this they make a cool spiral. Now look at this computer screen with the spiral :

Except now, Star Trek: Discovery is opening the box and rocking the boat. This new mad, puzzle-box chase around the galaxy promises to expand on the Progenitors, an idea so big that not even The Next Generation was willing to touch it. It’s a tall order, but Discovery has never been more free to shake up Star Trek continuity than it is right now — we’ll have to wait for more episodes of the show’s final season to find out how free it intends to be.

Star Trek: Discovery is finally free to do whatever it wants

The 10 horniest episodes of star trek, ranked by cultural impact, the picard legacy collection puts one of the greatest remasters of all time in sprawling context, loading comments....

Unnamed Pendari

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The following is a list of unnamed Pendari .

Champion [ ]

The Pendari champion

The champion was a Tsunkatse fighter who fought aboard Penk's starship in 2376 .

That year he fought in a blue match against Seven of Nine in her debut to the game. Upon viewing Seven, he noted her size, describing her as being " no bigger than a Tarkanian field mouse " and felt that " Penk 's insulting me by putting you in the pit to face me. " Upon seeing this champion , Neelix , who was watching the bout in person, remarked on his apparent strength , " he looks like he could pick up a shuttlecraft . " Throughout the contest, the champion continued to mock and insult Seven, before finally defeating her, when he saw that she hesitated.

After losing the match, Penk explained to Seven that " there's a great deal of hostility toward the Borg in this sector . Every time the Pendari landed a blow, our audience grew. " He then informed her that he was scheduling her for a red match in two days , noting the Pendari was supposed to compete, but that he had entered her in his place. Penk added " if three billion people paid to see you hurt, imagine how many will pay to see you die . " ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ")

Delegate [ ]

This male delegate was one of several officials who were present on Norcadia Prime in 2376 .

After Neelix 's contact with the Norcadian ambassador , regarding the capture and recruitment of Seven of Nine (and Tuvok ) to fight in Tsunkatse matches, Neelix learned that " a huge percentage of the planet's revenue comes from Tsunkatse, " and that " nobody wants to do anything that might interfere with the game. " ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ")

Female fighter [ ]

A female fighter

This female fighter took part in the Tsunkatse matches in the Delta Quadrant when Seven of Nine and Tuvok were held prisoners by Penk , the fight coordinator. She trained with another opponent in the quarters and fought a match against a Kradin . ( VOY : " Tsunkatse ")

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Star Trek: Discovery’s Season 5 Premiere Easter Egg Explained: Who Are the [Spoiler]?

Keisha hatchett, staff editor.

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Star Trek: Discovery co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman previously told TVLine that the sci-fi drama’s fifth and final season was dependent on a “very significant” Star Trek Easter egg , and we finally know what he meant by that.

The season’s first two episodes, which are now streaming on Paramount+, sent the Discovery crew on one last adventure to find the missing clues spread throughout the galaxy that will lead them to the ancient device used by an ancient species, known as the Progenitors, to create life as we know it.

That Easter egg came into play in the premiere , as outlaws Moll ( Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Eve Harlow) and L’ak ( Shadowhunters ’ Elias Toufexis) stole a tan zhekran — a traditional Romulan puzzle box; Narek (Harry Treadaway) used one as a thinking aid in Star Trek: Picard Season 1 — from an 800-year-old Romulan science vessel.

The Federation was also heavily invested in finding this mystery box, and Dr. Kovich and Admiral Vance remained tightlipped while briefing Burnham on a secretive mission to retrieve it. Captain Burnham nearly caught Moll and L’ak aboard the science vessel but they escaped to the Dune -like planet Q’mau.

There, the fugitive duo convinced a Synth dealer named Fred to open the box under the guise of selling it along with other timeless treasures, including a self-sealing stem bolt (frequently mentioned throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , though their specific use is unclear) and an old tricorder (a hand-held sensor issued by Starfleet that can be used for scanning, recording and analyzing data). 

Dr. Vellek found the ancient humanoids’ life-creating device and recorded everything he knew about it in that diary. He then hid the device sometime before disappearing 800 years ago, and the diary contains important clues — such as the drawing of two moons — to find it.

Book and Burnham tracked Moll and L’ak to Q’mau, where they came upon Fred’s lifeless body. As they continued pursuing the outlaws, Culber, Stamets and Saru examined Fred aboard Discover y and realized that he was built from one of Dr. Soong’s designs.

Dr. Noonien Soong (Brent Spiner) created several android prototypes, including Data, Lore and B-4 — all portrayed by Spiner throughout TNG’s seven-season run.

L’ak and Mall again evaded Burnham & Co., but not before starting a catastrophic avalanche that forced the Discovery captain and a frustratingly aggressive Captain Raynor ( The Umbrella Academy’s Callum Keith Rennie) to refocus their efforts on saving a nearby settlement.

When the dust settled, Saru, who’d been thinking over an offer to leave Discovery and become a Federation ambassador, accepted the new position to stay close to President T’Rina. That was met with a surprising proposal from T’Rina, who politely suggested they codify their mutual commitment in a more official capacity.

While the Federation mulled his future, Discovery embarked on a trip to Lyrek in search of another clue. The uninhabited planet was used by the Promellians as a burial ground before the species went extinct. (In the TNG episode “Booby Trap,” we learned that early Federation starships were influenced by their design.)

In their exploration of the forest-heavy planet, Burnham and Saru accidentally tripped a complex security system which launched droids that immediately opened fire. Saru leaped into action, though, drawing the killer bots away and buying Tilly enough time to disarm them. He and Burnham then reached their target location, where they uncovered a Romulan revlav, aka a message in a poem.

While all of that was happening, Book reached out to Moll and L’ak about buying the diary, which he knew would be a hot commodity in the galaxy. But his conversation with the fugitives revealed something else. Studying Moll’s image later on, Book figured out why Moll seemed so familiar. Her real name was Malinne and she was the daughter of his mentor Cleveland Book IV, making her the closest thing to family he has left.

But first, Burnham needed to secure a new Number One. She turned to Raynor, who’d been asked by Vance to retire. In offering him Saru’s old role, she was giving him a second chance — one that had been granted to her back in Season 1.

What did you think of the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery’s final season? Grade them below, and share your thoughts about the overarching mystery in the comments.

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I like Discovery, a lot, but this was a deep cut for anyone not a big fan of the entire Trekverse. Thanks for the recap and the thorough explanation, I know I needed it

Dr. Kovich: Red Directive – Criticial – stop L’ak and Moll at all costs, time is of the essence… Cap’n Burnham: We’ll black alert and our spore drive will have us at Q’mau in a blink… Cap’n Raynor: we’ll use our ancient tech and be there in an hour. Don’t start without me. … cut to Burnham and Book on Q’mau standing on the outskirts of the city waiting for Raynor, having not even attempted to find Fred’s shop or in any other way look for Moll and L’ak or their ship until Raynor joins them. D’oh!

Kudos to the showrunners for these Trekverse nods to the past series. Loved both episodes! Action packed and all in the feels with Michael and Saru (I heart him and T’Rina) on their last mission together, not to mention their goodbye on Discovery. I love their relationship and will miss their convos. Raynor is going to be a very interesting Number One! Enjoying this last Discovery ride through the cosmos!

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Star Trek Discovery showrunner says that they will be following up a 30-year-old mystery that was never addressed: "You don’t just let that go"

SFX talks to Star Trek Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise about *that* TNG callback

Star Trek Discovery may have gone far, far beyond any other point in the franchise’s timeline after its third season leap to the 32nd Century – but its final season is still finding time to address one of the biggest, oldest mysteries in the Star Trek universe.

Having being given a Red Directive (essentially, a Starfleet mission that must succeed at any cost) during the Discovery season 5 premiere, Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) discovers that she’s on the hunt for technology belonging to a group known as the Progenitors. 

You may not recognize the name, but Star Trek fans of a certain vintage will certainly know of the ancient, life-creating beings: they form the basis of the 1993 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘The Chase’, which sees Patrick Stewart’s Picard uncover perhaps the great mystery left in the universe: where do we come from?

As it turns out, all sentient life was formed thanks to the one race (now known as the Progenitors) – who had hoped to fill the galaxy with all manner of beings in part due to their desire to leave a lasting legacy.

Audiences in the early ‘90s must have had their minds blown but, frustratingly, it was never brought up again – until now.

Speaking to SFX , Star Trek Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise opened up about why now was the right time to follow up on a mystery 30 years in the making.

"The Chase was such an incredible episode. It raises these huge ideas, huge thematic explorations. Who are we? Where did we come from? And then the episode ends and Picard goes on and there's just this huge thing that they've discovered, and we just found ourselves wondering, 'Well, what happened after that? What did the message mean? And what was it all about? And then what did Picard do?' And you just don't let that go," Paradise explained.

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The showrunner continued, "And so we found ourselves wondering about what might have happened after, and that really became the catalyst for the journey this season. We know in The Chase that these beings seeded life as we know it. And so we take that and we ask the question, 'Well, how did they do that?' 

"They must have had a technology and this technology is out there. And it seemed kind of fun to explore, where would that be and what if it's still out there somewhere? And ultimately, that's what our heroes and the bad guys are now in a race to find. And it's just a really cool thing."

Star Trek Discovery season 5 is currently airing weekly on Paramount Plus. Not a subscriber to SFX? Then head on over here to get the latest issues sent directly to your home/device .

I'm the Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, focusing on news, features, and interviews with some of the biggest names in film and TV. On-site, you'll find me marveling at Marvel and providing analysis and room temperature takes on the newest films, Star Wars and, of course, anime. Outside of GR, I love getting lost in a good 100-hour JRPG, Warzone, and kicking back on the (virtual) field with Football Manager. My work has also been featured in OPM, FourFourTwo, and Game Revolution.

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