Star Trek: Discovery has added three Klingons to the cast. Chris Obi (Roots, Snow White and the Huntsman) will play T’Kuvma, who Variety describes as “a Klingon leader seeking to unite the Klingon houses.” Shazad Latif (The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) has been cast as Kol, the Klingons’ commanding officer. Mary Chieffo will play L’Rell, the Klingon ship’s battle deck commander. And while that’s all that was announced, the new information allows for some satisfying extrapolations regarding the plot of Discovery’s first season.
Very little is known about the plot of Star Trek: Discovery, but we know a great deal about its inspirations and thematic interests. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, a Cold War allegory, is reportedly a major influence on Discovery. That film’s writer and director, Nicholas Meyer, is onboard as a writer and consulting producer. Former showrunner Bryan Fuller (his producing partners Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts have stepped into the showrunner role, with “help” from movie devil Akiva Goldsman) described the main theme of the season as “understand each other.”
In some form, Star Trek: Discovery (DSC) will be about reaching across communication barriers to find understanding, even between enemies.
This combines nicely with two other data points. First, mention of a Klingon ship brings the total number of vessels in DSC to three, with the Klingons joining the USS Discovery NCC-1031 and a another Federation vessel: the starship Shenzhou, captained by a character named Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). Second, the casting of Anthony Rapp as Lt. Stamets and Doug Jones as Lt. Saru, both Starfleet science officers, with Stamet specializing in extraterrestrial fungus.
So we have three ships, astromycologists and a faceoff between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets. While there’s a barrier to empathy between the Klingons and the humans, they can at least speak to each other. The specific mention of Stamets’ astromycology specialization suggests instead that the central mystery of Star Trek: Discovery will be something far more alien that will unite these three ships, forcing the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets to work together.
The persistent thematic importance of crossing communication barriers, described both by Meyer and Fuller, provides a good hint at how this all will fit together when Star Trek: Discovery premieres in May.
