Bryan Fuller, showrunner for the upcoming CBS All Access streaming series Star Trek: Discovery, spoke on radio show Nerd World Report with Hop and Herc about the lead character in the DSC cast.
While Fuller has previously announced the main character would be a female lieutenant commander (and that they’d be searching for a minority casting), her actual role aboard the Discovery remained a mystery. Now Fuller has stated the DSC lead would be the ship’s first officer. William Riker filled that position at the same rank in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
“Our character, when we introduce the protagonist, she is called ‘Number One’ in honor of Majel Barrett’s character in the original pilot,” Fuller said. In “The Cage,” Star Trek’s original, failed pilot, Majel Barrett (who would go on to play substantial secondary characters in four different Star Trek series and voice the computer) played the first officer, a character known only as Number One. Studio notes and test screen audiences who, according to William Shatner, felt she “ shouldn't be trying so hard to fit in with the men,” lead to Spock assuming the role of first officer once Star Trek made it to TV.
“As we were first talking about the series and talking to CBS, we said, initially, we’ll only call the character ‘Number One’ because in the Sixties, in the first pilot, Gene Roddenberry was very progressive and had a female first officer,” Fuller said.
Fuller’s reveal partially confirms speculation the lead character would be the same as from “The Cage,” though we now know it won’t be the same character, simply the same appellation.
During his radio interview, Fuller said casting announcements should be made sometime in October. “As of right now, we’ve met with fantastic actors, and of course there’s people that I’ve worked with before that I would love to have on Star Trek , and we’re trying to figure out everybody’s schedules.”
