Star Trek: Discovery’s final season is finally underway on the 2024 TV schedule, and there’s a newcomer who’d come aboard the main cast for this last hurrah. Callum Keith Rennie is starring as Rayner, a Kellerun Starfleet officer who thrived during wartime, but is having trouble adjusting to peace. Of course, Battlestar Galactica fans know Rennie well from having played Leoben, the #2 model Cylon, so with another major sci-fi credit on his resume, I was curious to learn how his experiences on the two shows compared to one another when I spoke to him for CinemaBlend. He described Discovery as having a “different energy” from Battlestar, and I see where he’s coming from.
Ahead of the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery Season 5’s third episode, titled “Jinaal,” to Paramount+ subscribers, I had the pleasure of chatting with Callum Keith Rennie about his experience in this massive corner of the sci-fi genre. The actor clarified what he meant by “different energy,” as well as shared what was similar about these professional experiences for him, with these words:
Battlestar was such a long [time ago]… I mean, to me it feels like such a long time ago. There’s a difference because it’s a different energy. Battlestar had a real earthy feel… there I am, playing a Cylon, but it felt earthy, the dialogue had an earthiness to it. But again, another space show with a wonderful group of people that you really care about everybody, everybody cared about each other. So that was interesting because Discovery had that, Battlestar had that, where everybody’s on everybody’s team and trying to build them up, and everybody does their best. It was very nice.
While Battlestar Galactica certainly had its fair share of fantastical elements, Callum Keith Rennie’s use of the term “earthy” is pretty apt. The show may have followed the remnants of humanity trying to follow a new home on Earth as the Cylons hunted them down across the galaxy, but revival of the same-named 1978 series was definitely more grounded compared to a lot of other sci-fi projects. This included through the dialogue, and I can understand why Rennie brought that up, because with Star Trek, there’s a lot more technobabble thrown in.
That aside, Rennie also noticed that camaraderie between the starring characters as a big similarity between Star Trek: Discovery and Battlestar Galactica. The circumstances and challenges these respective crews have to face out in space are quite different, but in the midst of that, they’re all there to support one another through these difficult times. As far as Discovery goes, here’s hoping that Rayner gets on board with that particular program soon now that he’s Michael Burnham’s first officer. Things run a lot differently there compared to when he was captaining the Antares, and as seen in “Jinaal,” Rayner’s going to have to adjust the way he interacts with those he commands in order to be an effective leader on this title ship.
There are now seven episodes left to go until Star Trek: Discovery is over, so keep visiting CinemaBlend for more coverage on this series and the upcoming Star Trek TV shows. Unfortunately, if you’re looking to revisit Callum Keith Rennie’s time as Leoben in Battlestar Galactica, that show currently isn’t streaming anywhere, so you’ll either need to purchase your own physical or digital copy of it.
