With lots of ups and downs plaguing its development period, Star Trek: Discovery is finally on the road (or its space equivalent) to its release, and the casting news has been dropping at a regular pace.Today brought some particularly notable additions to Star Trek: Discovery, as the sci-fi series has finally cast a handful of new Klingon characters we can look forward to learning about. Let's all welcome Chris Robi (Roots), Shazad Latif (Penny Dreadful) and stage actress Mary Chieffo.
We don't know every single thing about these characters just yet, which is par for the course when it comes to these kinds of big new projects. But the details that have been revealed are quite interesting indeed. Let's look at the new additions one by one.
First up is Chris Obi, who has appeared in projects such as Snow White and the Huntsman and Roots. Obi will play the character T'Kuvma, a leader within the Klingon population who is seeking to bring unity and cohesion to the different Klingon houses. It sounds like he'll be the top dog in the extraterrestrial species' ranks, although we're not exactly sure what this means for our human voyagers. There's no sign of whether T'Kuvma will carry on the "Humans vs. Klingons" element that was present for Star Trek: The Original Series, or if Discovery will feature the more friendly and symbiotic relationship that came during The Next Generation and beyond.
Next up is former MI-5 actor Shazad Latif, who needed something to fill his schedule now that there is no more Penny Dreadful for him to play Henry Jekyll in. According to EW, Latif will take on the role of Kol, a commanding officer within the Klingon ranks. He'll clearly look up to T'Kuvma, as he's referred to as the higher-up's protege. Is it too early to assume he will eventually try to prove he's more powerful than his superior?
Rounding things out is Mary Chieffo, who is not only a Julliard graduate, but the first every legacy graduate from the school. Her father, character actor Michael Chieffo, graduated from there years ago; her mother is the super-familiar character actress Beth Grant. Though she doesn't have a lot of experience acting in front of a camera, Chieffo definitely has the talent, and will make her sci-fi mark as Star Trek: Discovery's L'Rell, who is a Battle Deck Commander on one of the Klingon ships.
These new cast members will join the previously announced Michelle Yeoh as the captain of the USS Shenzhou, Doug Jones as the Discovery's science officer and Anthony Rapp as the franchise's first original gay character (also a science officer). Fun fact: Chris Obi will also be seen in 2017 on the Starz series American Gods, based on Neil Gaiman's book of the same name, whose showrunner Bryan Fuller was set as Star Trek: Discovery's showrunner until he dropped out of the project completely earlier this month. That fact got less fun as it went on.
Though its initial release date was delayed, Star Trek: Discovery is set to make its highly anticipated debut on CBS in May 2017, after which it will then transition to the streaming service CBS All Access. To see what'll hit the small screen before all this space-faring wonder, check out our midseason premiere schedule.
