News has broken via EW that ‘The Walking Dead’ star Sonequa Martin-Green has been cast as the lead in new CBS series ‘Star Trek: Discovery’.
The creative team behind the series had previously discussed how for the first time in Trek history the series would be fronted by a Starfleet Liutenant rather than a Captain. Martin-Green’s casting will also mark the first time in Trek’s 50 year history that a cast will be lead by an African-American actor.
It is expected that she will continue to appear as a series on ‘The Walking Dead’ until such time that her character is killed off.
Martin-Green’s casting follows the previous announcements of Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou, the Starfleet Captain of the Shenzhou; Doug Jones as Lt. Saru, the ships Science Officer who will originate a new alien race to the ‘Star Trek’ franchise and Anthony Rapp as Lt. Stamets, another Starfleet Science Officer aboard Discovery and the first openly gay character in a ‘Star Trek’ TV series.
The show has also announced the casting of several Klingon characters for ‘Discovery’. Chris Obi as T’Kuvma, Shazad Latif as Kol and newcomer Mary Chieffo as L’Rell.
The casting announcements come at the end of a slightly tumultuous period for ‘Discovery’. Originally announced to premiere in January 2017 the show was firstly delayed until May before the departure of show runner Bryan Fuller.
Fuller was initially due to remain on the series as an Executive Producer but confirmed in an interview that he was effectively no longer working on the series at all. Several of his story ideas are believed to still form part of the overall arc of the series. At the time of his departure Fuller stated:
‘I’m not involved in production, or postproduction, so I can only give them the material I’ve given them and hope that it is helpful for them. I’m curious to see what they do with it. […] They have my number and if they need me I will absolutely be there for them. It is bittersweet. But it was just a situation that couldn’t be resolved otherwise…so I had to step away.’
‘Star Trek: Discovery’ will air its pilot episode on CBS in May 2017 before moving to online platform CBS: All Access. Internationall the show will air on Netflix.
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