Gotham Actor Cast As Spock's Father In Star Trek Discovery

Gotham actor James Frain has joined the cast of Star Trek: Discovery in the role of Sarek, the [...]

By Jamie Lovett

Gotham actor James Frain has joined the cast of Star Trek: Discovery in the role of Sarek, the Vulcan father of iconic Star Trek: The Original Series character Mr. Spock.

Sarek is the first character from a previous Star Trek series to be confirmed to appear in Star Trek: Discovery. Sarek was previously played by Mark Lenard, and appeared in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Journey to Babel, the animated series episode "Yesteryear," four of the original series Star Trek movies and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek: Discovery takes place between the events of Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: The Original Series. That means Galavan will be playing a version of Sarek that is younger than he was when he made his first appearance.

Frain is best known for playing Theo Galavan on Fox's Gotham, but also had roles on BBC America's Orphan Black, HBO's True Detective and True Blood, and NBC's Grimm. Galavan has proven to be talented in all of these roles and seems like a logical choice for the role of Sarek.

The Star Trek: Discovery Twitter accounted tweeted the following announcement of the news:

It wasn't all good news for Star Trek fans, though. With the announcement of Galvan's casting, Entertainment Weekly has also announced that the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery has been delayed for a second time. Star Trek: Discovery was originally announced with a February 2017 release date. It was then delayed until May. Now it has no firm premiere date, but it will be later than May.The

The delay is partly because of production and script hiccups following Bryan Fuller's departure as showrunner. Another reason is the casting of The Walking Dead's Sonequa Martin-Green as Star Trek: Discovery's lead. CBS is reportedly concerned that an advertising push featuring Martin-Green's character that the same time that she is being featured in the second half of The Walking Dead Season 7 may oversaturate the actress and confuse potential viewers.

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"Production on Star Trek: Discovery begins next week," CBS Television Studios told Entertainment Weekly when reached for comment. "We love the cast, the scripts and are excited about the world the producers have created. This is an ambitious project; we will be flexible on a launch date if it's best for the show. We've said from the beginning it's more important to do this right than to do it fast. There is also added flexibility presenting on CBS All Access, which isn't beholden to seasonal premieres or launch windows."

Statr Trek: Discovery will premiere on CBS and then move to CBS's digital streaming service CBS All Access for the remainder of its first season.

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