Star Trek: Jason Isaacs Takes the Fifth Regarding Possible Return as Lorca

Jason Isaacs played Captain Gabriel Lorca in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. Now he’s playing coy about his possible return to the Star Trek universe. Isaacs was a guest during this year’s virtual Dragon Con event. He avoided answering questions about whether he could reprise his role as Lorca in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds or the upcoming Section 31 series during his panel. “Taking the fifth,” he said (via Trek Movie). “The whole point of having a story told to you is that you don’t know what’s in the story. It’s like asking when someone is going to tell you a joke: ‘Give me the punchline and I’ll make my mind up.’”

He also praised Star Trek’s writers during the panel. “When Discovery first came out, there was a lot of reticence with fans,” he said. “Understandably people were protective of this legacy of extraordinary stories. There was some doubts that the people writing it really knew all about Star Trek, and that doubt must be gone now. Because all this stuff, like ‘How are they going to focus? How is discovery? How does the spore drive ever gonna figure?’ They dealt with it. They’ve now gone to the future. That’s why there is no record of them. All of the questions are answered. There are people in the room, however geeky you think you are and whatever minutae you think you can sit up all night discussing, they can do it to the power of 100 in the room.”

He expressed total faith in their ability to bring back Lorca and make it matter. “And if they do bring back Lorca, or anyone else, it’ll never be token,” he said. “They take it more seriously than you could possibly imagine. Making sure that honors the legacy and gives them license to invent new and great stories. So I presume those voices have been quieted now, although we don’t want to stop the fans talking. But the notion that there aren’t real Star Trek fans and people who really understand every word that’s ever been spoken in uniform in the room is clearly nonsense by now.”

We won’t spoil what happened around Isaacs’ Lorca in the first season of Star Trek: Discovery since the season will make its broadcast debut on CBS soon. Suffice to say that fans were surprised and eager for Isaacs to return and answer some outstanding questions.

Star Trek: Discovery premieres on CBS on September 24th. Star Trek: Discovery‘s third season premieres October 15th on CBS All Access.