Star Trek: Discovery Finally Reveals Its New Captain

Star Trek: Discovery is back with the third episode of its third season, 'People of Earth.' The [...]

Star Trek: Discovery is back with the third episode of its third season, "People of Earth." The episode finally answers a question lingering over the ship and the show for the past 930 years. At the end of the second season, with the battle against Control looming, Michael Burnham and Saru agreed not to discuss who should command the Discovery in the future until after the crisis had passed. One time-jump later, the situation is over. However, Discovery still needs a commanding officer to lead them through this strange new future. And now it has one. SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season Three, Episode Three, "People of Earth" follows.

After a year of searching, Burnham found the USS Discovery at the end of last week's episode. She comes aboard and reunites with her crew. She fills everyone in on the state of the galaxy in the aftermath of "the Burn." They make plans to use the ship's spore drive to return to Earth.

Then Saru brings up that conversation that he and Burnham intended to have. She waves him off, saying there's no need to discuss it. She has no desire to sit in the captan's chair. Discovery is Saru's to command.

Saru is grateful and makes a touching speech to his crew about their mission in the 32nd century. But he's also concerned about Burnham. Given how ambitious she pursued the captaincy earlier in the season, he's understandably worried about her state of mind if she's willing to give it up without a fight. But she assures him she needs to readjust to Starfleet life after a year of being on her own with Book. And she's happy to serve as Saru's new Number One.

ComicBook.com spoke to Doug Jones earlier this week. We asked him about what it means to be able to call himself "Captain Saru."

"Oh, it's so funny, because when they showed a more extended trailer of season three, there were clips of me in a captain's uniform that people froze the frame, zoomed-in, counted my pips on my badge, looked at the stripes on my shoulders, and like, 'Okay. Ah.' But not everybody caught it," Jones recalled. "So it was a not very well kept secret, but I couldn't really come out and say, 'Yes, you're right.' So I'm tickled pink to finally say, "Yes, Saru is captain." And I couldn't be prouder and happier to do so because that puts me in a small prestigious group of actors who have played captains in Starfleet over the years."

New Star Trek: Discovery episodes debut Thursdays on CBS All Access.

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