First Details On Star Trek: Discovery’s New Alien Crew Member Revealed

Meet the latest alien addition to Starfleet.

The producers of Star Trek: Discovery have finally released information about the alien character being played by Doug Jones.

“Doug Jones character plays Lt. Saru,” showrunner Aaron Harberts, tells Entertainment Weekly. “What we can tell you that adds the context to that clip where he says he can sense the coming of death is that he comes from a planet where he’s a ‘prey species.’ He’s the first of his kind to make it to Starfleet.”

As part of the cast of Star Trek: Discovery, Jones’ Lt. Saru seems to fill the role of “the other,” an archetype that has been filled by some of the show’s most iconic characters.

“[Producers] said Saru is the Spock of the series, he’s the Data of the series — and those are beloved characters that I always connect with whenever I would watch the past incarnations of Star Trek,” said Jones. “On Falling Skies, I played an alien species who came to Earth to help the humans fight back the bad aliens who’d taken over, and I was intelligent, well-spoken, had a lot of answers and science-y smart. Saru is all of those things and then some.”

Star Trek: Discovery is headed to this week’s Comic-Con International: San Diego.Sonequa Martin-Green, Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, and James Frain will all be in attendance, alongside Executive Producers Alex Kurtzman, Gretchen J. Berg, Aaron Harberts, Heather Kadin, and Akiva Goldsman for a panel moderated by guest star Rainn Wilson, who plays Star Trek: The Original Series character Harry Mudd on Star Trek: Discovery.

Set 10 years prior to the five-year mission of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Discovery follows the adventures of Starfleet on their missions to discover new worlds and new lifeforms, and one Starfleet officer who must learn that to truly understand all things alien, you must first understand yourself. The series will feature a new ship, new characters, and new missions while embracing the same ideology and hope for the future that inspired a generation of dreamers and doers.

Star Trek: Discovery‘s cast also includes Jason Isaacs as the starship Discovery’s Captain Lorca, Rainn Wilson as Star Trek: The Original Series character HarryMudd, James Frain as Sarek, Spock’s father, and Michelle Yeoh as CaptainGeorgiou, the captain of another Starfleet ship, the Shenzhou, which will be important to the plot of Star Trek: Discovery. Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp both play science officers. Mary Wiseman will play a final year Starfleet Academy cadet.

Star Trek: Discovery premieres Sept. 24, 2017.

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