Star Trek Discovery has, after months of back and forth and personnel changes, finally started casting. Michelle Yeoh has been announced as a cast member already, and she’s just been followed by Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp, the latter of whom will be crashing through one of the last barriers in Star Trek history.
Jones will be playing, as you might expect from his work on Hellboy and The Strain, an alien, specifically Lt. Saru, a new species being introduced to the Star Trek canon and likely one with some cultural differences that will be the center of an episode struggling with a serious social issue. Rapp, however, is the slightly more interesting character, playing Lt. Stamets, an astromycologist (i.e. space mushroom expert) and, more importantly, openly gay.
Star Trek Beyond marked the first time any character in Star Trek was openly gay, but Stamets will be the first original crew member to bust through this particular glass ceiling. Trek has a well-meaning, but messy, history of trying to tackle issues of sexuality and identity, so it’ll be interesting to see what Stamets runs into a few hundred years’ worth of social progress into the future. Although considering Star Trek‘s general track record with romance, we’d recommend he just be up front with whoever he’s attracted to. Otherwise, the closest you might get to telling the person you love how you feel is by building them a tub.
(via TV Line)
