The crew for Star Trek: Discovery – both aboard the titular ship and elsewhere in the galaxy – has been slowly beaming aboard the show. And now the team has found the main character, with The Walking Dead's Sonequa Martin-Green on to play Lieutenant Commander Rainsford.
As envisioned by original showrunner Bryan Fuller (who has since stepped aside to focus on other projects), she's purposefully not a captain, as all the Trek stories so far have focused (with the exception of early Deep Space Nine seasons, though Sisko was in command even before he became a captain) on a commanding officer. The rank offers the chance to explore other facets of ship life.
And it's not as if won't be captains around: we already have Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou of fellow Starfleet vessel Shenzhou, plus Doug Jones as Lt. Saru, a Starfleet Science Officer from a previously unseen alien race and Anthony Rapp playing Lt. Stamets, an “astromycologist,” or fungus expert. Outside of the fleet, there are three Klingons: Chris Obi as T’Kuvma, a leader seeking to unite the Klingon houses, Shazad Latif playing Kol, a Klingon Commanding Officer, and protege of T’Kuvma; and Mary Chieffo as L’Rell, the Battle Deck Commander of a Klingon ship.
But before you start assuming that this means Martin-Green's character Sasha will soon be snuffing it in The Walking Dead, Entertainment Weekly's report says that she's continuing to appear on the show, so Sasha should be around for a while. Of course, no one is ever truly safe...
Star Trek: Discovery should be kicking off shooting soon under current bosses Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, and should be on screens (via CBS All Access in the States and Netflix in the UK) next May.