Star Trek Discovery: 10 Hidden Details You Missed In Season 1

There are few universes in film and television that have gone as long and grown as expansive as Star Trek has. There have now been nine different series, amounting for 35 seasons of television, plus thirteen feature films. Anytime a new trek begins, there is a rich tapestry for it to pull from even when creating its own new mythos.

This was, and still is, the case for the current running series Star Trek: Discovery. Discovery has finished it's first two seasons and has featured an impressive amount of interesting new ideas and storylines. However, those are still riddled with little details, homages, or references to other media from throughout the franchise. Here are ten details from season one you might have missed.

10 Tribble

In episode three, there is a blink and you'll miss it Easter egg during the scene in which Captain Lorca talks to Burnham. Sitting on the far right of his desk is a small Tribble. Tribbles are the puff-ball aliens that make an appearance in the original series, where they cause trouble by breeding and spreading throughout the ship.

They return in the sequel film Star Trek: Into Darkness, where their DNA plays a pivotal role in healing Kirk after he is nearly killed.

9 Vulcan Nerve Pinch

At one point in episode three, Burnham uses an all too familiar attack. Having been trained by the Vulcan Sarek, she uses a move that Spock made famous in the original series, the Vulcan Nerve Pinch.

It is cool to the move used, but it is even cooler to see a non-Vulcan character use it, especially with it being canon that it is almost impossible to master the move, and even harder for non-Vulcans. It is a huge moment that shows off how formidable Burnham is for even being able to learn the move.

8 List Of Captains

In episode five, the character Saru requests a list of Starfleet captains, resulting in a sound-off of easter egg name-drops. Christopher Pike (the captain from the original pilot), Jonathan Acker (Enterprise), Mathew Decker (the original series), and even Robert April (the animated series) are all listed alongside Phillippa Georgiou, the captain from Discovery. 

Sure, there are a few noteworthy captains left off the list, but considering Discovery's place in the Star Trek timeline, this list is pretty sound.

7 Lorca's Gorn Skeleton

Also in episode three, we get a look into Captain Lorca's secret chambers, where he is keeping trophies of multiple alien species. One of the most notable collector's items he has is the skeleton of a Gorn, the reptilian warrior race from the original series.

Gorn are famous for the classic episode of the original series titled "Arena" where Kirk must fight a member of the Gorn to the death on a desolate planet, using whatever he can find to survive.

6 Georgiou's Bookshelf

Inside Captain Georgiou's office is a bookshelf containing a number of colorful books, most of which contain a Starfleet symbol of some kind on their spine. Looking closely reveals that these books are named after episode titles from the original series.

"The Omega Glory," "Mirror, Mirror," "The Deadly Years," and a few others all make appearances as book titles. Maybe coincidence, or maybe the adventures of the original crew have been immortalized and newer starship captains look to them for inspiration.

5 U.S.S. Defiant

This iconic ship shows up in Discovery as a vital part of the plot when the crew is trapped in the mirror dimension, but it isn't the ship's first appearance. It also shows up in the series Deep Space Nine, where it plays a significant role in the series, even being destroyed at one point, then replaced by a new version with the same build.

The spacecraft doesn't stop there, as it also shows up in the feature film, Star Trek: First Contact, where it is part of a fleet sent to combat the Borg. The fleet is annihilated, with the Defiant lasting the longest and doing the best of all the ships there.

4 Harry Mudd

In episode five, the crew is joined by Harry Mudd, a smuggler played by Rainn Wilson. His guest appearance is a fun self-contained plot, but there is actually a bit more to it than that. The character of Harry Mudd actually appears in the original series, played Roger C. Carmel.

He appears in season one episode three, then again in season two episode twelve. He is a thief, swindler, and overall annoyance to the original crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, so his inclusion in Discovery is both entertaining and fitting to his story.

3 Vulcan Mirror Beard

While in the mirror universe, the crew encounters the mirror double of Sarek, Spock's father and the Vulcan that trained Burnham. In the mirror world, Sarek sports a goatee, opposite of the clean-shaven look he normally has.

This is a direct nod to the original series, in which the crew traveled to the mirror dimension, where Spock had a goatee instead of being clean shave. Like mirror father, like mirror son.

2 U.S.S. Saratoga

In episode 14, it is off-handedly mentioned that the U.S.S. Saratoga has been destroyed. While seemingly just a random ship name, the Saratoga title has actually been used multiple times throughout Star Trek's franchise. It is the name of a starship in Deep Space Nine, as well as the name of a ship used in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. 

Unfortunately, due to timelines, and the ship's destructions, the canon on this ship doesn't quite line up, which means it is less likely that all three iterations were the same ship, and more-so that the name was just reused as an Easter Egg.

1 Going Out On A High Note

The most impossible-to-miss reference in season one of Discovery is in the final episode when the most famous ship in all of Star Trek makes an appearance. The U.S.S. Enterprise captained at the time by Pike, rockets across the screen, but the real Easter egg is in the musical accompaniment.

When the ship arrives, the classic action theme from the original series plays under it, making the moment all the more grand and nostalgic. Then, after the episode's conclusion, a new, reworked version of the original show's orchestral them plays the show out. The theme takes the original melody and uses a larger orchestra to make it close out the show in a huge fashion.

Source: screenrant.com