Doug Jones Interview: Star Trek: Discovery Season 3

Star Trek: Discovery season 3 has rocketed to the 32nd century and episode 2, "Far From Home", shows what became of the U.S.S. Discovery when it arrived in the distant future. The Discovery is commanded by Acting Captain Saru (Doug Jones) and it crashed on an unknown ice world, so the episode deals with the Starfleet Officers' attempts to repair their ship.

Saru and Ensign Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) venture to a mining settlement called The Colony to barter for resources, which gets them embroiled in the problems the Coridan miners have with their courier, Zareh (Jake Weber), who has been running a protection racket and extorting the Colony for its minerals. But when Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) interjected herself into the matter, the Starfleet Officers turn the tables on Zareh and his men. The Old Western-influenced episode ends with the Discovery repaired and attempting to break from the planet's parasitic ice, only to have unexpected help from a new arrival: a starship piloted by Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). Michael also brings a final shocking twist: she arrived in the future one year before the Discovery and the year is now 3189!

Screen Rant had the pleasure of speaking to Doug Jones about the second episode of Star Trek: Discovery season 3, and we delved into the challenges of shooting on location in Iceland while Doug wore Saru's Kelpien prosthetics, working with Michelle Yeoh, whether Saru or Michael should be Captain of the Discovery, and a little tease about what's to come in episode 3.

Let's get into Star Trek: Discovery episode 2. A great episode. So you shot it on location in Iceland?

So what was it like being in full Kelpien prosthetics in the raw nature of Iceland?

One of the impressive things about the episode is Saru is very much in command now. Even without the extra [Captain's] pip, he is the Captain. But on the flip side, you have Emperor Georgiou, and she is a wildcard troublemaker, especially in this episode. What was it like, as two alphas now, what was it like to face off with Michelle Yeoh? She's a force of nature.

Absolutely. As you brought up, the threat ganglia's gone and Saru has evolved. Completely night and day story from how it would have been a season ago at this point. And one of the things I really loved about episode 2 was it had this really gritty Old West feel, but it also felt like an Original Series episode. It had a lot of that Kirk cowboy diplomacy going on with the Coridans. And it had that great villain in Jake Weber as Zareh.

Yeah, he just controlled the screen. You just felt that he was an enormous threat, even though he was just one guy. Discovery probably could have shot him down. I was thinking about it and if he tried to storm that ship, you have 88 people there who could just take him out. 

But he felt like a genuine threat.

In that circumstance in the saloon, Saru wanted to go very much by the book to protect Discovery's secrets, but do you think he got the understanding from that experience that maybe going by the book isn't gonna fly because the 32nd century is just dangerous and unpredictable.

Speaking of the future, Michael [Burnham's] back. Great surprise ending plus the extra twist that it's one year later for her. 3189.

So now that she's back, we've gotta talk about the Captaincy of the Discovery, we've gotta settle this issue [of whether Saru or Michael should be Captain]. So let's treat it like the Presidential debate. What's Saru's stump speech?

Right. My last question for you is about Michael's arrival at the end. Such an amazing, emotional scene. Saru was the first to notice that not just her hair was different, but there was something more different about her. Because as you said, he knows Michael better than anybody. Can you speak about what it was like to play that scene? Was Sonequa [Martin-Green] on set? Was that against a green screen?

Star Trek: Discoveryseason 3 streams Thursdays on CBS All-Access and Fridays internationally on Netflix.

Source: screenrant.com