‘Star Trek: Discovery’ has found its young Spock. As was controversially revealed in the first season, ‘Discovery”s main character, Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, was an Earthling raised on Vulcan and was, in fact, raised by Sarek (played by James Frain on the series) and his human wife, Amanda (Mia Kirshner), making her the adopted sister of perhaps ‘Trek”s most famous character, Spock.
This move has ruffled a lot of traditionalist feathers, but it seems that ‘Discovery’ has been met with controversy with every decision, down to the fact that it is serialized and doesn’t consist of “alien of the week” self-contained episodes. So the actor donning Spock’s pointed ears is walking into a firestorm.
That actor is Ethan Peck. Peck was most recently seen on The CW Seed series ‘I Ship It’. Before that, he had a regular role on ’10 Things I Hate About You’ and appeared on ‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Madam Secretary’ and in movies like ‘The Curse of Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. He has the lead role in upcoming drama ‘Broken Land’ and has been cast in ‘Intensive Care’ with Mira Sorvino, Katherine McPhee and ‘Stranger Things” Noah Schnapp, as well as Chris Klein, who has also been cast in an ongoing genre series, ‘The Flash’ playing cult leader Cicada.
Pointy-eared Spock is the character most associated with the original ‘Trek’ on which Leonard Nimoy played him, in both the original series (and the cartoon) and the movie revival. Zachary Quinto adopted the role for the modern film series (dubbed the “Kelvin Timeline”), but, of course, Nimoy reprised his role as a time-displaced older Spock and his cameo in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ was his final performance.
‘Star Trek: Discovery’ returns for its second season in January 2019. You may recall that Season One ended with the Discovery crew responding to a distress call from another Federation spacecraft… the Enterprise.
Executive producer Alex Kurtzman addressed Peck’s casting by saying:
“Through 52 years of television and film, a parallel universe and a mirror universe, Mr. Spock remains the only member of the original bridge crew to span every era of ‘Star Trek’. The great Leonard Nimoy, then the brilliant Zachary Quinto, brought incomparable humanity to a character forever torn between logic and emotion… We searched for months for an actor who would, like them, bring his own interpretation to the role. An actor who would, like them, effortlessly embody Spock’s greatest qualities, beyond obvious logic: empathy, intuition, compassion, confusion, and yearning.
“Ethan Peck walked into the room inhabiting all of these qualities, aware of his daunting responsibility to Leonard, Zack, and the fans, and ready to confront the challenge in the service of protecting and expanding on Spock’s legacy. In that spirit, we’re thrilled to welcome him to the family.”
No exact date has been given for Season 2 of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ but it is expected to premiere sometime in early 2019.
Source: Deadline
