Hey, nerds! I'm Wil Wheaton and this is "The Ready Room."
Your official behind-the-scenes hub
for all things Star Trek Universe.
Today, we're looking at everything that went down
in the penultimate installment
of Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3.
And wow, so much stuff happened
that I don't even know where to start.
What I will tell you is this, from this moment on,
we will be getting deep into spoilers.
So if you haven't watched Season 3, Episode 12,
"There Is A Tide...," then you should definitely watch
that first, then come back and watch us.
We'll be here for you, I promise.
When you come back, my very good friend, and director
of "There Is A Tide...," Jonathan Frakes is here
to tell us everything you could ever wanna know
about this episode.
Then a little later, we have an exclusive sneak peek
at the Season 3 finale of Star Trek: Discovery.
But before we dive into this latest episode,
I have to say this had one
of the most intense negotiation scenes I've seen in a while.
I am, of course, talking about
the Federation's Admiral Vance
versus Osyraa of the Emerald Chain.
A standoff for the ages.
For more on this scene, we go to our latest
"Moments of Discovery" video.
Control room, engage.
It doesn't quite taste like the real thing, does it?
I've never eaten a real apple.
Apples are a thing of beauty.
You wanna talk about oppression, you should start
in your own mess hall.
It's made of our [bleep] you know.
When Osyraa starts the negotiation process
with Admiral Vance, she is genuinely hoping
that they can collaborate to form a very unique
and special relationship that would benefit both sides.
Welcome to Federation headquarters, shall we?
Lead the way.
She's pretty transparent at the beginning
of the negotiation.
I want peace, I want the Emerald Chain
to unite with the Federation.
She offers him help, for help in exchange.
You have a spore drive that you cannot replicate.
I have the most well-funded scientific institutions
in the known galaxy.
There is a deal to be made here.
And I believe that she's probably a little bit tired
of holding this all up on her own shoulders
and genuinely needs the help of Admiral Vance
and the Federation.
For this armistice to be worth anything,
then the person representing the Chain
has to be proven credible.
The turning point comes, of course,
when Admiral Vance insists that she stand trial
for her crimes.
And the only way that that can happen
is if he or she functions completely independently
of you, and tries you for your crimes.
Excuse me?
And that is just not acceptable.
Osyraa, isn't able to go before court
and be judged for the things that she's done in the past,
because it's a loss of control.
We all had to make hard choices because of the Burn.
Spare me your judgment.
I think that she fears that there would be no one else
that would actually be able to stand up and continue
the progress, she's worked so hard to get her people
where they are and so she's just not willing
to sacrifice herself for the greater good, which is a shame.
There has to be some sort of judicial responsibility
in both societies, otherwise no one really trusts the truce.
You kind of need those checks and balances.
You're making a mistake.
That's not part of her vision.
Her vision is she is able to save the Emerald Chain,
add more dilithium to her stores,
not be in constant fight,
but still be in control of her half of the equation.
The more we learn about her,
I think the more fully realized she becomes,
and what you find is, she's in the same boat as Vance.
The galaxy is a much better place with you in it, Osyraa.
She wants to take care of her people.
She has a different way of going about things
and she doesn't have the same moral compass.
And from her perspective, your moral compass
doesn't have to be the right way.
When you look at that scene between Vance and Osyraa,
what Jonathan, myself, and Michelle talked a lot about
was having a chess match.
We loved the idea of a well-rounded villain
who had a strong point of view on this new future
and a strong point of view of how to survive
and was at odds with the Federation.
And we really wanted to give that to Osyraa this year.
You saw my next guest a few weeks back
when we chatted about Season 3,
Episode 3 of Star Trek: Discovery.
Now he is back to give us all the details
on the episode we just watched.
Everyone, please welcome back to "The Ready Room,"
everyone's favorite director, Jonathan Frakes.
Hi, Johnny!
Hi, Wil! How are you, WW?
I'm great, I'm so happy
that you're here today, it's so good to see you.
It's always a treat for me, you're such an adult.
It's so weird that I'm such an adult.
Well, you're old now. Like I was when I was on the show.
I'm the same age that Patrick was when we started,
and that is the weirdest thing in the world to me,
'cause I still feel like I'm 14.
And he's 80.
Let's start out by talking about
the Big Bad this season, Osyraa.
-: She's-- -: Fabulous.
She's amazing.
She's not your typical evil villain in science fiction.
In fact, what she proposes in this episode,
is to unite the Emerald Chain and--
-: With the Federation. -: With the federation.
I noticed the exchange between her and Admiral Vance
is intense, but dude that's a two hander where nobody moves
and you managed to turn that into this incredibly tense,
incredibly dynamic scene.
Talk about bringing that scene to life.
Get lots of coverage.
Yeah, okay.
No, and also, Oded, Oded Fehr, Janet Kidder, and I
actually found time to rehearse the scene.
Oh!
And the movements were so minimal,
-: that they had meaning, right? -: Yeah, absolutely.
And Crescenzo Notarile, my Cinematographer,
who actually did all three of my episodes, who's a genius.
Yes.
Found ways to keep, we moved it.
But it's the writing, it's always the writing.
You said with enthusiasm, that you got to rehearse
the scene, and a lot of people watching would think,
well of course you get to rehearse the scene,
that's what you do.
But I remember when we were doing Star Trek,
there's just so much work to do in a day,
that there's rarely time to do a proper actors rehearsal,
to really walk through things.
Generally, I'm saying this for the audience at home,
generally what you see is what we did
on our first or second go through.
We never really get that chance to walk around
and rehearse the scene.
So it is an incredible luxury to get to rehearse that scene.
Do, do you, how much time did you get to spend on that?
We didn't really have the luxury of rehearsal.
What we did was because I had done,
what I call DGA theater during prep, where I take
my First AD and the Cinematographer and maybe a PA,
and we go down on the set and I say,
"Here's where I think everyone will be when we do this."
So, the staging, especially it's pretty,
that was pretty straight ahead.
But I was able to bring
Jason and Oded in for rehearsal,
show it to Crescenzo, and then the three of us rehearsed
the moments off camera, in the chairs.
We didn't have time on the set with, you know,
or in the schedule to rehearse, let's not go crazy.
Like when you're in a movie, when you actually have
a week to rehearse or two weeks to rehearse a movie.
But we had, we found time to work together,
and the two of them were so pumped about these scenes,
because they were at the end of the schedule,
and we were all, it's the climax of, I mean,
it's an incredible story.
Yeah, it's very unexpected.
I did not see this coming at all,
and I wanted to talk with you about how you worked
with Janet to approach bringing out the very subtle nuances
of Osyraa, who is really stoic,
and never, just in the writing,
never lets the audience know what's going on.
So she sees the value in this peaceful future,
but then she ultimately isn't willing to sacrifice herself
for the greater good.
That was the line in the sand.
That's Kenneth Lin who wrote it, who's a wonderful--
He's a playwright first and he's a wonderful writer.
But the subtle, the nuance, the word you used,
is exactly what allowed those three scenes
to build to where they are.
There was even a little, thank God, a little levity.
That wonderful beat with the apples.
"Oh yeah, that we make that from [bleep],"
as she took the piece of apple out.
Just great, simple thing that you remember,
and I was watching the-- we were watching, too,
in preparation of this with you.
And I just did, I remember finding those moments with them
and encouraging 'cause when a scene is that simply staged,
every movement has a meaning.
Yes.
And the third character, Eli, Janet's approach to Eli
and removal from Eli, and checking with Eli for truth.
That character was an interesting addition.
And you'd never expect that her character
to be telling the truth that much.
Never, I didn't think and I didn't see any of that coming.
And in fact, when she says, you know,
"Hey I wanna be your pal."
I was like, come on.
-: And then when she turns to-- -: Then she refers to Oded,
Admiral Vance says,
"I want some of what the Emerald Chain is offering,
you guys have a lot of [bleep] together,
you've got a lot to offer us."
You got the wonderful Kenneth Mitchell back
for this episode.
Now, for those who don't know,
he has played so many characters,
I'm going to read them off a card.
He's played Kol, Kol-Sha, Tenavik,
and now this Emerald Chain scientist, Aurellio.
Talk a little bit about working with him
and the unique belief system that his character has
in relation to Osyraa.
What about Kenneth Mitchell, the man?
Yeah, tell us about him.
Tell us about working with him.
Kenneth Mitchell, who everybody loves,
who is sick with ALS,
was offered by Alex and Michelle Paradise,
a chance to come back and play a character,
other than his, from his, Klingon oeuvre.
Yes.
And because his medical situation requires
that he be in a wheelchair if we're gonna work
for a long day, they designed the chair for him.
Then they decided the chair would levitate.
It was just spectacular.
And then because of, I don't know if they talked
about it privately or because he has such incredible--
such a deep soulful relationship with his situation,
he played the scene in which he says,
"I wasn't supposed to live."
Right.
And he's talking about his family,
he has kids, the depth and the entendre,
the art imitating life of Kenneth being there
with us was great.
And he's totally different than the other characters
he's played in the show.
I love that his inclusion in this episode
and his inclusion in this way, is such an important piece
of representation and it is such an important part
of what makes Star Trek so special.
That's exactly what I was trying to say.
I'm just curious, in the blocking of that scene,
he's, you know he's not super mobile like he would be
if he were walking around, yet there's so much passion
and so much intensity happening in him.
And the moment when you see the scales fall
from his eyes is, it's heartbreaking.
I know, it's spectacular.
And also he had a Jerry stick to run the wheelchair.
We decided that he would ignore Stamets,
when Stamets is pleading about his partner
and pleading about Adira and pleading and--
and Aurellio is ignoring him,
as he drives away from him
and answers, he answers the questions
with a completely unrelated answer.
And it's so cold blooded it's-- oh.
Discovery does those moments really well.
Yeah.
Of all the Star Trek series, Discovery
does those break-your-heart moments,
I think, better than any of the other shows
that I can remember watching.
It's a very emo centric...
It really is.
Let's talk about the bridge crew.
Let's talk about the bridge crew who I absolutely adore.
I was telling Ann--
They were so great together.
They're always great together.
I had them at the tree in one of the other episodes.
It's so incredible.
Together. But that scene with the pop, pop, pop,
where they're sending the Morse code around the room.
Yeah, so how much fun was that?
That just seems like this was a day of let's play together.
Did it work like that on set?
Exactly, because we, what we decided to do
was build the little jail cell at the far end
of the ready room instead of using the whole ready room.
So they were crammed together and they all found
a place to sit, I said, let's play around.
So nobody was, not everybody was on the same level,
you know. And Tilly was great in that scene.
Tilly sacrifices, "No, no, you don't need anybody,
I'm the captain, take everybody out of here."
They were a blast.
I'm such a massive fan of that character.
-: I got to completely -: Captain Tilly?
just lose my mind at Mary and tell her
how much I love Tilly and how much I identify with her,
just her awkwardness. I was so moved,
as someone who is weird and played a character
who wasn't really listened to,
when Saru chooses her, 'cause Saru knows she can do this.
She's got this, she will blow up this ship
before she lets us Osyraa take it.
Yes.
It's such an incredible character moment for her
and it says to me, "This woman is going to be
a fearsome captain someday."
Well we saw a glimmer of it when she was Captain "Killy,"
when she was in the Mirror Universe.
Yes.
That fabulous costume and that fabulous hairdo.
She's a very gifted actor, Mary.
We didn't play in the Mirror Universe in this episode,
but how much do you love the Mirror Universe on Discovery?
I'm just crazy about it.
It's spectacular.
And I'm so glad it's a part of the world.
And we never got to do it on Next Gen.
The closest we got was "Yesterday's Enterprise."
Yeah, which I never understood.
We should do an entire "Ready Room" on that.
I never understood and still don't understand that episode.
People have explained it to me,
Okay.
Seriously, people have explained it to me off the cuff,
I still don't get it.
I'm gonna break it down for you with charts and red
-: and red twine on the wall. -: Exactly.
Denise Crosby knows it.
I noticed parallels between First Contact,
which you directed, and this episode. With both cases,
our hero ship is taken over by a hostile force, right?
First Contact has the Borg,
the Emerald Chain takes over Disco.
Meanwhile, First Contact went all the way back
to the moment humanity first discovered warp travel.
Now in Discovery, you have leapt ahead to the farthest point
in canon, that we've ever gone.
And there's this incredibly high stakes battle
for the future of the Federation, for the future
of all the Federation's member nations,
for the future of the galaxy.
I wonder if you would talk about that and if you made any
of those connections between the film and this episode
or if I'm just projecting, cause I'm a fan.
You're projecting because you're a fan,
but there was a certain look to the--
what were they called?
The Emerald Chain....
Regulators.
Regulators, she says.
Which is a great name.
And that was like, they needed a bigger boat.
That was like Jaws.
Yeah, yes.
Right?
And the vibe on this ship and the movement
of the camera and the black uniform,
they felt like the Borg, it felt like we were with the Borg,
on not the Enterprise, but on another Federation starship.
So the feeling that you just described was absolutely
in the show.
I hadn't made the connection to be sort of the beginning
of warp and now whatever 903 years later,
and I'm not sure I have anything intelligent to say,
in that regard.
[laughs]
Well, much like Riker comes in at the end
of things to button things up in a really delightful
and joyful way.
P.S. for everyone who hasn't seen Lower Decks,
there's a little Riker in Lower Decks
and it's amazing.
[laughs]
Let's talk about what is my absolute favorite moment
in an episode filled with incredible iconic moments,
Burnham and Stamets. Right before she puts him
in the bubble and sends him out.
Anthony makes a choice that is so powerful,
and you feel like he's never gonna see anyone he loves
ever again.
And I completely believe it.
Yeah.
Did you enjoy as a director putting the actors
through these very tense moments?
I enjoyed being present for them.
And I feel that both Michael Burnham--
Michael, Sonequa and Anthony trust me.
Yeah.
And therefore are willing to, you know how dangerous
it is to go and you're afraid you're gonna be too big.
Yeah.
And I encourage them, as we all do as directors,
it's gonna be easier for me to pull you back,
than it is for me to try to get you there.
Sure.
So to both of their credits, they were willing
to try huge, massive choices from which we did reduce it.
And when you do that, when you come down
and you've made really over the top choices,
the choice that you end up with on the screen,
that's appropriate to the size of the frame, et cetera,
still has a little of the residual of the madness
of the original, of the take before.
-: You know what I mean? -: Yes, yes I do.
Percolating behind their eyes and it,
it informs a take that has, that is more subdued physically,
but has-- you know, they've gone,
their minds are still spinning with the old one.
And it's those two actors in particular are,
well they're like-- it's like playing a, you know,
it's like with Sir Patrick. It's like
you're playing a fantastic Stradivarius
and you just beep, beep, I've said it before,
but that's-- it's Sonequa.
And this was Anthony's tour de force,
was this both the scene in Engineering
and the scene before he's ejected out of the
ship where he is completely raw
and passionate about his family and his love
and his career and what he's given,
and he accuses her and he reminds her
that they came back for her and she is tortured
by the decisions she has to make.
And it's, it's pretty spectacular.
I had an acting teacher who I credit with
a lot of my ability to understand acting
at an intellectual level
and who I credit with getting my hang-ups
out of my way. To let the emotion connect to the words.
And she would always say, "Now it lives in you.
Now it is alive in you, go."
And it was always different when that--
It felt like it lives in Anthony
and it lives in Sonequa, so intensely in that scene.
Yeah. And also, when there are scenes
that are that well-written.
And, you know, the first time through the script
you go, "Oh my God, this is gonna be a blast,
I hope we have time to get this right."
Yeah.
That whole-- both the sort of trilogy of
Oded and Janet scenes and the Michael and Stamets scenes,
were that.
Those are five heavy scenes.
Yeah.
That we luckily did have time to shoot.
And that's a credit to my First.
God bless the First. Like, thank you,
thank you to all you good First ADs out there in the world.
I love you so much.
It's an incredibly important job.
That's another "Ready Room."
Yeah, for sure.
Robert Altman, whose son I was a friend of,
once said to me-- I didn't know him or work with him--
but he said, "It's very important for a director to really,
really understand what a First AD does."
Yeah, I would agree with that.
This episode ends on a very intense
and adorable cliffhanger.
When the DOT-23 show up to help the crew.
They've been showing up throughout this season,
they've been doing little things all season long
and we have gotten these delightful hints
that Discovery itself, the ship itself cares about the crew.
Are we to presume the appearance of the DOT-23 is to confirm
that Discovery now has a bit of a consciousness?
Is it sentient as a ship?
Does the ship care about the crew? Is the ship--
I feel like since the Sphere data was uploaded
into the ship, the ship is starting to change
in the way that it-- the way that the computer talks
to the crew is different, and the expectations the crew has
of the computer is different.
But now here we see, personified it would appear,
that Sphere data crawling up and saying,
"By the way, I'm still here."
"I'm still here and I'm here to help."
Yes.
"I'm gonna help you guys through this."
And the tee-up in Act One where Osyraa says,
"How much, how much, you know, Ram is that eating up?"
Yeah.
And Kanak says, "It's not much."
She said, "Well, forget about it."
Clearly, you know, that was a mistake.
I feel like alienating and making an enemy
of a 100,000 year old intelligence filled with all
of the knowledge of its quadrant and the galaxy,
is maybe not the best idea. But I mean, I don't know.
I'm not Orion, maybe it's part of their culture.
They're-- Yes, they disrespect Buster Keaton.
[laughs]
By the way, never thought I would see Buster Keaton
in Star Trek.
Absolutely love, love that Buster Keaton is in Star Trek.
I think that's, I'm not sure who, but Kenneth,
that's Kenneth's script. I think it's delightful that
that show and most of the Star Treks are unafraid
to literally try anything.
At the beginning of our interview,
I referred to you accurately as our favorite director.
That's true across every series.
It's true of every cast you interface with.
I'm sure you know, this, I'm just saying it out loud
so that people in the world who don't know it
now have that information in their heads.
You have directed all three seasons of Discovery.
You've gotten to come in and each season is its own story
and it has its own tone and has its own series
of challenges.
I wonder if you would talk a little bit
about how this season specifically,
differed from the past two seasons you've worked on.
If there were any unique challenges present this year
that you haven't experienced before?
Or are you like in it, you got it?
I was fortunate this year to have three episodes
to do, so I was sort of always in the Discovery mode.
I was either prepping or shooting, or getting ready
to pack up.
So I was in the rhythm of the show.
I also have a... you know, by virtue of having done--
been with the cast, you get a shorthand
with the cast and the crew.
And that's so valuable, that's so valuable.
You remember on our show there were directors
who would come in, who we frankly would not dread,
but we'd think, oh it's gonna be a bit of more
of an uphill sludge.
Yeah.
Some directors, I mean, this guy or this woman is gonna know
what they're doing and we're gonna have a few laughs,
and we're gonna have a good show.
And there's a-- And big part of my job
is making the environment a place where people feel
that they can-- first of all, be creative--
but they are safe to make a mistake,
you can make a mistake.
And in those mistakes, maybe magic happens.
If not, they're just little pixels, we'll make,
we'll do another tape.
Have they asked you to direct next season yet?
They have, I'm heading up in,
right after Thanksgiving.
That's super exciting.
I'm excited for you and the cast.
And I'm excited for me as a fan.
You're fabulous.
Johnny, I love you, and I love that you made the time
for us today.
Thank you for spending time with us in "The Ready Room."
Thank you for your contributions to Discovery.
Thank you for being just such an important part
of my family.
It is always such a privilege to see you.
I always look forward to this time with you,
and you make it so easy.
You're a real pleasure,
-: bless you. -: Thanks buddy,
I love you too.
And now we have a never-before-seen
behind the scenes video for you to watch.
And I mean that literally,
because I haven't even seen it yet.
They're gonna put this in in post-production.
I have no idea what it is.
Let's find out together. Control room, roll it.
Or engage, it's up to you.
This is the new Starfleet phaser.
We're affectionately calling this one the "Great White."
This is for, the white is for the higher ranks.
Then we've got the the "Gray Shark"
for some of the lower ranks.
You know, there's sort of this fan nicknamed phaser
which was the "Dolphin."
So we wanted to get a little tougher with ours
and a little bit more, a little bit more dangerous.
That's the "Great White."
A lot of these for background are 3D-printed
except for the ones that our actors are holding,
which will be aluminum milled,
so that there's just a bit more weight to them,
and you can, it's just a tiny little bit,
but it really changes the performance,
and it really changes how they're-- how they behave
on camera with it and how they move.
The cool thing about this,
because it is programmable matter,
a lot of our crew are armed and ready to go.
And what you'll see is, you don't need
to have holsters anymore,
you'll have this tiny little wrist tech.
So that tiny piece is on the sleeve
of a lot of our crew and a little gesture of bringing up,
bringing up a weapon, will then form and become this.
Again, a lot of our stuff this year is working
in conjunction with VFX and with our VFX team.
We designed a lot of features into the phaser
that haven't been fully explored yet,
but we'll see them come out in different seasons
as to, you know, what they can all do.
Come on!
One of our other worlds that we travel to
is Book's home planet. There's a sort of
this very organic warrior race.
And these are phaser rifles, phaser dart rifles.
And you'll see that they shoot these little phaser darts
that embed themselves and then shoot a little pulse
of electricity to knock you out.
We went with sort of more of this
like woodgrain look. The challenge is
that the 3D printers will only print so far.
So for these pieces, we print in pieces. Especially
in-house where we don't have the big, massive printers.
So here we'll just print in-house
and then glue them together,
and then we'll mold it and cast it as one big piece.
It's less of a challenge every year.
The technology is definitely catching up to our ideas.
This is actually a fully 3D-printed mask,
with just a little bit of a bent plexi inside.
This is called the Terran Death Mask.
And you'll see it in, well you saw, you saw it
in a little flashback that Georgiou has.
It's all one solid piece.
All of it was printed off of one pull.
Pretty amazing little build.
The stuff we're doing this year with 3D printers
is incredible.
[Book] The black box I promised.
I hope it helps you find what you're looking for.
A lot of this season hinges on Burnham's search
for the cause of the Burn.
And throughout the early episodes, she's in search
of data black boxes, which are on all the Federation ships
and are on a lot of Federation member ships.
These are the black boxes that Burnham uses
and Burnham finds.
We've got like an old beat up one from one of the ships,
one of the newer ones she finds.
And then she finds this one which is on a Cardassian ship,
Federation member ship at that point.
It took a little bit of inspiration from today's black boxes
from planes, which are actually bright orange.
So what you see here is a lot of the bright orange,
you know, and the amber's in there,
inspired from today's black boxes.
One of the big twists in this season, that you saw,
is the reuniting of Burnham and Burnham's mother.
She gives Burnham the last piece of the puzzle,
in order to find and triangulate where the Burn originated
from. And this is a Vulcan-Romulan storage device.
Coordinates and everything for ships that were investigating
where they could find more dilithium and where one
of the last ships that disappeared is.
Again, this is a polished clear 3D print
with brass. And if you look closely--
the etching on the inside. It's all laser etched.
That's a really, yeah, this was a gorgeous little piece.
Wow, nerds, the end is in sight.
Next week, Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery
will reach its epic conclusion.
It feels like we just started this season.
But before we go, I have an exclusive clip to show you
from the finale, which is aptly titled,
"That Hope Is You, Part Two."
See what they did there?
Sit back and enjoy.
[Gormagander gurgling]
[Narrator] The Gormagander, a sentient Cosmozoan species,
holds the ignominious record of the longest time spent
on the Federation's endangered species list.
That's why this recorded scan of a young Gormagander pup
in 3052, was of particular interest to us.
[Su'Kal] That looks painful.
Su'Kal, I am ill.
This... this world.
Here. For your wounds.
Saru.
I've looked everywhere
and things are definitely worse.
More radiation is getting in.
His outburst must have caused a breach in the ship's hull.
Has he told you how to turn off the holo?
I believe he knows more about this world
than he has indicated, but I cannot force a shift
in perspective or he could panic.
Another Burn could destroy what remains of the Federation.
I don't know what else to do.
Thank you so much for joining me here in "The Ready Room"
to talk about the second to last episode
of Star Trek: Discovery, Season 3.
The fun is not over yet, we still have one more episode
and one more "Ready Room" to go. Next week,
I will be back to talk about everything
that happens in the season finale
and it is going to be awesome.
Until then, I'm Wil Wheaton.
Live long and prosper.