BIG, HUGE, ENORMOUS, GIGANTIC SPOILER ALERT!!!
Now THIS is exciting! I don’t know whether the producers of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY
intentionally leaked this snippet of the script for the first episode of season two or if it just “sneaked” out the door somehow. But it provides an intriguing look at the direction the creative team will be taking going into the second season.
As has been reported elsewhere, the writing team for Discovery re-assembled at the beginning of last month to begin breaking down season two. Co-creator Alex Kurtzman, who will be directing the first episode of season two, recently explained, “Breaking story is, in some ways, the easier and faster thing; it’s the ability to execute on it that’s much harder. We want to take the right amount of time and don’t want to rush.”
But with production on the first episode set to kick off later this month, the first script needed to be completed quickly. Jonathan Frakes, who just confirmed that he will be directing an episode later in season two, commented, “I just read the first script of the second season and the outline for the second script and it’s on fire now.”
Indeed! And from this leaked scene, I think he’s right.
Granted, there’s no guarantee that the following snippet from the season two premiere script will make it into the actual episode exactly as initially written. Dialog can get changed, segments added and cut, etc. But if this leaked scene does make it into the finished episode, I think we’ll all be very surprised and even enthusiastic about the new direction of the series now that the Klingon War is over.
Naturally, the most exciting thing about this leaked snippet is that fans get a glimpse into how the series will be handing the character of Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise who, like Sarek, Amanda, and Harry Mudd, has already been seen in canonical Star Trek history. Will Captain Pike hew closely to his original version (like Sarek does), or will he be a radical departure (like Harry Mudd)?
Wonder no more!
I’m not sure if I’m even allowed to post this, so read it fast before I get an e-mail on Monday morning from someone with the initials of “C.B.S.” telling me to immediately take it down.
Enjoy this sneak peek into season two…
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY
Episode #2.1
“Priority One”
EXT. SPACE – ENTERPRISE AND DISCOVERY
VFX: The two starships sit ominously silent in space, facing each other. The moment hangs before we…
CUT TO:
INT. DISCOVERY – BRIDGE
Establishing shot of the crew manning their stations: SARU, BURNHAM, STAMETS, TILLY, DETMER, and the rest. SAREK is also present. All are listening intently, waiting for the message from ENTERPRISE to become intelligible.
BURNHAM
I think I’ve cleared up the subspace interference. Comm channel with ENTERPRISE open.
PIKE (V.O.)
This is Captain Christopher Pike of the USS ENTERPRISE on emergency channel. Please respond.
Reaction shots from crew members around the bridge, looking concerned but ready for action.
Burnham presses a few buttons, and PIKE appears on their bridge as a translucent hologram. PIKE looks around, confused and disoriented.
PIKE
What’s going on? I’m still standing on my bridge looking at your bridge on my view screen, but I can see myself standing on your bridge. How is that possible?
SARU
That is standard Starfleet holo-communication, Captain Pike.
PIKE
It’s WHAT??? Starfleet doesn’t have that! Who am I talking to?
SARU
This is Acting Captain Saru of the USS DISCOVERY. Thank you for contacting us. How may I direct your call?
PIKE
DISCOVERY, we have a dire situation. We urgently need to discuss continuity for the future. You’ve gotten us into one hell of a mess…
SARU
Hold please.
HOLD MUSIC
(As crew looks at each other with confused expressions,
the following song plays under their concerned glances…)
It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. It’s been a looooong time, but my time is finally near. And I can see my dream come alive—
BURNHAM
(steps forward from her station)
This is Commander Michael Burnham. Please state your emergency.
PIKE
The mutineer? Burnham, where’s your captain?
BURNHAM
I have all the important dialogue on this ship, Captain Pike. I am a Starfleet officer, and I bleed Starfleet principles. I am its very conscience, and the firmness of the ground on which it stands. There is no higher calling than to carry the shining torch of our ideals. We must cling dearly to these principles or we are nothing but the bleak vacuum of space.
PIKE’s hologram looks down at his watch.
BURNHAM (cont.)
I am duty-bound to be the voice of strength and reason among an otherwise unremarkable bridge crew with little meaningful dialogue. Without my guardianship of these principles, there will be no bold journeys across the final frontier…only cancellation and despair.
PIKE
This is hardly the time for principles, Burnham! There are so many things to fix, I don’t know where to even start. And it’s not just this crazy hologram technology you use to communicate or the fact that you don’t have proper buttons that look like candy and marbles glued to your consoles or that you don’t use paper computer printouts. No, the problem is MUCH bigger than that!
SARU
To what problem are you referring, Captain?
PIKE
For one thing, we’ve got to completely erase your spore-drive from history. You can’t just magic yourself from one corner of the galaxy to another. And you have a spinning—thing!—on your primary hull for no reason whatsoever. Your uniforms look like shell suits, and the Klingons are ridiculous. They can hardly even lift their arms in those bulky outfits, let alone fight convincingly! And I can barely read those awful subtitles…
BURNHAM
Do not doubt my principles, Captain Pike. Principles are all we have! Just ask Admiral Cornwell—I’ve just given her a verbal slapping she’ll never forget. You’re talking to a two-mutiny veteran here. And did I mention my principles? Boy, do I have principles…
PIKE
Burnham…is this a joke? We don’t need non-stop principles, we need entertainment. I’ve got 203 people over here on a wagon train to the stars. Where are your miniskirts and coloured uniforms? Where are the back-stories for your plucky bridge crew? I’ve got a bunch of hot-blooded guys who want to make out with sexy space babes and shoot aliens. I’ve got redshirts galore ready to die in vain. I’ve even got a doctor who makes martinis, for Christ’s sake! It’s like MAD MEN in space. Nostalgia TV…this is what people want!
BURNHAM
This is the 2250’s, Captain Pike, and those days are truly over. Our new adventures will feature gender-balanced, socio-political allegory smeared on with a trowel. Each week my bottom lip will quiver as I emancipate downtrodden aliens, eschew ancient Republican dogma, and wax lyrical about Starfleet’s highest Democratic principles.
PIKE
What—no space chicks in skimpy costumes? Burnham are you serious?
BURNHAM
Captain Pike, let me assure you that, despite your place in history, things are going to be different from now on. There will be no damsels in distress or green Orion slave women to objectify…only to emancipate. Oh, and we’ll have green Orion slave MEN, as well, because our ideals are those of the highest gender-neutral purity.
There will be no daughters of mad scientists in need of discovering the ways of love from a strong male captain. Those outdated stereotypes will be consigned to history. If we encounter such women, they will now be given the option of learning the ways of love from a man OR a woman…or both, if they’d like. We have crew members from all different sexual orientations. In fact, most of our remaining male crew members are completely gay.
SARU
Actually, I am bi. Most Kelpians are. Now that I’ve become so popular, you will all be learning much more about me and my species in the coming episodes…I mean, in the coming months.
BURNHAM
Quiet, Saru.
SARU
Isn’t the ship’s captain the one who is supposed to speak in situations like this?
BURNHAM
You’re only ACTING captain right now, and I’m the one with top billing in the opening credits—and what’s up with that giant plant spitting us out during the title sequence? I don’t get it.
Anyway, I was on a roll. Where was I again? Oh, yeah, total gender equality and progressive-minded representations of the LGBTQCYDSAKHM community.
PIKE
What do all those letters stand for?
BURNHAM
I can’t remember all of them anymore…new letters keep getting added every few years. But I will tell you what WE stand for: principles. Did I mention those? No longer will we aggressively engage violent alien races and try to defeat them in space combat. Other franchises can waste their VFX budgets doing that.
Instead, we will meet hostility with a liberal-minded acceptance of diversity and embrace our foes and their belligerence with open arms. No more Vulcan hello’s.
PIKE
What does that even mean? How do you expect to defeat space Nazis, modern Romans, salt vampires, slow-moving lizard-men, flying pizzas, blood-sucking clouds, and giant space amoebas? Exiled Greek gods, super-ESPers, hyper-evolved glowing lights on primitive worlds, talking rocks, horny teenagers with mind powers, disembodied brains with gambling addictions, all-powerful effete retired generals with harpsichords, and other omnipotent entities of all shapes and sizes are running amok throughout the galaxy.
Someone has to stop them!
You can’t just give everyone you meet on a first contact mission a great big hug. Hell, I can’t even count how many self-aware computers are threatening to destroy the galaxy and have to be tricked into self-destructing themselves!
When you explore the final frontier, Burnham, you have to be prepared for the worst.
BURNHAM
Oh, seeking out new life and new civilizations is only PART of what we do, Captain Pike. And we’ll get to it eventually.
PIKE
But isn’t your ship called “DISCOVERY”?
BURNHAM
We’re on a voyage of SELF-discovery, Captain. We’re trying to discover our own humanity.
SARU
I should point out that I am not human.
BURNHAM
You’re close enough, Saru.
SARU
I would respectfully disagree, Commander. I’m very tall, I have hoofed feet and ganglia, and I can sense the coming of death…which no human is capable of doing unless they’re about to stick a fork into a toaster. Oh, and I can run significantly faster than any human.
BURNHAM
Oh, for the love of Surak! Shut up!!
DETMER
Commander, may I say something?
BURNHAM
No.
TILLY
Actually, I’ve got something important to add.
BURNHAM
Yes, Tilly? Go ahead.
DETMER
Hey, don’t I outrank her? Why does SHE get to talk???
BURNHAM
Because you don’t get paid enough to talk, Detmer. Now, Tilly, what did you want to say?
TILLY
Um. Well. Y’know….er. Ummmmm.
I think I forgot.
STAMETS
Oh, good grief!
SAREK
(quiet aside to STAMETS)
Are your missions always like this?
BURNHAM turns back to face the hologram of PIKE.
As I was saying…
By discovering our humanity—
SARU
And Kelpian…anity?
BURNHAM
(turning to face Saru)
Shush, SARU!
BURNHAM (cont.)
(back to PIKE)
By discovering our inner moral compass, we can evolve from being a crew of prissy divas who haven’t had our morning coffee yet into noble Starfleet officers carrying the ideals of the United Federation of Planets to the farthest reaches of our galaxy…which we can now get to if we ever decide to plug in the magic mushroom drive again.
STAMETS
They’re NOT magic mushrooms, dammit!! They’re multi-dimensional cosmic spore entities linked to the vast Mycelial Network that spans across this universe and beyond…
….and they just happen to be, um, mushrooms. But they’re NOT magic!
BURNHAM
(ignoring Stamets)
These are our principles, Captain. Yes, I am a Starfleet Officer, and yes, I will no longer take shortcuts on my way to righteousness. I bleed Starfleet princip—
PIKE
Oh, give it a rest, Burnham! I’ve got a female XO of my own, but she knows when to keep quiet.
PIKE looks downward to his right, and suddenly his first officer, NUMBER ONE, appears as a translucent hologram next to him, seated at a translucent helm console.
PIKE
NUMBER ONE, ready main phasers, and take that ship out. Then get me a scotch and a couple of aspirin.
(Pause)
Number One…?
NUMBER ONE
(looking up at Pike with concern)
Incoming!
The hologram fades away from the DISCOVERY bridge, but we can still hear PIKE’s angry voice.
PIKE
Ow! Goddammit! My face!!
My thanks to Fan Film Factor reader BORIS from the United Kingdom for helping me to discover this “leak” just in time for the first day of April. Thanks, Boris!
Giggles ensue!
Serves the sanctimonious writers of ST:Discovery right.
Shoulda just bought the whole Axanar project and ran with it.
Any Fan Film humour or “send-up” is welcome because, let’s be honest, we have a substantial tendency to take ourselves too seriously. How many of us take the time to step back and view our activities, our involvement, our emotional (and financial) commitment, to gain perspective on just how unimportant are our efforts in context of the larger world around us?
Some people become so intense, or build up such a degree of anger over issues, one would think the Fan Film arena, and in our case, the Star Trek milieu, is a subject of consequence, of import as significant as, say, the issue of whether Trump is an asset or a millstone for US politics (to choose an issue in which there are intense feelings on both “sides” and an issue that IS important).
Face it: we get involved in all of this “Star Trek stuff” primarily for the satisfying and rewarding joy of any pastime that requires time and effort. And don’t think otherwise – it is a pastime, but every so often the concept of “joy” is overlooked!
Which makes this April 1 “script” even more welcome than perhaps some may have paused to realise.
Exactly what Boris and I were going for. 🙂
*snerk*
You got me, Jonathan! Well done!
Doug
I was kinda wondering how this would go over.
Well the big buttons were because the constitution class was designed to fight the Klingons during war-time, you want to confuse the enemy, make it difficult for them to learn how to use/hijack your ship.
Of course maybe the ships look different because this takes place in an alternate universe with its own mirror universe.
By the way, I have been sniffing around the detractors groups for a bit following your own interesting learnings from them, and I have discovered that a few of them have been taken down. The ones I saw already had dwindling numbers, but now gone completely!
A fading echo perhaps…?
HILARIOUS!!!! Jonathan. However, being how it was so outrageous (not that it would not be a great idea, mind you.) I was aware of today’s date so my sarcasm and joke sensors were immediately activated, I realized what was up, but still HILARIOUS, nonetheless. A great job, Jonathan!!!!
Thanks, Frank. I can’t take full credit. Boris Brain from the U.K. wrote the lion’s share of the “script” and submitted it as a comment for a recent blog. Instead, I asked if he’d mind me putting it up on April 1. He happily agreed. I added an extra 20% additional hilarity to his hysterical post, and voila! Glad you enjoyed it.
Jonathan, It figures. British humor, with a touch of U.S. humor to boot. This coming from a guy who has most, if not all Monty Python on DVD, soon to be Blue Ray. Today would be a good day to enjoy Life of Brian, which is very appropriate for the season..
Frank; as a church organist I find it hard not to play “Bright Side of Life” at some stage over Easter. So far, I manage to resist!
Life’s a piece of shat, when you look it at! 🙂
Is the veracity of this leak verified?
100% veracious…or is it just audacious? It’s certainly loquacious, perhaps a bit tenacious, not really too salacious, absolutely not cretaceous, but definitely bodacious! And as you know, I always try to be sagacious. 🙂
oooooh, nice! …fire, indeed! (it burns, it BURNS!!) =P
happy april fools, everyone! =D
WELL DONE, Jonathan & Boris! <3
Thanks, Not Herbert.
Written by Peters and Lane. It’s Easter, I wasn’t thinking of April Fools day so you almost really got me….until line 2 of the script!!
Nope, Alec wasn’t a par of this. My co-conspirator was Boris Brain from Birmingham, U.K.
Alec did like it a lot, though. He IM’d me. 🙂
Pike
“Kelpian? What the frak is a Kelpian?”
They taste a little like chicken. 🙂
Before I read this, are we gonna like what happens to Captain Pike? Is this how he winds up in a wheelchair? I’ve had a theory the opener for season 02 will show how Captain Pike wound up in a wheelchair.
Well, that would also destroy canon. We know from “The Menagerie” that Pike came to see Kirk off on his five-year mission, and that Kirk didn’t know about the accident that resulted in Pike confined to a wheelchair (even though there had “been subspace chatter about it for weeks”). So the accident was a few, possibly several, weeks before “The Menagerie”…not ten years earlier.
April Fool!!!!
I was rather hoping to see the Alternate 23rd Century from -“City on the Edge of Forever”
The one Spock spoke about after McCoy changed history.. he merely mentioned.. delaying the US entry into the Second World War.. Germany had time to complete its atomic weapons, and with their V2 rockets to carry them to every major capital.. Germany Captured the World.
Now imagine 23rd Century Earth under that regime.. either they turned inward and never left Earth.. or never left the Sol system.. or they came under some sort of provincial expeditionary conquering force like the Klingons or the Romulans (I tend to think because of the geographic and geopolitical state shortly before Kirk’s time.. it was the Romulans).
Possibly the Romulans made overtures towards the government of Earth in the 23rd Century in order to prevent a Klingon Peace delegation to Earth from succeeding.. as odd as that may seem.. Klingons were already on a path towards Conderate alliances rather than Emperial stagnation even in Captain Christopher Pikes era.. minus a conflict with the original Earth based Federation.. they may have got there that much faster. Klingons paralleled Earths developments timeline wise.. and seemed much more motivated by economic “competition” than outright senseless conflict.
I could well see the Klingon’s being somewhat more outraged upon first encountering the Ferengi.. who had codified their economic behavior into a precise “science” of conduct… somewhat like the conflict with the Earth Federation derailing them.
In a weird way.. if Earth hadn’t come on the scene much of tha Galaxy might have proceeded as before with Klingon’s taking Earth’s place.
Sounds a bit like “The Man in High Castle.” Personally, I don’t think the Third Reich could have held onto global power for three centuries. Fortunately, though, we’ll never have to find out. 🙂
Well, you had me fooled 🙂
Thanks Mr L. Mission accomplished!
Stay groovy
B
Thanks for doing most of the heavy lifting, B.
What fun.
I started thinking that the second episode would be about the evil Borg who have a hive mind except when they’re the relatively white hats and totally dedicated to assimilation except when they’re not so much doing that.
Perhaps they can assimilate the Organians before the peace treaty which was retconned out of existence when the episode ended except for echoes in the book “Final Reflection” and perhaps elsewhere. Then we can have peace through assimilation.
As you can see, I hope, the 4/1 script was inspiring even if my thoughts are lame.
Not lame, just…unique. 🙂
This entire exchange needs to be made into a “stick to the guidelines to the letter” Fan Film! Maybe a future project for Alex.
Alex who?