Board 8 > Star Trek: The Next Character Ranking [TNCR] [Pre-Season Thread] [#Ezrigate2k15]

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Some info on Star Trek: Discovery character Saru, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.

“Doug Jones character plays Lt. Saru,” says writer-producer Aaron Harberts, who is showrunner on the upcoming CBS All Access drama along with Gretchen J. Berg. “What we can tell you that adds the context to that clip where he says he can sense the coming of death is that he comes from a planet where he’s a ‘prey species.’ He’s the first of his kind to make it to Starfleet.”

On Saru’s planet, there’s a dominant predator species that constantly imperils another weaker species called Kelpiens. As part of the latter group, Saru has evolved with heightened survival instincts. Such prey species tend to have a cowardly reputation in the Federation, but Saru should not be underestimated.

Jones is an ideal casting choice as he’s had a long career playing creatures and aliens of all sorts and sizes — you’ve seen him on screen many more times than you probably realize. The lanky 6’3″ actor played Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies, the Faun and the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, as well as roles in many other films and TV shows. Jones is sort of like the Andy Serkis of practical makeup creatures.

“[Producers] said Saru is the Spock of the series, he’s the Data of the series — and those are beloved characters that I always connect with whenever I would watch the past incarnations of Star Trek,” said Jones, giving some details about his role for the first time. “On Falling Skies, I played an alien species who came to Earth to help the humans fight back the bad aliens who’d taken over, and I was intelligent, well-spoken, had a lot of answers and science-y smart. Saru is all of those things and then some.”

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Interesting. I have a feeling that a character like this can come off as very two-dimensional and painted with an overused Cowardly Lion plotline, but I've always found Doug Jones to be a fantastic actor.
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Finally almost there! Whoa. I'll put up the debut topic tomorrow morning.
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Morning of debut topic hype

Topic's going live in ~2 hours or less! Got caught up doing some work articles. I'll tag everyone in and kick things off in style.
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Sounds good.
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