Jonathan Frakes Explains That There Will Be a Big Tonal Shift in STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Season 3

Star Trek: Discovery has been a fantastic series to watch! I loved the unexpected directions that they have taken the show, especially the leap forward in time! In Season 2 the series jumped 930 years into the future. This is a period in time that the franchise has never explored before.

According to Star Trek veteran and director Jonathan Frakes, who is directing three episodes of Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, says that it will feature a “big tonal shift” to accompany its new setting. Frakes directed the third episode of the upcoming season which sees Burnham and the Discovery crew reuniting. During an interview with CB, Frakes explained:

“Michael Burnham has found a new core, not to mention a new partner in crime. So again, there’s a big tonal shift on that show, less driven by the pain and guilt of her past and more about the magical reunification of the Discovery crew and wherever she went off to. God knows where she went as the Red Angel. So those two things coming back together is very much the theme, and how grateful everyone is and what’s next. It’s got a lot of action-adventure and not so much pain.”

The “new partner in crime” Frakes is referring to is a new character named Book, who is played by David Ajala. You can see an image of the two above. StarTrek.com describes him as “Smart and capable” and “has a natural charisma and devil-may-care attitude that tends to get him into trouble as often as it gets him out.”

With the story of Star Trek: Discovery being set in a time that has never been played in before, the creative team has more freedom to explore things as it defines the future. Frakes previously talked about the creative challenge of this saying:

“Finding a future that’s futuristic but is practical to shoot has been fascinating. You can’t get caught up in the technology. It is about maintaining a basic core of why we’re there, which is to tell emotionally compelling stories.”

Frakes also talked about what it was like for him to return to the role of Will Riker in Star Trek: Picard as the acting captain of the U.S.S. Zheng, saying:

“That was a really different experience because I was alone. I was ‘self-directing.’ I was in a captain’s chair. I had a spacesuit on. I had my beard trimmed, my Riker hair put back on, my bald spots covered up. It felt very familiar, and it was like a flashback. Because of how well ‘Nepenthe’ went, I was less nervous and, I got to say, thrilled to have been asked back, to be perfectly frank.”

These new Star Trek shows have been great, and I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out in Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, which is set to premiere sometime this year.