Warning! This story contains spoilers from the Star Trek: Discovery Season finale. Read at your own risk!
Star Trek: Discovery's Season 1 finale showed the USS Discovery directly in front of the USS Enterprise, and now Star Trek fans are wondering if Spock is headed to the CBS All Access series. Co-showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg were quick to get ahead of speculation and laid all cards on the table for the awesome way the show could handle Spock in Season 2, and while many things are possible, it looks like a Spock re-cast is not happening:
We certainly aren't confirming that we're even going to introduce Spock and we certainly are not casting that role, either. We live a lot in memory and flashback. The center of our show is always Michael Burnham. [W]e realize how incredible Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto's performances were and what [Star Trek movie director] J.J. Abrams and the original series were able to pull off with that character. Finding another actor that could even come close to what Leonard Nimoy did with the original portrayal, we'd never want to go down that road.
It sounds like, at this point, Star Trek: Discovery is not looking for a new actor to portray Spock but at the same time not ruling out his presence. So how could they do that without pretending Spock is in the bathroom every time Burnham and Sarek are on the Enterprise? One method would be utilizing old footage of Leonard Nimoy to create a CGI double or perhaps recreate his voice with computers to create new dialogue for an off-screen interaction that doesn't require a body. Provided no face-to-face interaction happens, Star Trek: Discovery could pull this off quite easily without risking alienating fans with a poor Spock casting. The move would also be appropriate, as canon has shown Spock and Sarek's relationship at this stage to be very strained after Spock went against his father's wish that he join the Vulcan Science Academy and instead joined Starfleet.
That said, Star Trek: Discovery fans recently learned Sarek denied his adopted daughter Michael a chance at the Vulcan Science Academy so that Spock could gain entrance, so it would be a waste if that topic was not breached between all three with everyone in such close proximity. If a casting had to happen to portray Spock, Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg sounded very high up on actor Zachary Quinto's Spock portrayal when speaking to THR. That could mean the two are putting out feelers to see if Quinto would be up to appear on the series in Season 2, although having an actor who portrays the character in the film universe hop into the Prime canon timeline could be a can of worms the show might not want to open.
Star Trek: Discovery could also just decide it's all too much trouble and find a way for Spock not to appear in the series. As previously mentioned, Sarek and Spock are at odds, and while Vulcans are supposed to be logical, Spock is half-human and may not want to see his father because he's still angry.There's also a chance that Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg say they don't want to recast Spock now, and then a couple months later find the perfect actor to do so. Let's just hope they do something with Spock, as teasing the Enterprise in the Season 1 finale and then having Spock presence at all in Season 2 would be a huge let-down for fans.
Star Trek: Discovery is confirmed for Season 2 at CBS All Access, but has no release date at this time. For a list of upcoming shows in 2018, visit our midseason premiere guide.
