The Hope is You, Part I

This Story: Season 3 Episode 1 (production code 301)
DSC Overall: Episode 30
Trek Overall: Story 712, Episode 756
Airdate: 15 Oct 2020
Written by Michelle Paradise, Jenny Lumet, & Alex Kurtzman
Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi

Notes

• The first episode of Season 3, and the “Burn” arc.
• Interesting to me that this episode, and the two before it that ended Season 2 were all written and directed by the same people.  Not to mention the one after this as well.
• Part II of this story won’t come for another 13 episodes, as the season finale of Season 3.
• When this episode aired, it was the first time that three Star Trek TV series were on the air at the same time.  The others are Star Trek: Picard & Star Trek: Lower Decks.
• Sonequa Martin-Green is the only established character from the Discovery cast to appear in this episode – all of the rest of the crew show up in Episode 2.
• The first episode for David Ajala as Cleveland “Book” Booker.  He would appear in 33 episodes total. Prior to this I knew him from the CW series “Supergirl” where he played Manchester Black for 7 episodes.  He was also in one episode of Doctor Who – “The Beast Below“.
• The Mercantile interior was an abandoned power station in Toronto.  It had been used previously in the Short Treks episode “The Escape Artist“, as well as the USS Hiawatha in “Brother” and the base in “The Red Angel” and “Perpetual Infinity“.
• Jonathan Archer and the Temporal Cold Wars and NX-01 Enterprise are referenced here.
• It is established that the Gorn are still a thing in the 32nd century.
• We see a Lurian (Morn’s race) for the first time in live action since the DS9 series finale.
• Adil Hussain makes his first of three appearances as Aditya Sahil.
• Riley Gilchrist appears for the first (of two appearances) as an Andorian Regulator (also “People of Earth“).  He was also Vice Admiral Shukar in “The War Without“, “The War Within“, “Will You Take My Hand?” and “The Wolf Inside“.  He also also a different Andorian Admiral in “If Memory Serves“.
• Fabio Tassone makes his first “appearance” (of eight) as the voice of Book’s computer.
• The character of Cosmo Traitt was played by David Benjamin Tomlinson.  He’s more well known in Discovery as the character of Linus (the one with the huge bug eyes).  He also played 10 other characters spread out over Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy, & Short Treks.  There is a complete list of them available here.
• The first episode (of twenty one) with Book’s cat Grudge.  In real life Grudge was played by two cats (Leeu & Durban). The two cats are brothers and both are Main Coons.

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