Last month, CBS announced at the Star Trek: Discovery panel at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con that the iconic half-human, half-Vulcan USS Enterprise science officer Spock was getting recast for Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman's new Star Trek series. However, while the network announced the appearance of Spock in the series, they decided to keep mum about the actor's name.
Till now that is. According to a report by Deadline, CBS has just named its new Spock, and that name belongs to Ethan Peck, an alum of10 Things I Hate About You. Peck is picking up the flag left by original series star, the late Leonard Nimoy.
Check out Peck's acting skills down below:
For those who haven't been following Discovery, the show's narrative takes place ten years before the adventures of the original Star Trek series. In the show, Spock has an adopted sister, Michael Burnham (Soneque Martin-Green), a character who starts off as the First Officer of the USS Shenzhou under Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh).
Here's Kurtzman's statement regarding Peck's casting:
"Through 52 years of television and film, a parallel universe and a mirror universe, Mr. Spock remains the only member of the original bridge crew to span every era of Star Trek. The great Leonard Nimoy, then the brilliant Zachary Quinto, brought incomparable humanity to a character forever torn between logic and emotion. We searched for months for an actor who would, like them, bring his own interpretation to the role. An actor who would, like them, effortlessly embody Spock's greatest qualities, beyond obvious logic: empathy, intuition, compassion, confusion, and yearning. Ethan Peck walked into the room inhabiting all of these qualities, aware of his daunting responsibility to Leonard, Zack, and the fans, and ready to confront the challenge in the service of protecting and expanding on Spock's legacy. In that spirit, we're thrilled to welcome him to the family."
With Spock in the second season of Discovery, it seems like fans are going to get to see the series explore the relationship between Burnham and her foster brother. It's definitely going to be interesting seeing the dynamic between the two, especially since Burnham was a character only added to canon after the creation of Discovery.
Let's see how things fare once Discovery makes its way back to CBS early in 2019.