Interview: Tawny Newsome On “Gargantuan Task” To Give DS9 “Resolution” On ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ – TrekMovie.com
Today’s episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was written as a “love letter” to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. “Series Acclimation Mil” was co-written by veteran Trek novelist and modern-era Trek writer/producer Kirsten Beyer along with Tawny Newsome, who is best known to fans as the voice of Beckett Mariner in Star Trek: Lower Decks. This is Newsome’s first time as a TV series writer, although she has lots of experience writing for comedy. And she is an unabashed Star Trek fan, especially when it comes to Deep Space Nine. Speaking to both myself this week and TrekMovie’s Laurie Ulster at the premiere last month, Tawny talked about the road to crafting this episode. With laughs and tears, the writer discussed the importance of DS9, the involvement of Avery Brooks, the team effort writing process, Easter eggs, and more. [SPOILERS]
This episode is mega lore heavy. Given that the show is geared as an entry point for new audiences, was there any pushback? Did anyone say “This is too much canon”?
No one said those words to my face. Whether they said them about the episode, I think they knew better than to say it to me, because I was pretty adamant that for this episode, it was our job to make this an homage, a celebration, and really a bit of a correction for what I feel has been an oversight in a lot of modern Trek. We haven’t talked nearly enough about the Siskos, about Benjamin Sisko, or about the show Deep Space Nine at all, despite it being a massive addition to our canon. So I was pretty adamant. I’ll say I was frothing at the mouth some days about how important this was. So if anyone thought it was too much canon, they shared those details among themselves.
Did you talk to Cirroc [Lofton] before writing the episode?
He’s amazing. He is incredible… And yeah, Cirroc and I were on the phone and at lunches for months and months and months and months trying to figure out how we could get this done. Getting the episode made was such a gargantuan feat, and I have had so many partners locked arm in arm in battle. Between [co-showrunners] Noga Landau and Alex [Kurtzman], Cirroc, [executive producer] Aaron Baiers. My co-writer, Kirsten Beyer, who’s been such a fierce advocate from the jump. So many people came to my aid to help me push this thing through.
I don’t even know where to start, but all I can tell you is that it was seemingly so impossible to be able to address the hugeness of the Sisko story with some of the limitations that we have because of canon, some of the limitations that we have because of available actors. And we really just wanted to honor the man, Avery Brooks. We wanted to honor the character, Sisko. We wanted to honor that show which in the franchise has had the least rebooting. It’s my absolute favorite and I just wanted to celebrate it and not put a close to his story, but just put a little feeling of completion for one part of it, to just give some of us some resolution.
Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko in season 1, episode 5, of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: John Medland/Paramount+
And Avery’s voice at the end, that isn’t from DS9 is it? What is that?
It is not from Deep Space Nine. That is a private recording that belonged to Mr. Brooks [from his self-published 2006 spoken word album Here], that he very graciously allowed us to use. And I still get chills thinking about how it came to be, because I was very anxious asking him for anything. Because this man has given so much of his artistry, his life and himself to this franchise. [Newsome starts to tear up a little] And I was very conscious of not wanting to ask him for another thing. But we needed some sign at the end that he had heard [SAM]. And he very graciously allowed us to have this. And then the full force of thanks to the studio, to Noga and Alex, Aaron Baiers, they all moved heaven and earth to make it happen. I couldn’t be more grateful.
Has Avery seen the episode, was there any feedback?
I don’t know if he has seen it yet, but he has read it. And yeah, it was really important for us as the writers to get his blessing at multiple steps along the way, thanks to Cirroc, who deserves an executive producer credit for this episode. He was well aware of things, maybe even before I was authorized to share them. But I was like, “We got to make sure Mr. Brooks is cool with this.”
Kerrice Brooks as SAM in season 1, episode 5, of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: John Medland/Paramount+
I know back with the Deep Space Nine finale, it was important to Avery for Sisko to say he was going to return in some form so the character was not someone who abandons his family. How did that factor into exploring the mystery of Sisko?
It was massively important to all of us in the writers room to honor that request. And then we had to square that with the fact that we have seen a lot added to the canon, and there hasn’t been any mention of seeing him. So that puts you in a little bit of a storytelling quandary. How do we say this man came back, yet nobody’s talked about him, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him? So we sort of had to get into the territory of something that maybe science and Starfleet records can’t explain. So that’s why we wanted to put it in Jake’s mouth at the end where he literally says, “I can’t prove it.” But all those things you think he missed, he didn’t. He was there.
Was there any question you would write yourself into the episode… and as Dax? Did you have to think twice or was it more “Of course!”
No, I was the last piece of this puzzle. I did not intend to write myself in at all. Because it didn’t occur to me that I would be anyone other than Mariner. And I thought it would be a little too cheeky to have some future version of Mariner or some descendant. It just seemed too irreverent for the magnitude of this episode. So no, I love Professor Illa, who was constructed by me and Kirsten [Beyer] and she was meant to be the perfect shepherd for this story. It was so important that we had someone who it made sense that she would have the only copy of Jake’s book. A lot of intentionality went into who could this be? And then when we all kind of went, “Oh, you know, the Trill lifespan could be this long. This could be Dax,” it really excited Noga Landau, our showrunner. It excited all of us. And we went, “Okay, yeah, let’s make this Dax.” And then, as I said, I was the last piece of the puzzle [laughs] when they said, “Okay, and Tawny is going to do it” it was quite a surprise, I think, for all of us. But I had really great support from showrunners and from Kirsten.
L-R: Tawny Newsome as Illa Dax and Kerrice Brooks as SAM in season 1, episode 5, of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Paramount+
So she is Cardassian, Bajoran, and Trill? I thought I saw some Bajoran on the nose?
No Bajaran. [The nose] looks a little Bajoran, didn’t it? No, I think we’re just saying — yeah, we decided that she was just Cardassian and Trill.
This episode is structured in an interesting way, it reminds me a bit of “Data’s Day.” But it also broke a lot of rules in the way it was structured…
That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of “Data’s Day,” maybe Kirsten was… But the format break for this episode was Alex Kurtzman’s idea. He said, from the jump, that this is a special episode. It’s who we are honoring and the character we are using to honor, she’s our non-organic character. So, this should look and feel different. He gave us permission from the beginning to really break form and be very free. And so I think we were just so inspired by the fact that we don’t know much about Kasq yet, and so we got to be the architects of this new species. And the fact that they process information so differently gave us the liberty to process the information differently for the medium, for the audience. And it just also spoke to my tendencies as a writer, which are a little bit outside of this genre. This is my first time writing narrative TV. I’ve written a lot of sketch and I primarily only do comedy. So while this episode has incredible heart – largely thanks to Kirsten — the format break was more suited to my style of writing. And the only person in my life who’s read nearly everything I’ve written is Alex Kurtzman, so I think that was intentional on his part.
Kerrice Brooks as SAM with on-screen graphics (screencap from Paramount+)
There were a lot of on-screen graphics and so much stuff happening in the background. So how much of that was in the script versus being done during production or post?
So there are a lot of little moments that you just kind of catch on second rewatches. So the on-screen stuff was in-script, most of it. Then some of it got added in post, but a lot of that was scripted into the story. When Kirsten and I first turned in this script — I am not ashamed, I am very proud to admit this was a 72-page draft, which is nuts [laughs]. But we just had so much ground to cover.
But one of the things that Alex Kurtzman and I had been talking about for all of the episodes. he asked me to help him shape some of the comedy throughout the whole series. We talked about background characters and small moments of downbeats. The things that you only get away with in a school setting. A show we drew a lot of inspiration from the movie Booksmart, where you’re just kind of catching characters that aren’t necessarily the focal point, living full lives, having moments that on second watch, you kind of go, “Oh, what’s that guy doing over there?” So I just kind of took that for my episode and really ran with it. And then our director, Larry Teng, was also so great, because on set I could just pitch him dumb little bits little physical moments to add in to add in to have background characters doing, and he was really on board.
Lastly, what’s your favorite Easter egg for the episode?
I made them put in Kerrice [SAM] saying some version of “I can live with it” [a callback to Sisko’s famous line from “In the Pale Moonlight”]. And someone who kept doing a version of the script later kept taking it out. And I kept putting it back in, probably seven or eight times. And finally, it made it to it made it to filming.
Kerrice Brooks as SAM in season 1, episode 5, of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streaming on Paramount+. Photo Credit: John Medland/Paramount+
More to come for SFA 105
We have some more from Tawny (and a little bit from Bob Picardo) on the B-story for this episode, plus an exclusive interview with Cirroc Lofton. Look for those in the coming days and also check out our All Access Star Trek podcast on Friday, which will discuss this episode and include audio from our various interviews.
