A regal Maine Coon is the newest cast member of CBS’ Star Trek: Discovery, continuing the proud tradition of felines serving aboard Starfleet vessels throughout the franchise’s half century of existence.
Leeu, an 18-pound fluffster, will play Grudge, the feline companion to David Ajala’s new character, Cleveland Booker. Science fiction fans may remember Ajala from his excellent performances in 2016’s Kill Command, about a military AI gone rogue, and Captain Roy Eris in 2018’s Nightflyers, which was based on a short story by George R.R. Martin.
“We put out a casting call for a large cat … and he fit the bill. So far he seems to be a one-take wonder,” said Leslie Lawrence, one of Leeu’s trainers.
For Discovery’s crew, getting a solid acting performance out of Leeu isn’t much different than a photographer getting a cat to pose for a picture.
“Everybody says that their cat can make a good set cat,” Lawrence said. “But it does take a specific animal to be able to stay cool and calm and collected, because when cats are done, they’re done.”
Find out more about Grudge in the video below:
Leeu looks like my Maine Coon, Marshall!
And, Big Buddy, did you read the comments on the video? STD seems to be failing as a show.
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I put off watching Discovery until a few weeks ago because of the bad things I was hearing about it, and unfortunately the criticism is legitimate. While there has never been a more polished, bigger-budget Star Trek TV show, to call the writing bad would be charitable. The writers have all the worst proclivities of the insufferable “I F—ing Love Science” crowd, which is to say that they use science as a fashion label while routinely misunderstanding what science is.
So, for example, there’s lots of dialogue like: “Captain, science says that a focused tachyon burst at this frequency will disrupt the space-time harmonics and should return us to our own timeline.”
No. Science doesn’t say shit. Science is not an entity or a member of the bridge crew. It’s a method for investigating the natural world using standardized protocols. Science is not space, energy weapons, planets, oceans or ecosystems, science is the study of those things.
The difference is lost on the intellectually incurious types who just want to tell everyone they’re “into science” but never bothered to find out what science is.
Unfortunately, that is not Discovery’s only sin. It’s also heavily focused on war and violence, and Star Trek was never about that: It has always been a humanist show about exploration, the wonders of the universe and awe at what might be Out There.
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OMG! This is why I stay out of current American pop culture. I didn’t know that Science had become a celebrity.
And Gene Roddenberry must be turning in his grave.
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