Spoilers follow for Star Trek: Discovery’s sixth episode, “Lethe.”
Actor James Frain’s take on the classic Star Trek character Sarek got a lot of action in the latest episode of Discovery, “Lethe,” where we learned of a never-before-revealed mission of the Vulcan ambassador -- the integration of his race with humankind -- as well as more details on his relationship with Discovery’s lead, Michael Burnham, as well as his most famous offspring -- Spock.
I recently spoke with Frain about Sarek and these new revelations. Read on for all the details, as well as whether or not Frain knows about Sarek’s other son -- Sybok!
I asked Frain if Sarek’s newly revealed plan to integrate the Vulcans with humanity was doomed from the get-go. After all, it’s not like the Vulcans that would appear in later iterations of Star Trek were totally assimilated with their Earth allies. Frain doesn’t see it that way, however.
“I think it’s interesting, because we know that it works with the rest of the series,” he says. “Spock joins the human Starfleet and becomes a vital character. And so it works, in some sense, his experiment.”
Additionally, the actor believes that this mission of Sarek’s also helps color in his entire family situation, which has always been strange and not quite explained since The Original Series.
“I don’t think we’ve ever really looked at it before in terms of, well, who is this guy who married a human and then had a son, and clearly in opposition to the whole Vulcan code and the whole Vulcan way?” he says. “He’s an ambassador, so his job is to look for areas of conflict resolution, and areas of pact-making and bond-making. And so it was always this unanswered question really of what kind of Vulcan marries a human and then has a child with her? Who is this guy, really?”
So Sarek’s unique viewpoints in Vulcan culture also led to a unique family unit. And from there, it seems, it also led to some strange and difficult family dynamics. The first time we met him, back in TOS episode “Journey to Babel,” where the character was originated by the later actor Mark Lenard, Sarek wasn’t even on speaking terms with Spock. And here, we see he has some issues with his adopted daughter, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green). (And let’s not even get started on his mostly forgotten other son, Sybok, who appeared in the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and whose existence Frain is aware of, though he says he doubts we’ll see that character on Discovery.)
“[Burnham’s] saving his life by breaking down his layers of denial and fighting his resistance and his strictness to get to the core of what it is -- the big secret,” says the actor. “She always felt there was a big secret, and she felt like she’d been rejected by being put on this human ship. And he felt like he failed her and was putting her with humans who could help her. And so she’s learning to establish this connection with him based on that.”
One interesting aspect of “Lethe” is the reveal that the young Burnham was actually dead for three minutes back when the Vulcan Learning Center was attacked, only to be saved by Sarek’s sharing a piece of his soul with the girl.
“He already has given her a piece of his soul, you know,” says Frain. “That’s no small thing. There’s a lot going on, and they had this in the medical room to explain it, when she’s like, no, I was dead, and then he gave me some of his soul and brought me back to life. It’s like -- um, wow. And then he does tell her he failed her, and he tells her twice that he failed her. And even three times, I think it’s episode two when they have that mind meld, and he says, perhaps that’s where I failed you. And he’s able to acknowledge that he’s not omnipotent, and she needed more than he could give, and he made some choices that seemed right, but on reflection were wrong. And so, he’s courageous enough to go into these places that threaten his whole Vulcan identity, because he believes that there’s more to the big story.”
“Lethe” implies that part of the reason for Sarek’s unique family situation -- namely his half-human son and his adopted human daughter -- is that the children are intended to be used as “experiments” in integrating Vulcans and humans. If so, that would seem to imply that even his marriage to Amanda was a calculation on his part. Frain says that at this point in the series, however, those are all unanswered questions.
“We just kind of opened it up, and I think that’s something that we’re going to explore,” he says. The actor points to the scene in the episode where Sarek is being lectured by the Vulcan elder, who also gives him an ultimatum about choosing Spock or Burnham to join the Vulcan Expeditionary Force. “What’s interesting about [that scene when he’s] in a sort of vulnerable position with a father figure who is accusing him of being emotive, it really kind of echoes and parallels what’s happening elsewhere. And it’s just interesting to see Sarek in such a vulnerable position, because he’s been seen before as this sort of epic father figure. And yet here he is opening up to his daughter, and here we see him as a sort of rebellious teen being put in line by the principal, you know?”
Frain also points to the “interesting internal struggle” in Sarek between his ideals and his upbringing.
“He can’t fix it all, and he makes mistakes, but I think he genuinely believes that isolating off the sort of species categories is not a good plan for the future, and that we should be looking at ways of connecting and bonding,” he says. “I don’t think he marries Amanda out of some kind of cold logic at all. I think he… well, I think we’ll find out more about that. But he does open the door [and] that experience was being profoundly threatened by a group of terrorists who are trying to kill him. They’re trying to kill him for this. They bomb the Vulcan Academy, Michael nearly gets killed -- that’s how she gets a piece of his soul -- and that’s where he makes a choice, an instinctive choice, between this destructive, backward way of looking at the world and the innocence of a child. He makes a very sort of human choice. And that’s the edge that he’s walking on, between the Vulcan code and his own ambition. But I don’t think it’s an experiment in the same way as the principal character is saying.”
When asked if Sarek is a good parent, Frain pauses for a second.
“It’s too big a [question] -- it’s like, what is a good parent?” he says. “I think that Sarek is someone who wants to be a good parent -- someone who very much wants to do right by his kids. … How successful he is at that, that’s for us to judge. … But he is torn between the Vulcan code and his own ideals. So… that tension is always being fought out with him, and it’s played out in his relationship with his kids as well.”
Mark Lenard’s Sarek appeared on The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, and in several movies, while Ben Cross played him in the 2009 movie reboot. The character has also, of course, appeared in a variety of books and other media. But Frain chose not to delve too deeply into the various versions of the character when prepping for the role.
“I watched a lot of Mark Lenard’s performances as Sarek, which I admire, and I feel are very definitive,” he says. “And so I feel like I need to honor that, and I need to portray the character that convincingly could become where he ends up. But at the same time, I didn’t want to do an imitation of him, of his voice or his mannerisms. I wanted to come up with something that would convincingly link up to his part of the story, but then also opens up all these questions that are unanswered in The Original Series about who he is and where he comes from.”
Whereas Spock was typically the Vulcan character who was portrayed as having inner conflict previously, Discovery is allowing to chart that same course for Sarek now.
“Now we’re seeing that actually, if we dig a little deeper into his past, Sarek has a great deal of internal conflict himself, and he’s a very interesting and flawed and ambivalent character with noble ideal, who doesn’t always make the right choice,” he says. “He’s very human.”
Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!
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