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A Short Treks character is making the jump to this week's Star Trek: Discovery episode
We only have two more treks to take with Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, and it looks like they're really pulling out all of the stops. Section 31 (under the control of ... Control) needs to be stopped, and Captain Pike is calling in the Enterprise as he possibly gets ready to set the Discovery to self-destruct.
Add in the continuing Red Angel story, the truth of the seven signals, and for all we know, a stealth Borg origin, and we're in for an explosive treat. One unexpected addition to all of this drama will be the return of a character from the first episode of the Star Trek: Short Treks series of shorts, which aired before this season began. New promo photos released today reveal the character's return.
That's right — Po, played by Yadira Guevara-Prip, is making the spore jump from the short series to the big show. Po was the focus of the first of the Short Treks, called "Runaway," where she mostly dealt with Ensign Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman).
In that short, we first met Po (full name: Me Hani Ika Hali Po) appearing as a spiky, cloaked organism. As Tilly connected with the Xahian creature, Po started to appear more human, and demonstrated quite a knack for engineering. Why was Po the titular runaway? She came up with some ingenious dilithium-based designs that Starfleet wanted to get its hands on. Tilly convinced her to trust Starfleet, which Po did — before leaving, Po revealed that she was actually a queen on her home planet of Xahia, and she gifts Tilly with a glowing dilithium crystal.
Not only is it exciting to have this very interesting (and new to the main show) character back, but it marks a further connection between Discovery and Short Treks. It's not the first time this has happened — Saru's (Doug Jones) backstory from the short "The Brightest Star" was pivotal to this season's visit to his home planet of Kaminar, and Saru's sister Siranna (Hannah Spear) also made the full-show jump. Harry Mudd (Rainn Wilson) got his own short ("The Escape Artist"), though that was after he had already menaced the crew of Discovery in Season 1.
What can we expect to see from the Queen of Xahia? We can't possibly know yet, but we do know that the Discovery crew needs all the help it can get right now. If this brilliant queen who Tilly befriended ends up helping to save the day, then that's another huge win for Ensign Sylvia Tilly and the power of her endless empathy.
Star Trek: Discovery airs this Thursday night on CBS All Access. Black Alert, shields up, and prepare for anything and everything — the crew is in for a rough ride.
