‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Team on Bringing in Mary Wiseman’s Tilly for ‘Our Town’ Episode

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1 Episode 8 “The Life of the Stars.”]

Loss, sadly, is part of being in Starfleet. And the cadets of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy learned that in what should’ve been just a training exercise on the Miyazaki in Episode 6. Now, in Episode 8, they’re forced to unpack that through visiting teacher Sylvia Tilly (Discovery‘s Mary Wiseman) — and she has them do so through theater.

As highlighted by SAM (Kerrice Brooks) before she must return to her world to deal with the glitches she’s been having since the Miyazaki, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town becomes the framing device for just that. The others, especially Tarima (Zoe Steiner), adjusting to being back and her transfer to the academy from the war college, struggle with it at first. But Tilly pushes them, and they ultimately put the play on by themselves. SAM, meanwhile, returns, but with two sets of memories after the fix is her having the childhood she never did, with the Doctor (Robert Picardo), reluctantly at first, due to the loss of his daughter Belle (in a holographic program on Voyager), as he explains to Nahla (Holly Hunter), her father.

Below, in separate interviews, Mary Wiseman and executive producer Noga Landau and co-creator and the episode’s co-writer Gaia Violo unpack Tilly’s return, the Our Town homage, the Voyager reference, and more.

I loved how you framed this episode around Our Town. Talk about coming up with that. 

Gaia Violo: We didn’t know right away. We spent as a room a good amount of time sort of figuring out what that story was going to be, especially ahead of the last two episodes. We kind of knew what those two were going to be, and [Episode] 8 is such an interesting position within a season, and we slowly started to realize that we hadn’t dealt as a writers’ room and then our characters with the emotional fallout of what had happened in the Miyazaki. Because with [Episode] 7, we’re taking a step back and we’re allowing ourselves to breathe after the Miyazaki.

[Episode] 8 felt the right time to really take the time to explore how young adults will deal with losing one of their own. And not that they haven’t experienced loss before because all of them have, but this is the first time that they’ve lost one of their own and in a place that was supposed to be safe, the Athena is supposed to be safe. This was a training exercise. So there was going to be a ripple effect, and especially for Tarima, who clearly made a huge sacrifice and put herself in danger, and then SAM. And so looking at the episode and at the trauma through the ice of this two young women felt very important and then to do that through play, through a play and through art and literature and how we can use stories to heal also meant something to us as a writers’ room. And then Our Town just sort of felt like this perfect, simple, rich story about the human experience and about time, and that opened up the door to explore the Doctor and Nahla and their relationship with time and what that meant and what it means to be eternal and what loss means to them as opposed to us. And so it kind of fit the story perfectly.

When did you know that you wanted to end the episode with that great shot of Nahla?

Violo: That’s such a shared effort from everybody. It was an intuition, I believe, from the very beginning, from Jane Maggs, my co-writer who, and the realization, because we went through different rewrites of it and then the realization that we could do a play within a play, and then obviously our director and then editing, and then Alex [Kurtzman] who came in and really put his stamp and his genius on the episode. And so it really was a communal effort, that last shot.

How was it to step back into Tilly’s shoes?

Mary Wiseman: It was awesome to get to step back into Tilly. It was also very surreal, being back on the lot, but with a totally different ship and totally different people except a lot of the crew were the same, which was very sweet and very nice to get to reconnect with so many people.

We hear a bit about what Tilly’s been up to since we last saw her and where she is now. Do you know anything else besides what we heard?

Wiseman: I know about as much as what you hear in the episode that she’s working with the third years on rotation in the beta quadrant, but I think that she’s settled into her role at the Academy and has settled into her teaching style and that life.

When did you know that you want to bring Tilly in this way for this? Because Noga, you told me that she does something in this episode that makes you want her to be your teacher.

Noga Landau: Yes. Yeah. We had been waiting for the right storyline for Tilly because she’s such a sparkling, shiny, incredible, now legacy actor in Star Trek, beloved by so many people, that we had to really wait for the right moment for her. And we realized that in the wake of trauma and uncertainty and grief and all the things that happened after the Miyazaki for these cadets and these instructors, that the one person you could bring in would be Tilly. She has had her fair share of trauma in her own life and big decisions and life-altering stakes that she’s confronted, but she also comes in with levity and wisdom and humor and we didn’t want this to be an episode that was just people frowning and processing their grief. We wanted this to be an episode that was actually about the reinvigoration of life. And who better to reinvigorate your life than Sylvia Tilly? And it was a beautiful, serendipitous moment because we realized as we began to talk to Mary Wiseman about coming back to play Tilly, that when she was at Juilliard, she played Emily in Our Town. And so as a person, as an actor, it meant a lot to her to come back and now play this role teaching these cadets about Our Town.

What is it about Tilly that made her the right person to get through to the cadets in this episode? Because it’s not just about what she’s been through though, is that, but it’s also who she is, right?

Wiseman: I think Tilly is definitely a person — like you said, part of it is what she’s been through, which is she’s been through big loss and kept going, which I’m sure all the teachers that work in Starfleet Academy have had some version of that. But I also think that Tilly is a person who’s pretty tuned into what’s going on with other people. I think she’s pretty good at reading other people and is very empathic, but also has learned through her own journey how to be tough, that sometimes just presenting with openness or sweetness or kindness doesn’t actually help the person who is suffering. And so I think that she’s the person for this job because she can dynamically read what’s going on with these students and respond in a way that she thinks will push them to the place they need to go in order to actually face what’s happened to them and move through it and learn from it.

What made SAM Tilly’s favorite?

Wiseman: Well, I think SAM is a lot like Tilly, her unbridled enthusiasm, joy of learning and trying things. SAM has no affect of being too cool or aloof for what Tilly has to bring. And the other students understandably do have some walls up because they’re young people who are processing a lot of change in their lives and a big trauma. So immediately coming in and having one person in the room who’s so game and so full of joy, I think instantly endears Tilly to her. I’ve had small experiences teaching and it’s always such a relief to have one person who’s fully bought in because you know that they can affect the chemistry of the group as a whole.

I wish we had gotten more Tilly and SAM.

Wiseman: I know, they’re so sweet. And I really love Kerrice as an actor and also as a person. She is very full of joy and she’s really talented. So I would love in the future to get to work with her more. But the happy upshot of not getting the work together is she gets this beautiful other story, which was also a real pleasure to watch.

Talk about reuniting with Tig Notaro. I absolutely loved Tilly and Jett’s initial reunion.

Wiseman: Oh, I’m so glad. Tig and I are friends and I adore her and she will lie and tell you she can’t stand me, but actually she’s obsessed with me, so I feel like she needs my presence in her life. Actually, I feel like our relationship is very much a reflection of Tilly and Reno’s, which is Reno puts up a front that Tilly’s too much for her, but Tilly knows because she’s good at rereading people, the love is there and I think Tilly loves a grump she can work on and dear to herself.

Tig told me that she would love to have more of you on Starfleet Academy.

Wiseman: All I want to do is hang out with Tig every single day, so that’s nice to hear.

That scene itself was also great because of what we saw with Nahla, too.

Wiseman: Oh my gosh, I’m so grateful I got to have that scene with Nahla and even the little scene at the end because I’ve been obsessed with Holly Hunter forever, and to get to work with her and you have these heroes as an actor and when you get to work with them, it’s not just that you get to meet them, that you get to actually look in their eyes and do the thing and it feels like they’re imparting some of their genius or you get to be [part of] this learning experience. So for me personally as Mary, it was really big in my life to get to work with Holly and it was really nice for Mary who’s played Tilly to see that Nahla hold Tilly in high regard and that they have a relationship. I can see what a great leader Nahla is as a captain, as the chancellor of the school for teachers and for her students. It was just very cool experience.

How does Tilly feel about how the cadets are doing once she’s left?

Wiseman: I think getting to witness them make the choice to do the play amongst themselves, she feels like she got them to where they needed in order to grow from their experience on the Miyazaki. And so I think she’s happy that she left them in better stead than she found them because the goal was never that she became their favorite teacher or that they developed a lifelong love of the theater, but that this experience working with this play, working in such a sort of vulnerable medium as theater, would force them to kind of crack open and face some stuff that they’re going through instead of just kind of callousing around that experience. I think she’s pleased with the stride that they make and the lessons they take from it.

I love the way that theater was used and the way that the play was used throughout this episode.

Wiseman: I think it was really brilliant. I think all the writers that a really good job of finding a way to connect something that seems so unmilitary, so un-Star Trek and using that as a tool to help these cadets and future leaders learn how to process the really difficult things that will come up with the job.

What can you say about the chances of seeing Tilly again, say in Season 2?

Wiseman: I have high hopes, so we shall see.

Landau: Well, I can’t say any spoilers for Season 2, but I will say that Mary Wiseman, who was with us at our premiere, is always close to our hearts and we want her as much as possible.

Is there anything you’d like to explore with Tilly on Starfleet Academy or on another Star Trek show?

Wiseman: I love the idea of seeing her more as a teacher. I’d like to see her have a chance to develop deeper and longer lasting relationships with her students. We kind of got to see that a little in Discovery with how Tilly developed a relationship with Blu [del Barrio]’s character, Adira. Those kind of things, trust from a younger person to an older person, like a mentor-like figure or a teacher who’s really important to you actually takes time and it takes time for the adult in that relationship to prove that they are going to show up for you. So I’d love to see a similar thing. I’d like to see her over time, how those relationships develop. Obviously more time with SAM.

If you could bring any of your Discovery cast with you the next time we see you, who would it be?

Wiseman: All of them. I’d like to bring them all with me. Yeah, I’d love to bring Adira in. I’d love to see how Adira has grown over time and I’d love to see them be the older, wiser person in the academy-like situation. I also think Stamets [Anthony Rapp] could be a really fun element in that space. He’s so smart and so quirky and so blunt, I think he could be really fun in an academy setting. Everybody would be amazing.

Was the plan from the beginning of creating the series, or at least once you knew you’d include the Doctor to have him have the journey he does in this episode with SAM and related to Belle, because it was clearly something he needed, even though he fought it so hard?

Violo: I think the idea of him refusing to be a mentor, yes that was there from the very beginning and the connection to another holographic student and the way that SAM is, which was both on the page, but really Kerrice brought that energy and the spunk and the joy of life to the role. So that became even more clear once you were on set and you saw them interact. So, the idea of mentorship and parenting, yes, that was there from the very beginning, but coming up with the real story took very much being in the writers’ room and figuring out what the right story was going to be for him, and then coming up and then realizing we could connect it to our town connected to the Miyazaki and loss.

In terms of loss for all of our characters and connecting to the episode of “Real Life” for Voyager, it was a no-brainer at that point that that was the best way to really bring his story in full circle and then give a big part to SAM and really allow her to change in a world where being a hologram and really experiencing time as a continuous, almost a river, you don’t experience change as much. And so giving her this gift of being rebooted by the end of Episode 8 and really not knowing who she is at the top of 9, it was a fun challenge.

Landau: I feel that it’s imperative that you tell the story of Bob with the babies on set. We’re hijacking your interview.

Violo: We had a wonderful experience with every single one of the kids that played young Sam and the babies, they were twins, and they had very different personalities. So you had one. So when you’re seeing the baby cry, definitely one of them. And when you’re seeing the other one smiling and making faces, the other one. It was just a joy. It was just this wonderful moment of real life encroaching into our story.

Landau: Also, I’m not going to spoil too much about what happens next in Season 2, but I’ll just say that Bob has become the baby whisperer on the show. For some reason, he just keeps holding onto babies and having to act with babies. And he has this touch where even if a baby is sort of annoyed that they have to be on camera, he will just hold them and they stop crying.

You did bring up Tarima and what she went through. She’s struggling to open up to or let in Caleb (Sandro Rosta) or really anyone, but that’s why she needs to be at Starfleet Academy versus the War College now, right?

Landau: [Nods] You take it. All I talk about is babies.

Violo: Yes. That’s another character that is very much in transition, and you see that more in Episodes 9 and 10. But yes, I think allowing herself to really trust in her own ability and her own self-control, that especially after [Episode] 6, is going to be a journey for Tarima and Starfleet Academy is the perfect place for that, rather than really being in a much more militaristic or rigid institution that while it is still part of the Star Trek universe has a different training program. And so being able to again, experience theater and elements of what it truly is, Starfleet Academy, and its different concentrations, it is a paramount for Tarima and her growth.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Thursdays, Paramount+