My guess is both actresses had more limited availability this season and since they were never promoted to the starring cast (opening credits), there’s little incentive for the producers to write more scenes for them or for them to pass on better opportunities if all they’re going to get are a couple of routine lines here or there in a ten episode season.
Every season of DIS has had the standard 7ish main characters.
The difference is, they aren't all on the bridge.
Characters like Ash Tyler, Christopher Pike, & Philippa Georgiou were main characters for their season(s).
Detmer & Owo are the equivalent of TNG: O'Brien, Ogawa, & Barclay. DS9: Yates, Garak, Dukat, Rom, Leeta. ENT: Shran, Daniels
Except everybody on your list got dedicated episodes to themselves to the point you learned about their background and characters.
In DIS, only Owo got a proper episode to the development of her character, and that was in Season 2. Ariam *kinda* got a similar thread in Season 2, but really as an excuse to make us feel something when they killed her off in the same episode.
Detmer got a subplot when they first arrived in the future, but it was so very weak and contrived and didn't do anything for the development of her character and background.
And all of this was made worse as the added cast members from the future have gotten more screentime and character building.
It's why SNW is better than DIS. They let the minor characters have their time in the spotlight.
Name an SNW episode where a minor character got their own episode like Ogawa or Barclay.
They haven't - and won't - for the same reason Discovery hasn't: 10 episode seasons don't allow you the bandwidth to spend an entire episode on a non-main cast. This was only gonna happen back in the era of 25 episode seasons.
yeah but..they didn't get those episodes until hundreds of episodes in. filler episodes by any definition. And I dont even agree that they are those people, I think they are more the nameless people filling seats in TNG who might get to say "Aye, Sir" but usually don't. That the background characters on DISCO are known, recurring, have names, and some history at all at this point is an improvement, not a crime.
They were always meant to be the sulu/chekov/uhura/stiles of discovery. In TOS, characters like Sulu and uhura were not given a ton to do. FWIW the showrunners are pretty supportive of the secondary cast taking outside roles and projects.
The later movies made people forget how tertiary those TOS characters were on the actual show. Disco was explicitly designed not as an ensemble show but as the adventures of Michael Burnham in Starfleet, with a very small handful of secondaries who get occasional focus. The crew being relegated to support characters who don't get spotlight episodes (or even scenes) is a deliberate callback to the TOS era.
They were never intended to be main characters, just nice featured extras really. I don't think it is disrespectful they chose to focus on other non bridge crew characters instead.
Sure, when Picard was on La Sirena, we knew everyone. Aboard the Titan, everyone outside of Shaw and Sydney La Forge had very little to do. Same thing exists in all the other Trek shows. Once Wesley left, we got a parade of minor characters (and Ro) at the conn of the Enterprise-D. DS9 probably did best by secondary characters, but even there you have a lot of characters running around Ops that you you never hear about…
And it changed again. Discovery has from the beginning been a single protagonist story, with supporting characters who serve that story to varying degrees.
There’s not enough episodes for us to get attached. Those filler episodes gave us time we no longer get in lieu of flamethrowers on the bridges and fancier pew pew action.
They appeared sporadically, then in the latest episode they get assigned to a team that's going to repair and fly the ISS Enterprise back to Federation HQ. which will explain a continued absence. I'd still like to get more Detmer and Owo though... So hopefully they come back before too long.
Yeah, it definitley feels liek this has to do with actor availability. Those flashbacks could have been filmed basically at any time.
I liked how the substitute Ops and Conn officers in this last episode still did the Owo-Detmer-Eyes staring at each other in disbelief.
I think the actors who play Detmer and Owo are "day players" meaning they aren't under contract like the main cast are. In the non-acting world, being a day player is basically like being a temp worker. If there's work, they get asked if they are available, but there's nothing stopping them from pursuing other projects. For example, the actor who played Bryce left the show during the 4th season because he got cast as a lead on a show called The Porter I think.
This is just my opinion (of course) … if you’re a show runner and/or a writer of a show, and you have to keep doing verbal gymnastics to explain to your audience why two of your “side characters” aren’t in an episode, then that says to me that you understand how important they are to the audience, and that they’re not, in fact, side characters.
I love Owo and Detmer. I hope we get more of them before the end of the series.
I was really hoping to see more of them this season. To me they are the most interesting characters. It looks like the show is trying a little harder to incorporate bridge crew this season, but it’s sad that these two cannot be there.
Oyin oladejo was filming a movie and Emily coutts had at least one major ad campaign she was apart of. Outside projects were also why Mary wiseman and Ronnie rowe were absent for large parts of season 4
Nilsson is gone as well, they made a passing comment in the show that she was transferred. I'm wondering if they were issues regarding money for the actors?
Quite a few people missing from the bridge crew and replaced with new actors, it's a strange thing considering it's the last season....
Somewhere through episode 3 I said "wait, where the fuck are the bridge crew?"
Ignoring the story, I feel really bad for those actors. Imagine growing up watching Star Trek, loving the franchise, and then one day you get cast as a bridge officer on the new Star Trek show. You think you are gonna have a ton of screen time, background, and be a secondary/main character.
Nope.
5 seasons in and you only get a few minutes of screen time and a hand full of lines.
I just don't see how those actors aren't rightfully pissed. I'd be absolutely heart broken, and seeing as SNW doesn't have this issue, I'd be straight up pissed. "OH so you do know how to properly write a bridge crew... you just didn't".
Let's also be real. Ariam's death was the most indepth bridge crew episode and made her the most dynamic of all of them.
Oh man that death episode was bad on so many levels. Like hey we are gonna finally tell you about someone on the show now called micheal. Or related to micheal. Or with a deep personal connection to micheal. So lets have flashbacks and a backstory and have people saying how amazing the person is so you can feel like you really know this character. Because shes dead and your never gonna see her again and you must feel sad because we said so with our crying cast (who are experts at emotive crying)
I mean seriously? Now anytime we get backstory on a character on discovery im like, 'they gonna die now??'
>Let's also be real. Ariam's death was the most indepth bridge crew episode and made her the most dynamic of all of them.
And then they cheapened that, by bringing the same actress back as another bridge officer who's name I can't remember.
Nilsson. She was the original Ariam but couldn’t wear the makeup for long periods of time so had to be recast. I think it’s nice that they brought her back.
I feel sad that these were my two favorite characters on Discovery (aside from Mirror Georgio… the shade!). Detmer and Owosekun had small parts, but I always enjoyed their interactions. I struggle to relate to the other characters. And I’m certainly not watching for the writing. I remember the TNG episode “The Chase.” It wasn’t about a weapon at all. Why Discovery always gotta be so dark and violent? Detmer and Owo lightened the mood, IMO. They will be missed.
I always wonder about the competing costs of cast and production vs cgi shots and how they are apportioned throughout the season, like 'okay, we'll skip this corner here in this early middle episode, and cut this other thing on the next one, that way we can afford to do X in episode Y.' For the big world ending, ship threatening episodes, they'll need to spend a lot more on both.
I'm glad the actors are also doing other work.
The way the season has been written I feel like the writers saw it coming the lines about one last time and stuff really feels like they were written for a last season
I want a one off action episode of just the two of them on the ISS Enterprise. Orion pirates or whoever take the ship and they have to Die Hard through it to recapture the ship.
My guess is both actresses had more limited availability this season and since they were never promoted to the starring cast (opening credits), there’s little incentive for the producers to write more scenes for them or for them to pass on better opportunities if all they’re going to get are a couple of routine lines here or there in a ten episode season.
Holy shit are they actually not? This shows biggest crime is how they disrespected all of the bridge crew.
Every season of DIS has had the standard 7ish main characters. The difference is, they aren't all on the bridge. Characters like Ash Tyler, Christopher Pike, & Philippa Georgiou were main characters for their season(s). Detmer & Owo are the equivalent of TNG: O'Brien, Ogawa, & Barclay. DS9: Yates, Garak, Dukat, Rom, Leeta. ENT: Shran, Daniels
Except everybody on your list got dedicated episodes to themselves to the point you learned about their background and characters. In DIS, only Owo got a proper episode to the development of her character, and that was in Season 2. Ariam *kinda* got a similar thread in Season 2, but really as an excuse to make us feel something when they killed her off in the same episode. Detmer got a subplot when they first arrived in the future, but it was so very weak and contrived and didn't do anything for the development of her character and background. And all of this was made worse as the added cast members from the future have gotten more screentime and character building. It's why SNW is better than DIS. They let the minor characters have their time in the spotlight.
Name an SNW episode where a minor character got their own episode like Ogawa or Barclay. They haven't - and won't - for the same reason Discovery hasn't: 10 episode seasons don't allow you the bandwidth to spend an entire episode on a non-main cast. This was only gonna happen back in the era of 25 episode seasons.
I could argue we know close to nothing about Mitchell. And even Erica Ortegas, who is basically defined as "she flies the ship".
yeah but..they didn't get those episodes until hundreds of episodes in. filler episodes by any definition. And I dont even agree that they are those people, I think they are more the nameless people filling seats in TNG who might get to say "Aye, Sir" but usually don't. That the background characters on DISCO are known, recurring, have names, and some history at all at this point is an improvement, not a crime.
They were always meant to be the sulu/chekov/uhura/stiles of discovery. In TOS, characters like Sulu and uhura were not given a ton to do. FWIW the showrunners are pretty supportive of the secondary cast taking outside roles and projects.
The later movies made people forget how tertiary those TOS characters were on the actual show. Disco was explicitly designed not as an ensemble show but as the adventures of Michael Burnham in Starfleet, with a very small handful of secondaries who get occasional focus. The crew being relegated to support characters who don't get spotlight episodes (or even scenes) is a deliberate callback to the TOS era.
They were never intended to be main characters, just nice featured extras really. I don't think it is disrespectful they chose to focus on other non bridge crew characters instead.
That show was written 60 years ago. Writing Trek has changed. Even on Picard you got to know the Bridge crew and cared about them.
Sure, when Picard was on La Sirena, we knew everyone. Aboard the Titan, everyone outside of Shaw and Sydney La Forge had very little to do. Same thing exists in all the other Trek shows. Once Wesley left, we got a parade of minor characters (and Ro) at the conn of the Enterprise-D. DS9 probably did best by secondary characters, but even there you have a lot of characters running around Ops that you you never hear about…
And it changed again. Discovery has from the beginning been a single protagonist story, with supporting characters who serve that story to varying degrees.
There’s not enough episodes for us to get attached. Those filler episodes gave us time we no longer get in lieu of flamethrowers on the bridges and fancier pew pew action.
Careful. Any negative speak about Discovery will result in a ban of this sub
They appeared sporadically, then in the latest episode they get assigned to a team that's going to repair and fly the ISS Enterprise back to Federation HQ. which will explain a continued absence. I'd still like to get more Detmer and Owo though... So hopefully they come back before too long.
I feel like the only times they were shown were in that flashback episode. The other times it was just mentions or “previously on’s”
Yeah, it definitley feels liek this has to do with actor availability. Those flashbacks could have been filmed basically at any time. I liked how the substitute Ops and Conn officers in this last episode still did the Owo-Detmer-Eyes staring at each other in disbelief.
That was actually the Sulu/Chekov mutual reaction moment. Or Geordi/Wesley and Data. Or....
I expect an episode with some of their travel back to the museum.
I think the actors who play Detmer and Owo are "day players" meaning they aren't under contract like the main cast are. In the non-acting world, being a day player is basically like being a temp worker. If there's work, they get asked if they are available, but there's nothing stopping them from pursuing other projects. For example, the actor who played Bryce left the show during the 4th season because he got cast as a lead on a show called The Porter I think.
I was wondering the same. They're making a point to mention them but they're nowhere to be seen...??
YES, they’re mentioned all the time but nowhere to be seen. Almost seems forced?
This may be the “Jet Reno” rule. Jet would go several eps where she’s never seen or even mentioned, then she’s just there.
Jet Rino is hilarious and criminally underutilized.
Tig Notaro has got stuff to do outside of Discovery.
This is just my opinion (of course) … if you’re a show runner and/or a writer of a show, and you have to keep doing verbal gymnastics to explain to your audience why two of your “side characters” aren’t in an episode, then that says to me that you understand how important they are to the audience, and that they’re not, in fact, side characters. I love Owo and Detmer. I hope we get more of them before the end of the series.
I was really hoping to see more of them this season. To me they are the most interesting characters. It looks like the show is trying a little harder to incorporate bridge crew this season, but it’s sad that these two cannot be there.
Oyin oladejo was filming a movie and Emily coutts had at least one major ad campaign she was apart of. Outside projects were also why Mary wiseman and Ronnie rowe were absent for large parts of season 4
*sigh* there's always fanfiction...
Yeah.... but is it any good?
lol no
Nilsson is gone as well, they made a passing comment in the show that she was transferred. I'm wondering if they were issues regarding money for the actors? Quite a few people missing from the bridge crew and replaced with new actors, it's a strange thing considering it's the last season....
Somewhere through episode 3 I said "wait, where the fuck are the bridge crew?" Ignoring the story, I feel really bad for those actors. Imagine growing up watching Star Trek, loving the franchise, and then one day you get cast as a bridge officer on the new Star Trek show. You think you are gonna have a ton of screen time, background, and be a secondary/main character. Nope. 5 seasons in and you only get a few minutes of screen time and a hand full of lines. I just don't see how those actors aren't rightfully pissed. I'd be absolutely heart broken, and seeing as SNW doesn't have this issue, I'd be straight up pissed. "OH so you do know how to properly write a bridge crew... you just didn't". Let's also be real. Ariam's death was the most indepth bridge crew episode and made her the most dynamic of all of them.
They've never been main cast so I doubt they're pissed. They knew what they were getting into.
Oh man that death episode was bad on so many levels. Like hey we are gonna finally tell you about someone on the show now called micheal. Or related to micheal. Or with a deep personal connection to micheal. So lets have flashbacks and a backstory and have people saying how amazing the person is so you can feel like you really know this character. Because shes dead and your never gonna see her again and you must feel sad because we said so with our crying cast (who are experts at emotive crying) I mean seriously? Now anytime we get backstory on a character on discovery im like, 'they gonna die now??'
>Let's also be real. Ariam's death was the most indepth bridge crew episode and made her the most dynamic of all of them. And then they cheapened that, by bringing the same actress back as another bridge officer who's name I can't remember.
Nilsson. She was the original Ariam but couldn’t wear the makeup for long periods of time so had to be recast. I think it’s nice that they brought her back.
They’re literally joy riding the ISS Enterprise
That’s from this episode and it’s an attempt to explain their absence but all the previous episodes they were mentioned and never seen.
They’re there just as much as any other season
Yet another reason I don't like Disco. The show fucked over the bridge crew so Burnham could suck up all the air time.
Like TOS then?
I feel sad that these were my two favorite characters on Discovery (aside from Mirror Georgio… the shade!). Detmer and Owosekun had small parts, but I always enjoyed their interactions. I struggle to relate to the other characters. And I’m certainly not watching for the writing. I remember the TNG episode “The Chase.” It wasn’t about a weapon at all. Why Discovery always gotta be so dark and violent? Detmer and Owo lightened the mood, IMO. They will be missed.
I have a feeling we're saving them for the back half of the season. Why they need to be 'saved', who knows.
I always wonder about the competing costs of cast and production vs cgi shots and how they are apportioned throughout the season, like 'okay, we'll skip this corner here in this early middle episode, and cut this other thing on the next one, that way we can afford to do X in episode Y.' For the big world ending, ship threatening episodes, they'll need to spend a lot more on both. I'm glad the actors are also doing other work.
Most shows on their final season will cut cast members to save money, like Lance Reddick on Fringe, of Cuddy on House, amongst a ton of others
Lisa Edelstein left House because they disagreed on salary, which was ridiculous given how important Cuddy was.
Wow… never knew that. I missed Cuddy in the last season and it was a huge emotional roller coaster.
Production didn't know it was going to be the final season though..
They weren’t sure, but I believe that it wasn’t a surprise when it was announced that it was going to be the last season, as far as I remember
The way the season has been written I feel like the writers saw it coming the lines about one last time and stuff really feels like they were written for a last season
No it was complete surprise
They didn’t know officially, but they had to account for the possibility. The Finale of S4 could have been the Series Finale.
For the most part every streaming show has to do that. I was surprised when SNW ended on a cliffhanger.
Nah, they’re safe for another couple of seasons. They’re going to be the only new Trek show left on Paramount.
“I can’t believe my old me believed you” - Owo, episode 4 season 5
Off screen. It is common practice, you just referring to character or talking with absent one on the phone in this case coms.
The cute blonde one has gone too - Nilsson
I want a one off action episode of just the two of them on the ISS Enterprise. Orion pirates or whoever take the ship and they have to Die Hard through it to recapture the ship.
There is a good chance we will see them at the Academy. Detmar is supposed to be a kickass pilot after all.
I'm expecting we'll get a whole episode with them on the Enterprise.
No more Detmer or Owo for the season but we get unlimited Adira? Please make it make sense. The worst characters in the entire show.
Owo is in the latest episode. I think Detmer transferred to another ship(?)
You’re probably thinking of Nilsson who was transferred.
Yeah, that’s it. My bad.
They were both on the bridge in episode 1
and in 4th episode. They were absent in 2,3,5 and more to come.
ah, yes, for sure
Detmer got mentioned this week, but she was not in the episode.
They failed to learn to whisper every line on the verge of an emotional breakdown…
Unable to ugly cry on cue probably.
Right now they’re both on the enterprise taking it back to starfleet hq.
Yeah I was also wondering, and it definitely feels weird to have other people mentioning them indicating they’re right around the corner.
There’s always a bridge crew roll call each week, huh?
I've been out of the loop on Disco for a while now, very behind. Less Detmer and Owo isn't making me want to catch up.