Star Trek: Discovery returns from its winter hiatus on January 8 on Netflix, and Trekkies are hoping that a popular fan theory will finally be laid to rest in the following weeks. At a round-table interview held in London in November, Gulf News tabloid! took the opportunity to quiz actor Shazad Latif (Spooks, Penny Dreadful), around whom this theory revolves.
The idea basically goes that Latif’s Lieutenant Ash Tyler, who eventually becomes chief of security on the USS Discovery after being rescued by Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) from a Klingon war ship, is actually the albino Klingon Voq in human disguise.
While the theory seems far-fetched, especially since Tyler is also now lead character Michael Burnham’s (Sonequa Martin-Green) love interest, it’s not without merit. Especially since, in an episode (The Trouble with Tribbles) of the original Star Trek series, we’ve already seen a Klingon undergo drastic surgery to pass off as human and infiltrate a Starship.
In Discovery, Latif only appears on the show by episode four, the very episode where Voq stops appearing. However, Latif has been credited as an actor on all episodes of the show.
On episode three, Voq’s associate L’Rell asks him to “sacrifice everything” if he wants to win the war against the Federation and also, exact revenge on the Klingons who excommunicated him. This suggests that Voq might have had to give up his cherished Klingon identity to turn human and get on the Discovery ship.
Also, the actor who supposedly plays Voq, Javed Iqbal, is a previously unknown actor with a bizarrely empty IMDB page. Add to this the fact that Latif’s birthname is actually Shazad Iqbal, and things begin to get very interesting.
Ask Latif about this theory and whether he’s actually ever met Iqbal, and the actor starts getting suspiciously shifty, “Javed Iqbal… I’ve met him, yeah. But we don’t see a lot of people… There are so many different sets that you hardly meet all of them.”
The actor was so uncomfortable, co-star Isaacs had to intervene on his behalf, “Sonequa hosted these games nights where the crew get to know each other. The first time we did one, I hardly knew who [the Klingon actors] were because they normally have their silver heads [prosthetics] on or whatever… There are a lot of people you don’t meet… The Klingons… most of their scenes are separate.”
Press further we did, but Latif recovers enough to politely shut the query down once and for all, “I am just glad that people are interested. Star Trek fans do this all the time. They are really good detectives, but why don’t you just watch it? It’s a good mystery, it’s good.”
Don’t miss it!
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery arrive on Netflix on January 8. The previous nine episodes are now available to stream.
