Back in early 2017, Star Trek: Discovery stars Sonequa Martin-Green and Michelle Yeoh trekked through the deserts of Jordan to film the opening moments of “The Vulcan Hello,” the pilot episode of the series — and now it seems that show may once more be leaving North America for production on the series’ third season.
On her Instagram Stories today, Sylvia Tilly actor Mary Wiseman shared a pair of images from a trip to the island nation of Iceland, one of which included series lead Martin-Green alongside Discovery executive producer Olatunde Osunsanmi in Reykjavik, the western capital of the country — a strong indicator that at least some portion of Season 3 may be filmed there.
While it’s a nice surprise so see the show hop on a plane once again — and we can’t wait to see what Burnham and Tilly are up to! — it’s not entirely unexpected. Earlier this year, Discovery production designer Tamara Deverell shared in an interview that the show’s production team were thinking about foreign filming sites — including both Iceland and Scotland — to help represent alien worlds in a way that may not be quite so easy around the Toronto area where Discovery is primarily filmed.
Tamara Deverell, February 2019: [We] looked into going to places like Iceland and Scotland for other planets—that might be in the future for ‘Star Trek.’
With full-on work on Discovery Season 3 set to begin at its Toronto home in July, it makes some logistical sense to take care of any non-Canadian filming up front to avoid future conflicts with later production needs — plus, the June-July timeframe is one of the best times of the year for production in Iceland as well, thanks to the extended, near-24-hour daylight window that is sure to help with the local shooting schedule. (Note the visible sun in Wiseman’s “1 AM” photo above.”)
This trip overseas wouldn’t be the first time Star Trek has visited Iceland, of course; some background imagery for Star Trek Into Darkness was shot on a beach of volcanic rock in the country to represent the barren planetoid where McCoy and Carol Marcus defused the errant Section 31 photon torpedo in that film.
This social media revelation isn’t the first that has appeared on the web this summer hinting at the future for Star Trek: Discovery — a few weeks ago guest director Mark Pellington shared (then deleted) a few photos from his time working on one of the upcoming Short Trek stories which he filmed back in May… featuring USS Enterprise officers Spock (Ethan Peck) and Number One (Rebecca Romijn) seemingly back in action.
We’re sure to learn much more about what’s to come for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, and the upcoming Short Trek tales, when the franchise lands at San Diego Comic Con later this month — so stay tuned for all the latest news as it breaks, here at TrekCore!