Doug Jones went into Star Trek: Discovery knowing he’d have to play a man who lives in fear, and then the show took the fear away and he wasn’t ready for it. That’s the answer I walked out of day one of Star Trek Nashville still thinking about, and it came out of a panel where three guys just got up on a stage and took questions.

We’re in Tennessee for this one. It’s Mrs. Know-It-All’s very first regional Star Trek convention. I grew up going to Vulkons and MegaCons and all kinds of stuff, but this is our first time at a Creation Star Trek convention. We missed Las Vegas this year. We’ll get Las Vegas next year, because it’s on the bucket list anyway, and if we can visit a place and do a convention at the same time, we’re good.

Day One, Before the Panel

We got registered in the morning and met Salty for lunch, and had a wonderful time. When we came back there wasn’t a whole lot going on. There were some photo ops, but none of the ones we’re getting. The dealers room was open, and we’re going to do that more in depth tomorrow. I’ll do a video just on the dealers room and what’s out there.

Mrs. Know-It-All warned me she was going to get completely starstruck at this thing, and she already has, at people who are way across the room. We saw Dominic Keating at the bar. I saw Cirroc Lofton get here yesterday, and everybody asked me the same thing: did you talk to him, did you ask him to be on the show? No. The man had literally just gotten off an airplane. I gave him the nod, and it was fine, it was great.

The elevators here are glass on the outside and our room is right across from them, so yes, there’s been some elevator watching. We think we may have seen Anson Mount last night. I don’t know if he’s even here yet. I know he’s supposed to be here tomorrow.

Three Guys, One Stage, No Script

For us the exciting part of the day was the Discovery guys: David Ajala, Doug Jones and Elias Toufexis. They got up on that stage as a panel and just took questions and talked. I think as a society we forget these are human beings. I might be starstruck, but that’s what I liked most about it.

They told some great stories. You never hear the same story twice at these, and even when you do, you never hear it told the same way twice. I shot a lot of vertical video of them telling those stories, and it’s on my shorts, my reels and my TikTok, depending on how you follow us.

They talked a lot about what it meant to be on the show and what it was like finding out about the fifth season. And they talked about Grudge. So much about Grudge. I might be wrong, but from the way they were telling it, it sounded like that cat really did go home with one of them, because he couldn’t leave her.

Mrs. Know-It-All found out this weekend that Doug Jones was the zombie in Hocus Pocus, and it blew her mind.

Elias Toufexis Was There From the Start

I didn’t realize this one. Elias Toufexis was in Discovery at the very, very beginning of season one. When Burnham is being transported, he’s one of the inmates on there, in a normal human face. Then he comes back for season five in the green makeup.

Somebody asked the panel whether they’d ever thought about developing their characters on their own, in novels or stories. I thought that was a really cool question, because we do that with every fandom. Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, all of them. We always want to know what happened to this character at the end. It’s what feeds a lot of fan fiction.

Toufexis said he actually had an idea. If you check his IMDb, he produces animation, which I didn’t know. There’s a line in the season where you find out his character and his partner have been on the run for two years. So his thought was, what if we do a short, limited animation, something like six episodes, about those years with those characters? He was putting together a pitch for it.

I know people get angry about spin-offs. Let’s be for real, everybody has a spin-off these days. You can call this one a spin-off if you want, but six episodes about two years we never got to see is just a really cool story to tell, and cool stories are what Star Trek has always given us.

“I Wasn’t Prepared to Be Fearless”

Near the end, somebody asked what one thing they learned from playing the characters they played. Doug Jones had a really great answer, and I want to take a minute on it.

He talked about being Saru. He knew going in that this was a prey species, so he was going to have to understand fear, and how a man still follows his duty to Starfleet while he’s carrying it. Then the show went and removed his fear. His species goes through that change, and the next thing you know, in his words, “I wasn’t prepared to be fearless.”

I thought that was such an eye-opening moment.

The Rest of the Weekend

When I used to do these conventions, they would peter out. By Sunday you’d get, no offense, the Wesley Crushers. They’ve learned the formula now, which is that people need a reason to be here for the entire convention. We get to see Sonequa Martin-Green on Sunday, and there’s stuff happening until 7:00 on Sunday night.

Tomorrow is Saturday, the big day, and we’ll be repping the Know-It-All wear. If you’re here at the show, find us and let us know. We’re also going to see Anson Mount with Salty, and we’re taking a group picture. And I’m hoping there’s news that FanSets is going to be doing some really great uniform work that goes up to 5XL. Real sizes, for us big guys. I’ve ordered a 4XL before and had it show up looking like a baby shirt.

We’ll have a day two update after we’ve been to some of the panels.

My first convention was a Vulkon in Orlando, Florida, with Jonathan Frakes, John de Lancie, and I think Marina Sirtis too. Sirtis and Frakes were on different days, so they never got to do it together, which is a shame. What was your first convention like? Tell me in the comments on the video above.