Michael Burnham

Creation and development

In December 2016, it was announced that Martin-Green would serve as the series lead of Star Trek: Discovery, with the character initially named "Rainsford". In previous iterations of Star Trek, Spock had never mentioned a sister. Executive producer Alex Kurtzman has explained that the specifics of Burnham's backstory would be revealed in a way that would not break the existing canon continuity. Unlike previous Star Trek leads, Burnham was not made a starship captain, "to see a character from a different perspective on the starship—one who has different dynamic relationships with a captain, with subordinates, it gave us richer context".

The character was originally to be referred to only by the name Number One, to honor the character of that name portrayed by Majel Barrett in the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage." With changes in the pre-production storyline, the character is found guilty of mutiny and no longer a First Officer by the end of the pilot episode. Thus, the Michael Burnham name was revealed during the first episode, quickly making "Number One" her informal name, the same as First Officer William Riker's informal name on the series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Series creator Bryan Fuller deliberately gave Martin-Green's character a traditionally male name, which he had done with the female leads (George, Jaye and Chuck) in three of his previous series. Martin-Green decided that the character was named after her father. Executive producer Aaron Harberts spoke to TV Guide and explained the reason for calling the character a traditionally male name, explaining, "We've worked on many shows with Bryan and it's a motif. It's his signature move to name his lead women with names that would typically be associated as male." He felt the name was "cool and different" and pitched it himself explaining, "[I was] thinking of female columnist Michael Sneed, who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times, and The Bangles' bassist Michael Steele." He added, "And, of course, an archangel is named Michael as well, and it just had a lot of potency for us." Sonequa Martin-Green expressed enthusiasm about the name, liking the symbolism and anticipating a more gender-fluid and equal opportunity future. Of the name, she said, "I appreciated the statement it makes all on its own to have this woman with this male name, just speaking of the amelioration of how we see men and women in the future."

Bryan Fuller had numerous inspirations for conceiving the character of Michael Burnham. He cited the cultural impact of Nichelle Nichols' portrayal of Uhura saying, "I couldn't stop thinking about how many black people were inspired by seeing Nichelle Nichols on the bridge of a ship [as Lt. Uhura in The Original Series]". Another inspiration came from the legacy of Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana, as well as Mae Jemison, the first woman of color to travel in space.

Casting

Auditioning process

The casting process was difficult for producers. They searched long and hard to find an actor to pull off Burnham's divided nature between Vulcan and human. Harberts said, "We read a lot of people and they either went way too robotic and chilly or way too emotional. What's beautiful about Sonequa's performance is she's capable of playing two, three, four things at once. She's got such a great command of her craft, she's able to be aloof but warm; logical but able to surrender her emotional side to the audience." Alex Kurtzman felt the character's portrayal needed to have "remarkable duality inside her" between being "highly emotional" while also being "contained". "Unlike Spock, who is half-human, half-Vulcan, she is all human, but she's been trained with the kind of Vulcan emotional-suppression ideology, and that is very challenging for her... you can see that wrestling match going on in every moment. That was the single most important thing to define the character, and I think we just had a sense that [Sonequa] intuitively understood it." He went further to express the challenge of the "technical jargon" used in the series: "It's a tough thing to learn with actors. You either have the ability to roll that off your tongue, or you don't. And if you don't, everything kind of trips over itself... And when [Sonequa] read, we all breathed a massive sigh of relief, because she brought an instant authenticity to it. It was very clear that the language was not going to be difficult for her."

Sonequa Martin-Green first met with Discovery co-creator Bryan Fuller at New York Comic Con in October 2016. Fuller talked to her about Burnham, a human orphan raised on planet Vulcan alongside Spock (Leonard Nimoy) from the original series, leading to a conflict with her two cultural identities. Knowing that her character Sasha would be killed off The Walking Dead, she shot a video audition. However, AMC refused to release her from her contract, leading CBS to look elsewhere. Fuller revealed that he had long set his sights on Martin-Green to star in Discovery, but CBS pushed back because AMC would not release her from her contract until Sasha's death was shown on-screen. CBS' second premiere date delay from May to September was due to the restrictions of Martin-Green's contract, though the first delay opened the door for her to land the role. She auditioned in person in December, and then began shooting in January. On getting the part, she expressed nervousness and excitement saying, "When I first got started, I had my freak-out phase. I had my almost catatonic moment where I thought, 'What is happening?' And I knew very quickly that I couldn't live there and that I couldn't create there. I owed it to the story and I owed it to the legacy to get it together. And I had to focus myself in gratitude. I had to focus myself on the passion for the vision for the story that we're doing."

Announcement

The casting for Michael Burnham, under the pseudonym "Commander Rainsford" leaked in December 2016, with many speculating Martin-Green's previous role as Sasha on The Walking Dead would come to an end. Following the announcement, Nichelle Nichols tweeted "All my love @SonequaMG, I've been smiling since I heard. You're gonna knock em dead." Charlie Jane Anders for Wired felt Martin-Green's casting fulfilled Gene Roddenberry's ultimate vision saying, "It's all too easy to see Star Trek's humanism as merely a matter of embracing science and rejecting barbarism—but that's missing what makes Trek's version of humanism so powerful. Diversity was always a key part of Star Trek's vision of a better future for humanity. In the ideal world of the 24th century, every human being has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential, either in the sciences or elsewhere; anything less doesn't represent real progress." Showrunner of The Walking Dead admitted it was unfortunate that the casting leak happened, spoiling events to come, but that "The folks over at Star Trek got lucky with the timing".

On the importance and impact of the role, Martin-Green said, "My casting says that the sky is the limit for all of us. I think what we're seeing now in our media is this push to diminish and to devalue and to make people feel that the sky is not the limit for them, that they are meant for the ground. So having me as the first black female lead of a Star Trek just blasts that into a million pieces. I am eternally grateful that the diverse casting of our show means that we are now a part of the conversation and hopefully a part of making the world a better place, as cliché as this sounds. Because I really believe it and think its vital for us all right now". Nichols and Martin-Green both posed together on the red carpet at the Star Trek: Discovery premiere. Martin-Green shared on Instagram that Nichols whispered, "Enjoy this time. It's yours now." Sonequa Martin-Green praised Nichols thereafter saying, "What a blessing, what a woman. I stand on your shoulders Nichelle Nichols".

Appearances

Background

Burnham was born to human parents, secretly Section 31 scientists, who were killed when she was a child during a Klingon raid to retrieve a time crystal on a Human-Vulcan research facility on Doctari Alpha, where the family lived. She was then adopted by the Vulcan ambassador Sarek (James Frain) and his human wife Amanda (Mia Kirshner), who are also the biological parents of Starfleet officer Spock, and moved to the Vulcan homeworld. This, of course, made her Spock’s heretofore unmentioned sister. Burnham was the first human to attend both the Vulcan Learning Center and Vulcan Science Academy, training as a xenoanthropologist. After completing the academy she was brought by Sarek, who shared his Katra with Burnham, to the USS Shenzhou to rejoin her people.

The decision to make Burnham related to the history of original series character Spock was controversial. Beth Elderkin for io9 decided that it "breaks canon" and that "It seems unlike Spock to completely ignore someone who seemed to be a major part of his life—especially one who came into his life after such tragedy." In contrast, Laurie Ulster of TrekMovie.com felt the decision was "not that big of a deal", clashing with Elderkin's point about Spock, citing the fact that Spock never mentioned his half-brother Sybok until he showed up, or revealed his parents were Sarek and Amanda, as well as the numerous "secret siblings" placed in Star Trek.

Star Trek: Discovery

In the series premiere of Discovery, she has already served under Captain Georgiou on the USS Shenzhou for seven years. The series opens with Shenzhou encountering the Klingons, with Burnham committing an act of mutiny, breaking Starfleet regulations to give the order to fire first, in an attempt to save her captain and ship against the Klingons. Her plan is unsuccessful and she is detained. In "Battle at the Binary Stars", Burnham escapes the brig and convinces Georgiou to take T'Kuvma hostage. However, T'Kuvma kills Georgiou. In a moment of emotional weakness, Burnham kills T'Kuvma, making him a martyr. She is convicted of mutiny, stripped of rank, and sentenced to life in prison.

This mutiny is the cornerstone of the entire setup for the series; however, it also became one of the first of many complaints about the show's apparent disregard for Star Trek canon and continuity. In the Star Trek episode "The Tholian Web", while investigating the loss of the USS Defiant, Captain Kirk and crew find that the entire crew of the Defiant was dead. The entire crew went wild and killed each other. In that episode Chekov asks Spock specifically if there has ever been a mutiny on a starship before, to which Spock answers, "absolutely no record of such an occurrence", which is not possible, since some 10 years earlier Spock's own adopted sister became the first and most infamous mutineer in Starfleet history. At the end of Discovery season 2 they tried to rectify some of the canon issues by having Starfleet order Spock and the others never to reveal what happened to the USS Discovery, or even its existence, but the mutiny happened on the USS Shenzhou, and was well known to Starfleet personnel, as seen in "Battle at the Binary Stars".

In "Context Is for Kings", USS Discovery's Captain Gabriel Lorca brings Burnham back to duty with a temporary war-time assignment as a scientist on his crew, praising her risk-taking behaviour as valuable in the war. She is met with hostility among the Discovery crew, being viewed as responsible for starting the war with the Klingons. Burnham eventually befriends her roommate, Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman). In "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry", Lorca orders Burnham and Landry (Rekha Sharma) to find a way to weaponize Ripper, a violent macroscopic Tardigrade found on the USS Glenn. Burnham hypothesizes that Ripper's behavior on the Glenn was defensive in nature and that he was not inherently dangerous, since biological analysis showed him to be herbivorous. But with the Klingons attacking Corvan II, Landry was desperate for results and fired a phaser at him, causing him to maul her to death. She also overcomes her fear of opening the last will of Georgiou through Tilly's coercion. She learns Georgiou left her with a telescope, a prized possession handed down through her family for hundreds of years, noting Burnham as a curious explorer and believing she has her own command at this point. In "Choose Your Pain", Burnham voices her concerns about the spore drive jumps used on Ripper as Saru is acting captain upon Lorca's abduction by Klingons. Saru is outraged at Burnham for turning the spore-drive offline without his knowledge, and searching for compatible DNA sequences to replace Ripper. Burnham suggests a human host replacement would be possible, but Saru disregards her point, calling her a predator. Later, Burnham asks if he is afraid of her, but he tells her he is jealous because he wanted to learn everything from Georgiou and she did instead, and rather than she become captain and teach him, her actions led him to be unprepared as acting captain for today. Burnham gives Saru the telescope Georgiou gave her, feeling she doesn't deserve it. Saru lets Burnham free Ripper back into space, and Stamets becomes the host replacement needed, injecting himself with tardigrade DNA.

Novels

The 2017 original tie-in novel Star Trek Discovery: Desperate Hours, is set in 2255, one year prior to the pilot, when Burnham has recently been promoted to acting first officer. The story sees her on a mission to save thousands of innocent lives by infiltrating an alien ship, with the help of a man she has attempted to avoid her entire life, while simultaneausly facing the truth of her troubled past. She also works with her adoptive brother Spock, who visits the Shenzhou with Captain Pike.

Reception

Writing for E! News, Chris Harnick reviewed the first two episodes of Discovery—"The Vulcan Hello" and "Battle at the Binary Stars"—and considered Martin-Green's performance the strongest element of the show. He praised her acting as a human raised in a Vulcan world by saying, "[T]he emotional conflict between the two ideologies in Michael Burnham is perhaps the most interesting part of the series, and presents a fascinating window into the world of Star Trek: Discovery." Writing for the episode "Context Is for Kings", Daniel Mallory Ortberg of Vulture referred to Martin-Green as "the standout" who is "given a lot more to work with and is, in turn, captivating, charming (I didn't know I wanted to see her scrabbling through a series of Jefferies tubes reciting Alice in Wonderland to herself until it happened), and heartbreakingly winsome."

Chaim Gartenberg for The Verge praised the uniqueness of Burnham in comparison to previous Trek protagonists saying, "[she] isn't like any protagonist we've seen in Star Trek so far, and not only because she doesn't command a starship or space station. She's a far more rounded, human character than any of the previous captains, with some serious trauma from a Klingon attack in her youth that's left her predisposed to hate the warrior race. And while Star Trek has plumbed the 'main character has demons' well in the past—most notably with Sisko in Deep Space Nine, and Picard in the later films, when it comes to the Borg—Burnham feels far more compelling for not being a flawless human being in other respects, as her series-protagonist predecessors were."

TV Guide listed Martin-Green in the ranking of "The 25 Best TV Performances of 2017" coming at 14. The article highlighted, "Martin-Green has delivered the sort of performance that lights up every moment she's on screen. This is how stars are born." CultureFly's David Bedwell included Burnham in their list of "11 Best TV Characters of 2017" saying, "With their first ever black female lead and a character that's hardly straight-laced, Sonequa Martin-Green gets a lot to sink her teeth into.

Variety added Martin-Green among the list of Top Breakout TV Stars of 2017 in the role of Burnham. Joe Otterson said, "Despite a lot of negative news coming out ahead of "Discovery's" premiere (including multiple premiere date delays), Martin-Green deftly took on the challenge of leading the new installment of the iconic sci-fi franchise. Her portrayal of convicted Starfleet mutineer Michael Burnham made the new show truly binge-worthy."