Star Trek: Discovery’s Mary Wiseman talks the future of Tilly

Mary Wiseman was a key member of Star Trek: Discovery for the first four seasons.

Mary Wiseman played Lt. Sylvia Tilly for the first four seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. Tilly, known for her big, curly red hair, was given an important arc recently that led up to and concluded in the fourth episode of season four.

For those who have not watched Discovery, there are minor spoilers ahead.

In the fourth episode of the season, Tilly makes the decision to leave the Discovery and take up a posting at the recently re-opened Starfleet Academy. Wiseman told Forbes that the decision was one that she felt the character needed.

"That’s kind of what this character needed, some time to grow, on her own, as an adult"

As for if fans can expect to see Tilly again at some point in the future; that’s the plan. Just don’t expect too much more of her. Telling Inverse;

"You will see Tilly again before the end of the season. Don’t worry."

…as well as Slashfilm;

"What I’ve been told I can say is that you will see Tilly later in the season."

What this means for Star Trek: Discovery going forward

This could mean one of two things but certainly seems to confirm a third. The first thing that this could indicate is that Tig Notaro’s character will get a lot more screen time going forward. The character hasn’t been seen yet in season four but co-showrunner Michelle Paradise told Forbes that she’s coming.

"You’ll see her very soon. …But you know, she’s so busy and doing awesome other things. And so we grab her when we can. So we don’t have her as much as some of our other characters. But she’ll be coming up soon within the first half of the season, for sure."

The other thing that this could indicate is that the series is wrapping up key character plots ahead of the season four finale with the idea that the series is in limbo for a fifth season. If they get a fifth season, they can certainly bring characters back into the fold, if they don’t then they’ve set up a make-shift story arc to send characters off on a high note.

Regardless, the fact that Wiseman is being written off for the most part, just ahead of Notaro’s return as Jett Reno, seems to indicate that this may be a budget issue. There were rumors that the series had episodes cut from season four due to budget issues, with the series going far over what was allocated to them.

If that’s the case, it makes sense that the show tried to reduce costs by writing off-key characters; that’s generally Cost Cutting 101 in television series.