Star Trek: Discovery still hasn't topped its best villain, season 1's Captain Gabriel Lorca. The show took a lot of chances when it debuted on CBS All Access in 2017, from unwelcome changes to the Klingons to its serialized narrative structure. Plus, viewers had to wait until Star Trek: Discovery's third episode to see the titular starship and meet its captain.
Star Trek: Discovery bucked tradition by making its captain one of the main villains, but it paid off with Gabriel Lorca. Jason Isaacs's performance in his earlier episodes really sold the character's assumed identity as a flawed yet engaging hero. Then Lorca's unmasking in Star Trek: Discovery season 1, episode 12, "Vaulting Ambition," as the Mirror Universe counterpart to the real, missing Federation captain was a high point of the first season. The audacity and ambition of the Mirror Universe Lorca's long con, and his near-success achieving it, made him a great villain. He was treacherous in two universes, driven by lust and avarice, content with nothing less than the throne.
Lorca Is The Villain Standard Discovery Still Hasn't Matched
Star Trek: Discovery has had a number of memorable villains since Captain Gabriel Lorca, but none of them compare to the show's first captain. The Star Trek: Discovery season 2 antagonist, Section 31's rogue A.I.Control, posed a stark existential threat, but it was too abstract a concept for it to make a satisfying adversary until it manifested itself through Leland (Alan van Sprang). Star Trek: Discovery season 3 featured the ruthless Orion Osyraa (Janet Kidder) as Starfleet's enemy, the menacing head of the Emerald Chain who showed unexpected depth with her proposal to the Federation. The Emerald Chain storyline was not the main focus of season 3, though, and Osyraa took a back seat to the Burn.
Star Trek: Discovery season 4 had no real villain for its first half, as it focused instead on the mystery of the DMA and the disasters it caused. Tarka (Shawn Doyle) made his debut midseason, and while he was the weekly foil for its duration, he eventually proved sympathetic in his quest to reunite with a loved one. Like Osyraa's storyline, the story of Tarka and his multiverse plan was just one element of the broader tale of the DMA and Species 10-C. Tarka contrasted Mirror Lorca, socially oblivious and with nobler if misguided motivations.
Can Lorca Return In Star Trek: Discovery?
Though Mirror Lorca perished onscreen, Star Trek: Discovery season 1, episode 14, "The War Without, The World Within," established that Prime Lorca's body was never found, and iral Cornwell (Jayne Brook) merely presumed him dead. It seems straightforward enough to tell Prime Lorca's story in flashbacks and even to bring him forward in time to the rest of the cast in the 32nd century. However, Mirror Lorca wouldn't fare as well, for the same reason that Mirror Universe Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) had to leave through the Guardian of Forever, because beings from other universes can't survive time travel for long. Either version of Lorca could return more simply in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Star Trek: Discovery will return on Paramount+ in 2023.