Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5

Summary

• Captain Rayner in Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 may be abrasive at first, but fans will grow to love his driven and determined character.
• Director Doug Aarniokoski predicts that Rayner has the potential to become a beloved breakout character, similar to Captain Liam Shaw from Star Trek: Picard.
• Despite being rough around the edges, Captain Rayner is compared to Quint from Jaws - fans may not like him at first, but will root for him in the end.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5's new series regular, Captain Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), is a character fans may not like at first but they will grow to love, predicts director Doug Aarniokoski. Rayner was introduced in Star Trek: Discovery season 5's premiere, "Red Directive," as the Captain of the USS Antares. In Discovery season 5, episode 2, "Under the Twin Moons," directed by Aarniokoski, the abrasive Rayner is demoted for insubordination, but Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) offers Rayner a lifeline as her new First Officer aboard the USS Discovery.

Doug Aarniokoski was a guest on The 7th Rule podcast with Cirroc Lofton and Ryan T. Husk to discuss directing Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 2. When Lofton insightfully compared Captain Rayner to Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick) from Star Trek: Picard season 3, who fans disliked at first but became a beloved breakout character, Aarniokoski agreed that Rayner has the same potential. Read their conversation and watch The 7th Rule video below:

Doug Aarniokoski: He's amazing. [He's] new to the ship. New to the crew. New to the cast. Season 5, there's a lot of history backing into that. And it's so interesting that you saw a Shaw, if you will. I mean, look, Shaw is Quint. Quint in Jaws. You hate that guy. You hate Quint when he comes on the ship, and he's like, 'Let's catch that shark.'

Cirroc Lofton: Then you start easing onto him. You start liking him.

Doug Aarniokoski: You start going, ‘I understand who this guy is.’ This guy’s just driven. He’s got a directive. He’s got a target. He knows what he’s firing at. He knows what he’s doing. He’s got the experience. You may not like that he’s rough around the edges, but at the end of the day, he’s trying to catch the shark. He’s trying to catch the shark. And I think that Shaw had that in Picard, and I think you’re gonna see in Discovery, a character that is tough to like, but eventually you’ll see is hard not to love.

Is Captain Rayner Star Trek's Next Captain Liam Shaw?

Discovery could have a new breakout character on its hands

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 may catch lightning in a bottle with Captain Rayner the way Star Trek: Picard season 3 did with Captain Liam Shaw. Thanks to clever writing by Picard showrunner Terry Matalas and his writers' room, and the gruff charisma of Todd Stashwick, Liam Shaw went from a character fans loathed to someone audiences are now demanding to see brought back to life. Shaw stole scenes from Patrick Stewart's iral Jean-Luc Picard and Jonathan Frakes' Captain Will Riker, and Liam's monologue confessing his backstory as a survivor of the Battle of Wolf 359 was one of Star Trek: Picard season 3's most riveting moments.

Rayner may end Star Trek: Discovery season 5 as one of the show's most popular characters.

Callum Keith Rennie's Captain Rayner has a different arc on Star Trek: Discovery, one seemingly of redemption and possible integration into the close-knit family of the USS Discovery. Like Shaw in Picard, Rayner enters Discovery immediately at odds with Captain Burnham and her methods. Shaw never became a subordinate to Picard the way Rayner does to Burnham, but the pointy-eared Kellerun brings a similarly challenging dynamic and intriguing friction to Discovery's captain and crew. Commander Rayner, as he is now ranked, is someone to keep an eye on, and Rayner may end Star Trek: Discovery season 5 as one of the show's most popular characters if Rayner is indeed like Captain Liam Shaw.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 streams Thursdays on Paramount+

Source: The 7th Rule