Warning: this article contains spoilers from Star Trek: Discovery episode 'Choose Your Pain'.
Last night's (October 15) Star Trek: Discovery saw Paul Stamets make a noble sacrifice in order to save Captain Lorca from the Klingons.
During the episode 'Choose Your Pain', we learnt about the tardigrade-like species that drives the spore drive, discovering that it does not like navigating it.
As the creature is now dying from being used in the drive, Stamets, Michael Burnham and Cadet Tilly search for desperate measures to get it working again so that they can save Lorca.
In the end, Stamets injects himself with tardigrade DNA, which carries major risks. However, it pays off in the end and they are able to save the captain.
Opening up about the life-threatening decision, Stamets actor Anthony Rapp told TVGuide.com: "I think I was pretty sure it was gonna work based on all the homework that we had all been doing... that the closest relative that could absorb the DNA and implement it would be a human being... so I was pretty sure it was gonna work.
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"And the reason I did it was that it was the only option. And I wasn't gonna tell anybody about it because people were gonna say, 'No don't do it.' I wasn't gonna get authorisation to do it so I had to just go and do it. It's just one of those things that had to happen.
"I couldn't stand by and let another creature be enslaved and forced into servitude and forced to do something that it wasn't consenting to do. At the same time, we had to make it work so I had to do what I had to do."
On what convinced him to change his mind, Rapp continued: "I think it's the care for the sentient being. But I really believe that I wasn't totally... either wilfully ignorant or just blissfully ignorant of the impact that it was happening until it was brought to my attention.
"It's not like I was wilfully going, 'Oh, who cares about this creature?' I was just not really aware of it. You know, nose to the grindstone making this spore drive work, not totally aware that the creature was suffering because of it.
"Once it's brought to my attention, of course I have to go, 'Well Burnham, you started this, you have to help finish it.' But wasn't in any way shape or form saying I was gonna ignore the problem."
Star Trek: Discovery airs on Netflix.
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Sam is a freelance reporter and sub-editor who has a particular interest in movies, TV and music. After completing a journalism Masters at City University, London, Sam joined Digital Spy as a reporter, and has also freelanced for publications such as NME and Screen International. Sam, who also has a degree in Film, can wax lyrical about everything from Lord of the Rings to Love Is Blind, and is equally in his element crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' as a sub-editor.
