Paramount+When Star Trek: Discovery Episode 3 dropped in 2017, the series not only introduced its title starship, but also gave the Trek franchise a new kind of audience surrogate; the energetic, nervous, and utterly charming Cadet Sylvia Tilly, Michael Burnham’s (Sonequa Martin-Green) roommate on a starship with a grim vibe and an uncertain mission. A Lower Decks-style character before Lower Decks existed, Mary Wiseman’s Tilly instantly became a fan favorite thanks to her unique blend of heroism and charm. Now, thanks to time travel and an epic journey in Discovery’s later seasons, Tilly is somehow a legacy character. Since Discovery Season 4, when it was revealed that Tilly would instruct a group of new Starfleet cadets, it was only a matter of time before she appeared at Starfleet Academy.“I knew I was working at the Academy when Discovery ended,” Wiseman tells Inverse. “So I had my hopes!”Tilly’s appearance in Starfleet Academy Season 1 Episode 8 isn’t simply an instance of a character crossing over into another series because she can. Like Jett Reno (Tig Notaro), Tilly is living in the 32nd Century, but she’s originally from the 23rd Century, and even served with Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck). Her status as a visiting teacher to Starfleet Academy’s cadets is a bit like if someone from the medieval period of history were suddenly lecturing at a local college. It’s a timey-wimey stunt that makes perfect sense within the rules of Trek, but Wiseman notes it has deeper implications.Tilly (Mary Wiseman) at the beginning of her journey in Discovery Season 1. | Paramount+“In the episode, she says to Reno, ‘We are the women that time forgot.’ I think that there is an interesting place that they hold as being part of ancient history that probably feels a little unmooring on some level,” Wiseman says. “But it also gives them some sense of their place in time.”Because the USS Discovery jumped to the 32nd Century at the end of its second season, Tilly’s presence in Starfleet Academy is doubly poignant; she’s a representative of a ship and crew that span centuries, but in our world, she’s also a reminder of the era of Trek just previous to the current one. In the context of Episode 8, “The Life of the Stars,” Tilly is there to teach the cadets about theater, specifically Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, to help the cadets process their grief from the events of Episode 6. For Wiseman, this specific plot point was just as relevant to her status in the Trek canon.Thornton Wilder, the writer of Our Town. | ullstein bild/ullstein bild/Getty Images“I freaked out because I love Thornton Wilder. I played Emily in Our Town at Juilliard, and I did a production of Skin of Our Teeth off-Broadway where I played Sabina,” Wiseman says. “So I know the playwright really, really well, and I love Our Town. I think it was a well-chosen play for this experience because it works as a device about moving through difficult things in life.”The episode’s title, "The Life of the Stars,” comes from Our Town, and continues the proud Star Trek tradition of incorporating great literature of the past into a future-tense setting. Though Wiseman thinks that many in the audience probably have some notion of the play, she also acknowledges that Trek has often been a gateway for younger people into the world of theater and literature, from Dickens and Melville in The Wrath of Khan to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Next Generation. Even as far back as The Original Series, one episode, “The Conscience of the King,” was about a Shakespeare troupe onboard the Enterprise. So, as a theater person herself, Wiseman hopes that this Starfleet Academy episode could get some people into Our Town.“I think you get to hear a lot of the text in this episode,” Wiseman says. “And not just that, but a real interrogation of the text and what the playwright was trying to communicate. I hope that it whets people's palettes to either revisit the play or read it for the first time, because it is one of our great American plays, and our great American works of literature in general.”Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streams on Paramount+.Phasers on Stun!: How the Making — and Remaking — of Star Trek Changed the WorldAmazon -