For those who are curious if Oh is really a Romulan masquerading as Vulcan (a very old Star Trek trick) Tomita is too good at her job to reveal any spoilers. When I ask her if she got to compare her pointed-ears with Harry Treadaway, she’s quick to deflect the question. “I wasn’t around a bunch of Romulans all that often! But I was drawn to how fierce my character would look. Fierce and otherworldly.”

Tomita explains that, in terms of twists and turns, she actually wasn’t worried about her character’s place in the overall story, because her responsibility was to be in the moment, scene-to-scene: “I have to be there on the day, in my scene with my scene partners. Sometimes my scene partners include the audience. That is my responsibility; knowing as much about my character. Commodore Oh is out there to do a job and do it well and it as efficiently and quickly as possible.”

In Episode 3 of Picard, when Dr. Jurati (Alison Pill) asks Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart) if he knows Commodore Oh personally, he says, “No, but I hear she is very good at her job.” This sense of cold-efficiency is what defines Oh’s character, but it also — somehow – adds a new dimension from what we come to expect from a Vulcan on Star Trek.

Tomita’s portrayal of Oh, is ruthless, but not evil. In Episode 2, when she confronts the Romulan operative known as Lt. Rizzo (Peyton List), the contrast is clear: Rizzo is cocky and arrogant, and Oh is reserved, but aggressively firm. We’ve seen Vulcans as security officers in Star Trek before (remember Tuvok?) but Oh feels like what would happen if a Vulcan’s personality was a direct splicing of both Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty at the same time. But, Tomita didn’t pull this brilliant, and mimilaist performance off by ripping-off other Vulcans. Not one bit.

“I didn’t want to be trapped in an idea of replicating other Star Trek characters; especially Vulcans,” Tomita explains. “But my love and I have Spock paraphernalia all over our house. He’s an omnipresence in our lives, we adore him. You can’t escape Star Trek influence, especially characters you literally grew up with. That said, I did not refer back to Spock-ism or Vulcanism or any Star Trek-isms because I wanted to be able to tell the story as truthfully as I could in our timeline of 2399. The whole thing of talking in the Spock cadence, the Nimoy cadence or the Zachary Quinto cadence, or any other Vulcans, it’s difficult. I had to respect the universe, but do the best I can with my own interpretation.”