Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise and star Sonequa Martin-Green explain how season 5 will mix up the show’s serialized format.
Summary
- Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery will mix serialized and episodic storytelling, offering a wonderful mix of adventure and fun.
- The new season will feature a lot of action and explore meaningful themes, such as the importance of family and community.
- Fans can expect a tonal shift while still maintaining the essence of what makes Discovery unique, making it a wild ride.
Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise and series lead Sonequa Martin-Green explain how season 5 will mix up the show’s format in the final season. Discovery season 5 centers on Captain Michael Burnham and the USS Discovery hunting for “the greatest treasure in the known galaxy,” which is said to be an ancient power that has been dormant and hidden for centuries. Opposing Burnham’s quest are new villains in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, including the rogue team of L’ak (Elias Toufexis) and Moll (Eve Harlow).
TrekBrasilis was on hand at CCXP in Brazil (as reported by TrekMovie) for Michelle Paradise and Sonequa Martin-Green’s appearance at the Paramount+ panel, where they announced Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s April 2024 premiere and debuted an action-packed clip from an upcoming episode. Joining two different panels at CCXP, Paradise and Martin-Green talked about how Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s serialized story will include “more episodic adventures.” Check out their quotes below:
Michelle Paradise: Season 5 is going to be a wonderful mix. The DNA of Discovery always has those serialized stories over the course of a season. This season the nature of that serialized story allows us to have more episodic adventures. So I think people are really gonna dig it. There are some very cool adventures and some really fun episodes.
This season will be a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun. We will also – as we always do in Star Trek: Discovery – explore meaningful themes as well, the family onboard Discovery, the community, all those sorts of things. We did a bit of a tonal shift this season while still maintaining what Discovery is. And it’s a lot of fun.
Sonequa Martin-Green: It’s going to be a wild ride, y’all.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 – Everything We Know
Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is the final season of Paramount+’s flagship series, and here’s everything we know about Captain Burnham’s last voyages.
Why Star Trek: Discovery Season 5’s Format Mix Is A Welcome Change
Did Star Trek: Strange New Worlds influence Discovery season 5?
When Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017, it brought the cinematic pacing and production values of J.J. Abrams and Chris Pine’s Star Trek movies to TV while embracing the dominant serialized format popularized by shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Discovery‘s first 4 seasons each mainly consisted of one relentless mission where the fate of the galaxy was in Michael Burnham’s hands. As visceral and exciting as Star Trek: Discovery can be, it lacked the focus of exploration and adventure of previous Star Trek series, and Discovery not being about “going where no one has gone before” was especially notable when the USS Discovery had an entirely new 32nd-century future to navigate.
The USS Discovery’s spore displacement hub drive allows for instantaneous travel, which can be argued should have allowed the show to do even more exploring.
It’s possible the success and acclaim of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which brought back the franchise’s classic episodic structure, influenced Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s “mix” of serialization and episodic adventures. Strange New Worlds and Discovery both film in Toronto and share the show’s AR Wall and, occasionally, even sets. Perhaps Strange New Worlds rubbed off a bit on Star Trek: Discovery and led to season 5’s shift in tone. Captain Michael Burnham exploring more of the galaxy while hunting for the secret treasure should indeed be the “wild ride” Sonequa Martin-Green promises.
