The season three finale of Star Trek: Discovery is behind us, with work on season four already underway. Last week we shared some insights into the next season from the showrunners, and now we’ve curated additional comments from some more post-finale interviews.
Saru balancing Starfleet and Kaminar in season four
The end of season three had Saru returning home to Kaminar with Su’Kal, leaving the newly promoted Michael Burnham in command of the USS Discovery. Doug Jones spoke briefly about where Saru’s story picks up in season four (via Sci-Fanatics):
“I think he’s been missing Kaminar and his people and his customs. So, he’ll lap that up for a while. He has captain rank with Starfleet. He worked very hard to get that. He made that his life’s mission. So I think we’re seeing a wrestle between this allegiance to home and his new allegiance to Starfleet for the second half of his life. He is not going to give up either one I don’t think. So I think season four we are going to see how he balances those things together.”
Season four tests Owo
Oyin Oladejo spoke to Bleeding Cool briefly about where season four finds Joann Owosekun:
“Based on where we left off in season three, there’s a shift within myself I’m recognizing in myself where Joann is always ready to fight. Season four will test her resolve more and we’ll see her more on track.”
Gray will be seen in season four
In an interview with Inverse, co-showrunner Michelle Paradise spoke about how season four will pick up on the story of Gray:
“Representation matters. It matters to see a version of yourself on screen. It matters there are non-binary and transgender characters. It matters that there is a Black woman in the captain’s chair. It matters that there is a gay couple on our show. We will continue to do that for the show, and the world we live in, but also, to honor the Star Trek legacy. And to be super clear, we will pay that moment off in Season 4. Gray will be seen. That promise will be paid off.”
Averbach-Katz is up for another prosthetics role
Season three introduced the character Ryn, who was killed by Osyraa in the penultimate episode. But in a Reddit AMA actor (and avid Star Trek fan and husband of Mary Wiseman) Noah Averbach-Katz Made it clear if asked, he is ready to return:
Nothing on the books to be back yet, but obviously, I would love to be back!
And I would love to come back in prosthetics…I kind of have a taste for it now (of course I say that now….)
He even had a suggestion for how he could return to the show:
I like to think I could be two Ferengi standing on each other’s shoulders in a trench coat!
I would love to be a part whatever the Cardassians are up to in the future…or I’d love to be a new species and get the chance to create some new canon!
Behind the scenes on season three
More moments from the making of season three have been showing up on social media. First up, we have science consultant Dr. Erin MacDonald sharing an astronomy Easter egg.
Yes, I can confirm that the Verubin Nebula in Season 3 of #StarTrekDiscovery was named after the astronomer Vera Rubin! Thanks to @michelleparadis and team for including this amazing woman in @StarTrek lore! https://t.co/JGHnR6YChB
— Dr Erin Macdonald | Social Media Hiatus (@drerinmac) January 11, 2021
David Ajala (who will be back as Book in season four) shared some videos of behind-the-scenes life on set in Iceland for the first episode of the season.
Behind the Scenes. Iceland…where season 3 began. #justbookit pic.twitter.com/occ80GoEGK
— David Ajala (@iamDavidAjala) January 8, 2021
Behind the scenes rehearsals. #justbookit Proper preparation prevents poor performance. – Anna Scher pic.twitter.com/d7qZU2V5Hm
— David Ajala (@iamDavidAjala) January 12, 2021
TBT Management shared a video of their client Jinny Jacinto, who played the monster in Su’Kal’s holodeck world.
View this post on Instagram
On Instagram, CBS posted some nice behind-the-scenes shots from the season 3 finale.
View this post on Instagram
Finally, Noah and Discovery graphic designer Timothy Peel shared this animated image put together by the art department, depicting Captain Killy.
#StarTrekDiscovery Hey @may_wise and @N_A_K, so glad to see this! Almost all of the credit goes to the fabulous Art Dept on SE03, but I had way too much fun rendering and animating this screen! Many late 70's van murals never looked so cool. So Killy! pic.twitter.com/4AS2A5gsPK
— Timothy Peel (@timothypeel1) December 25, 2020
New promo graphics
On social media, CBS has posted a couple of new graphics to sum up season three and start the hype for season four.
Your weekend plans are set. Stream every episode of #StarTrekDiscovery now on @CBSAllAccess. pic.twitter.com/n9dVXJ7km0
— Star Trek on CBS All Access (@startrekcbs) January 15, 2021
Let's fly to Season 4! Thank you to everyone who made #StarTrekDiscovery Season 3 so special. It has been so fun to go on this journey with you this past 13 weeks. We can't wait to come back next season! pic.twitter.com/hVxMdsM0VO
— Star Trek on CBS All Access (@startrekcbs) January 14, 2021
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
Not quite sure if “Let’s Fly” will remain but certainly looking forward to a very different Discovery again next year. Loving the way each season leads to a new beginning.
Yeah I don’t understand the preoccupation with the captain having a catchphrase.
Stop forcing it and just let it develop organically instead of making such a massive point of it.
I agree so, SO much! Organic development works so much better, for practically everything. And really, Kirk didn’t have a catchphrase, yet he somehow managed to get the ship to go. :-)
It’s almost as if these folks don’t have much of an understanding of what Star Trek actually is…
As if.
>;>}
The season 3 poster is nice, but I still can’t help but be annoyed how prominently it features characters I still can’t even name (and that it has Grudge but not Reno). I just don’t like the pretense that this is a show with a deep bench of supporting characters, let alone good ones we should care about.
I suspect they took this publicity shot when filming the season finale; most of the characters there (Aurellio) were in the final episode.
I had to look up who that was as well, but he’s one of the only people not on the poster, funnily enough.
I know I don’t have a bloody clue who most of them are. This series is so incredibly bad at character building.
Exactly Tezna. I can name the 6 main characters. After that, the only one I recall is Reno. And that’s only because she made amusing comments to make herself stand out. The rest may as well be random “red shirts” no one knows or cares about. As I said in another thread, they changed actors for one of the roles and very few even noticed. That tells you how bland and forgettable they are.
On a scale of 1-10 I give season 3 a 6
Season 2: 6.5
Season 1: 5.5
My rating would be:
Season 3: 6.5
Season 2 as a Captain Pike pilot: 7
Season 2 as a Discovery season: 5
Season 1: 3
For me,
Season 1: 4
Season 2: 6
Season 3: 7
So it’s improving for me, but still far far from a great show but an OK one at least.
I guess our 1-10 scales are defined differently. I would not count a 7 as “far” from a great show. I think that is pretty close to a great show. “Far” from great to me would be 2 maybe 3. To me a 7 would be pretty good.
Seeing how you rated the show, I would guess so lol.
S1: -10.
S2: -1
S3: 1
So they are improving!
I’m really sick and tired of ghost characters and characters returning from the dead. This worked, once, in a big-screen movie, because it was so exceptional and the character in question, Spock, so beloved. It has failed miserably since then (“Imaginary Friend,” “Sub Rosa”). (Even the story of Dr. Culber’s time in the mycelial network was mediocre.) This is supposed to be a series with at least a grounding in science.
If “representation matters” (and I don’t disagree), then why kill off Gray to begin with?
I think to set up the metaphor of being largely invisible/marginalized, and how that damages people even when they have a few people they love who do see them? I guess Gray will become a hologram or golem, and aside from allowing the exploration of what it means for marginalized people to be seen, it can also explore what has happened with the artificial life forms since the time of Picard. I thought it was notable that the holograms Starfleet was using did not appear to be sentient or certainly weren’t treated as such.
The metaphor is so trite, its virtue is barely compensating for how lazy it is. As much as Discovery seems to enjoy burying its gays (or LGBTs, to make it less easy to say, par the course) only to resurrect them in some belabored and traumatic way, I would at least add the faint praise of, “Well, at least they don’t stay dead.”
Trite… ok. I mean, who doesn’t know the tired old trope of an ex-boyfriend’s consciousness re-emerging from a symbiotic organism and being reconstituted in the physical world by an advanced holographic system?
The rest of your response I’ve seen at least a dozen times in the comments section of Midnight’s Edge. Which, frankly, fits the definition of trite much better.
Grey was a Trill host. Gray had to be dead to set up the concept of the symbiont being placed in what’s her name. The story wouldn’t work otherwise. But now it sounds like they want to find a way to make this “memory of a dead lover” somehow become real. So would this be yet another resurrection? The first time they did that it was pretty darn lame. Not sure they should try a 2nd. The situation works well as a memory. I see no reason why everyone should need to see human-trill’s memories. Makes zero sense.
“Representation matters. It matters to see a version of yourself on screen.”
Yeah, well, after fifty-plus years and over 800 episodes, I have yet to see a character from my particular ethnic group, which isn’t exactly a minor one (and which has been very well-represented among both the casts and- especially- crew of the various incarnations of Trek), on screen.
And that’s the tip of the iceberg, if you think about an even larger (billions of people worth!) a second.
To be honest, I don’t much care, because I happen not to think that “representation matters” and can enjoy and even identify with a show without seeing a “version” of myself on screen. But if they’re going to push it, they don’t have to be hypocritical about it.
It was almost worse somehow when they did pick my ethnic group and made him a bland generic Native, Chakotay, whose tribe I don’t believe they ever bothered giving a name. Well-meaning but pretty lame at the same time.
I guess I should count myself lucky.
Robert Beltran happens to be a Native American, but Mexican, so presumably not any tribe North Americans would recognize. But he also didn’t play a Meso-American, I don’t think. Is there even such a thing as the practices he engaged in?
I don’t know how true this is, but I’ve heard the series had a Native “expert” they consulted, who then turned out to be something of a phony.
Oh I hope they get more colourful uniforms… these grey uniforms are very dull… very Star Trek: TMP … grey uniforms on a grey dark ship. I wouldn’t want to work there. Ugh.
Appropriate color for the dullest crew in the franchise.
They’re unflattering as well. There’s a reason Robert Blackman always favored black in the 24th century…
Wait! … this show has a scientific advisor? The show that constantly ignores the speed of light has a scientific advisor? The show that took pretty much all the science out of Star Trek actually has a scientific advisor? … this show? … the one that dedicated a whole episode this season to a ritual where scientific evidence is weighed against one another that was ultimatily won by Michael talking about her feelings? … that show ACTUALLY has a scientific advisor?!
Well … if she limits herself to naming nebulae after scientists, that would explain that …
If anyone forgot:
Season 1: The light of Khales was visible instantly acros the galaxy (visible … as in “can be seen”)
Season 2: The red Signals were visible isntantly acros the galaxa (again … visible. It is stated that they didn’t appear in the past or something)
Season 3: Traveling from Jupiter to earth on sublight within a Second (it is established, that no time passed between cuts)
Dr. Erin MacDonald (physicist) joined for season 3, as did a biology prof from Duke.
They have a new video series on YouTube (discussed on a earlier thread here).
Both of them underscore that they weren’t on board before this season, but you can see them having fun explaining Star Trek science on some virtual con panels.
FWIW, you should look up the Alculbierre drive before you cite FTL as improbable. It’s a case where physics theory has been inspired by and followed Star Trek speculation. At this point, some theorists think that only a soccer ball size amount of exotic matter would be needed to make it work….
I thought, I explained it with the examples. I wasn‘t talking about the FTL Drive as being improbable. I was talking about situations, where the Lightspeed limit would apply but was ignored.
I see.
But why not praise Secret Hideout for addressing the issue by bringing on not one but two science advisors (physics and biology) for Discovery S3 and future seasons of the other series?
Instead, you snarked first, even though this has been announced several times and the new Biotrekkies YouTube series has been covered here on TrekMovie.
As for the FTL, I guess that I’m just tired of folks criticizing Trek generally on this when there’s a lot of super-speculative science and technology in all editions of the franchise that have been later validated by research and development. Warp drive theory is a leading example.
Well … because this season was probably the worst offender when it comes to scientific inaccuracies. Why would I praise anyone for that?
That’s part of the problem. They bring in science advisors when the science (albeit could use a little firming up) is not the real issue with the show. If your car has a dead battery why waste your time, money and energy with a new paint job? All while still ignoring the battery problem.
I’ve tried to like Discovery over the course of the last three seasons and while it’s not all bad the writing isn’t great and as has already been pointed out the producers don’t seem to care about science or logic and are seemingly incapable of developing characters that I actually care about or creating satisfying story arcs.
Often they’ll set up something interesting only for it to be ignored or underdeveloped over the course of the season.
I’m also not a big fan of the characterisation of the various alien species either [Klingons not included] who mostly come across as humans in makeup, with no alien qualities – at least Enterprise did something decent with TOS species like the Andorians and Orions whereas Discovery comes across as lazy in this regard.
Each to their own.
If you enjoy it then that’s all good.
I’m not here to piss on your parade but personally I find Discovery disappointing.
Personally I feel as though Trek as been dumbed down and given a WB superhero show kinda vibe to attract a younger audience.
A perfect example of this is Michael’s turbolift jump from the season 3 finale episodes or how in S1 she jumped into a shuttlecraft with her clenched fist landing on the floor like she’s Superman or something.
There are numerous such examples of this.
I don’t want Starfleet superheroes.
I also REALLY don’t like the melodrama.
I understand that in the future we’re supposedly more evolved and therefore more open with our emotions but whenever there’s supposed to be an emotionally impactful scene characters come across like they were written for a cheesy Hallmark movie and it makes me sigh internally.
I mean… how many times did Michael cry during season 3 – jeez!
I’ll give S4 a shot to see where it heads but I don’t have much confidence.
Love this show
Gray has the same job Troi had on TNG — slowww down every episode. His scenes are sooo drawn out and boring.
After a pretty rough and disappointing start, Discovery finally seems to be in a good position to find its proper place in Trek lore.
The show has had a tough job trying to satisfy longtime “legacy” fans like myself who are used to senior and more experienced officers doing things generally “by the book” or when someone other than the Captain did disobey orders – they immediately expected disciplinary action regardless if things worked out or didn’t. Captains were revered and respected – to command the Enterprise, Voyager or even the Shenzou those commands were only granted to the best of the best officers with decades of command experience. That is why Pike was so beloved in S2 along with Prime Georgiou who was sadly and unceremoniously killed off in episode 2.
That clearly is not what Discovery is all about and that understandably can rub some the wrong way. Now that SNW is about to enter production and we have Picard plus two animated series and a future S31 show on the horizon, maybe now Discovery can unapologetically chart its own course.
IMHO, Discovery is a science vessel crewed primarily by younger and inexperienced officers, prone to errors in judgement and command mistakes – but who have traveled 900 years into the future and now are on a mission to help rebuild the Federation. Keeping this premise in mind, I won’t expect Discovery or Michael (in her first command) to live up to strict expectations set by Archer, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Pike and Georgiou. Maybe the writers will surprise me, but I don’t expect that will happen.
All that said, that does not mean I am not looking forward to S4. There are plenty of interesting stories left to tell I hope the writers can continue to improve this series which IMO has slowly improved after the first 6-7 episodes of season 1.