Production Has Wrapped On ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5

| November 20, 2022 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 86 comments so far

The fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery has wrapped up production in Toronto. The 10-episode season began filming in early June. In addition to the shorter episode order to match the other Star Trek shows, the new season promises to bring a shift in tone to the series that debuted in 2017.

That’s a wrap

News of production wrapping up came from visual effects supervisor Fausto Tajeda, who called the work on season 5 “a wild, productive, and innovative journey.” Showrunner Michelle Paradise added her thanks.

Paradise also sent out her own tweet calling season 5 the “most ambitious yet.”

Cast members also took to social media to talk about the end of filming…

The final days of production were done on Pixomondo’s Toronto AR Wall stage, with production on the main Discovery CBS stages in Toronto wrapping earlier in the week.

Some actors had already wrapped their work previously. Anthony Rapp revealed (on Mastadon) he finished up his work on season 5 on November 11. He described his work as “another great experience, sharing wonderfully joyous days of Space Talk and Found Family with my incredible cast and crew members.”

A different kind of season for Discovery

Season 5 of Discovery will change things up from the usual galaxy-ending stakes arcs the show is known for. Here is the official synopsis:

In season 5, Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery uncover a mystery that sends them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt as well … dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.

Season 5 cast members include Sonequa Martin-Green (Captain Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Saru), Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), David Ajala (Cleveland “Book” Booker) and Blu del Barrio (Adira). Also returning are guest stars Tara Rosling (Ni’Var President T’Rina), Chelah Horsdal (Federation President Rillak), Oded Fehr (Admiral Vance), and David Cronenberg (Kovich).

Joining in season 5

Callum Keith Rennie joins the cast in a series regular role as Captain Rayner. Here is his official character description:

Rayner is a gruff, smart Starfleet Captain who holds a clear line between commander and crew—he leads, they follow. Rayner’s all about the mission, whatever it may be, and he doesn’t do niceties along the way; his feeling is, you get the job done and apologize later. He has a storied track record of wartime success, but in times of peace he struggles. Collaboration is not his strong suit. That said, if it serves the greater good he’s willing to learn … but it won’t be easy.

Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner

Also new this season are Moll and L’ak, played by Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis. Here are their official descriptions:

Moll is a former courier turned outlaw, who is highly intelligent and dangerous, with an impressive strategic mind and a sharp wit. She goes into every situation with a clear plan and stays focused and clear-headed on her goal, even when things go awry. She’s not intimidated by Captain Burnham or the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery, and will face down anyone who stands in her way in order to get what she wants.

L’ak is a former courier turned outlaw, who is tough, impulsive and fiercely protective of his beloved partner, Moll. So long as he knows she’s safe, he doesn’t care about collateral damage or its consequences—a perspective that makes him very dangerous at times and will put him on the opposite side of Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery when they come into conflict.

Elias Toufexis as L’ak and Eve Harlow as Moll

A trailer released in early October at New York Comic Con gave a hint at the new tone and this quest-based season.

While production (main filming) has wrapped, there’s still plenty of post-production work to be done to finalize the show. There are no details yet on when it will debut.

Discovery seasons 1 through 4 are currently streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. Internationally, the series is available on Paramount+ in Australia, Italy, Latin America, the U.K. and South Korea. It will also stream exclusively on Paramount+ in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria later this year. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

Keep up with news for the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.

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Great news i can’t wait to see S5 next year. Discovery is imo the best show of the current slot of Trek shows and has ever since the first season become my 2nd favorite Trek show(DS9 is in 1st place. I hope the show continues for another couple of seasons after S5.

Looking forward to it! I can’t wait for live action trek to return!

Please just be better! But crossing my fingers I’ll enjoy this one. Although I’m very mixed on the show itself I’m looking forward to seeing more of the 32nd century at least.

The same.

Season four was definitely strongly impacted by COVID-19 protocols. The solutions the show’s writers used to manage the restrictions definitely slowed the show in ways that didn’t work for it.

I’m looking forward to more creativity in the use of the AR wall and vfx staging, now that SNW has shown the way.

And yet Covid protocols didn’t impact dozens of other series produced during the same time period. Covid presented a challenge for the television and film industry but they adapted and produced a lot of great content. Discovery wasn’t one of those shows.

Yeah I mean sure, Covid certainly created production problems but you can’t say that’s why the quality was worse either when you have so many other shows and movies going through the same thing and they were just as good as before.

I think Discovery was bad last season mostly due to trying to stretch out a season that had about 6 episodes worth of story into 13. And the ONE advantage all these show did have is that they could now take a much longer time writing the scripts and getting everything down as best as possible. The irony is Akiva Goldsman was actually using that as a selling point of why he thought season 2 of Picard would be a better season because they had finished every script before production started; which wasn’t the case with season 1.

And we still saw how season 2 of that show turned out as well.

Yeah, they can’t blame the show’s problems on COVID. COVID explains things like Tig Notaro being in it less and the increased use of the AR wall and fewer guest stars. Great writers would have adapted better. You could do proper high concept bottle episodes to fill those spaces that felt like they were treading water. One of Disco’s best stories to my mind remains Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad, which could work without any arc elements. Some episodes could have been turned into higher stakes two parters, they could have gone totally off the beaten path and pulled a “Mythic Quest” and done an episode set in the distant past with a clue to the 10-C’s nature in it somewhere, or an episode like Enterprise’s Twilight set in a reality where the anomaly has gobbled up most of the Galaxy. Do a (Data’s) day in the life of one of the thankless bridge peons or Adira or Tilly. This is one of the most imaginative universes full of endless possibilities, but instead it’s all just melodrama, platitudes, over-emoting and padding on the way to a ho-hum finale where the galaxy-ending stakes have become as old hat as JJ Abrams wrecking the Enterprise.

Sorry for the rant. I need wine.

No rant away lol! These are great points and why Discovery is so frustrating for me. I think about Enterprise third season and the whole Xindi thing. They had to fill 25 episodes and of course they couldn’t all be about the Xindi either. The thing about Enterprise is that season gave us some of the best standalone episodes of the show! Here is a quick list of what came out of that season:

-Twilight (as you mentioned)
-North Star
-Carpenter Street (it was Xindi related but still worked as a standalone)
-E2
-Similitude (this is still part of my top 20 episodes in all of Star Trek)
-Chosen Realm
-Damage (also Xindi related to the previous episode but still works as a standalone)

I love all these episodes and you can watch them all as standalone. You may need to know a little about the overall story, but you don’t need to follow the entire season to enjoy them. Yeah MIX IT UP!!! Get creative. The first half season 4 had a few standalone episodes but I wouldn’t say any of them were amazing but I did really like two of them: “Stormy Weather” and “But to Connect”. Those were Species 10c related but they were at least a little different and interesting. And very Trek-y in their approach.

But once it became the Tarka/Book chase in the second half, the season just slowed to a crawl after that. There was no excitement behind any of it. That’s when they should’ve went what Enterprise did in season 3 and give us some fun, diverse stories. I’m the guy that loves weird trippy Trek stories. Give us an episode where they run across some crazy 10c technology that sends them back 2000 years in 10c’s past. Or a story where they crash land on a primitive pre-warp society that think they are their Gods that matches some prophecy of theirs in the vein of Who Watches the Watchers. Maybe an episode where Burnham experience an alternate reality where her parents never died and experience her life today if she never met Sarek or lived on Vulcan. How about an episode where they are taken hostage by powerful aliens trying to find the 10c who has the ability to invade their past memories as a form of entertainment?

Just something, ANYTHING more creative than landing on a barren planet to snort emo dust and have a good cry for 30 minutes. That’s why SNW is a breathe of fresh air for a lot of fans. They are willing to do these types of diverse stories again we haven’t gotten since, yeah, Enterprise. They are doing weird trippy stuff again. Discovery seems to think they can’t just do more off-the-beaten track episodes when the fate of the galaxy rest in their hands; but people enjoy some diversion in the season even if its heavily serialized. Something creative, fun, thoughtful.

Yep excellent points! 👍

Another reason why Discovery fails season after season. It just doesn’t try to do more creative stories with its premise. It’s too focused on it’s big arc every season but it never tries to just make character driven stories or more high concept stories like you guys are discussing and concentrate more on family Lifetime melodrama.

Magic Makes the Same Man go Mad is my favorite episode in season one too because you don’t have to know the other four plot lines to enjoy it. It felt like a TNG story (it basically is since they used the same idea from that show) but it felt fresh on how they did it ..and then never did another story like it again sadly.

But meanwhile we gotten a dozen stories of Burnham dealing with her family issues. 🙄

That’s another thing, how many ‘family’ stories did we get with Kirk or Picard, Sisko, Archer or Janeway? Sisko we got a few with his dad but very spread out. He didn’t even show up until the fourth or fifth season. It’s like none of these captains even had a mother lol. I think they were all dead on the shows. Kind of crazy.

But then here comes Burnham in season 2 where we don’t have one or two but three different mother figures! In one season y’all! 😂

There is adopted mom Amanda, creepy adopted mom from another universe MU Georgiou and now her real mom in the Red Angel suit and who, dun dun dun came back from the dead (spoilers) all vying for her attention (and many tears included).

It’s like the producers of All My Children are writing these scripts sometimes. 😁😒

I’ll be fair and say they gotten away from all the family melodrama stuff but they lean on this crap too much.

LOL it never occurred to me there were THREE mothers of Burnham in season 2. OMG, that’s hilarious. I’m glad now they finally just got it back down to ONE mother and it’s her real mother…in the 32nd century. Man, this show. ;)

Also crazy we never seen ANY of the other Captain’s mothers. At least not directly. I don’t know if Kirk ever mentioned his mother at all?? I can’t think of an episode, but sure someone will correct me. Janeway mentioned hers once IIRC, but I can’t remember in what context. We got a lot of Picard’s mother last season on that show but all in a dream state but only saw her once in an hallucination in TNG. He never talked about her again. Like Kirk, I can’t even recall Archer mentioning his mother either, but again expect to be corrected. Sisko actually talked about his mother a few times but that’s only because his dad was around. And then we got that crazy turn that his real mother was a Prophet.

Oh and Sisko’s dad didn’t show up until season 5. I thought it was earlier but I just looked it up. He showed up in Homefront/Paradise Lost for the first time. Kind of crazy because he did mention him a bit on the show. I thought he was around more.

Yep Mother’s day was a busy time for Burnham that year! 😂

BTW, I don’t think they have mentioned anything about Pike’s parents so far either? Are they dead too or maybe he was raised by Trills at another young age or something.

Book and Tarka just let the side down so hard. None of their actions or Burnham’s “Now now, you’d better not blow up the Galaxy, honey!” pursuit of them felt like they were part of believable or thrilling stakes. And Book was a compelling character in season 3 and the start of 4. Even the episode divulging Tarka’s past was dramatically inert, when that’s one that could have swung for the fences.

I think you have some good ideas! Enterprise S3 is such a good example, and I almost wonder if part of the issue now is that Paramount/CBS isn’t giving Secret Hideout any ultimatums or warnings, merely writing them big checks and praising them for what they are doing, and after 5 years they have no incentive to change except to not be bored. Contrast that to Enterprise where they threw caution to the wind for seasons 3 and 4 because they knew they could be their last.

Ugh, fine, I guess we can join the writing staff and pitch them ideas. How hard can it be?

Lol. I’m sure I would pull an Orci after 2 weeks of enduring the kind of criticism I dish out on a regular basis.

Once we got to the Book/Tarka stuff in season 4, it was very very obvious they were just stretching for time and didn’t have any more story until we got to the last two episodes. Honestly, you could’ve had maybe ONE episode of Book and Tarka running around and then just got to the finale and you lose practically nothing. I remember watching that Galatic Barrier episode and thinking before it started it was going to take the entire hour just to get through and sure enough it did lol. On a normal episode, it would’ve ten minutes max. But they were just stretching EVERYTHING and it was obvious to most people there just wasn’t enough to fill in 13 episodes.

And Book and Tarka running around ‘escaping’ every episode just felt like a joke lol. It was ridiculous how easy they kept getting away. There were NO stakes because we all knew they were going to just keep getting away. And obviously they didn’t want to destroy Discovery and Burnham made it very clear she was never going to hurt Book, so it was just ho-hum for five straight episodes because no one was ever in any real danger.

I will admit, until Lower Decks came around I been pretty frustrated with this new era of Star Trek because there has been no real variety in the stories at all. I remember when Enterprise was cancelled and the Kelvin movies were revving up, people were so happy for the Berman era to leave saying it got too bland, everything was the same thing and they kept repeating stories. And I loved the Berman era, but I didn’t really disagree with those arguments either. I think after 600 episodes and films, maybe it’s time to pass it to other people who can take it in a different and creative way.

But frankly it hasn’t felt that way at all. We got three huge movies that ALL stuck to the same template, bad guy wants to get revenge trope/destroy the Federation to the point the movies basically got generic after the first one and what killed the momentum fast. And then we got Discovery which we all been ranting about lol and then Picard which followed Discovery’s lead of just sticking to the arc and NO variety in its story telling at all! And again that would be fine if the stories they were telling were GOOD stories, but most were not outside of a skant few. But most LIKE Discovery was just there to push plot along. .To fill time. How does DS9 manage to do more fun, inventive and exploration episodes than Discovery and Picard and DS9 takes place on a station??

I was really excited season 2 of Picard because FINALLY, we’re going to get trippy time travel stuff, alternative timelines, a lot of fun concepts and $#%# Q is in the story!! So I knew it was going to be balls to the wall crazy. And for 12 Monkeys fans we thought we would get high concept stuff like that show since it was the same show runner but nope! It was so boring by episode 7 I literally contemplated just skipping the other episodes and binge it when it was over.

I been very supportive of NuTrek despite all the ranting I been doing here lol, but it’s been pretty disappointing until the last 2-3 years. I know in the Berman era, when you 26 episodes a year you HAVE to think outside the box a lot and yes it will be a lot of repeat stuff.

But the irony is I thought BECAUSE you only have 10-13 episodes, like they were going to use those hours to do some really fun and interesting stuff, at least half the time. And frankly it has not been the case. Not until the animated shows and SNW. Like give us some FUN episodes and with some zeal of exploration. It’s been very little of that with the movies, Picard and Discovery.

Sorry,now I’m RANTING lol! But yes things are more interesting now, but it shouldn’t have taken this long to get more diversity in the story telling.

OK one last thing and to show I’m always fair, I will say Discovery did a better job of telling different stories in season 2. It didn’t feel like filler like the last two. They did mix it up quite a bit with things like Brother, New Eden, If Memory Serves, Saints of Imperfection etc. Nothing super wild but interesting. There were definitely some good stand outs in that one, certainly more than the last two seasons.

But again, TOS-ENT did those types of episodes in their sleep every season. ;)

Yep this is exactly how I felt when Enterprise was cancelled and the utter tripe known as Nemesis. I was so happy Berman and Braga were done because I hated the show and movie so much.

Believe it or not I was a little excited about Abrams directing a Star Trek movie. I was kind of done with Star Trek by then. I mean I had my DVDs and I that was enough if they never made anymore again. But once I knew they were making a movie I was like Ok cool. Then I watched it to see they turned Star Trek into a video game for 11 year olds and then I realized I was a little too hard on Berman. 🙄

Same thing with Star Wars. After the dumpster fire of the prequels I could not wait for Lucas to be gone forever. I still remember Lucas signing it over to Disney and I couldn’t have been happier. I was mixed JJ taking over again after destroying Star Trek but I thought well he actually cares about and understand Star Wars so it will hopefully be better. And it was, until it wasn’t and JJ screwed the pooch again. Now everyone wanted Lucas back. 😒

It was both an admission not to judge too harshly, especially people who at least cared and understood these properties.

Everything that hack JJ touches dies along with Kurtzman. But JJ was supposed to be the chosen one. He was supposed to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness!!

Wait which board am I on again??? It’s late!

While I don’t love the Kelvin movies I have always said I was fine with them. But I’m hoping they will just move on now and start anew with something different. I would like it to be a post Nemesis movie at least, Kelvin or Prime…or something else. I don’t have an issue if it stays in the 23rd century but please no more TOS reboots. We basically have that now with SNW. But I’m not holding my breath for another Trek movie for several years now.

And yes I didn’t like prequels much either but I always hated how badly people treated Lucas over them and tried to run him out of his own creation. And then they got it and now they want him back lol. Again, same situation with Star Trek oddly they KEEP saying they will do another movie, but who knows when we will actually get that too? It’s funny how both of the franchises are in the situation. They will keep making new shows forever but getting another movie is like climbing Everest.

I can understand why the Star Trek films are having problems, the Kelvin movies never made any real money and they seem to be completely clueless which direction to go in next. But TROS still made a billion dollars, so it shouldn’t be that hard.

Hear, hear!

And I do acknowledge Disco has had a hard time of it with all its production upheavals, but the vision and quality of execution they’ve settled for, Paradise’s, has so few virtues for me apart from just being different. Sounds to me like everyone is just happy that she’s competent, nice, and that finally there’s a steady hand who doesn’t bring any drama to set. Unfortunately that also applies to too many of the scripts she okays.

Yeah I really wish they would replace her if the show gets renewed again. But as said, hopefully season 5 will change some of us cynics minds. But so far the show has been mostly bland for a show that is now a thousand freaking years into the future.

Hmm, 90% of the stuff over the last 2 years has been crap. Seems like for every Severance their has been a Ring or Power, a Scarlet Witch and and Obi-wan.

They are changing the tone of the show again, they say. Hopefully the nail it this time.

Yeah maybe the fifth time will finally be the charm lol. I don’t think I’ve ever been more frustrated with a Trek show than I been with Discovery. Fingers crossed.

I totally agree. But sometimes I think about what they have been thru.

Discovery is the first in several aspects. The first Star Trek show after 12 years, after Enterprise. The first (ST) streaming show. The first fully serialized production. The first show for Kurtzman, I mean, adopted from Fueller. The first (ST) production from Toronto. The first live action production during COVID. The first using the AR Wall technology.

I give them credit for that. Now, after so many first, really hope we have a good season.

I admit, I like everything Star Trek related, but really hope this season the production team absorbed some of the positive elements from SNW, LD, and Prodigy. Their magic recipe to produce a better season.

Yes Discovery had a lot of firsts and it took some real risks, so it gets credit for that.

And I always pointed out that they DO listen to the criticisms and have constantly tried to reinvent the show over the cries, anger, moaning and death threats it’s received; the biggest was moving it to the 32nd century. I still think that was the ballsiest move of any show, to just upright change your entire setting to something new and original even if it was mostly done to wipe away the canon issues. Even though I haven’t been very happy overall with the show, they are trying. They are sooooo trying lol.

I do wish they took elements from shows like PRO and SNW and streamlined it a little more with just having simpler story lines in the process or a bit less serialized. But as you pointed out, it’s suppose to be different next season , so maybe we will see those things.

But it’s amazing how divisive this show still is five seasons in lol.

I agree with your sentiments, I just have my doubts they can adjust the quality of the storytelling fundamentals I think they have problems with – after 4 seasons it’s unrealistic I’m going to suddenly like the characters that get on my nerves, which puts all the pressure on the likes of Saru and the new additions. Again.

The approach for this season’s arc seems markedly different, and the tone may change again, so perhaps that will help. The show tends to be on better footing when it lightens up, so long as that doesn’t just mean making characters anxious and neurotic like Tilly and Adira.

We can only hope Tiger2. The show has so much potential to tell some great 32nd century science fiction stories and they are just wasting the opportunity with mediocre writing. Hopefully S5 will be different.

Agreed RE Enterprise! Yes, they pulled off some great standalone episodes (Similtude, North Star along with others) during the Zindi story arc, but they also had the luxury of 20 plus episodes to work with. Too bad Discovery is stuck with 10 but maybe they can forget the season story arc for 2-3 of them.

Unless S5 really impresses me, IMHO the lasting legacy for Discovery will be that it spawned SNW and it got Paramount to greenlight other new Star Trek shows, both now and hopefully in the near future.

I went back and read some of the comments for the season 4 episodes and it was funny me and you commented a lot how frustrated we were over so many episodes lol. Again, season 4 probably had the potential to have been the best season of Discovery and give us a very original idea, but they just bogged it down in total tediousness and bad plotting. But it is what it is now. We’ll cross our fingers for season 5.

And yeah we at least got SNW over it, a show I wasn’t even super onboard with at first, but now it’s one of the best things to come out of Star Trek for me since Enterprise. So it’s good we are getting a traditional show again.

Honestly I suppose the season could be better in terms of enjoyment. but I hate what they have done with the 32nd century as a whole and they can’t erase that. it feels like they are centuries behind, not centuries forward and that everything that starfleet fought for in the centuries that came before was for nothing because one day a baby cried and literally blew up everything. There just isn’t coming back from that. One or more writers had a spectacularly bad idea and wrecked Star Trek’s entire future. :-(

Yeah I remember we talked about it in another thread. I understand the 32nd could definitely be more advanced. I’m not as bothered personally but I understand why others are. But as I also said we haven’t seen THAT much of it yet. Think about it, we have not been inside another starship yet. We saw Earth for five minutes and it at Starfleet academy and so on. The only thing we have really seen is the Federation base in terms of human stuff. Obviously I think its on purpose because they don’t want to fill in too much but maybe next season we will see more.

And yeah I will forever the crying Kelpian kid is one of the dumbest things ever done in Star Trek and that includes Spock losing his brain and people turning into salamanders. We didn’t have to snark trough 12 episodes to get those explanations like this ridiculous resolution. Another reason I’m not in a rush to rewatch this show much. Just bad endings.

Yep. I mean I’ll be honest, I’ll probably watch season 5. I mean I’ll give it a shot at the very least. But the only live action I am waiting on is PIC and SNW.

I’m very curious about the description of the new captain as a wartime Captain. Haven’t they had a century of very limited warp travel across the galaxy? How do you have a war like that?

Seems odd…

They were constantly fighting against the Orions, with profound limitations on use of warp due to the dilithium shortage.

He would have been a captain on a frontier war under shortages, poor communications, and little oversight from command. These are the conditions that form autocratic leaders.

I’ve been thinking that Callum Keith Rennie would be a good fit for Trek, so it’s good to hear he’s been given a meaty role.

Good observation, TG47.

Looking forward to it! Discovery is also my favourite of the Nu Treks although it has lost the energy and edge it has during the first couple of seasons.

I blame it on a bad show runner. And she made the characters even weepier if that’s possible.

I agree. IMO, Paradise has proven time and again that she’s just not fit for Trek. Knowing that she’s part of the LGBTQ+ community as well, I was excited and hopeful for her take on it, really wanted to like it, tried and tried to get into what she did with an already mediocre show, but she really just drove it into the ground, or better yet into an entire ocean of pathos-driven-tears, for me. 😔

Bro, that episode from last season where they beam to the aliens old planet and then they start inhaling the alien emo dust in the air and everyone starts crying was just so nails on the chalkboard bad. Detmer says sad things about her dad and it turns into some group therapy session. I was like wait, really, this is where we’re going?!???

And then the cringiest line ever said in Discovery, which is saying a lot for Discovery is when Burnham, trying so hard to hold back the tears says “It feels like love.”

WTF Discovery? Am I still watching Star Trek or just a really bad sci fi movie on the Lifetime channel. 😒

Someone phaser an alien in the head already.

I remember looking at the time and realized OMG there is still over 10 more minutes?!?

Just brutally painful!

I’ll probably get cancelled for saying this, but Discovery needs an injection of testosterone. IMO there’s an imbalance of estrogen at the moment. Everything needs a balance.

“OF COURSE they’d land on a planet made of feelings!”

Pretty much sums up how that went over with a lot of us.

It’s certainly different, and Trek doesn’t have to veer towards stolid as much as Berman Trek did or be as casual and laidback as SNW, but we get enough discussions about self care in our every day lives and not every problem needs to be solved with crying and hugging or holding hands.

LOL yeah that episode just went too far and sums up the issue a lot of people have with the show. It wallows too much in melodrama. I know the whole thing about Burnham cries too much has sort of become a meme at this point but I think people point it out because ii has become overdone.

No one is saying people shouldn’t get emotional or express their emotions. Some of the biggest moments in Star Trek is when you see these stoic captains suddenly break down from grief like when Kirk lost his son in TSFS or when Picard broke down realizing all the people who died at Wolf 359 because the Borg used him. Those moments hit people because they are showing a side of vulnerability they try hard NOT to show their crew.

But when you are crying every season and everyone is baring their souls, even at the oddest moments like emo planet, it comes off more overbearing then poignant. That’s the problem, the show has turned that crew into hyper emotional cry babies who needs their feelings validated. When you’re tearing up because you just got into a fight with someone is what happens in soap operas, it shouldn’t be so common in Star Trek.

Mmhmm! That’s always been my argument for why the TNG approach often worked so well. They made a lot of characters just a little bit more Spock, in that they reserved big emotional gestures and kept it cool most of the time either to be professional or because that was their nature, or both. So things like Picard letting his guard down in Family or The Inner Light, or even just slightly opening up to Wesley and the kids in Disaster is the emotional equivalent of a tactical nuke to me. Precise and devastatingly effective. Ditto things like Worf admitting he is Alexander’s father, Seven grappling with One dying in Drone, Sisko cradling his dying son, Spock telling his father that he feels fine, or Odo offering to have breakfast with Garak. It’s just so much more satisfying to me to be strung along like that and see those layers occasionally unpeeled. Discovery’s model is to just dice the onions right from the start. Everyone loves each other and declares that or their deep feelings about something seemingly every other episode (these are your coworkers, have some dignity, people!)

It’s just not for me, but I have always gravitated more towards subtle drama and comedy and reserved behavior, even though I appreciate extroverts who make it so I don’t have to do all the work. That came to mind the other day when I was trying to explain to someone why I prefer the BBC “Ghosts” to the CBS one. I don’t hate the latter, but it’s broader and less timeless than the original, which feels a little lazy to me. I love exploring nuances, and to me Discovery just has too few.

Is it wrong to simply conclude Discovery is specifically targeted and written for women and gay men?

That is fine as we have SNW and Picard S3 to look forward to along with Prodigy and LDs. If that is the case, we can properly set expectations for S5 and not worry too much if it falls short. I will still watch as it is Star Trek and it is inclusive,but I wont set my expectations too mainstream.

It’s certainly made for people who likes more soapy story lines I guess and that’s definitely not me lol.

But even if people aren’t big Discovery fans there is so much other stuff to look forward to as you said. BTW, I notice you included LDS but I know you weren’t a big fan of that show either. Did you enjoy season 3 more?

Haha you picked up on that one. I actually included LDs because I read that most fans really like it. For me personally, I didnt see many episodes this past summer, but I am planning to watch some of them soon. I hear nothing but good things.

I am really interested in seeing the live action debut of Mariner, Boimler and the rest of the gang when they meet up on the Enterprise in SNW next year. Btw speaking of SNW, i saw the Uhura Paramount + singing commercial the other day. I hope Celia gets to serenade us and the Enterprise crew on SNW in S2. She has a really wonderful voice.

I forgot Disco was a thing.

They sell shirts.

Ho hum. Another no plot, no ideas, drawn out with sharing our feelings for 45 minutes. No thanks.

I literally ‘wrapped’ on watching this back in 2019.

Ah yes, more Discovery, more sobbing, group hugs and ridiculous galaxy ending stakes coming our way!

Can’t wait to see how cry baby Burnham saves the galaxy yet again. Hopefully it won’t be another crying Kelpian kid who takes it down.. Or maybe Control is back???? 😀🙄

Burnham doesn’t cry as much as you so-called fans. I’ll give her that much. Smh.

Ok, I’ll give you that, but in all fairness, Burnham isn’t watching her show every week like we are.

No, she’s actually in it. Which makes you even bigger cry-babies ;-)

Her being in it is another reason why fans cry though. 😥🤣

LOL!!

Oh, what “fun”… 🥴!

Discovery is better than no Star Trek at all, but what I’m really waiting for is the return of Strange New Worlds!!!

👍👍👍👍

Same! Very excited to get back on the Enterprise.

Pike! Spock! Uhura! Una! M’Benga! Chapel! Ortegas! La’an!

The only Discovery character who makes me feel like exclamation points is Saru. :-)

Oh yeah! Can’t wait!

And you know what I’m most excited about? The Lower Decks crossover!!!!! 😁

I don’t think I been so excited about an episode since the DS9/LDS crossover! I know you’re more hesitant about but I think it’s going to be so much fun!

I hope you’re right! They all seem excited about it, so that’s a good sign.

Yeah I’m really looking forward to it too. But as I have said I certainly understand why some are not fully onboard. But to me, it’s always fun to see Trek take big swings and the producers said season 2 will be doing a lot of that. Let’s hope they hit more than they miss, especially with this. ;)

Same!

Yes! Early on, I thought that Discovery’s biggest problem was that it was another prequel… but SNW proves that those can actually be GOOD! At least the former is responsible for “giving” us the latter! 🤷‍♂️

Henry Alonso Myers is on SNW but not the other shows; I wonder if he’s what makes the difference.

I’m excited for the new season of Discovery, and the premise sounds more light-hearted and fun.

That said, I still have some gripes:

–The new uniforms from S4 onward are horrendously ugly; only the grey ones in the final episode of S3 were even worse. The material and the cut is so bad, they look like the crew is wearing colorful burlap sacks. They are not flattering to the wearer at all. Yes, the original blue uniforms were so tight they felt sprayed on, but this is an overcorrection in the other direction.

–Will we learn more about the bridge crew? SNW was able to give us deep character development of the entire bridge crew in 10 episodes. Hopefully, this new story will finally give us some backstory on these characters.

I’m still wondering why all the command division officers are now in operations when they switched to 32c. I haven’t seen a single command division officer below Captain in the future uniforms.

Maybe they decided to isolate command as it’s own division in the future and everyone else be in Ops or Science? We’ve seen Trek do similar things in the TOS era.

While as far from canon as you can get newer Trek RPG supplements identify Helm/Navigation as part of the Operations branch.

The problem with the bridge crew on Discovery is that they aren’t part of the main series cast. They are bit players even though they have been with the show from the beginning. Unless they change that setup I fear these characters will never be explored in more depth. They did try a little bit in season 4, but I personally felt that those moments often felt very awkward and not organic to the plot.
SNW is closer to the TNG era shows in that more of the bridge crew are actually series regulars. Ironically, Discovery is closer to TOS in the sense that characters like Chekov, Sulu and Uhura also got little development during the show because they were “only” co-stars.

Those moments were super awkward, I agree. I tried to go with the flow of the experiment, but I think it’s a flawed approach to have so many characters be seen every week on the most-used set, but also have no real depth. Suddenly we got to season 4 with a tiny cast but no good material to give these characters to fill the void, so it was weird when they got bigger but still token things to say and do. Owo is the closest we’ve got to a character from that group, Detmer is shockingly devoid of development considering her screen time. It feels shoehorned in when they use them for more than a filler line.

To borrow a phrase, “You guys, this is so flucking cool.”

Season four made me a fan of this series, finally; so I’m definitely looking forward to the fifth.

I thought season four was not as strong as the other seasons

I’ve heard other people say that, too; but I thought the first three seasons were dreck and that the fourth was a massive step back in the right direction.

I still get a kick Bryant that you like Discovery now lol. If YOU can like Discovery, someone who has probably made the producers cry when they read yours posts, then there is hope for the rest of us! ;D

I get a kick out of it, too! As I’m sure I’ve said before: believe me when I say that I *never* go into a Star Trek wanting to do anything other than love it.

Yeah agreed. No one wants to hate any of these shows, ESPECIALLY when we are paying for them. I don’t hate Discovery and sometimes really really enjoy it. It’s just so uneven that’s the issue for me. But maybe next season I will be enjoying it as you are now.

Is that guy a Vulcan or a Romulan?

Shouldn’t it technically be N’Varan?

Well, he’s definitely a Nivaran (unless he’s Mintakan) but the Nivarans still all seem to identify as either Romulan or Vulcan.

I wonder if the bridge crew will have more than 5 lines of dialog this time? I wonder how many times the characters will stop in the middle of a crisis to discuss their feelings or talk about their crush. They honestly need to fire Paradise, re-hire her and then fire her again. It’s a horrible series. And if you think it’s good, you probably really enjoy watching reality TV.

I love Discovery and hate reality TV.

I know Discovery has it’s fans, and more power to them, but this was a funny post. To me.

Scary to think that the next season can be worse than the last. I don’t think they could fix the obnoxious plots, characters and writing without an entire recast and all new writers. But keeping my fingers crossed that these episodes will be watchable…

I’m liking the description of Captain Rayner and have my fingers crossed that his introduction will mean that we will finally see some Starfleet officers behaving like professionals, which has been sorely lacking on Discovery from season 3 on.

What uniform is Wilson Cruz wearing?

I have the very same question.

I think it’s the “combat suit” that we’ve seen a few times.