‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 May Be Coming Soon, According To Wilson Cruz [UPDATED]

Paramount+ only recently confirmed that the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery will be arriving this year. It was the most recent live-action Trek show in production, so one might assume it would be arriving later in the year, however, series star Wilson Cruz has indicated we could be getting it a lot sooner.

Springtime for Discovery? [or Summer?]

Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber) is the guest on the latest episode of his costar Tig Notaro’s (Jett Reno) podcast Don’t Ask Tig, and Cruz dropped a clue about season five as they wrapped up the show. Notaro asked Cruz if he had anything he wanted to promote and he started off with…

Obviously season five of Star Trek: Discovery is coming out in the spring.

Beyond confirming season five is coming in 2023, Paramount+ has no confirmed release date, so for now Cruz’ comment isn’t official. And it is sooner than one might expect, given production on the fifth season of Discovery wrapped up on November 20th, 2022. The second season of Strange New Worlds wrapped production months earlier, on July 1, 2022. One might expect Paramount+ would roll out Strange New Worlds ahead of Discovery, which would be easier on the post-production team, many of whom work on both shows. However, there is also a logic to releasing Discovery ahead of Strange New Worlds as season four of the show wrapped up in late March 2022, over a month ahead of the early May debut of Strange New Worlds.

UPDATE

A few days after our report on this Wilson Cruz took to Twitter to clarify when he recorded the podcast in January he was “guessing,” however now he is “hearing closer to summer.”

Even this later estimation still puts the release earlier than originally expected. But a summer release does leave time for Paramount+ to release a season of one of its other Star Trek shows in the spring after this series finale of Picard.

5 shows for 2023

As we reported last week, Paramount has now confirmed that it will release seasons of all five of its Star Trek shows in 2023, making it just about as packed with Trek as 2022. The third season of Picard debuts this week, with the series finale coming on April 20. If Cruz is correct about Discovery coming in the spring, then season five would likely debut soon after Picard wraps up, possibly in May. That would leave July through to December for the releases of season two of Strange New Worlds, season four of Lower Decks, and the first 10 episodes from season two of Prodigy.

Sonequa Martin-Green in first look from Discovery season 5

A different kind of season for Discovery

The fifth season of Discovery will be seeing some changes for the show. Firstly it will be 10 episodes, bringing it in line with the other Trek series. The show is also moving away from the usual galaxy-ending storylines, with the showrunner promising a shift in tone to more action and adventure.

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).

Callum Keith Rennie joins the cast in a series regular role as Captain Rayner. Also new this season are Moll and L’ak, played by Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis

Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner

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

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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Strange New Worlds Season 2 was filmed from Feb 2022 to July 2022. And, still no mention of a 3rd season or any filming info. We’re almost into the middle of Feb 2023. I’m wondering why filming hasn’t begun for SNW’s season 3.

Well this gives you your answer – Even though discovery filmed later in the calendar, it seems pretty obvious schedule wise that they won’t need to start filming SNW season 3 now until this summer — given this points to a strange new worlds season 2 summer or fall release.

Because none of the Star Trek shows have started working on another season yet…none of them has been renewed farther than the current seasons at the moment. That may change at some point, but nothing has been stated about it yet.

All the hype right now is on PIC S3; they’re not going to reveal anything from the other shows (especially release dates and renewals) to take away from that. I’m sure the writers room already has written ten stellar scripts for SNW S3, just as there are ten stellar scripts waiting for DSC S6 and LDS S5.

I would also point out Cruz might simply be wrong. Why would the studio tell him – or any of the other actors from DSC – what month or quarter of 2023 they will start streaming S5? Paramount+ will smartly use the buzz PIC S3 generates to announce air dates for the rest of the year and renewals.

Why wouldn’t they tell him? I don’t think it’s a state secret or anything, they probably just haven’t made up their minds fully or have an exact date yet.

It just seems like something the studio would prefer to announce.

OK I understand. I guess we’ll know soon.

Perhaps the hard true reality called Budget securing. it’s like supply Lines. If you to fast in Advanced, they can not keep up.

Anime Example:
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
Why? There are three MC’s. One that has the Vision and Skills, one that can do very realistic Animation and want to bring it to life, and one that keeps this all running and secure the Budget to make it happen. All three trust each other. If you not familiar with this Anime, you should read and summary. it can be used for many Productions

From what Matalas has said in interviews, availability of vfx services is the binding constraint.

He says that at a certain point some of their vfx vendors basically said they had no more capacity or time available regardless of willingness of the show’s ability to spend.

So, scheduling post production and pre production work on virtual stages for the AR wall sound like the key challenge.

In terms of studio space, CBS Stages owns its own SNW soundstages. There are long term contracts in place with Pinewood Studios Toronto for Discovery. Also, with additional studio space and AR walls being built in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and all the streamers pulling back on production, it doesn’t seem that those would be hard to book.

Ah yes, CGI Manpower. This could be it, too

In the Anime they also have Deadlines and they struggling to keep up with Drawing and stuff. i forgotten about that

That’s interesting I assumed SNW would come after Picard. Bummer.

But it sounds like DIS will come next and SNW will debut in the summer instead.

And thank Kahless no galaxy ending threat this season. That’s already a huge plus for me.

I’m happy too it won’t be another galaxy ending story. They done it three seasons straight.

There wasn’t a galaxy ending threat during Season 3. That was a similar mystery box set up but at no point was the galaxy imperilled.

I want my MTV Strange New Worlds.

Do we really have to slog through Discovery until we can get back on the Enterprise? Ugh.

Yeah this sucks if true. 🙄

I guess because it has been off the air so long already. It’s been off a year already right? I don’t remember. So maybe they don’t want to wait until the summer. Or maybe it’s just ready to air and SNW is still being worked on? So it could just be that reason alone, one will be ready sooner than the other..

No, actually, you don’t. You could just opt not to watch it. Though I suspect you’ll still whinge about it online anyway.

I gave up on Discovery after season 3. I endured Picard only because of my love for Jean Luc. Strange New Worlds was a much better (and fun) show, but right now, all focus is rightly on Picard S3; because we’re finally getting the Trek fans have been screaming for.

I think it comes down to 18 months since season 4 debuted and Paramount hoping that Discovery builds off of or maintains Picard’s viewership levels.

I think Discovery is in a somewhat vicarious position. If it isn’t cancelled outright, an announcement of a sixth and final season seems a real possibility.

Dude it’s so weird, some people suggest the show is still popular but you think it’s the verge of cancellation. I don’t follow any of it, so we’ll see I guess.

And isn’t Picard still really popular too? Again, outside of one guy here with his agenda, the show seems to be just as popular from everything I read, so again not sure what I’m missing? And it’s obvious it would probably go five seasons easily if Stewart decided to stay and why a spin off seems like it’s a no-brainer.

It’s just a question of what it will be but no one seems to think it won’t happen unless they are just cutting down on shows in general. So we’ll have to see but I’m like 90% sure we’ll get a spin off. And if the season is a huge hit, then that number jumps to 100%.

Both shows seem to do well, often the most watched paramount plus show, when they are on. Discovery was the most watched paramount show two years ago. Picard has done well on the worldwide Amazon ranking.

Well that’s good to know and note, they are both my least two favorite shows in the entire franchise lol. So I don’t really have a dog in this fight and at the moment prefer Discovery. But I’m really really really hoping that will finally change with Picard this season though and we’ll get a better show if the spin off ultimately happens. And it sounds like if Matalas sticks around to do it, we will!

Yeah when Disco was on Netflix here in the UK it was frequently in the Top 10 most watched shows each week. It was- and is- popular despite what some people might say.

Tiger2, one thing I have seen noted elsewhere that may be important to consider is that the standard SGA contracts with the actors are initially signed with extension provisions for 7 years not 7 seasons.

(Perhaps TrekMovie can confirm.)

If this is the case, then even though Discovery has only had 5 seasons, going on would mean renegotiating contracts with the talent because it’s been more than 7 years since they first began production.

That could be a significant issue. It builds in a Go vs No-Go decision when a show might carry on if the initial contract were still in effect.

Over at the CW before the Nextstar buyout, resigning the principal characters or or not, and at what cost, basically determined whether shows could continue. Most times, the renewal was only for a final 8th year.

OK, interesting, thanks!

And for the record, I’ve always assumed DIS would get at least one more season and yes it could go a full 7.

The May sweeps ratings and subscriptions are still the big deal for the studios, even with streaming. To me this is a sign that the stressed out financial suits at Paramount want their biggest market grabbing Trek series out during the most important time of the year.

And which series is that?

As TG47 just posted:

Last we had numbers, Discovery still had the largest audience

February sweeps and May are both still important. Not sure about the significance of November at this point.

We’ve seen the marketing efforts to build anticipation for Picard in February.

They’ll want a big hit in May as well. With Picard running until late April, that means whatever is up next will be in the window during those sweeps.

Last we had numbers, Discovery still had the largest audience. We haven’t seen how SNW’s numbers compared despite its apparent popularity with older fans and critics.

It might make sense to run Discovery end of April through June, Lower Decks August and September, SNW October and November, with Prodigy closing out 2023 and carrying into 2024.

They’ll want a big hit in May as well…Last we had numbers, Discovery still had the largest audience…It might make sense to run Discovery end of April through June, Lower Decks August and September, SNW October and November, with Prodigy closing out 2023 and carrying into 2024.

100% agreed! And the summer is less important, so that’s where you typically throw in cartoon series’.

Maybe SNW and Lower Decks will run concurrently, to make the crossover episode be on both shows?

That would be amazing if they did that! 😎

I’m guessing it’s a lot of hate watching though! 🤣

I don’t hate watch the show… but sometimes I feel like I do. 🙄

Hope watching. We keep watching in the hopes that it’ll get better. ;) And really, I do like it better now than I did when it was in the TOS era.

The last numbers were this past fall and they had SNW ahead of Discovery. Both have been outperformed by Halo, however, and the two Yellowstone spinoffs. It took a few years but Paramount+ has evolved beyond Star Trek.

If Picard performs as well as expected, Paramount may opt to sunset Discovery and move forward with a spinoff of Picard.

It’s amazing everyone I know hated Halo and it’s huge on that service.

I planned to watch it but the reviews kept me away.

Same here on both counts. Paramount’s highest rated series for 2022 was a bit of a surprise.

I really enjoyed Halo, but I never played the game. I’ve noticed that Halo game fans seem to dislike it, but those who didn’t play the game seem to like it.

It was pretty decent action-adventure-scifi. But again, I didn’t have the gaming experience expectations.

…also, beware of internet fanboy group-think. For example, the LOTR prequel S1 was the most watched season series in Amazon Prime history, but you wouldn’t know that from the internet fanboy chatter. I really enjoyed it, and so would I say about 2/3 of my friends who watched it.

Think Solo and John Carter…pretty decent movies that internet fanboy group-think brought down during their initial release.

Someone on this board said the show does improve in their opinion. I only watched the first episode but I’m going to try it again when I get the time.

I think you’re considering the US Nielsen numbers only.

Those don’t estimate views not on television. Or outside the United States.

I’m referring to Paramount’s own numbers of streaming views, which they share intermittently, and on a total basis.

Paramount+ needs to build total subscriptions not just ones in the US. So the fact that Discovery appears to remain the dominant new show outside the US, is important. It had the boost of three years of Netflix and is continuing to pull viewers over to Paramount as it rolls out internationally.

While I personally like SNW better, I acknowledge that Discovery still has an important part to play in driving subscriptions.

OK but how is Discovery doing in America itself? Is it as a high like it is abroad? I still think that matters the most because that’s where most of the show’s revenues happen.

But that said, we know Trek is not nearly as popular abroad, so if it is gaining new viewers that way, then yeah that’s a huge plus I guess.

Yeah, that is what I read as well — that DSC does have the most viewers of any Kurtzman Trek show regarding total worldwide numbers.

Sweeps are for broadcast. It’s used to set the ad rates for shows. That’s why they load that part of the year with the best content (but often this is no longer done as there are mora accurate methods fro tracking viewership than in the past.) There are no “sweeps” in streaming.

Yeah that confuses me too! 🤣

One would have thought so, but for the US the intensive tracking in the sweep periods seems to spill over to streaming, especially now that all the streamers have ad-based tiers.

How could sweeps still matter? The whole point of sweeps was to collect more detailed information to inform ad sales on broadcast/cable tv. Now that the model is direct-to-consumer subscriptions Paramount has 100 percent accurate viewership data and they can show that data to their advertisers on that subscription tier. Why would a studio that has all the data care about what Nielsen says?

Simple, because many viewers pick the basic option with commercials, and advertisers demand viewer stats that match up with TV ratings sweeps periods before they will agree to pay whatever price P+ is charging for those ads. So they want stats that break down the demographics and to see the viewership during those key periods, and P+ needs to provide those to justify the ad placement fees they are charging.

But P+ would have that information all the time and wouldn’t need sweeps months to do it

But they want to look at the viewership in those months to compare it with costs of broadcast/cable ad TV shows for those months…to make and apples to apples comparison. I agree that this now seems antiquated though.

I don’t think any of this is true.

Lol, OK, let’s go with your hunch then instead of industry best practices.

The streamers numbers aren’t independently validated and audited.

Not that Nielsen is getting good numbers from its oversight body but it at least has one.

WBDiscovery has recently contracted a new independent metrics firm to provide it measurements beyond what Nielsen does.

Exactly! No one is going to pay for ad space without getting some numbers that they can compare across other tv/streaming options — and they want trusted numbers.

I think everyone can agree….50 episodes of Star Trek is a beautiful thing! I can’t wait for all of them!

Actually you’re wrong…it’s 60 episodes! :)

Season 2 of Prodigy will be 20 like season 1. But agreed, even if you don’t love every show, the fact we are getting 60 episodes in the next year is glorious!

I hope it is soon as i need my Discovery fix. Discovery is the best of the current shows imo and also one of the best Treks shows of the entire franchise. The only other Trek show that i find better is DS9 but only by a little bit. Discovery has everything i want from a Trek show fantastic cast of characters, excellent writing/stories and great production values.

I hope it is soon as i need my Discovery fix. Discovery is the best of the current shows imo and also one of the best Treks shows of the entire franchise. 

Yeah, I like SNW slightly more, but DSC is right up there for me as well. Great post!

I think Discovery is awful but I’m hoping next season will improve. At least a little more.

I think DS9 is great too!

I love the fact that noone here knows you are being sarcastic with tongue firmly in cheek when you comment lol

A 6-month post-production schedule for Discovery is about right, especially now that the season has been shortened to 10-episodes, they’ll likely continue post production as the season airs which is more typical than shows wrapping many months before their release (like Picard S3). SNW post-production could already be finished, but since it uses most of the same creative team I bet it’s being stretched out. I think Pandemic production delays may have skewed our expectations for post-pandemic seasons. Either way, it usually takes at least 12-18 months to produce a season of Star Trek from green-light to post production completion. So we could start seeing season orders happening in Mach in time for new shows to start air next Spring/Summer. I could also imagine them announcing a new series this Summer, possible alongside the conclusion of Discovery. It could be ready to air late 2024. Unless Discovery gets a renewal however (which has a quicker turnaround), I can’t imagine they’ll have a stacked schedule next year.

Assuming a return in May, 2023, that would mark nearly 18 months since the debut of Season 4, which is likely a contributing factor. In those 18 months, Paramount has debuted a number of high profile, highly anticipated series which included Halo, 1923, 1883, Strange New Worlds, Tulsa and now Picard season 3.

With studios pulling back on original content for their streaming services, Discovery’s performance will likely be monitored closely to see if it maintains Picard’s viewership levels and if it manages to fall within Paramount’s metrics for a renewal.

A lot has changed at Paramount+ since Discovery dropped its last episode and its not as necessary to the success of Paramount+ as it was just two years ago.

I’m guessing that DSC’s numbers to date have blown away Picard’s. Perhaps S3 changes that, but I kind of doubt it given that DSC has expanded the market to younger and non-traditional new Trek fans in a major way, whereas — let’s be honest — Picard is for us older, hardcore fans.

So I think the real question here is will S3 of Picard be a big enough hit for a spinoff. As far as DSC goes, my bet is we get the traditional 7 seasons.

Apparently SNW is outperforming Discovery based on Paramount’s earnings call.

I think the issue now is how Star Trek originals perform compared to other Paramount+ originals. Before streaming, shows competed against shows on other networks. Now they have to compete against originals on the same service and even the same franchise.

That really shouldn’t be surprising…people seem to love SNW. Discovery is mixed at best.

Do you have a source on that, because I read last summer I think that DSC has the most viewers worldwide of all the Kurtzman Trek shows. Perhaps that’s just in North America where SNW is ahead?

But regardless, I would be shocked if S2 of Picard even approached half the viewers of either DSC or SNW last year.

I still can’t imagine Discovery is even popular considering how much it’s hated online. But Picard is pretty hated too but Picard is still on that show so I get why it’s still popular.

And if season 3 is really good then I think the show will blow away the others. It was already going to be big with cast back but it could be bigger now with so many raving about it. 👍

The basic rule of thumb is to know what makes a franchise work and to deliver what fans want.

Yeah, and ignoring that group-think online fanboy opinion and appealing directly to the viewers and fans who watch it is key. Amazon is laughing all the way to the bank with Rings of Power, which has tremendous viewership levels despite the online fanboy group-think hate campaign.

Which is why we got SNW and Picard season 3. But it shouldn’t have taken this long to figure that out. 🙄

Judging by the word of mouth alone, I think Picard is going to be huge! It already thought it would be the biggest Trek show this year because the TNG cast is back and everyone knows it’s that shows final year. But with the reviews touting how great it is, it could be really big.

I don’t care if Discovery comes back or not. If it stays fine, I’ll watch it, if not, it had five seasons. But I would love for Picard to continue if it’s just a much improved show as people says it is and we can keep a few legacy characters in the future. That’s what everyone wants now. If it’s really good, I think you’re going to see people begging for a spin off they way they were begging for a Pike show.

Picard is definitely doing well in the social media (modern water cooler) build up prior to the premiere.

It was already sitting in the middle of the top ten US streaming originals in Parrot Analytics demand metrics for the week ending February 3rd. That’s often as high as it or Discovery got after they started streaming. It bodes well for eyes on screens this Thursday.

On yeah, I think it’s going to be bigger than the first season of episode one. I see posts from places where some fans are saying they won’t watch it because they given up on Picard or Kurtzman Trek but all the great word of mouth will get a lot of people to tune in. That even includes my brother lol. He’s never watched any of the new shows besides a few episodes of first season of Picard before he turned it off. But now he plans to watch this because it sounds like ‘real TNG again’. He’s always been a casual fan and unlike me only watched a few of the classic shows and none of the new ones. But since TNG was his favorite he may be very invested in this one.

Oh Lord, so I’ve got endure Discovery to get to SNW. I was hoping it was the other way round. That’s the pits.

We just have to cross our fingers Discovery will be good next season…finally.

I had to endure LDS before Prodigy recently, so I dealt with a similar buzz-kill, shit-fest

Cry baby Burnham weeping her way through another season. Excruciating. 😥

There are Discovery fans who have felt much the same about both Picard and SNW.

Hopefully, international TNG fans will return to and enjoy Picard S3 enough to build the audience there, especially in Germany and France, but we need to understand that for a good part of the younger and international audience Discovery brings folks to SNW and not vice versa.

As someone who was chomping at the bit for a Pike’s Enterprise show, it’s frustrating but, like Tiger2, I’m hoping Discovery S5 will be the one I love. We’ve heard reports that it features more of Cronenberg’s Kovic so it will be worth watching for that alone.

I don’t know. It feels like Discovery has gotten better with each year, refining itself. Last season still had a few questionable choices, but that ending with the 10C was impressive. The most trek-like thing I’ve seen since the franchise’s resurgence.

I’ve grown from being disappointed by the series, to each season showing improvements.

By that metric, I’m kind of looking forward to season 5. Let’s see what they do.

No. Thank you.

You can just see this show dating badly like some of Enterprise did (based on the political climate at that time). Some of it doesn’t sit right watching it back.

Discovery is the same…cringe inducing virtue signalling will be out of fashion very soon.

Once the epic last season of Picard finally arrives and subsequently finishes, we should have more news from the developers on production schedules. Unofficially, we do know that plans are mapped out to 2025-2028, but beyond that, it is unclear what execs have in mind. The ratings, as usual, will dictate the future. If they continue to be strong and healthy, we will see future seasons of Trek. Picard will be over, but there are new series still in development right now that are in the pipeline to replace Picard. The burning questions are: Section 31, Picard spinoff (x2?), S3 SNW, and my personal favorite, S6 of Discovery. Prodigy and Lower Decks are in there, too, but are a low priority for me, as I don’t enjoy animation, even for my beloved Star Trek.