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Published Sep 27, 2017

WATCH: Reimagining the Klingons

CBS All Access has just released "How the Klingons Were Reimagined for Star Trek: Discovery ," a three-minute behind-the-scenes video examining how the show's writers and producers, as well as the team at Alchemy Studios, developed the Klingons for the new show. Among those commenting are actors Mary Chieffo and Chris Obi, producers Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Akiva Goldsman, Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, as well as Glenn Hetrick and Neville Page from Alchemy. Check it out below:

Stream all-new episodes of Star Trek: Discovery Sundays at 8:30 PM ET / 5:30 PM PT, exclusively on CBS All Access .

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Star Trek: Discovery Boss Breaks Down That ‘Calypso’ Nod, Kovich’s Surprising Reveal in Emotional Series Finale

Keisha hatchett, staff editor.

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The following contains major spoilers from Star Trek: Discovery ‘s series finale on Thursday. Proceed accordingly.

After five ambitious seasons, Star Trek: Discovery has sent its last transmission.

In Thursday’s 90-minute series finale, Burnhum found herself cut off from her crew after following Moll through the portal that contained the Progenitors’ life-altering tech and, to her astonishment, doors to other worlds. While the captain fought the latter inside, her Discovery cohorts battled Breen warriors out in space.

 When the dust settled — Action Saru having fended off the Breen army — later scenes set in the future reveal that the Kelpian ambassador and T’Rina married. Book and Burnham also wed, then settled on Sanctuary Four (where Book planted Kwejian’s World Root) and had a son named Leto. The series wrapped with an older Burnham, now an admiral, taking Discovery out to space one last time, where it will sit abandoned for a thousand years until someone else finds it.

Read on for our interview with co-showrunner Michelle Paradise, who breaks down the episode’s biggest reveals and how it all came together.

[Note: Season 5 was originally filmed as a season finale. Following its cancellation , cast and crew were given an opportunity, aka a coda, to film additional scenes that wrapped up the show.]

The other thing it gave us is the chance to resolve the character of the ship because Discovery itself, Zora, is a huge character in the show. In the same way that it was emotionally important for us to wrap up Burnham’s story and know what had happened with her and Book, and just to know that they had their happy ending and she’s become an admiral, we wanted to have an emotional wrap-up for the ship Discovery and know what was going to happen to [it]. And so, tying it in with “Calypso” felt like a way to honor the fans who had seen the short and had that question, and it also felt like honoring fans who hadn’t ever seen the short but would want to know, ‘What’s going to happen to the ship now?’ Well, it has a very important mission. She’s going to go out and it’s going to take some time, but she has something very important to do as well.

TVLINE | You had a very short window for this coda, so was there any story that you wrote but had to unfortunately leave out? No, because we were very clear. We knew from the time we found out that we were going to have three days to shoot, which tells us, ‘OK, we can do maybe 10 to 12 pages or so.’  We knew that there were certain limitations with the sets because some sets had already been struck, but we had the bridge. [EP Kyle Jarrow], [co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman] and I just sat down and said, ‘OK, what are the most important things?’

TVLINE | We did learn that Book and Burnham have a son who is now going to be a captain. Talk to me about the importance of that and carrying their legacy. Is this setting him up to potentially be seen somewhere else in the future? We wanted to know what would happen with Burnham and Book in the future. It felt like, ‘Oh yeah, they would start a family,’ that their son would be the combo platter of the two of them. And we were very intentional about all of that, including his name Leto, which is the name of Book’s [nephew], who we met back in Season 3 and who was on Kwejian [in Season 4, Episode 1 when the DMA destroyed the planet]. Being able to honor his [nephew] in that way by naming their son after him, and that their son is going into Starfleet and following in mom’s footsteps by becoming a captain, it all felt right for the characters and also like a happy ending for us to be able to see that.

TVLINE | I loved the reveal of Kovich as Agent Daniels, the temporal agent from Star Trek: Enterprise . How early on did you know that would be his true identity? Where’d that come from? It was a pitch in the writers’ room. Carlos Cisco and Eric J.  Robbins know every iteration of everything, and they really love Enterprise . And from the moment David Cronenberg started playing that role, we all found ourselves leaning in whenever he was on screen. He plays that character so wonderfully and mysteriously that from moment one, I was asking myself, ‘What is happening? Who is this guy? There is a mystery here.’ We wanted to answer that question and we knew we would be doing the fans a disservice if we didn’t answer whatever that mystery was going to be.

It was probably Season 4 when this idea for him to be Daniels came up… In Season 5, we started planting little seeds: him writing with pen and paper as opposed to the holoPADDs that everyone uses. Even just his choice of wardrobe. When we meet him, he’s in glasses and a tie. This is a guy that, from the moment he joined the show, has been a little out of time. And so, Daniels felt like the perfect choice to highlight all of that.

TVLINE | Do you think that this series finale will be a satisfying ending for longtime Star Trek fans? Why so? I hope it is. I hope it feels emotionally satisfying for people who have invested seven or eight years in the five seasons of this show. We didn’t want any hanging questions. We wanted it to be an emotionally satisfying, happy ending for people who have loved the show [and] these characters. And for folks who are fans of Discovery and all the other iterations, we hope it will also be satisfying. We’ve put our hearts into it and we are fans of the show as much as we also work on the show. We know what this show means to people, and what the characters mean to people and what they represent to people. And so, we really wanted to honor the characters and the fans in the way that we ended. I hope it will feel satisfying and that people won’t feel like anything was left out. Hopefully, they’ll come away and feel joy for having been on the ride with us.

What did you think of Star Trek: Discovery’s series finale? Grade the episode below, and then sound off in the comments.

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35 comments.

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I’m glad for those who enjoyed Discovery but it never seemed like Trek to me but instead its own special story.

It’s a shame that Surik, Spock, and Georgiou couldn’t return for the finale.

They all have other shows to appear on

I meant Sarek.

Move over Star Trek: Enterprise, we have a new undisputed worst Trek finale of all time. What better way to say what a waste of time this season was than have a finale that resulted in nothing of consequence happening despite stringing along the Progenitor’s saga for ten episodes.

I completely disagree with you. This episode was very Star Trek and it had a satisfying ending for the series.

Exactly, wasted 10 episodes really. Terrible ending. Instead of focusing on the crew it was all about Burnham and Book.

Also, is it that hard for Burnham not to whisper her way through half the episode?

Glad some people liked it, and the creatives seem like nice people, but wow, this season was painful to watch.

I’m glad we got to see Detmer and Owosekun for a brief moment in the bridge scene as Burnham reflected on her Discovery family, but it’s still a complete mystery to me why the actors were essentially not in the final season. Yes, their characters were piloting Enterprise back to Starfleet. But why make the decision to have their characters to that? I’ve not found an answer to this.

We have an answer for you. Stay tuned!

Great! My first thought was these 2 actors were doing a side project together so they weren’t available to ST:D but my searches have come up empty… Looking forward to your reveal!

They were not available for much of time during filming of the season. It’s been reported before around the Star Trek socials

They reportedly had scheduling conflicts. That’s what I read in another article released yesterday on a different site.

When she flew it out one last time, didn’t some need to be in engineering that was a compatible pilot to activate the spore drive?

In the intervening 40ish years, presumably they solved that problem.

Really loved the finale! I couldn’t tell that it was originally planned as a season finale- they did a good job steering the ship to a satisfying finale and wrapping things up. I’ll miss this crew.

So Discovery ended as it began then…as a show about one. Never understood why they took the route of making Burnham the sole focus of this show when every other Trek show has thrived by being an ensemble piece. One thing I’ll never slight this show on though is the effects. Absolutely top notch.

The original series focused on Capt. Kirk, Deep Space 9 focused on Capt. Cisco.

Might want to go back and re-watch those shows. Discovery was all about Burnham, at least with TOS and DS9 they fleshed out the bridge crew, and DS9 went so far as to flesh out the secondary cast as well.

Look at those episode counts per season between Discovery and ENT, TNG, DS9 and VOY. This was also always a story of Burnham’s journey. However, there was still plenty of room for Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Culber, Book, Adira and Georgiou.They were the main cast. Not the secondaries on the bridge

For being the DEI Trek and the strange need to go against established cannon the writting wasn’t so bad.

Keep holding out for the KKK Trek of your dreams and a normal person’s nightmare

For me, season 5 was a little lackluster compared to the other 4 seasons. While I do understand the need for reflections and the emotional settling for the characters, I was expecting a little more. Just my opinion.

I watched each episodes and the final was to much like Alice In Wonderland/ Darkside of the Looking Glass. I will also comment that these last two series of Star Trek have been the worse! Picard and Discovery. I definently looking forward to seeing the next season of Strange New Worlds. The acting and story lines are superb compared to the two previous series.

I think it was maybe the best possible way to end the show. I liked season 5, and I liked how the main part of the finale resolved the storyline, and I think the coda was a nice sendoff. Nobody died, and everybody lives happily ever after. To quote podcaster Tom Merritt, thank you for your service, Discovery.

As usual, STD was terrible. Grateful it’s over just like Prodigy and Lower Decks

We all really know why you don’t like this show. Afraid of black women all over “your” Trek.

Utter nonsense. You’re projecting your own issues onto the commenter. The show stank from episode one, to episode last, for all the reasons that been stated a million times. Nothing to do with “black women”.

It was the best Trek show on television.

Ah, so you hate Star Trek. The only time Discovery was decent was when it was it introduced the cast of Strange New Worlds. The rest of its seasons fill the bottom of the rungs in the Star Trek universe.

The series was a mess from day one. From non-canon Klingons to a season long antagonist – Moll – who just sort of goes away – this was the least coherent, interesting and satisfying iteration of Trek. Bring on Academy and please, for the love of God, Legacy (or whatever it’s to be called) with 7 in charge.

I really enjoyed the episode until they got to the Calypso part, I have always hated Calypso because it felt so unfair to Zora, and after getting to know Zora for 3 years, I hate it even more. It is so stupid on many levels to leave Zora there alone — the waste of a star ship, the waste of the spore drive, and especially forcing a sentient ship to sit alone for a thousand years FOR NO REASON AT ALL other than to take a character who we know nothing about and care even less home. Calypso is cruelty against a sentient creature and ending it this way has ruined the series for me, No rewatching here.

Did burnam take the ship out alone? I did not see anyone else on the bridge. If she was alone, how did she get back from deep space?

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Finally: Why 'Star Trek: Discovery' Klingons Look So Different

After months of speculation, it looks like there’s finally a solid explanation for the radical new look for the Klingons on 'Star Trek: Discovery'.

Honor to the Klingon Empire has been restored! After months of speculation, it looks like there’s finally a solid explanation for the radical new look for the Klingons on Star Trek: Discovery .

What Happened

On Thursday, TrekCore excerpted an interview with Discovery writer Ted Sullivan from the magazine SFX.. . In it, Sullivan explains what the new Klingon Sarcophagus ship is all about. “It’s a 200-year-old ship. This is a group of Klingons who’ve gone back to a puritan way of life. They look very different: they wear armor that’s 200 years old and they don’t have any hair,” Sullivan said.” Their commander runs his Klingon house – the house of T’Kuvma – by the rules of Kahless, the Klingon messiah. And he calls himself the second coming of the Klingon messiah.” Sullivan also claimed that this specific Klingon house was one never before seen in any version of Star Teerek.

What It Means

From a production design standpoint, the new Klingons look awesome, but now that they are actually being revealed to be old Klingons, the canon of Star Trek: Discovery can retcon around the cosmetic differences between these Klingons and the more traditional ones seen in the majority of Trek. If these Klingons have been isolated from the rest of their species, the differences in their appearances could be explained. Two-hundredTwo-hundredTwo-hundred years is an interesting figure,,, too, simply because it establishes that Klingons have been capable of interstellar travel way before humans were. The time of the prequel series,,, Star Trek: Enterprise ,,, was in the 2150s. Discovery takes place in the 2250s.

So quick 200-year-old math means this old Klingon ship is from 2050, only three decades in our own future! The Sarcophagus ship is older than the NX-01 Enterprise and predates the events of Star Trek: First Contact , making it feel like deeper Trek magic from before the dawn of Trek.

What’s Next

All of this could mean there will be several different types of Klingons on Star Trek: Discovery , including the long-haired Next Generation variety. Because the events of Discovery will revolve around the infamous war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation, it looks like there’s a good chance that the encounter with these “Puritan” Klingons will trigger that conflict. Also, because Commander Michael Burnham’s parents were killed by Klingons on the planet Vulcan when she was a child, it stands to reason that those Klingons might look like the ones Star Trek fans are familiar with.

Plus, everyone in real life should also probably get ready for a Klingon invasion in about 30 years.

Star Trek: Discovery hits CBS All Access on September 24.

If you liked this article, check out this video about sex (or lack of) in Star Wars.

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Klingons & Breen In Star Trek: Discovery Season 5?

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 is just around the corner. In fact, at the time of writing, it’s less than one week away. The fifth and final adventure is going to be a fun one for the USS Discovery. However, will the series go back to its roots? What I mean by this is, will Discovery Season 5 feature the Klingons ? We’re also likely to see another classic Star Trek alien species appear, this being The Breen .

It’s right that modern Star Trek’s introduction of the Klingons was hit and miss. Some Trekkies became very vocal about the portrayal of the Klingons in Star Trek: Discovery Season One and Two . Unfortunately, the series has not seen the legendary species since its jump to the 32nd Century. However, the Klingons have appeared in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , this time closer to their much-loved design from Star Trek: The Next Generation .

So, is Discovery going to be bold and include the Klingons again? There is a possible chance. While researching the upcoming season, Trek Central has learned that some iconic Star Trek species will be appearing. But how do they fit into the story? We’ve got some speculation to do!

SPOILER WARNING – This article contains potential Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 spoilers!

A Klingon Return for Discovery Season 5?

Discovery has left the Klingons alone since its journey to the 32nd Century. While we’ve checked in with familiar species like Vulcans, the series seemed hesitant to go near the Klingons again. That all might change in the upcoming fifth season.

IMDB contains a reference to Klingons in Discovery Season 5 . While researching the season, we found that Stunt Actor Jason Lee Bell has a note for “2024.” For context, actors and creatives have the date of the show airing next to their names. In this case, we can see Lee Bell was a stunt performer as a Klingon for three episodes between 2017 and 2024. While these will likely be in Seasons One and Two , the 2024 mention perhaps means he’ll play a Klingon again.

Breen In Star Trek: Discovery!

The Breen have been formidable enemies in the Star Trek universe. Since their introduction in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , they have been a constant thorn in the side of Starfleet and the Federation. For example, the Breen contributed to the destruction of Benjamin Sisko’s first USS Defiant and also the deadly attack on Earth. Both took place during The Dominion War. We have not seen a modern Breen character on our screens outside of Star Trek: Lower Decks.

That seems like it could change. Stunt performer Joel Labelle looks to be playing a Breen Solider. According to IMDB’s Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 page, Labelle will appear in the eighth episode. Titled “Labyrinths”, we don’t know much about the episode. If we look deeper, a Labyrinth was an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at the Knossos.

Yes, that is the description of a Labyrinth from Wikipedia. But hear me out. Part of Discoverey’s Season 5 plot is about a big galactic treasure hunt. What if some treasure is kept in a Labyrinth, and a Breen Solider guards it? It’s about all we have to go on at the moment. We’ll know more once Discovery Season 5 kicks off and we get closer to the eighth episode in the final season.

Set Course for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5!

Star Trek: Discovery streams via Paramount+ in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Latin America, France, Germany, Brazil, South Korea (via Tving), France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. It is also available on CTV Scifi / Crave in Canada and TVNZ in New Zealand. The show is also available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe.

DISCLAIMER: While “Press Screeners” have been released for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Trek Central does not get these from Paramount+. This article is based on our own research and healthy speculation of the upcoming season.

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Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Pulls It All Together For “Life, Itself”

| May 30, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 240 comments so far

“Life, Itself”

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 10 – Debuted Thursday, May 30, 2024 Written by Kyle Jarrow & Michelle Paradise Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi

A solid season finale ties things for the season plot and the characters, with a bonus bringing the series to a satisfying conclusion.

The Progenitors may be all-powerful, but would it have killed them to add some signage?

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“Let’s go get what we came for”

We are back at the binary black holes, the portal is out of reach of the Disco, there is no contact with the captain, the Breen dreadnaught is launching a swarm of fighters, and Primarch Tahal is one hour away from escalating things beyond any hope: just the kind of stakes and ticking clocks we expect for a finale. Inside the portal, Michael finds herself looking at a tunnel of seemingly infinite gateway windows she “cannot explain” to her tricorder, for posterity. She picks a bright light in the distance as her destination but when she notices an odd distortion, she is soon pulled through to a windswept desolate world and greeted by an angry Breen, who isn’t in a talking mood. After dispatching him and another Breen back in the tunnel, Moll shows up with some sarcastic praise, a bleeding wound, and a big gun. Michael offers a dermal regenerator as a peace offering. But soon enough they are at odds again, as Moll is willing to work with the Breen to use the tech to bring back L’ak and doesn’t trust the Feds. Michael has seen that dark future and isn’t going to let that happen, so cue the fight music and VFX as the pair punches and kicks their way through shifting gravities and multiple worlds like a TV-budget Christopher Nolan movie. Michael switches tactics, connecting emotionally over loss, giving Moll her personal promise to use the tech to bring back L’ak. (Remember Moll’s pattern buffer? Her heart is literally on her sleeve). Together the reluctant partnership heads off down the yellow brick road Progenitor tech tunnel.

Off to see the wizard?

“I have kind of a crazy idea”

Things are hectic on the Disco as Rayner realizes he can’t get to the portal and fight off the Breen at the same time, so Book volunteers to take a shuttle to grab the portal. Cleveland is given a short ticking clock before the black hole radiation will fry him but Dr. Culber volunteers to join anyway, as he has a weird feeling he is going to be needed. As they head off, Tilly hatches a plan involving a plasma cloud and the power of science. Back at Federation HQ, they need to divert the approaching Breen fleet, so Saru and Nhan volunteer to confront Tahal with an unarmed shuttle because for these Disco vets— and as the great Vin Diesel says —it’s all about family. They catch up with Tahal, who isn’t in the mood to have a nice chat and is curious why the Feds don’t want her finding out what’s going on with Runh’s old dreadnaught. Suru makes his first move, offering Tahal a Federation trade route through the L’Tar Nebula, which would give her an advantage over other Primarchs, but she rejects it. Nhan is nervous but Saru remains calm, even after being given 30 seconds to leave. The offer is rescinded after he calls Tahal a coward, then escalates to telling her he is a predator, she is his prey, and if she doesn’t take his deal, she will never get the Imperium throne. He now knows she already has hidden bases in L’Tar and his friends in the region will attack, diverting her attention and keeping her from winning the Breen faction war. She thinks he is crazy and bluffing but Saru compels her to look into his eyes and ask if she doesn’t see resolve. It works. Nhan is impressed: That’s some cold Kelpien cowboy diplomacy.

Sorry Commander Nhan, if one of us isn’t going to make it, I’m guessing it’s you.

“Every clue has prepared us for this”

To find their way through the endless tunnel of gateways, Michael starts thinking multidimensionally—like a Progenitor—and finds a new hidden vista, this time with flowers and a promising central dais. This whole place is the tech they have been looking for, and they are reminded of the danger as they pass a makeshift monument to the 24 th -century scientist who was killed trying to use it. The control interface is an unmarked scatter of triangles, and as the two debate how the “one between many” clue fits, when Michael can suddenly hear Book’s transmission. The distraction gives Moll a chance to knock the captain out before forming a pyramid on the interface, getting her zapped and pinned as the system wakes up with columns of energy. Outside, the portal draws matter from a black hole, impressive but not helpful to everyone out there. Tilly’s trick of blowing up the Breen fighters with a nearby plasma cloud works, and Book is ordered to grab the portal before the dreadnaught shows up, but he can’t get a tractor lock. Now Culber understands his mysterious drive to be there and relays the exact resonance frequency Book needs for the tractor beam… We’ll sort that out later. Michael wakes and pulls Moll off the pedestal, down but conscious. She works out the triangle puzzle (“one between many” means creating a larger triangle with the negative space, duh). She is rewarded by another transition and greeting from an actual extinct Progenitor, waiting to offer instructions… like Clippy , but with the power of creation. From what she heard from Book, Michael knows the portal is causing all sorts of dire problems, so the first thing is to shut it down. The Progenitor explains it is just powering up to perform its primary function: the creation of life, but it can’t bring back the dead, which is bad news for Moll and L’ak. Michael is concerned the tech can be used to create armies of destruction, but the Progenitor points to the evidence in the tunnel, all those gateways to worlds full of life. She then drops the big head-scratcher, the Progenitors didn’t create this thing, they found it. The Progenitors have progenitors? They are just part of a “cycle of creators and creations countless times over.” It’s progenitors all the way down. Mind Blown GIFs .

Let’s see what happens when I touch this invisible thing.

“It’s the right thing to do”

Tahal may have turned around, but she has sent a cloaked scout to see what’s going on. The Discovery crew can’t let that or the dreadnaught have access to the Progenitor tech, so Rayner has the craziest idea yet: Just remove all the Breen… with the spore drive. This is Discovery, where they do five impossible things before breakfast, so he rallies the crew with a speech to make it happen. Inside the portal, Michael is told she has passed the tests so she is now the “steward” of the tech. During a montage of the raging battle outside Tilly and Stamets zap the Breen away to the galactic barrier thanks to a cool saucer separation manuever. The Progenitor talks about how her race found themselves alone, so they found meaning by creating all the varieties of life throughout the galaxy, and now it’s Michael’s turn to play god. What is most meaningful to you? No pressure. For now, the captain wants the whole thing shut down while she considers her options. The Progenitor says she can wait and gives Burnham a quick data download of a few billion years of the history of life in the galaxy. No big whoop. Michael grabs Moll, lets her know about L’ak (sorry) and they beam to Book’s shuttle. Everyone reunites and hugs (Saru too, of course) but they soon debate the use of the Progenitor tech. Rayner talks of orders and Stamets of science, but Burnham is determined. They already have infinite diversity in infinite combinations, they don’t need the tech, and she’s sure Rillak and Vance will back her up. The portal is placed beyond one of the black holes’ event horizon, but the captain figures whoever made it could always figure out how to get it out if they are still around. Back at HQ, Moll and Book share a moment and her icy attitude thaws a bit; also, it turns out she is being offered a job with Kovich if she wants it. Speaking of that enigma, Kovich tells Michael the Red Directive is over, everything is classified, and that’s that. He tells her he has lived many lives and she is top of the list of aggravations, but he’s still impressed. Thankfully, she doesn’t let this latest mysterious comment go, pressing him to reveal who he really is. He finally introduces himself: “ Agent Daniels .” Damn, and I already used up all my mind blown GIFs.

Get ready for even more hugging.

“Last dance”

Cut to weeks later: We find ourselves at a beach destination wedding. Yep, T’Rina and Saru get hitched and seal it with a kiss. Aww. Everyone is there having a good time. Suru sums up the season with Michael as he looks at the gathering of diverse friends and well wishers, nothing it would make the Progenitors proud to see how “we are all in the most fundamental ways, connected.” After hearing how Tilly has a mentorship plan tailor-made for a spinoff series about Starfleet Academy , Michael finds Book and the two dip out to have a chat on the beach. He has been busy and now he is a free man, full of hope again. Both are looking to the future and agree that future should be together. “You, me, and Grudge.” More aww, more kissing, but they are interrupted: It’s a call from Kovich. Another mission. And the season ends with just the right note. “What are we waiting for? Let’s see what the future holds.” Fade to black… but wait, there’s more.

Marriage is logical.

Cut to an isolated cabin on Sanctuary Four (where Book planted that Kwejian world root, BTW). It’s Michael and Book, many years later, with gray hairs and fun banter over bad coffee. There is talk about it being a big day before a shuttle arrives, piloted by their son! He’s a Starfleet captain! She’s an admiral! New uniforms! They are not messing around. Mother and son head off, mentioning Tilly is still at the Academy, and she gives some advice for his first big speech in command. She reflects on her (classified) mission, talking of the question about what is most meaningful. Her answer, “Sometimes life, itself (title alert!) is meaning enough.” Channeling her own inner Diesel, she talks of their family, her Discovery family, and how her son will find family with his new crew. He drops her off at the USS Discovery in space dock, which is getting the -A removed from its registry as the ship is being reset to its original 23rd century design and parameters for its “final mission.” On board, the admiral greets Zora and informs the AI she will take the ship into deep space and then leave her, to await something to do with “ Craft .” Reflecting on how it’s been “a hell of a journey,” Michael sits in the captain’s chair and all the feels come back to her. We see her younger self on the bridge and she’s with her Disco family. Everyone is there, even Detmer, Owo, and Bryce. There is a lot of hugging and chatter and laughing and joy as we fade back to older Burnham coming out of the moment. The OG Discovery exits spacedock and all the ships and shuttles at HQ are lined up as an honor guard. Nice. For one last time, she orders “Let’s fly” as the classic music swells and we fade to black for the final curtain. Goodbye, Star Trek: Discovery . I really will miss you.

Zora, if you are so smart, how come you didn’t predict we would get canceled?

All good things…

This was a solid season finale that nicely tied up plot and character stories amidst fast-paced action and philosophical questions—with a few answers. Packing so much in did perhaps bloat the episode, which got even heftier when the epilogue (shot later, after the series wasn’t renewed) was tacked on. But the themes of the season were woven throughout, which in true Disco style were made clear with all the talk of connection, diversity, and family. From the beginning, this show has always been about Michael Burnham, and her hero’s journey was certainly on full display here as she was deemed worthy to hold the power of the gods, with Sonequa Martin-Green delivering a fantastic performance covering the required range needed for all the plot, romance, and action. The rest of the ensemble had hero moments throughout too, notably Doug Jones’ Saru, who ended the season strong showing just how formidable he is, without having to fire a shot (or quill). Everyone was smart, clearly worthy of their positions, and the show doesn’t need to make the baddies dumb to keep the plot moving. Even the USS Discovery itself got a hero moment, one of the many spectacular visual effects moments they saved up for with the finale. Director and EP Olatunde Osunsanmi really understands this show and these characters and knows how to pace things so that extra time did fly, although he is definitely over-enamored with the spinning camera rig.

Inside all that action were big and little moments of character to pay off elements that had built up through the season. A great example of this was Rayner, a new character introduced in conflict with Burnham at the start of the season, and who we learned later is haunted by his past with the Breen. For the finale, he spots his own errors and pivots, he has the trust of the crew, and he even has a tiny bit of mercy for the Breen. Callum Keith Rennie was one of the standouts of the season and its sad that we won’t get to see where the character would have gone had there been another season. Wilson Cruz’s Culber also had a nice bit of closure here, as the doctor’s spiritual journey brought him onto the (almost suicide) mission with Book, where he took that leap of faith and learned to embrace the mystery of how “Jinaal” has changed him. Sadly, the same can’t be said of his husband Stamets, who got the short end of the stick this episode (and all season) with Anthony Rapp mostly relegated to technobabble and subbing in as chief engineer in the weeks Tig Notaro couldn’t make it to Toronto. Stamets has looked for meaning after the spore drive and that journey will continue now that the Progenitor tech has been taken away. Mary Wiseman’s Tilly had fun moments this episode but her backstory about struggles at the Academy and her solution (a mentorship program) seems more about setting her up for the new show than servicing the character.

Did anyone see my dead husband? I seem to have lost him.

Meeting the makers

For the finale, the big bad Breen mostly took a back seat. We never got a glimpse into what was happening on the dreadnought with Moll gone. We got some FaceTime chat with Tahal, who was just as one-dimensional as Ruhn, but the various Breen ships did pose enough of a credible threat for there to be high stakes for our heroes. In the end, it was Moll who was the main adversary for the episode, as she stuck with her single-minded determination, resulting in probably too many fight scenes inside the Progenitor portal. Also, why did she fight the Breen who were supposedly working for her? The adversaries Moll and L’ak were certainly stronger than previous villains for the show, but the last few episodes didn’t really pay off some of the promise of earlier ones. Maybe her redemption was planned to come later as an agent for Kovich. Speaking of that enigmatic character, it was quite satisfying to finally address his backstory, and tying it into the Star Trek: Enterprise character of Daniels was clever and makes a lot of sense.

The biggest reveals for this episode were tying things up with the Progenitors as this season picked up the thread left by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Chase” and really ran with it. The scenes with Burnham and the Progenitor (ably played by Somkele Iyamah-Idhalma) were strong, turning their mission of seeding the galaxy into Star Trek’s recurring theme of infinite diversity, as laid out nicely by Saru at the wedding (in case you missed it). The one thing that didn’t land was the “one between many” triangle thing, which turned out to be a basic IQ test and not something tied into the rest of the clues, tests, and cultural understandings Burnham has passed throughout the season.  Of course, Burnham was the one who was deemed worthy to become the steward, but it also fit with the character that she had the humility to reject the power and hide it away as the galaxy already had plenty of life and it was too dangerous to leave lying around. The twist that the Progenitors were only the latest in a line older than the universe itself is a very big idea straight out of classic sci-fi, and even scripture. It’s a nice touch to add a bit more mystery to all of it.

Sometimes even in Star Trek, dead is dead.

Sometimes it’s okay to cry

As for fans of romance, you got a twofer with Michael and Book getting back together and Saru and T’Rina getting married. A wedding in a finale is a bit cliché, but it was nice and used well to wrap things up. The final moment on the beach with Michael and Book was sweet and did a decent job of hinting at more to come, and it could even have made for a reasonable series finale, with an optimistic and hopeful Star Trek look to the future and the next mission, together.

But then the producers were given the chance to shoot an epilogue to wrap up the series after they found out this season would be their last. This brings us to the extra bits that start at the cabin with older Book and Michael. Wrapping things up with this kind of leap forward into the future was a bit trite, but they didn’t have a lot of time to pull it together and what they did was pretty impressive, albeit with the focus on Michael Burnham. It was still well-earned and satisfying to see her happy ending as an admiral, shepherding her son to be the next generation of Starfleet. They didn’t have to, but continuity-lovers will appreciate how they used this coda to really tie a bow onto connecting the series to the Short Treks episode “Calypso,” right down to explaining away how the ship in that future didn’t have the 32 nd -century refit. The conversation with Michael and Zora was very sweet, all part of the right tone for this coda. Things got even more on brand for Michael’s memory sequence, bringing in the rest of the cast—her Discovery family. Only Saru (barely) got an audible line, which may disappoint fans who want to know what’s up with the other characters, but the emotion of it all was there and this leaves plenty of opportunities for those characters later if they show up on the Academy series. All in all, it was very Discovery , and what more could you want to tie things up?

Did no one think to bring drinks for this party? Reno?

Final thoughts

This season had big ideas and “Life, Itself” answered the right questions and posed some more, which is a good thing. This is the best finale for the best season of Discovery , and sadly it will be their last. The show really hit its stride in season 5, delivering on the promise of a new adventurous tone while still servicing the characters and their many emotions.

Where have you been?

• At 1:25:35, the finale has the longest runtime of any episode of Discovery— or any single episode of Star Trek, not counting 2-part episodes.
• The epilogue added 15:40 to the runtime.
• Michael uses her Vulcan meditation technique to clear her head to solve the puzzle.
• The L’Tar Nebula sounds like the Lantar Nebula mentioned by Vash in “Q-Less,” but probably something different.
• After getting mentioned a lot over the last couple of seasons, we saw the Pathway Drive in action on Saru’s shuttle when it caught up to Tahal’s fleet.
• A possible continuity error: The first shot of the triangle test shows 10 triangles, but both Michael and Moll used only 9 for their different solutions, with no extra triangle.
• After Culber revealed the subspace frequency he said, “I’m a doctor, not a physicist,” classic Star Trek .
• The EV suit computer voice Julianne Grossman, who did the computer voice for the USS Discovery for the first 3 seasons before Zora (Annabelle Wallis) became the ship’s voice.
• When Kovich tells Michael that everything from the season will be classified, she says she was “familiar with how those things work now,” possibly referencing how the USS Discovery and spore drive were classified at the end of season 2 ; however, she was not present for that, as she had already jumped to the future.
• Reacting to Saru’s gambit with Tahal, Nhan said she didn’t want to play him in Ferengi Rummy.
• Book was late to the wedding because he ran into some Talaxian pirates.
• It’s not mentioned in dialogue, but Burnham and Book’s son’s name is Leto. He’s played by Sawandi Wilson.
• The registry on Leto Burnham’s shuttle was UFP 47 .
• Michael talked to Leto about recently visiting Crepuscula .
• Molly the trance worm had a baby. Aww.

Michael thinks back to Voq… yeah, she married the right alien.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast  covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery premiered on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and was broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada.

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

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“He finally introduces himself: “Agent Daniels”

See, you wouldn’t have gotten that from a series inspired by the Kelvin reboot — or maybe yes since Enterprise is the only series that is canonical in the Kelvinverse. Thought it likely wouldn’t have been as satisfying…

Enterprise is actually not quite as canonical as you think it is in the “Kelvin” verse The origins and outcomes in Kelvin are vastly different from the Prime Universe. SNW pretty much confirms that. Kelvin is not as “divergent” as we thought it was. I figured he was around for the Temporal Cold War given his knowledge about Time Travel. My only gripe with Kurtzman Trek is that they act like they did not do a somewhat soft reboot of the Original Series canon and timeline which they actually did.

Exactly. Just say it’s a reboot and you give yourself freedom from the canon lawers (like me). They should have done that from day 1 of Discovery honestly. It was the perfect chance to re-*discover* what Trek is for us in the 21st century. Alas. No vision or guts.

Yeah Discovery should’ve been a reboot on day one and it could’ve stayed in the 23rd century. But as someone who actually likes that it got to do its own thing and put us in a completely new time period, I’m not too bothered in the end. But of course they could’ve just had the show in the 32nd century from the beginning and just set Trek on a completely different course in the modern era away from everything we knew making this century the ‘present day’ going forward which many fans like me wanted anyway once we heard a new show was coming.

But all of that is clearly in hindsight now.

That’s all on Bryan Fuller. Though his original plan was to set the series in a different era for each season set in the timeline of TOS, Discovery should have had a visual aesthetic that fell somewhere between Enterprise and TOS. Instead he took it in a much different direction. Had he said “It’s a different timeline!” most would have just run with it.

It was telling that when Fuller launched Discovery he didn’t bring in anyone from the Berman era to work on the series. Ron Moore, by contrast, brought in people from the Berman era to work on Battlestar Galactica, Outlander and For All Mankind.

Fuller wanted a full series and visual reboot and should have just said, yeah, this is a reboot set in a different timeline.

Yeah 100% agree.

Discovery made a lot of errors in the first season but the biggest was putting a show that was clearly meant to be a reboot in a 50 year old universe but pretended like it wasn’t a reboot.

Despite all it’s issues starting out that will always be the biggest IMO.

Actually he did bring on Joe Menosky who has worked on all the Berman shows minus Enterprise but it seems like what happened with Nic Meyer and he didn’t gel very well with the new group because he left after the first season and never talked about his time on the show.

I got the impression that Menosky was a bit frustrated by the entire experience and that he was this lone and ignored voice. Given a chance, Menosky probably would have loved working on Picard or SNW where his input would have been appreciated and not ignored.

I rewatched part of DSC S1. Still compelling television.

Aside from that, requesting the visual aesthetics of 60s science fiction? Get real. Its a tv show, not retelling of a future to come. It doesnt matter, if they say its a reboot or not. Technology advanced. Look at scripture. 4 variants of Christs story, in one book. Star Trek is art. Television has no obligation to align with anyones fantasy. Media shouldnt deliver, what people want, but what they might need. I also have an opinion. Did I like it? Dont know. Was I entertained? Yes. If this enough? Yeah, for the moment.

People creating want to create something on their own, always redesigns always new ideas, sometimes they take old stuff and build ontop of it, but usually they go rather somewhere else, like Bajor, Delta Quadrant, Child Universe. Artists are not engineers in that matter, as engineers try to make something work. Artists express themselves. So every iteration of Star Trek is different. So many new uniform styles to keep track off. The costume designers are off the leash.

But I always come back to what Phlox said to Trip about his people having something similar to television until they realized, their lives were more interesting. Live by Phlox’ wisdom!

And yet SNW updated the look to TOS without completely rewritting it and why less people have issues with that show. I been saying this literally since 2017, no one was ever suggesting to recreate what was done on TOS but to simply update the aesthetics and look in the present day and today’s standards which I think SNW has done fairly well IMO.

Why they couldn’t just do something similar instead of presenting a show that barely looked like it existed in the same period or even universe is beyond me?

And if they decided to just keep to what they did with Discovery, I have said this about more times than I can count, then just reboot it completely and do whatever you want, right? We’re not actually disagreeing, but what I find funny about these discussions is people say writers and producers shouldn’t be forced to straddle themselves aligning with canon to a 50 year TV show…as they align themselves to a 50 year old TV show canon. And then even worse instead of pulling a TNG and going forward in a time period that hasn’t been set and you DO have the freedom to do mostly what you want, instead they put it in a period everyone knows and expect no one is going to blink when you ignore the setting you decided to put your show in.

You can’t have it both ways. Either you want to reinvent the wheel and go your own way or you want the trappings of nostalgia and history or why else not just ignore it completely then?

This is the problem when you try to have your cake and eat it too.

And I’m an atheist, I couldn’t tell you a thing about scripture.

I’m so sick of them talking about canon as if they even understand it. They don’t. I’m also pretty tired of the multiverse trope in ALL of these properties. Just reboot and forget any notion of them tying together, then you can remake episodes all you want, and I really can’t complain except when they do it badly (like the Taste of Armageddon re-do). Where we di]sagree is on the visual changes. Everything WAS Canon in that realm until Discovery, but not anymore.. I guess that’s okay… but if it were just the visual, I’d agree with you. My problem is they show federation ships doing stuff they really aren’t capable of doing in TOS, and pretend it’s just a ‘visual update’. Holograms that interact with the environment they’re projected in to instead of view screens. Intra ship transport. If those kinds of things existed in TOS, some stories wouldn’t make sense. It’s fine to call it a soft reboot, so just do that instead of pretending this world makes sense. It doesn’t.

The Khan episode from SNW confirms the Prime universe rebooth. The idea they dropped around Time trying to re-insert itself is interesting. That is the freedom they needed to upend the Gorn story from TOS for example. I have no problem with the soft reboot but just say that is what you did and be done with it.

SNW has begun the process of reimagining TOS. Look as much as I love TOS, not everything about it translates into our modern era. I always thought for years that TOS needed a soft reboot. It is no accident that Time Travel was emphasized in DISCO and SNW. Kurtzman needs to just say it. JJ deicded to be coy about Khan and look how that turned out.

I had my issues with DISCO but I enjoyed seasons 1 and 2.

EXACTLY. And Discovery could have that done too with the Klingons.

If you go by that, go by the Borg. Stranded, frozen from the sphere from First contact. Found in the arctic, chased by Enterprise. Any time travel episode that left stuff in the past could upend what has been established before. Could also be an out for Pike not getting irradiated.

That episode helps confirm that the canon of the Kurtzman era is not the same as the prime. Sorry but the idea of TOS being reimagined is quite insulting to the show that started it all, I would be happier if the current stuff was separate from the Trek of 1966-2005

Again exactly. They had their chance just to do their own thing away from the prime universe and begin anew. Instead they plopped it between Enterprise and TOS and oddly thought no one would notice it’s completely out of whack between those two shows.

And on top of all that… They foolishly opted to go 900 years into their future yet they kept the PD of the SNW era and new Star Trek Discovery era awfully similar. There looks to be no real difference between the two shows at all. It’s like they make mistakes on the production end of the show and just double down on them. And goes for scripts, too.

It makes it work better for us, for sure, but the problem is the creative braintrust says it’s still within canon, that it’s not a new timeline. Which is monumentally stupid, IMO.

Not exactly.

When Beyond came out, Simon Pegg (who worked on the script) floated the idea that changes in the timeline causes ripples BOTH WAYS. So, within their creative intent, they interpret the Kelvin Universe existing in a place where there may be no continuity with anything, since there’s no guarantee any of it matches if the past has been changed too.

Well, I forgot that since Nero and Spock crossed into another quantum reality through the singularity, they were already in a different timeline even before Nero attacked the Kelvin. Just like it happened with Worf.

So, Nero’s attack need not have changed the timeline both ways since it was already different from the moment he arrived.

That whole thing was awfully silly. Since Kovich said he’s lived lifetimes it just made sense he be El-Aurian.

The statement would be applicable to a time traveler too. It’s misdirection.

I don’t think “living lifetimes” applies to time travelers. The term is meant to denote longevity. Not jumping to other eras.

Doctor Who does that whenever they do an episode in which one of his companions is left behind and grows old, then resets to their original age by the end of the episode.

But in the Who case it for sure denotes longevity, too. I cannot think of a case where “lifetimes” refers to anything but a very long time.

Lifetimes can refer to multiple lives, not necessarily longevity.

Think of every time someone in Trek experienced an alternate timeline. Each one of those would be a lifetime.

That includes Jake Sisko in The Visitor, the Enterprise-D’s crew in All Good Things, and the Voyager crew in Endgame, and all other alternate timelines in between.

For instance, Harry Kim experienced at least five lifetimes that come to mind; Non Sequitur, Year of Hell, Timeless, Endgame, and his prime timeline lifetime.

Surely there were others as VOY did multiple alternate timelines.

I can actually buy this. I think Daniels/Kovich was saying every time period he lived in was basically a different life for him. No one could really know he came from the future and he probably made a different identity each time.

That, or just growing old and dying only to reset again back to the age he was when the alternate timeline began.

Archer, for instance, (and, by extension. everyone else) lived an entire lifetime in Twilight, but then that timeline ceased to exist and they reset to the age they were when the deviation began.

Jake Sisko lived well into old age and died in The Visitor, then the timeline reset. That was, for him, an entire lifetime.

Usually, the subjects don’t remember these alternate lifetimes, but, based on Kovich’s line, he does.

I find that to be a stretch. Unless you are referring to the person existing as different people. Which means either at the same time or across eras. If different times that is quite the feat. If it’s across eras then it still refers to longevity. That is how most people would interpret the line. If their goal was to set up ambiguousness then I’d say it was a fail.

No, not referring to them becoming different people.

They’d be the same person who live multiple lives across multiple timelines that then reset, reverting them to the age they were when the deviation began.

Usually, they don’t remember those lifetimes, but Kovich, based on what he said, probably does.

Well they could have if they decided to focus the KT on the Temporal Wars in some way but obviously that was never in the cards.

But I get your basic point and probably why in the end fans will always gravitate to the Prime universe because this is where the now thousand year old history (wow) and all the cool and old characters most fans grew up with lives.

And it’s pretty crazy that Daniels was part of the 22nd and 32nd century. He has basically bookend the entire franchise. This is why I love this show so much because of how imaginative it is!!!

Whatever cements Enterprise further into canon makes me happy.

Although that’s always been the biggest irony that Enterprise is really the only show canon to both universes.

Yep, heh. Back in 2009 the thought that Enterprise was the only Trek series that was still part of canon made me laugh because of how much “real” fans hated it when it came out.

And now a lot of fans hate the Kelvin movies today so I guess it has come full circle lol.

(But for the record I’m NOT one of them)

How goes the white whale, Captain Ahab?

I actually liked what they did with the Kelvin films. How do you reboot a series without rebooting a series? Why, set it in an alternate universe, of course! Where they stumbled was allowing four years between the first and second films and then deciding to revisit Khan instead of trying something entirely new (something like “Beyond” should have been the next film). I was hoping for a new standalone, not a retread of a TOS and the feature film it inspired.

I’d still like to see another Kelvin film and with the cast being who they are now, I think it would do well.

Yes I liked it too and in fact has defended it many times. I thought it was a brilliant idea they could expand and explore more in the future.

And then we got British Khan and destroyed everything they were suggesting in the very next movie. And while Beyond was at least decent the movies never recovered and hence here we are.

For myself British Khan was the least of the problems with that film.

Am I the only one who thought the big reveal was Kovich revealing themself to be Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, especially given all the TNG-specific swag in his office?

Not saying I would have loved it, but it definitely felt like that’s where it was going as I watched the scene.

One of my Kovich theories was that he was EL Aurian. So close I guess.

My first thought, with the “many lives” snippet, was that he was going to reveal himself as Flint.

I thought that too, or, believe it or not, I considered he may have been Data or a Soong.

I thought a version of Data or a Soong relative at first too, there is beta cannon where Data gets an upgraded body and is able to change his appearance. But I wasn’t completely surprised with the Agent Daniels reveal as it’s been floating around as a theory for a while.

…just watched that episode an hour ago, actually. McCoy tells Spock at the end Flint is dying, will just live out a normal human lifespan.

True. Interestingly the novels (I know very much noncanon) had him fake his impending death.

Now that was not only an awesome episode of Trek but one of the best series finales in the franchise right up there with All Good Things and What We Leave Behind.

I will miss this show/cast and after 5 seasons it has earned its place as my 2nd favourite Trek show with DS9 still number 1.

Only a few episodes of Trek have made me cry tears of sadness like All Good Things, What We Leave Behind, The Visitor, Family, The Siege of AR-558 and now this episode Life, Itself joins the ranks. It was so well written, acted and directed it felt like a feature film and not just a series final of a TV Show. The Kovich reveal as Daniels from Enterprise was shocking as i never expected that but now thinking back at all the episodes of Discovery/Enterprise that Kovich/Daniels was in it makes sense to me.

Discovery separating the saucer section and using both it and the secondary hull to spore jump the Breen Dreadnought and the scoutship was amazing. One of the best CGI sequences in Trek.

Seeing one of the progenitors was cool though i would have loved it if it was Salome Jones but i understand she is in her 90s now. Also interesting to note that the ‘Progenitors’ didn’t invent the tech but found it and they themselves for creating by another race. Another mystery but maybe one that will probably best left unanswered.

As for Moll sadly she was the only thing i didn’t like about this episode. I understand her need/want to bring L’ak back but to be honest I’m not that interested in her story. But i do hope she and Book make amends with each other.

The epilogue was really nice though I wise we got a bit more of the rest of the cast. It does make sense that it featured Burnham as she is the show.

Also i loved the Calypso tie in and i do hope we find out someday exactly why Zora/Discovery has to wait in the Nebula for Craft and how did they know his name. Is it something to do with the Progenitor tech or perhaps Zora herself?.

Burnham told Zora it was a Red Directive, so perhaps Kovich/Daniels needed Craft to not die, and is no longer allowed to time travel due to the Temporal accords? An AI like Zora is timeless and can get to the future to save him in that Nebula. If Discovery still looked like a 32nd century upgraded ship, the Federation might be pinged for Temporal intervention?

Maybe we’ll get an answer, maybe it’ll always be people’s head canon?

The resolution of Moll’s arc was so frustrating. After everything she did to get to that point, all it takes is Burnham to tell her she can’t save L’ak and she’s just basically like, “Oh darn. That saddens me. Okie!”

The show should have had the guts to Toht her ass once she got her tangram puzzle wrong.

Wow! The finale episode was stunning! Lots to think about, but for now I will just rewatch and enjoy the spectacle and nice connecting of the Progenitors with IDIC and with the lives of the Disco crew.

I will miss Soniqua Martin Green. I loved this show.

I will miss Sonequa , too . But , I will follow her career. All of them, really. But Sonequa really spoke to me. Also, she was such a great Trek ambassador.

I adore her. Her grace, warmth, empathy, depth and thoughtfulness. I’m truly grateful to have had Discovery and her. What a great addition to the Trek family and herstory. From the very first episode, her complex performance really brought a depth and grounded reality to the Trek mythos for the first time in a way it hadn’t had before. Before Discovery, Trek was very stylized in its type of acting and character portrayal and SMG really made this universe we all love so much feel that more real.

Hugely underrated actress. Her performances have been richly compelling and, at least once her character initially relaxed a bit, full of warmth and humanity.

That Hope is You Part 1 is one of the show’s strongest episodes, largely due to the carefree performance she gives. I’d love to have seen more of that Burnham. SMG gave it her all to smooth over what was a fairly inconsistently written character amongst several inconsistently written characters. It reminded me of Kate Mulgrew and the shared burden they had of trying to steer a groundbreaking imperfect but semi-superhumanly capable woman through choppy waters with grace, charisma, and style. I’d be fascinated to watch a shared interview with them.

Agreed, greatly enjoyed Soniqua’s portrayal, and that of many of the Discovery crew.

Also, greatly enjoyed the poignant “Agent Daniels” moment and tie-in, thanks for that golden nugget, writers!

An enjoyable ending to a memorable show.

I will not miss her whispering during “dramatic” moments, nor her quivering lips. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

Interesting how often people with little talent lash out at those that are in the public eye and celebrated for theirs. Basic people… shhh. Remember that trying to hide someone else’s light doesn’t make you shine. I’d love to see your audition for the role. Do you have a link to your acting reel?

“ It’s not mentioned in dialogue, but Burnham and Book’s son’s name is Leto. ”

Yes, it is. She says his name.

For a second I thought it was a Dune reference before I realized it was Book’s nephew’s name.

Yep, caught it too. I didn’t know exactly what she said, but as soon as I saw the “Leto” in the recap, I knew that’s what she said.

Very underwhelming. The journey was far more interesting than the destination, although inside the portal looked really cool. The payoff lacked imagination, and didn’t warrant revisiting the material… so yeah I was disappointed. The science and explanation of the past two episodes was questionable too. They should have gotten Salome Jens or at least tried to imitate that character specifically. Would have made more sense. But the conclusion of what to do with the tech.. how they unlocked it. how they found someone ‘worthy’.. it just makes the mystery of the rest of the season fall apart. So as a season finale.. it’s a fail. Even worse is the series finale coda. If you like these characters and get some of the emotion of all the hugging and stuff in the coda, cool. I never really loved these characters, so it did nothing for me. I thought seeing Book and Burnham together in old age was really nice, and I did like that. The Kovich reveal? Felt a little like the ‘My name is Khan’ reveal in STID. Why should that name mean anything? I had to go look It up. Lt. Daniels was a background character from two of the TNG moves. Whatever. More to explore with that character in Academy? I guess. At this point, I couldn’t care less about him. I guess it’s fitting that a show that has distorted canon so much, would choose to tie in its ending to an event in a small short trek show. A show that they easily just could have (and should have) declared apocryphal, and pretended it didn’t exist or exists in some alternate universe. Whatever plan Chabon had for it didn’t happen, so just let it go. Why they were retrofitting Discovery to its former look makes no sense. The reasons they were taking it there aren’t even presented clearly (or at all.. did I miss something?) It was a dumb way to end the show. I suppose that means it’s an appropriate ending for this series. The season was pretty good up to this point, though.. it was fun. But.. I’m sorry.. it wasn’t a very good season finale, and it was a terrible series finale.

“I had to go look It up. Lt. Daniels was a background character from two of the TNG moves”

Nope… Daniels was the time traveller on ENT, a very, very meaningful player in the TCW… The reveal was AWESOME. I was cheering out loud when it happened….

Ah. I’ll go back and look that one up. When I put Daniels in to memory alpha, that was the only option that populated in the search box, and I didn’t look beyond it, because he had all that TNG and DS9 stuff on his shelf so figured that was THE connection. I stopped watching ENT a year or two in, so if I did see that character, I don’t recall him at all.

I think you’re confusing him with Picard’s chief of security in FIRST CONTACT and INSURRECTION (remember, Worf was stationed on DS9 during those movies and happened to come along for the ride).

The revelation more or less worked, but I thought Daniels died in season four of ENT.

He did, but when Archer defeated the space nazi aliens he was shown alive again.

Space nazi aliens, those were the days.

Why can’t he be BOTH? He said starship enterprise ‘and others’… and TNG is way after ENT. So why can’t he be BOTH Daniels?

Also, he said “USS,” and NX-01 wasn’t a USS. :-)

“ I had to go look It up. Lt. Daniels was a background character from two of the TNG moves. Whatever. ”

Incorrect. He was a recurring character from four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise. He’s a time agent from the far future who was involved in the Temporal Cold War.

Garth Beat you to it.

Very underwhelming. The journey was far more interesting than the destination, although inside the portal looked really cool. The payoff lacked imagination, and didn’t warrant revisiting the material… so yeah I was disappointed… But the conclusion of what to do with the tech.. how they unlocked it. how they found someone ‘worthy’.. it just makes the mystery of the rest of the season fall apart. So as a season finale.. it’s a fail. Even worse is the series finale coda.

Pretty much exactly my thoughts (not for the first time, @heyberto seems to share my taste in Trek).

First off, on the epilogue — look, I didn’t *hate* it, but I found it…”superfluous” is the best word, I guess. The final beach wedding scene would have worked as a series finale just as well. I don’t see the point in revealing that Michael and Book had a son. The New Kwejian scenes looked gorgeous, but we’d seen Kwejian before; that wasn’t enough. Two minutes of hugging was *not* what we needed, and typically for the show, all the other characters were shunted aside. I also struggled to understand just why Starfleet was taking Discovery to meet Craft and how this was supposed to culminate in “Calypso.” Leaving it as Zora’s dream, as this season’s early episodes implied, would have sufficed.

The epilogue was So. Very. Discovery, in short.

As for the main act: lookit, it’s not terribly surprising that the takeaway was “the journey is more important than the treasure”; that’s almost par for the course in quest stories. Think back to “Sword of Kahless” or even “The Chase” itself, or any of the Indiana Jones movies (especially Raiders, Dial, and above all Crusade). Still, I think we needed a bit more ooph here beyond “humanity isn’t ready for this,” because it needed to be something “The Chase” was not. I would have been more impressed with the theories circulating that Discovery’s *were* the progenitors, a la PLANET OF THE TITANS. (Had they known this was to be a series finale, in fairness, perhaps they might have gone there.)

I somewhat enjoyed the revelation that the Progenitors didn’t create the technology, but I’m still left puzzled as to what, exactly, this great technology was and why it was so potentially galaxy-changing. The visuals were impressive, yes, but we’ve seen long-range, Stargate-style teleportation before: the Iconians, that Delta Quadrant tech that showed up in season one of PICARD, “All Our Yesterdays,” etc.

They spent too long dwelling on the Burnham-Moll fight scenes. One would have been enough.

I wanted to love this finale, because in the second half of the season, I actually found Discovery to be worthwhile — a word that, on the whole, I wouldn’t have applied to the series before. Moll turned out to be more than yet another courier. But they just didn’t *quite* stick the landing.

I should add that I binge-watched the last five episodes because I was out of the country and couldn’t get my VPN to work with P+. That may have favorably colored my impression of them; indeed, I suspect that a lot of NuTrek may improve with binge-watching.

of course it will because they are just too-long films. Not episodic television.

Agreed. I lot of what you said are my thoughts as well, as usual.. just stated much better. lol. I think the issue of payoff is a problem for me, not because It’s just a simple idea.. it’s that it’s not anything more than what we could come up with. Looking back, they should have not used the McGuffin of this story by getting it from a past Trek episode. If the goal is to simply tell this ‘kind’ of story, then just do that. I rewatched the Chase before this season, and I remember how I had no idea where they were going, and thinking ‘wow.. what a clever idea’. Granted it was over 30 years ago when I saw it, and I’m probably more cynical now, but I don’t think that’s it. They really needed to elevate the payoff, if they’re going to resurrect it. As you said, we’re in no different place after the episode ends, than when we were at the end of The Chase. Another case where the writer’s room just gets enamored with ideas from Trek’s past, without having a clear story to tell. The fact that they did it better in 9 out of 10 episodes this season than they have in the past is a pale consolation, now that we’re at the end. Just my take, though.

I have to say I was surprisingly satisfied with it all. The Chase had a baaad premise IMHO. Discovery corrects it by bringing mystery back to the origins of sentient life. So that “underwhelmingness” was a real, real plus to me. It´s a good resolution, with classic quest and classic Trek tropes (Michael is offered God status and turns it down).

The Daniels bit didn’t quite work for me (for a moment I thought it would be ole positronic Jean-Luc in a different golem), as didn´t the Calypso thing… but i did enjoy old Michael to my surprise, it was a good end point for her continuosly-restless-and-often-annoying-self and I found myself thinking I´ll miss her (and for a second there I thought Leto was getting the Enterprise-M or something).

Season 1 was the best for me, with 2 and 5 as close seconds. I reallly did enjoy the finale.

See, I think the Chase is fine for an isolated episode. Season 5 did a really great job of sustaining interest, and keeping up a good pace that made it feel like a light hearted romp, but with some significant consequences that felt plausible for this universe. Sadly, (and I was worried about this), the conclusion was just not fulfillable, and that’s the problem for me with the season ending. I think I could have come up with something more interesting, at the very least. It felt very formulaic, and predictable in addition to being underwhelming. I would have liked to have an ending with more stakes. I really thought Culber was going to move on to do something with it that was bigger. As for the finale Coda, it just did things it didn’t need to do. I’m with you on the Daniels thing. I think that wasn’t a bad tie-in at all, but I also thought if they had slow played that a little more after the character’s introduction, it might’ve landed better. I don’t know. I loved the Burnham/Book/Leto stuff. There was so much that wasn’t explained about taking Disco out there, to retrofitting it back to it’s original configuration, etc… Should’ve have kept the send off isolated to saying goodbye to the characters, IMO. None of this is intended to shoot down your opinion of the finale. I’m stoked it worked for you. Wish it did for me, because it was a really enjoyable season.

A good question is why waste time, effort & resources making the ship look like it’s former self? Obviously so it could tie in with that Short Trek. But man… Makes zero sense like a lot of what went down on this show.

My entire point exactly, well said. I think the original idea for what Chabon was doing with that episode got abandoned when he left the show, so they should have abandoned the tie in.

I thought this was an absolute mess.

To have the entire Progenitor story basically amount to a “well no one can be responsible with this, so let’s blow it up” plot, meant all of the running around this season amounted to a waste.

And tacking on “Calypso” because … they “had to” was stupidity on top of stupidity.

Also, for all the people who complained about “memberberries” with Picard , this entire season was memberberries but done in an awful, hacky way. The “Daniels/Kovitch” reveal both felt unnecessary (“why can’t Kovitch just be Kovitch and you reveal something interesting about Kovitch as a character?) and had elements that made no absolute sense to me (e.g., no way do I believe he would have Sisko’s baseball, there’s no way the Bajorans would ever let a “holy relic” from the Emissary sit at Starfleet HQ instead of having it on Bajor).

In Star Trek Online, the baseball is STILL on his desk at DS9, so technically, the Bajorans don’t think of it as THAT holy.

It has been hundreds of years since DS9. In that time, Sisko might have returned from the Prophets and given the baseball Daniels.

Yeah there was a ton of memberberries this season…so it shouldn’t t a shock why so many people loved it lol.

I say it again and again people complain about fan service and yet every time it’s presented the fanbase goes nuts over it.

The producers are just trying to give the fans what they want because it seems to work. Hence why Picard season 3 and SNW were partly so popular.

same thing happened in bond film ‘for your eyes only’ where after all the fighting, killing and chasing, bond destroys the McGuffin to stop falling into anyone’s hands.

I couldn’t agree more. I think the creatives behind this series wanted more to blow it all up, do it their way and comment on every contemporary social dilemma, than create great television and great Trek. The continual plot changes, character additions and deletions and never-ending changes in direction, made this a mess from episode 1. In contrast SNW’s is both classic and contemporary Trek rolled into one neat and tidy package. I sincerely hope the producers of Academy take a good long and hard look at this quagmire and learn what NOT to do. Trek can’t take too many more duds. They have gold sitting there on the table with “Legacy” – if that’s what it’s to be named) and the ongoing SNW iteration. Lets not pretend this was anything more than what many describe it as.

I still firmly believe Legacy is coming in some form…but it will take time.

95% of the episode was awesome, really a great finale but I just don’t get the “Calypso” bit at the very end. It hardly makes any sense to me: erasing the “A” from the hull, downgrading the ship and dumping it somewhere… none of that made any sense for me, other than re-canonizing “Calypso” which had already been written off by most fans as non-canonical. No explanation given for any of that. Even if it’s a secret “red directive”, why then are they given a public send-off by the entire fleet???

It would have been so easy to write that off, and just give Discovery (the show) whatever finale would have been most satisfying. It’s an odd choice for a show that had abandoned the visual aspects of Trek’s canon from it’s very first episode.

I was on that page, too. Found it odd they went out of their way to change the ship back when originally they seemed to go out of their way to abandon anything that even evoked the feel of the era they were in. Just another thing where it feels like they want to supplant the old stuff with their own stuff.

“ which had already been written off by most fans as non-canonical ”

Fans don’t decide what is or isn’t canon, though. It was never non-canonical since it happened onscreen.

I preferred the theory that Discovery got duplicated during the jump to the future personally.

I like it too. There are a million explanations that would have worked better than what they did in this finale.

Yeah, this is where I’m getting hung up too. The episode was, to me, perfect until that moment. I thought the epilogue was supposed to bring it all together, not finish it all off with deep confusion. People keep saying the epilogue “set up” Calypso, but it literally didn’t. It introduced more questions, and if those questions don’t have answers, then it isn’t a mystery – it’s a lie.

I know I’ve been ragging on Disco lately, but that was a very good finale. Sure, Moll was a dull character from start to finish, and sure, SMG ramped up her whisper-acting to an annoying level (I will not miss Michael Burnham at all). But there was a lot to enjoy about this finale, and the two hours flew by before I’d even realized it. The Progenitor world was gorgeously shot, the scenes with the Progenitor were wonderful, and the Kovich/Daniels bombshell was far more satisfying than any theories I’d come up with. Just amazing. Also, I really got a kick out of seeing the ending set up Calypso. Despite my problems with this season (and they are legion), I do have to hand it to the writers for ending it well. The final puzzle was something a 10-year-old would have worked out in five seconds, so I wish the writers had come up with something more clever and non-obvious. Still, that’s a minor quibble, given how much I enjoyed the rest of it. To my surprise, it even made me look forward to Starfleet Academy, as I’m hoping the characters who were horribly short-changed this season (Stamets, Detmer, Owosekun, and Reno) might show up there with more to do. Plus, I’m relieved they didn’t decide to bring Gray Tal back for that hug-fest scene, because Gray never worked as a character. All in all, I’d give this one nine stars out of ten, and I’d rank it among the show’s best.

The big reveal has been a matter of speculation for quite some time so it was more of an, “Ah, OK” moment than a “Holy moly! Never saw that coming!” moment. For those entirely unfamiliar with the history behind that revelation, it won’t carry much weight.

As for the epilogue, it was an unnecessary choice, much like another, unrelated major franchise. That final scene would have been far more effective had it taken place within a year of the resolution of this seasons’ storyline, the other elements could have been left open to explore in the future.

I have never seen even a single person guess Kovich was Daniels.

My first thought was, GOOD ONE! “I never thought of that”.

It made the most sense, really.

Actually I saw a review of the finale on YouTube and they showed a post from Reddit that guessed Kovich was probably Daniels from 3 years ago. So someone certainly guessed right lol.

But yeah I’m guessing the overwhelming majority never thought he would be Daniels, certainly not me. I never thought he would be a legacy character at all, just someone part of a bigger organization Section 31 which many theorized. So it was a great reveal IMO.

I wonder if Discovery had continued we’d have seen a more extended Daniels reveal that brought in elements of the Temporal Cold War. It might seem less impactful simply because they ended up cutting straight to the reveal.

Give us a Daniels/Temporal War streaming movie! 😊

Not around here, no. Elsewhere, yes. We’re going back to season 3 on that one.

Also, they stupidly stated that Tilly was “the longest serving instructor in Academy history,” meaning they can’t place the character in jeopardy in ACADEMY.

And seriously, in 1000 years of history, no one has ever installed a mentorship program at Starfleet Academy? Even informally?

right – not great to write themselves into a box there. But – writing and plot has never really been the strength of this show

I don’t think putting canonical plot armor on the lead character of your new scifi show is as big a choice as you think. First, time travel/alternate futures, but also, I have never once assumed that Burnham or Sisko or Janeway were not going to make it to the final episodes of their series, yet every time they were put in jeopardy along the way I didn’t scoff at the implausibility. I went along and suspended my disbelief, because that’s what you do when you watch any TV.

That’s true of half the SNW characters and yet I don’t think dramatic tension is reduced.

Have watched it yet (spoilers don’t brother me), but if they tied it back to Calypso doesn’t that indicate the Federation goes to shit again? Wasn’t craft fight against the Fed?

And oddly… the vidraysh name apparently will come back into use.. so basically.. the universe is going to crap again, and Roddenberry’s optimistic future will not persevere…. again.

Yep. Federation will be at war.

Exactly my question. I supposed there are ways to square that particular circle (maybe Craft was in stasis and didn’t realize Covid^H^H^H The Burn was over), but the question is: why? What’s the point?

I’m fairly confident that in reality Calypso was based on an early draft of the ideas for the season 3 jump and that Craft was in fact a version of what became Book. But still, it was nice to find a way to acknowledge and incorporate that story, even with the possible holes.

I loved this episode. The final moments really threw me off though. Why was the ship reverted to its 23rd century appearance? Why was it abandoned? Why are they waiting for Craft, who merely shows up and leaves in 1,000 years? For me, the episode was perfect until the very end, and that ending so far is extremely distracting to me. I feel like I had to have missed something.

You didn’t miss anything. All of your questions are left to the imagination…or maybe to future Trek writers…

Clear writing and logical plot threads have never been a strength of Discovery. In this case it seems like they were doing their best to resolve a gaping plot hole that was created with the Short Trek about future Discovery abandoned in a nebula or whatever it was.

All of this is sadly very true. ;)

Yeah all of it is just a huge big question mark. Funny it was meant to tie in to Calypso to give us some answers but instead it just gave us even more questions lol.

But it is what it is I guess.

I got up early to view it. For what was supposed to be a season finale, and they morphed it into a series finale? It’s as close to a miracle as DSC will get. My nitpick issues with DSC won’t go away, so I won’t go into them here. I want to offer a few thoughts on S5. Firstly, I think DSC’s cancellation was planned at the end of season 4. I guess Par+ only agreed to make S5 with a lot of budget cuts. Look at Detmer and Owoshekun disappearing halfway through the season. They also needed to set up SFA. I hope I’m wrong, but if Tilly is a lead character in this show, it will struggle to succeed. Getting Holly Hunter was brilliant casting. I WILL watch SFA faithfully when it airs. The AR wall saved DSCs behind. Look at Federation HQ. It’s a plain white room. Very little was spent on new sets. I consider Michelle Paradise, the showrunner, the equivalent of Fred Freiberger, who produced season 3 of TOS. She got the job because she’s been described as a “details producer.” They hired her to get these eps in the can and within budgets. IMO, she’s just not that imaginative, and this is evident in some of her story choices. Maal and Laak were totally unnecessary this season as the bad guys. They were used as a lazy story idea to compete with the DSC crew for the coveted tech. The Breen were cool, and all that, but a competition with a Breen Fleet would have moved the plot along. Look at the ending- nothing happened with their characters. For all the DSC haters out there? This show wasn’t meant to cater to TOS or TNG fans. Once I accepted that, I could somewhat enjoy DSC and follow along. My issues were with (some) the writing and acting. DSC succeeded with inclusivity. My gay sibling and I cried together when we saw Culber reconcile with Stamets, and he went to the future with him. The non-binary and trans characters were a welcome addition. It’s a shame they didn’t do much with them, storywise. The lack of strong male characters from s3 onwards (until Rayner) hurt DSC’s storytelling. (Here come all the “butthurt” comments…) DSC brought new fans into the franchise. For a lot of them, DSC is THEIR Star Trek. They will measure past and future shows against that yardstick for comparison. I feel bad for those fans. Finally, a Trek series that marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community could relate to. It was no different for us “nerdy kids” in the ’70s. We read sci-fi books, built models, and played Star Trek in the backyard. I had TWO friends growing up who liked Trek. We were the outcasts. It wasn’t until Star Wars that nerd culture started to take hold. I will rewatch DSC front to back to reevaluate my opinions on it. I AM grateful for DSC. It got Star Trek back on its best home, television. We have SNW, LDS and Prodigy. (with SFA and S31 to come.) Since 2017, we’ve had new Trek episodes to watch weekly. Just like TOS in 1969, DSC now belongs to the fans. I hope they rewatch it and share it with the people they love. If DSC fans nurture their show like we TOS fans have? There are always possibilities…

I consider Michelle Paradise, the showrunner, the equivalent of Fred Freiberger

That’s such a mean, mean thing to say, and wildly unfair. Paradise is an excellent writer who was given a very complex (perhaps convoluted) task when she took up the reins on Disco, and she did a fantastic job elevating it above a mere technical exercise.

The lack of strong male characters from s3 onwards

Dadmiral Vance, Cleveland Booker, and Agent Kovich would like a word. Plus, Culber’s role was really beefed up in seasons 3-5. Even Reese stepped up and became more than a background character in later seasons. Not to mention Saru being the ship’s captain in season 3. In season 4 you have the Tarka/Book plot, which I would describe as extremely male, and even the scientist Hirai played a major role in that season.

I know you anticipated this critique, but there really were lots of strong male characters in later seasons of Disco, they were coming out of its ears there were so many… it’s just that the main cast just wasn’t made up of a supermajority of traditional male archetypes like on previous Trek shows, so it feels like “less” somehow.

People praise Voyager and DS9 for their depictions of woman characters, but both those shows still had like an 80% male cast. DS9 had only 2 women as regulars, and Voyager had only 3.

Disco might seem very female-oriented, but trust me, it really only seems that way. I know that feels like I’m attacking your perception or accusing you of something, but I notice it, too, and have to remind myself sometimes that it’s my beloved older Trek shows that were wildly unbalanced, not Disco, and Disco wasn’t some corrective in the opposite direction, it’s just… actually balanced.

Re Paradise: Mean? Maybe so. Harsh? Yes. She has a (IMHO) dry, sterile form of storytelling. There was no actual coherent flow to this season. They took ideas from the writers’ room and plugged them in to tick a box. She was given the job of cleanup showrunner or backup QB. Her good organizational qualities hurt the passion of the show. A lot of the episode plot points felt contrived. When we compare how heroic Burnham, Georgiou, etc., were and are throughout the series? For myself, there were no male characters I either identified with or was rooting for until Rayner. I was looking for male characters that reminded me of Kirk, Pike, Scotty and the other male costars on TNG, DS9 and the others. For the record, I’m a fan of DSC. I was out there defending it and singing its praises. In S2, we got some of the best Star Trek, period. I stand by my opinion of Paradise as a showrunner, as mean as you think it is.

Wow you are so on the nose with Paradise. I still think she is an awful show runner but this season at least didn’t feel completely tedious with a lot of melodramatic schlock as the last two. But no I won’t miss her either.

She was absolutely the wrong person to leading the writers room, so your criticism is fair. They need sci-fi writers, and too few, if any, on staff. That’s the root of the problem.

For myself, there were no male characters I either identified with or was rooting for until Rayner. 

This post-2015-or-so idea that characters are legitimate only if a viewer can “identify” with them is bizarre.

If I can’t relate to a character, and the story is crap, then why should I watch?

To broaden your horizons. IDIC, and all that.

Yet I watched faithfully—each week. I applauded the strong female characters and DSC’s inclusivity. I didn’t dismiss DSC as crap or not “true” Trek.

I’m not sure I can speak to how being a “details producer” does or doesn’t help the show, but I think at this point it’s safe to say Paradise doesn’t have a ton of range. Problems are continually solved with variations on, “Trust ME! Feelings! It was CONNECTION all along!” She doesn’t have much of a defining stamp beyond that, and didn’t demonstrate a desire or ability to do any episodes that broke outside of a defined box. She peaked with her first season 3 episode IMO.

A “details producer” is usually very organized. Once a script is locked down, the showrunner is responsible for finishing the episodes on time and within the episode budget(s). Being organized is a good thing. As I mentioned, she took a checklist storywise and clicked the boxes. It didn’t matter that the plot points were out of order, didn’t make sense, or pay off at the end of the season. She got the episodes “in the can” on time and within the budget. Moll and Laak made ZERO sense to the plot besides someone to compete with to get the tech. At best, it’s the same retreading of ideas.

I know what a producer and a showrunner does. :) I just meant calling someone a “details producer” doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not more than their organizational prowess. It can mean they are good at intricate long term plotting for instance. JMS while running Babylon 5 could be called one, for instance.

From what we’ve seen of her work, I think your assessment is fair, especially as we know she was sweating the detail of “Calypso” for years. She has a vision and overarching direction for the show, but Paradise comes across as a workmanlike producer and writer who has a lane and a certain box of tricks she prefers and sticks to. She brought calm and order to a show previously defined by BTS chaos (and during the pandemic, no less) and no doubt Kurtzman appreciated not having to put out fires while dealing with the headache that was Picard. There’s not much flair to anything but it was competently made and the cast and crew were happy.

I actually really enjoyed this and would have found it a fitting finale even without the additional twenty minute epilogue. Although it was beautiful to see, and, man, Admiral Burnham aged a lot more flatteringly than Admiral Janeway.

I would have preferred Kovich had remained his own character. Some mysteries don’t need explanation.

nice tie in to Calypso though. I need to rewatch that again now.

I’ll miss the show. Despite the vitriol it’s received from so many, I’ve always had a soft spot for it and have enjoyed every season to greater or lesser degrees.

Well Janeway had 25th century aging tech vs Burnham’s 33rd century aging tech. ;D

And I really want to say something about black rarely crack but I guess it’s not appropriate here lol.

I thought we were going to cut away just as he was telling her.

well, that was a waste of everyone time

Not in the least.

I thought it was an absolute mess.

It wasn’t a waste of my time.

So long DISCO! Wow what a ride it has been. THANK YOU to all that had a hand in it’s creation over the years. TREK has never looked better, or had loftier goals. Thanks for the inclusiveness…I will always ship CulMets! AND, root for Adira! :-) Now, time for a start to finish DISCO rewatch. Without DISCO there wouldn’t be a SNW or Lower Decks or all the TREK that WILL follow. If you are ready….LET’S FLY!

100% agree on all of it :)

So happy you enjoyed it! :)

Without DISCO there wouldn’t be a SNW or Lower Decks 

I’m not sure that’s quite the talking point you think it is.

Well, it was a little better than the TOS “finale” but wasn’t as satisfying as the TNG era finales.

Sorry, but the whole Progenitor reveal was a major letdown for me. A lot of stuff to look at, but nothing really happening. Also, the forced tie-in to Calypso at the end made no sense at all. Was it Kovich/Agent Daniels who told Michael about it off camera? Seemed unnecessary.

I’m happy others liked it, but I never connected with the 32nd century version of the show. I watched and I tried to connect with it. It just never happened.

Seasons 1 and 2 will always be my preferred version Discovery.

Hard disagree. Nothing could be as dissatisfying and Voyager’s disastrous finale. Or, shudder, Enterprise.

At least the Voyager and Enterprise finales had an actual story to follow with characters I cared about. I enjoyed them more than what Discovery delivered in its finale. But again, glad you enjoyed it. I didn’t.

I’ve always liked Endgame but could’ve been stronger for sure. I always felt what was missing from it was its own epilogue. Yeah no comment on TATV lol. But I think most people feel Demons/Terra Prime is really that show’s true finale since TATV was Riker literally just in a holodeck reminiscing.

Sorry, but the whole Progenitor reveal was a major letdown for me. A lot of stuff to look at, but nothing really happening.

Exactly. This is what happens when you let the special effects, including that virtual reality wall, supplant solid writing.

I never connected with the 32nd century version of the show.

Agreed; I would have been content had they wrapped Discovery after season 2.

A pretty cool episode right up until the great reveal (even then it could’ve done without several minutes of Burnham-Fu that went absolutely nowhere), but everything after was oh so formulaic and therefore rather disappointing. Okay, at least the notion of “we don’t really NEED that super-powerful technology” added a tiny bit to the old “too powerful for any faction to own”-trope and yet it was that stale trope that drove Michael’s final decision… yeah and the rest was mostly nice, but really just padding. The Kovich-reveal? – Yeah, good old Daniels, so what? – Didn’t really tie into ENT’s Temporal Cold War-arc. Saru finally getting married? – Cute, but it would’ve been a real bummer if he wasn’t. Michael and Book getting back together? – So very predictable. And the epilogue? – Boy did they go to lengths only so a single Short Treks episode would finally make more sense. But at least we got to see Owo, Detmer and Bryce one last time.

So another site is reporting Saru was also promoted to Admiral? Did anyone hear this?

Apparently Admiral Vance calls Saru Admiral at the wedding.

It’s not mentioned in dialogue, but Burnham and Book’s son’s name is Leto.

It is mentioned. When I heard it, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard correctly (really, “Leto?” like from Dune?), but I did hear it.

Leto was thr name of Book’s nephew that was killed in S4.

Leto was Book nephew, tht died in the desctruction of the planet.

One last time. The shows problems have remained problems even after their move to the future. Bad writing and poor characters. The final few seasons relied heavily on the audience caring about the characters. Since I never really cared about any of them that just opened the door to the terrible writing and plotting. This season was pretty predictable all the way. The only thing I really didn’t see coming was Moll just believing Burnham when she told her resurrection wasn’t possible. Although Moll was pretty gullible thinking it was. Obviously it wasn’t. When Burnham told her Moll had bought into the idea so hard that there was no way she should have bought it. She gave up way too easily.

That tagged on coda really didn’t work either. Everyone showed up like the end of Titanic. I’m thinking “did everyone die?” That felt weird. And I guess they wanted to make that Sort Trek relevant but I honestly didn’t see the need to slavishly adhere to it. Still makes no sense, however.

Anyway, it’s unfortunate the Academy show remains in that time frame. All these shows made by Secret Hideout have built in uphill battles but I saw no reason to create more speed bumps by remaining in the 32nd century. Well, it is what it is. That’s one way to satisfy the fans who like Star Trek Discovery. Leaves it open for every actor to show up. And we all know they will.

It didn’t sound like you liked the ending at all but I can’t disagree with some of your issues. I am actually surprised they didn’t resurrect Lak by the end. This is Star Trek, it’s literally a given lol but nice to subvert expectations once in awhile. But overall I did really enjoy it although I was very mixed on the season as a whole.

But I know your thoughts on all the modern shows and they are not very positive lol. But maybe the Academy show will surprise you and others. If not, you will always have ENT, TOS and DS9 to watch.

I have TOS, Enterprise and the feature films on disc. If DS9 ever gets remastered I’ll pick that up. Until then those are the episodes and films I check in on from time to time for my Trek fix.

I did like Prodigy’s first half, however. Hoping their 2nd season can get back to that level.

Deep Space Nine’s first two seasons look hilariously bad on DVD, you’d think someone taped it off tv on a VCR to a VHS tape and that was the version they put on disc. I wish they’d do a 2k 35mm scan. At this point I’ll live with an upscale of the effects, just do it.

Well, that’s done, then.

I truly loved the finale overall. Yeah, there were certainly questionable and unnecessary things in it to say the least but overall it worked for me. I just loved how Trek-y it all felt. I loved how everything looked inside the portal and we met a progenitor (I was hoping among hope we met the original from TNG but yes I know the actress is now 90) to ultimately deciding it was just too powerful to use and so they got rid of it. Yeah I think most people thought they would either destroy it or put it somewhere that no one could access it but it was a very Trek conclusion.

And the visuals and FX were very impressive and beautiful throughout the episode. It felt like a movie and very cinematic. All the money was on the screen for sure.

The best moment for me was when Kovich revealed he was Agent Daniels. That literally got a huge GASP out of me lol. I was truly surprised but a very welcomed one. It was a great twist in so many ways, mostly because we always knew he was involved with the Temporal Wars. I literally went back and watched a ton of Daniels clips on Youtube lol. It really makes you look at Kovich time on the show very differently now.

I thought Saru and T’rina’s wedding was a nice way to end the episode which was obviously the true ending of the episode. We saw it all coming but it was still nicely done.

And I loved the epilogue so much. It was sweet and very endearing. It was nice to see Michael and Book decades into the future happy with a family. And while the tie in to Calypso felt a bit clunky (and raises SO many questions lol) I still liked it as the final scene. It is a little sad Zora is basically out there just waiting for Craft until the 43rd century but I liked the existential feel to it.

While the season has been VERY mixed for me to say the least I thought it ended well enough and sadly the first finale I can truly say I loved on this show lol. I didn’t hate season’s four finale but I was so checked out on the show by then I just didn’t care by then. It’s certainly not All Good Things level but I will say it is better than Endgame and certainly better than TATV lol. But I give the finale an 8/10.

There are certainly things I didn’t like and had issues with which I will certainly talk about but I wanted to leave my overall thoughts on a more positive note. I have given Discovery a very hard time over the last five seasons, most of it well deserved in my book lol. But I have ALWAYS rooted for the show every season and maybe in time my feelings will change on a lot of it. It’s just a very hard show for me to love for sooooo many reasons and still remains my least favorite show in the franchise. But I can also say this was the best season for me by far and I hope everyone who has loved it from the beginning loved it just as much in the end.

Well now that it’s over with, it’s time to leave the 32nd century (for a little while at least ;)) and travel back to the 24th century. The only question is will it be LDS, PRO or Section 31 next? Whatever comes next, I’m excited for it!

Ok now that was awesome. It definitely was a fitting series finale, even if it wasn’t supposed to be originally! I also loved the epilogue, I almost cried as I knew this was the end for these characters. Let’s just hope Starfleet Academy lasts long enough for some of them to return.

Have to admit that while I found plenty to gripe about with regard to the resolution and outcome of the story, the journey and tone of the entire season (and especially the finale) felt pitch perfect Star Trek. Creative and contemplative with excellent character building through sharp writing. This season, more than any other Discovery season, has felt the most embedded in the franchise, I really felt at home and I loved spending every minute with this show. The tedium of recent seasons was gone and enjoyed every moment with this crew and setting. The real standout this season has been Michael Burnham, and that really is the true achievement of the season, she became a confident leader that I believed in and respected for the first time. This really is SMJ grand finale which is the perfect way to end the show.

I will admit to being a little confused by the Daniels revelation, mostly because Kovich didn’t resemble the Daniels I think of at all. I know it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, but the Calypso finale was such a beautiful way to end the story of Discovery. Not only does it give us some finality to the ship, but it also gives a chance to see the ship restored to bookend the show. It’s still insane that Starfleet would abandon its only Spore Drive ship, especially since it’s impossible to classify this thing at this point so people are going to be looking for it. But the Red Directive gives us plenty of head canon to work with to cover those gaps, I suppose.

Either way, I’m extremely happy with the finale and thankful for a season I truly enjoyed…for once! Bravo and farewell! Thanks for giving this TNG+ fan an unexpected gift!

I really enjoyed the finale and this was certainly Discovery’s strongest season since season 2. Loved how it tied into Calypso and the Kovich/Daniels reveal was great.

I would agree as well. This is certainly the strongest season since season 2 and it’s probably a tie for me between them.

I got emotional. I will be watching that again. They did a good job.

So did I man…so did I.

Usually when I’m crying after watching an episode of Discovery it’s for an entirely different reason lol.

LOL True. But this season I was not crying and yelling at the same time!

One of the poorest final episodes I have ever seen.

I have wanted each and every episode to be better, I have tried to justify to others to keep trying to watch this show.

There are great sci-fi stories and adventures but on the whole something keeps missing the spot.

This is the first final I have ever wanted to end and spent time watching the clock.

I felt no emotion to the characters, even though I wanted too and I really wanted a great last episode.

The show ended consistently with how it always was throughout the five seasons: Heavy on loooong, manufactured emotional beats; light on particular details of the plot actually making any sense whatsoever. Heavy on characters wrestling with emotional quandaries the audience has moved well past already; light on organic character development that feels earned. Random thoughts immediately after watching: This episode had about five endings. Quite over-written. I love how we’ve been primed all season for SaT’rinaru’s wedding… and then Burnham and Booker ditch the reception because more space adventures! That’s just cold. Kovich is revealed as “Agent Daniels”… my mouth drops open for 10 seconds… and all I can think to say is… “Who?” Because I haven’t watched most of Enterprise, and what I have seen of that series I’ve forgotten. (Ironically, I did just start watching from the beginning along with the Greatest Generation podcast so I suppose there’s a chance I might finally see the whole show with Archer and co.) I know the writers were going for a deep cut and I suppose this technically qualifies. I’m guessing many Disco watchers had the exact same reaction as me: nonplussed. How does it make sense for there to be TNG and DS9 memorabilia on Kovich’s wall, if he’s a character from Enterprise? For a moment I was thinking they were going to make him out to be Luther Sloane (Section 31, DS9) and as dumb as that would have been, at least I would have known that character. Oh, sure, they tossed in a cryptic line about “other places” so you can head-canon Daniels into the other shows, if you care to try. But sorry, that’s not how nostalgia and callbacks work at all. It was completely shoehorned fake canon stuffed into a deep cut reference. That really clanged. Speaking of shoehorned—I had thought the writers had given up on resolving the Calypso conundrum. Turns out, they should have left it alone. Completely whiffed on tying things up in a way that made sense. Stripping “A” off the paint job and flying it to the middle of nowhere secretly because something something Red Directive? That’s not an explanation. That’s the writers throwing their hands in the air and going, “I got nothin’.” I did speculate this is exactly how it would play out, though. So, no surprise here. What really matters is, Burnham was teary-eyed for a good, long while, feeling her feelings! They sure used the heck out of every square inch of the AR wall. I didn’t believe any of those locations were actual, real, physical places. But that’s become the norm in modern TV. The contemporary equivalent of TOS-style purple skies and painted cardboard rocks on every planet. Not the worst sin, just not nearly as effective as the VFX-obsessed producers probably believe it is. (See most of Andor for an example of how to make sci-fi locations look dense, interesting, and realistic.) Kinda bold move not to bring L’ak back in the episode, I suppose. I expected they would go for the easy, happy ending. They did leave the door open for Moll to find some miracle way to return him in the future, of course. Sadly, I just feel nothing for either of those characters. I’m already forgetting about them. Tilly’s going to be in the Academy show. We get it. We get it. (sigh) I couldn’t help myself, I had to laugh out loud at the nonstop camera shakes and spinning. It’s always been too much. But they cranked it to eleven for the finale. Really felt like a parody, but it was done in earnest. I got dizzy and disoriented, and not in a way that enhanced my enjoyment of the show. I literally said out loud, “stop moving the camera for no good reason!” Lock it down and let these people act, for crying out loud. Speaking of crying, the final final final end scene had me going, “yeah, I don’t really feel anything when it comes to saying goodbye to at least half of these characters, because we don’t know them.” Sad that in five seasons the writers couldn’t give any meaningful characterization to most of the bridge crew. I hope the actors get good residual paychecks or something, because they will get zero career benefits from appearing as a glorified background actor. A few of those people weren’t even in this season, right? But they show up at the end to hug and cry and say goodbye. I do remember there was a scene where that Saurian sneezed a lot of snot on Burnham one time. I think that’s about it, though. Farewell, Disco. You went out the same way you came in. Trying way too hard, yet not hard enough, completely unaware of how awkward you really …  Read more »

I loved some things about this episode and hated others, which is how  Discovery  usually stacks up for me. :-) Exploring the galaxy with Starfleet never gets old, and the Starfleet mandate to not only explore but also to help allied planets in trouble, to protect everyone the Prime Directive allows, and to just generally make the galaxy a better place never gets old for me.

I do wish that we hadn’t had a REALLY extensive fistfight between Burnham and Moll during the middle of the episode, though. We’re trying to bring a person back to life, to keep the Breen from destroying everything, and to discover how life was created, and it all comes down to a FISTFIGHT? Seriously? I know Kirk had to have a fistfight in nearly every episode because NBC demanded “action,” but  Discovery  is on a streaming service … is a fistfight really still necessary? I mean, the backgrounds during the fight were gorgeous, but that just made the whole idea of a fistfight seem even more incongruous to me.

I hate, hate hate Olatunde Osunsanmi’s direction. EVERY time he directs an episode, his direction calls attention to itself, as if the director can’t resist saying, “Look at me; look at meeeee!” The constant camera spinning feels weird and juvenile to me; the direction is supposed to SUPPORT the story, not get in the way of it.

While I agreed with Burnham’s decision to let the Progenitors’ tech fall into the black hole, I thought that spending 30 seconds on that decision vs. twenty minutes on Admiral Burnham and her son and the setup to  Calypso  was a rather imbalanced placement of priorities. I would have liked to have seen Burnham talk aloud about the GOOD that Progenitors’ tech might have enabled her to do and to balance that against the possible negative consequences, whereas she only talked about building an army.

Good bye,  Discovery!  Thank you for bringing us  Strange New Worlds  and  Lower Decks  and  Prodigy .

“I hate, hate hate Olatunde Osunsanmi’s direction. EVERY time he directs an episode, his direction calls attention to itself … the direction is supposed to SUPPORT the story, not get in the way of it.”

I’m not a fan of his directing either. His signature move gets used far too much.

Plus, even from the start it was obvious that the Maguffin would either be fake or destroyed. No way can that sort of power be lying around for just anyone to grab. Even for the awful writing crews at Secret Hideout.

By and large a great episode.. the ending was great.. EXCEPT the contrived ending that made no sense from an in-show perspective. Having them redo the ship back to her original look and parking her in a nebula is a great idea for fans who just MUST have a connection to “Calypso”, but in-universe, from the characters perspective, the best they could do to make it make sense is ‘a red directive’. It literally makes no sense that this ship gets parked in a nebula after being remade to look like she originally did, and not at the fleet museum, if you’re looking at it from in-universe, in-show, at that moment perspective and NOT from a fan who is hung up on the show connecting to a 15-minute short from six years ago. And it took me right out of the moment.

It would have made far more sense to have her restored to her original configuration for the Fleet Museum and putting her there in the series finale so that fans that simply MUST have that connection to “Calypso” can use their imagination to say that some time after the show the ship must get stolen, pulled out of mothballs, or whatever.

Oh, and what a crappy thing to do to Zora, to deliberately leave her aboard an abandoned ship for a thousand years by herself. I guess there are no AI rights in the 32nd century.

I’m going to try to rewatch.. but I go back to.. what is the why? There was a mention of Craft.. but the only thing I could figure was to go back to season 2 when Discovery protected itself.. so they couldn’t destroy it.. had to abandon it.. so it was there to protect the sphere data?.. maybe?

What’s more secure – the Fleet Museum, or some random place in a nebula by itself where nobody’s watching it and anyone could stumble upon it? Okay granted, the ‘red directive’ mentioning Craft indicates someone – Kovich/Daniels – knows it won’t be for a thousand years… and now Kovich/Daniels has taken on the role of a god who can control history and the fates of people and or worlds and or civilizations with his omniscience. A bit much.

My headcanon retcon: Discovery is also going back in time to 2258 and hiding, not just in a nebula, but in time… That’s why it’s disguised into its older form.

Okay – I’ll confess – I teared up a bit when the camera panned over some of that Trek memorabilia in Kovaks office

For all my railin against this episode.. that was cool. Not emotional for me, because this show has lost me to the point that not even those artifacts are enough to get me emotional.

I understand – I’m older than Kovak so anything that creatively integrates TOS and TNG hits me – lol

I thought it was weird he would have them. And Burnham wouldn’t have known what any of them were anyway.

That’s ok.. it was really just for us. I would’ve liked to have seen a bigger array of stuff.. Enterprise, TOS.. I just recall seeing TNG and DS9 stuff.

Oh, what an adventure. My thanks to the cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery for a five-season voyage.

At the end of the day I’m glad Picard and Discovery had a beginning, middle, and end. Despite the fact sine may not consider it perfect, Star Trek, canon. I’m glad it was able to wrap up.

The final season was a lack luster excise of a Holy Grail quest. Agent Daniels reveal…I just didn’t care.

So basically, the whole season was reset to zero after chasing their tail. A lot like every Doctor Who story: everyone runs around concerned about universe ending consequences… and then nothing happens.

That’s not fair. Sometimes in Doctor Who the universe did actually end. Or at least part of it got wiped out.

Until it’s not. Gallifrey’s destroyed. Oh look it wasn’t after all! … etc.

I think the ending highlights that they had a great concept but watered it down concerning having a 23rd century starship crew end up in the future after something catastrophic had destroyed the Federation and having them having to completely rebuild it. You’d be back to starships being powerful capital ships in the middle of nowhere, no back up, the need to colonize and connect with alien races, threats being extremely dangerous, space the final frontier. The stakes would even be higher. In Balance of Terror the Captain had to make decisions on behalf of the Federation due to communication times, they could have had it where Michael was making decisions because she was all that was left of the Federation. Also a nice theme about the 23rd century frontier can-do boldly go spirit persevering, that today’s humanity still has a place in the 35th. You’d get to reboot Star Trek without having to reboot Star Trek! I think Discovery would have been much stronger had they gone all in vs. a watered down burn, the Federation isn’t destroyed or perverted, it’s just in hiding, the Burn is just a childs temper tantrum, etc. Ironically… I guess this means even this version of the Federation falls and only an old Discovery for some reason can save the day? What? Why? What happens? I actually want to watch that show, as long as they show and not just tell.

I think the ending highlights that they had a great concept but watered it down concerning having a 23rd century starship crew end up in the future after something catastrophic had destroyed the Federation (temporal war and all) and having them having to completely rebuild it. Outside that I think Discovery was a better show pre time jump. You’d be back to starships being powerful capital ships in the middle of nowhere, no back up, the need to colonize and connect with alien races, threats being extremely dangerous, space the final frontier. The stakes would even be higher. In Balance of Terror the Captain had to make decisions on behalf of the Federation due to communication times, they could have had it where Michael was making decisions because she was all that was left of the Federation. Also a nice theme about the 23rd century frontier can-do boldly go spirit persevering, that today’s humanity still has a place in the 35th. You’d get to reboot Star Trek without having to reboot Star Trek! I think Discovery would have been much stronger had they gone all in vs. a watered down burn, the Federation isn’t destroyed, it’s just in hiding, the Burn is just a tantrum, etc. There are still hundreds of Starships after all. Ironically… I guess this means even this version of the Federation falls and only an old Discovery for some reason can save the day? What? Why? What happens? I actually want to watch that show, as long as they show and not just tell.

It’s been a long road.

To me the final scene was a way to reintroduce the original discovery to the universe and delete the red directive on the time jump. Now they can say “oh look we found this long lost ship finally” Yeah it’s a stupid head canon but it could work.

I can’t stop thinking about Zora. Stuck out there, all on her own, for a thousand years.

Did Michael destroy/kill a Progenitor along with the tech?

Did this ending essentially rip off the ending of BSG?

The tech wasn’t destroyed, just moves inside the event horizon.

Thirty seconds of dialog by Kovich could have explained the Calypso situation. He could have said how remarkable Discovery was to history… and when it time jumped, a copy of the ship opened up a new alternate universe. One where they abandoned ship and history in that universe split. It would have tied his comments about the mirror and Kelvin universe he made earlier in the series to the Calypao short…. Plot hole solved … it also would have opened up future Trek storylines as Kovich leads research into this other universe…. Sigh ….

Umm who activated the spore drive at the end?

Burnham and a crew were aboard the Discovery as it departed. After travel to coordinates in deep space, Burnham and crew abandoned ship.

I thought the finale was very good, not great, but as others have said it felt very much like Star Trek. I am not sure what they ended up filming post production, but I assume it was much of the epilogue with Booker and Burnham and their son along with the final scene on board Discovery. Both scenes were filled with hope for the future (even if Zora has to wait for the 42nd century) and that is very Star Trek.

Regarding Agent Daniels, USS Enterprise – nice touch and connection with the much maligned Enterprise. Let’s hope we get to see what really happened to Archer and the rest of his crew sometime in the future (I choose to ignore that series finale as something that didn’t happen haha)

From a ranking standpoint, I would give this finale a solid 7.5 out of 10. Far better than the Enterprise and TOS finales which were simply terrible, but behind TNG and DS9. Maybe it slots in just behind Voyager’s Endgame.

As for legacy, yeah like many I hated the first half of S1 and the show did its best to slowly battle back from a terrible debut, with varying levels of success and failure. In retrospect I must admit Discovery did take some big chances, once again with varying levels of success and failure.

Ultimately, although alienating many legacy fans, Discovery was in many ways ground-breaking, in the last three seasons embracing IDIC more than any other series and targeting new demographics. The show did manage to attract an expanded audience as evidenced by the rather surprising ratings numbers – at least for S5. The show also helped spawn Short Treks, SNW, Picard, LDs and Prodigy and the upcoming S31 and SFA – and that is a worthy legacy by itself. Congrats to the cast and crew of Discovery.

Btw, even though it had just 5 seasons, the show did last 7 years (2018-2024). Let’s hope SNW will exceed that run. LLAP!

I will admit I found the “coda” a bit off-putting. All that to make Calypso canonical? But looking at it, I’m seeing more a bit of them using Calypso for the coda, not the other way around. But there was something else: The only people we really saw were Burnham and Book, and mentions of Tilly and Vance (still on duty? That’s a long time.) Everyone else was in Michael’s vision. Did they really have to do that? She said she had a crew, but there was no one else on the bridge. They had all the actors there- couldn’t the bridge doors have opened and they all would have come out, a little aged? (For that matter, why wouldn’t Book come along?) For all the criticisms that this was the Burnham show, that really sealed it.

Burnham’s Pointless Fisticuffs: Apparently, twenty minutes of gratuitous fighting is the best use of our protagonist’s time before she remembers that talking might be a more effective strategy.

Rayner and Nhan’s Non-Roles: Characters so crucial to the story that they could have been completely omitted without anyone noticing.

Culber’s Magical Connection: Culber’s metaphysical link to Jinaal conveniently giving him the knowledge of subspace frequencies. Because that’s how pseudoscience works, right?

Puzzle in Two Dimensions: Introducing the concept of extradimensional thinking only to present a mundane two-dimensional puzzle.

The Great Anti-Climax: Burnham’s profound encounter with ancient technology boils down to learning absolutely nothing new or exciting.

Unnecessary Epilogue: Adding a continuity fix for a short episode that no one really needed, because tying up loose ends from a Short Trek story is clearly a top priority in a series that utterly wrecked canon anyway.

Spore Drive Nonsense: The already ridiculous spore drive is taken to new heights with impossible feats of magic tech, defying all known laws of science and common sense.

Glad this series is over. Don’t know how anyone ever liked it, but if you did, sorry you’re losing a show you liked. But for me – don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Discovery!

I mostly agree with all points. Except that I think Rayner offer a lot to the season and that the climax was an anti-climax. Keeping the mystery was better drama, and better sci fi. It worked story-wise because Michael overcomes her God complex and makes a wise and reasoned choice that reflects the personal growth that she’s experienced in rumor with no evidence to support the rumor until this moment.

Star Trek finally realizes its potential in its finale. While remaining true to Discovery, the show finally feels like Star Trek. The writers managed to satisfy character arcs while subverting my expectations: Michael gets the opportunity to become a god, and refuses it, overcoming her messiah complex. Stamets doesn’t get his “legacy” but he learns to accept who he is and what he’s been a part of. The epilogue was mostly unnecessary. How fitting that the entire bridge crew would show up and have no dialogue and nothing to do.

And they didn’t even really show up! The actors did and the characters didn’t.

What Is Up With the Klingons in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’?

The Klingons have been a staple of the Star Trek universe since the original series. A fierce warrior race that has often been in conflict with the Federation, they will be key antagonists in  Star Trek: Discovery . But, what we’ve seen of the Klingons has us a little confused .

Why Do They Look Different?

The Klingons have been redesigned during the course of the Star Trek franchise. But, the Klingons in  Star Trek: Discovery look radically different than any Klingons we’ve seen before. Their skin color is more purple than brown. Most appear to be bald (even Klingon women) whereas in the previous Trek TV series many had long hair. They also are wearing ornate armor that doesn’t seem to reference any time period in Klingon history that fans are familiar with.

It turns out that’s on purpose. The creators of  Star Trek: Discovery wanted to redesign the Klingons. There had to be a narrative reason to do so. That’s why these new Klingons are utilizing ancient Klingon technology. Their families might even be isolated from regular Klingon life.

That’s where the leaders of this Klingon faction come into play.

The Leaders

This group of Klingons is lead by T’Kuvma. T’Kuvma is a proud but zealous Klingon warrior. He follows an ancient and puritanical way of Klingon life. He believes he is the reincarnation of Kahless , the founder the Klingon Empire . The Klingons view him as a near-deity. It seems that T’Kuvma is leading a radical splinter group that the other Klingon houses are wary of.

T’Kuvma is joined by his second-in-command, Kol. Kol is from the House of Kor . Kor was one of the first Klingons introduced in the original series. It sounds like this will link up to the Klingon race that we’re familiar with.

There is also L’Rell, T’Kuvma’s battle deck commander. Klingon culture is a patriarchal society and L’Rell is an ambitious female Klingon. It’s likely that her assertive personality will clash with T’Kuvma and Kol.

T’Kuvma’s ship is unlike any in the Klingon Empire. It’s 200 years old and is partially constructed out of Klingon sarcophagi. This is an interesting twist because Klingons normally do not preserve their dead. Once a Klingon has died, their body is considered trash.

T’Kuvma’s ship will give us a peek into ancient Klingon ways of life. Along with the bizarre ship, we’ve also seen a new kind of Klingon suit called “torchbearer.” It seems to be a space suit. Exactly how often we’ll see the torchbearer suit is unknown.

Exploring Strange, New Worlds

There is a lot that’s shocking about what we’ve seen of the Klingons in  Star Trek: Discovery . It might seem jarring to fans, but Star Trek is a franchise that has always challenged expectations. Hopefully, this new take on the classic alien race will boldly go where no Star Trek series has gone before.

Star Trek Discovery premieres on CBS and CBS All Access September 24 in the U.S. and on Netflix in the U.K. the following day.

Star Trek: The Progenitors, Explained

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Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Timescape Explained

Star trek: what happened to data, star trek: who is agent daniels.

Star Trek stories frequently tackle big questions. Individual episodes can work through everything from personal romantic relationships to intergalactic war. Most stories are character-driven, but modern takes on the franchise tend to deal with massive movements in society and culture. Star Trek: Discovery made a few key callbacks to early ideas, expanding concepts that might not have received the spotlight. One such example explores the Progenitors, the unique alien species that created humanity.

Star Trek has very different goals in the modern era. Old seasons could tell short, episodic stories that wrapped up as the credits rolled. Streaming services and modern networks want shows that must be watched in a specific order, promoting the binge model or guaranteeing return customers. Shows like Star Trek: Discovery live and die on cliffhangers and "previously on" segments. Story elements like the Progenitors work well for either model.

The time-freezing Season 6 classic is more than an excuse to yet again destroy the USS Enterprise.

Who were the Progenitors?

The Progenitors were the common ancestors of almost all sentient life in the Star Trek universe . They're humanoid aliens with several unusual physical traits. They have no hair on their bodies. They're bald with no eyebrows, making them look simultaneously ancient and newborn. Their eyes look just like human eyes, but they're extremely deep-set in their skulls. They have long, oddly-shaped heads with tiny ears. The first Progenitors depicted in Star Trek are extremely pale. Their pink skin has a slightly sickly appearance. Newer examples sometimes have black skin. Their appearance is unusual, but they behave much like human beings in their limited appearances. The Progenitors would have been one of the first sentient species in the galaxy. Aspects of their design likely influenced that of several other species.

The Progenitors came into existence around 4.5 billion years ago. They evolved on an unnamed planet and gradually developed into an early sentient species. They were likely the first humanoid beings in the galaxy . With their increased intelligence, they reasoned that their time in the universe would be finite. They deduced that every species had a shelf life and none could expect to go on forever. Subsequently, they set to work creating the next several generations of life in the universe. The Progenitors seeded several planets across the universe with specially-crafted DNA samples. Their contributions to the primoridial soup gradually developed into new sentient species. Earth was one of their targets, eventually resulting in the human race. They probably laid forth the genetic material that would become almost every other notable Star Trek species. The same group that created humanity likely built the Cardassians , Vulcans, Klingons, and Romulans.

Where did the Progenitors first appear?

The Progenitors' debut comes in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called "The Chase." The twentieth episode of the sixth season depicts Picard working to finish the final project of his old archeology teacher. Picard's beloved mentor dies after an unexpected attack, leaving Picard to struggle with his studies. He finds DNA evidence to suggest a distant connection between many different species. While traveling to the professor's next destination, Picard and the crew encounter Klingon and Cardassian vessels. They agree to work together despite expecting different treasures at the end of the journey. The Cardassians try to sabotage the Enterprise , but Picard works with the Klingons to find the hidden destination. The Romulans and Cardassians reach the location just in time to see Picard and Dr. Crusher solves the puzzle by scanning a sea-bed. The resulting solution plays a hologram of a Progenitor who explains the history of their species. It's an in-universe explanation of why so many unique beings in Star Trek are rubber-forehead aliens . The Progenitor ends their message hoping that the knowledge of every species' shared heritage might bring peace. The Klingons and Cardassians seem angry, but Picard seems hopeful.

What happened to the Progenitors' machines?

Star Trek: Discovery resurrected the Progenitors for a new storyline . This new take on the material unpacked the machinery that the Progenitors used to seed planets with DNA. The show depicts scientists finding that technology. Betazoid neuroscientist Marina Derex discovers a portal that allows her to communicate with a Progenitor, left behind in a liminal space to guide future generations. Derex believed that the existing species weren't ready for this responsibility, promising to work toward a better future on the Progenitor's behalf. The scientists buried every piece of evidence, saving the critical information for some unknown upcoming era. In the 32nd century, Michael Burnham finds the same portal and chats with the same Progenitor. That alien voice explains that their species didn't invent the technology, but merely discovered it as she had. Something must have invented that technology and used it to create the Progenitors. The Progenitor trusts Burnham with the portal, and she sends it into a black hole , burying the secrets even deeper.

The Progenitors are a fascinating science fiction idea that could have been explored more. Star Trek: Discovery didn't have the same message behind their inclusion of this unique species. The Next Generation used a common creator to argue for peace. Discovery used the promise of advanced technology to add more questions. It's a bizarre new take on the premise.

The most famous android in Star Trek has had a huge impact on the franchise.

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 - Everything We Know

Star trek: discovery’s burnham and saru friendship is great, but i miss their old dynamic, discovery’s finale proves 5 star trek seasons is not the new 7.

• Star Trek: Discovery's ever-changing Captains made for a wild ride through 5 seasons - even a mystery Captain!
• The USS Discovery's advanced tech and heroic missions saved the galaxy, but its Captains faced challenges and betrayals.
• From Mirror Universe frauds to stalwart Kelpien leaders, the Captains of the Discovery each left their mark on Star Trek lore.

The eponymous starship of Star Trek: Discovery has remarkably had several Captains going into its fifth and final season, and there's even one Captain who Trekkers never got to meet or even learn the identity of. Star Trek: Discovery was infamous for the game of musical chairs the series has played with the USS Discovery's Captaincy . This reached absurd heights in Star Trek: Discovery season 1 as the various bizarre circumstances of the Disco's Captain's chair saw 4 people in the role of the USS Discovery's Captain.

The USS Discovery (NCC-1031) is a 23rd-century Crossfield Class starship originally designed as a state-of-the-art science and research vessel. Discovery was equipped with Starfleet's most advanced technology, including the revolutionary spore displacement hub drive . The Disco has saved the galaxy multiple times in the 23rd and 32nd centuries. Through it all, several people sat in Discovery's Captain's chair. Here is everyone who has commanded (or was supposed to command) the bridge as Captain of the Discovery in Star Trek: Discovery 's five seasons.

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.

11 Captain Gabriel Lorca (Mirror)

Discovery's first captain was a fraud from the mirror universe.

Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Issacs) was the first Captain of the Discovery, and he was a fraud. Lorca was actually from the Mirror Universe , and he replaced his Prime Universe counterpart, the former Captain of the lost USS Buran. As Captain of the Discovery, Lorca wanted to weaponize its spore drive with the stated goal of Starfleet winning the Klingon War . But Lorca's vaulting ambition was to find a way back to the Mirror Universe to complete his master plan of overthrowing Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). Lorca was also obsessed with Michael Burnham, who was his lover in the Mirror Universe. Locra's attempt to overthrow Georgiou failed, resulting in his death.

The Mirror Lorca was, in his way, an effective Captain of the Discovery.

Lorca endures as perhaps Star Trek: Discovery' s best villain . The Mirror Lorca was, in his way, an effective Captain of the Discovery. Lorca was certainly adept at hiding his secrets and he was a stern taskmaster who ruffled the feathers of the scientists aboard Discovery, like Lt. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp). However, to his credit, Lorca was also an experienced battle commander who led the USS Discovery to major victories over the Klingons. Still, the Mirror Lorca was revealed to be a manipulative liar and his legacy is a stain on the history of the USS Discovery that the crew has moved on from.

10 Captain Sylvia Tilly

Aka captain killy.

When the USS Discovery traveled to the Mirror Universe in Star Trek: Discovery season 1, Ensign Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) had to don golden armor and pose as her Mirror Universe counterpart, Captain Sylvia Tilly of the ISS Discovery. Mirror Tilly earned the nickname "Captain Killy" for her homicidal tendencies , and playing this role was an education for the pure-hearted Tilly from Star Trek 's Prime Universe. However, Sylvia's brief time in the USS Discovery's center seat as "Captain Killy" did help her confidence to become First Officer of Discovery in Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

In Star Trek: Discovery season 4, Lieutenant Sylvia Tilly left the USS Discovery to become an instructor at the newly reopened Starfleet Academy.

9 Admiral Katrina Cornwell

A rare good starfleet admiral.

Vice Admiral Katrina Cornwell (Jayne Brook) was the Starfleet flag officer who oversaw the USS Discovery's missions. Cornwell was also an intimate the Prime Universe's Gabriel Lorca; yet, despite her prior training as a therapist, Katrina was fooled by the Mirror Lorca and never suspected he was from another reality. Admiral Cornwell temporarily took command of the Disco from Acting Captain Saru after the starship returned from the Mirror Universe in Star Trek: Discovery season 1.

Admiral Cornwell perished as she heroically saved the USS Enterprise from a missile sent by Control during the final battle of Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

Admiral Cornwell brought the USS Discovery to Starbase 1, only to learn it was conquered by the Klingons, who massacred its personnel. The Admiral's time in Discovery' s Captain's chair was short as Cornwell stepped aside for the starship's next, and even more unlikely, temporary Captain, who was even more dangerous than Gabriel Lorca . Admiral Cornwell later perished as she heroically saved the USS Enterprise from a missile sent by Control during the final battle of Star Trek: Discovery season 2.

8 Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Mirror)

"captain georgiou" almost committed genocide.

Perhaps the most absurd Captain of the Discovery was the Mirror Universe's Emperor Philippa Georgiou, who pretended to be her dead Prime Universe counterpart, Captain Georgiou . The Emperor proposed that Starfleet end the Klingon war by attacking Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld , and detonating a hydrogen bomb inside the planet's mantle to render it uninhabitable. Desperate to put an end to the costly war, Starfleet Command shockingly backed this plot and Admiral Cornwell even agreed to allow the Emperor to pose as Captain Georgiou, who was "back from a classified assignment," and assume command of the Discovery.

Emperor Georgiou's time pretending to be Captain Georgiou was mercifully brief, and she escaped to Qo'noS after Michael Burnham stopped her plan. Instead, Burnham gave the hydrogen bomb detonator to L'Rell (Mary Chieffo), who used it to unite the Great Houses, end the war, and install herself as Klingon High Chancellor at the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 1 . Georgiou would resurface as part of Section 31 before joining Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the USS Discovery's trip to the 32nd century. Georgiou was ultimately sent to an unknown time and place by the Guardian of Forever (Paul Guilfoyle) to save her life in Star Trek: Discovery season 3.

Academy Award-winner Michelle Yeoh will return as Emperor Georgiou in the first made-for-Paramount+ Star Trek movie, Star Trek: Section 31.

7 Discovery's Unknown Captain

A mystery star trek: discovery will probably never solve.

After the United Federation of Planets' triumph in the Klingon War and the reinstatement of Michael Burnham to her rank of Commander, the USS Discovery set a course to Vulcan in order to pick up its new Captain. However, Discovery was intercepted by the USS Enterprise at the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 1. Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) came aboard to temporarily take over command of the Discovery. As such, the Discovery never did make it to Vulcan and Trekkers never learned who the mystery Captain was supposed to be . Regardless, whoever it was never got to command the Discovery, which vanished into the 32nd century. Discovery's existence was redacted from Starfleet records by Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck) to protect his adopted sister, Michael Burnham.

6 Captain Christopher Pike

"be bold. be brave. be courageous.".

The Captain of the USS Enterprise , Christopher Pike was transferred to the USS Discovery at the start of Star Trek: Discovery season 2. Captain Pike's mission was to investigate and solve the mystery of the red burst signals that appeared across space. Pike's orders intersected with the disappearance of the Enterprise's Science Officer, Lt. Spock, who later joined his Captain and Michael Burnham aboard the Discovery. In addition, Pike learned of his ultimate fate that he would be critically injured by delta rays in a tragic accident in the future — but the Captain courageously chose to continue his Starfleet career and meet his destiny.

Christopher Pike was a welcome throwback to the mold of the classic Star Trek Captain , and Anson Mount's version updated the Starship Enterprise's original master, played by Jeffrey Hunter, who starred in the rejected first Star Trek pilot and was replaced with William Shatner's Captain James T. Kirk when NBC ordered Star Trek to go to series in 1966. Indeed, Mount's Captain Pike was so popular with Trekkers that he, Spock, and Number One (Rebecca Romijn) received their own spinoff aboard the Enterprise, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

5 Captain Saru

The first kelpien in starfleet became captain of the discovery.

After stepping up and filling the big chair as Acting Captain multiple times during the chaos of Star Trek: Discovery seasons 1 and 2, Commander Saru (Doug Jones) finally became the official Captain of the Discovery in season 3, episode 3, "People of Earth." Saru had a long road to his well-deserved recognition as the USS Discovery's Captain. The first Kelpien in Starfleet, Saru was mentored by the late Captain Georgiou, and he was Science Officer aboard the ill-fated USS Shenzhou before he transferred to the USS Discovery and became Captain Lorca's First Officer.

Saru provided calm, steady leadership throughout the USS Discovery's constant leadership turmoil.

Saru's distinguished tenure as the USS Discovery's Number One led to his repeatedly assuming the role of Acting Captain, and Saru provided calm, steady leadership throughout Discovery's constant leadership turmoil. The Kelpien also underwent his people's Vahar'ai ritual, which evolved him and stripped him of his fears, and this only made Saru a more effective leader. There is no doubt Captain Saru has earned the respect and loyalty of Discovery's crew . However, Saru voluntarily left the Disco at the end of Star Trek: Discover y season 3, paving the way for a new Captain whom he recommended as his replacement. Mr. Saru returned as the USS Discovery's First Officer in Star Trek: Discovery season 4.

Saru became a Federation Ambassador in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, and was promoted to Admiral upon his marriage to President T'Rina (Tara Rosling) of Ni'Var.

4 Captain Michael Burnham

"captain burnham, that hope is you.".

Commander Michael Burnham finally became Captain of the Discovery at the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 3. Burnham yielded the Captaincy to Saru early in Discovery season 3 when she had doubts about wanting to remain in Starfleet after spending a year traveling the galaxy with Cleveland Booker (David Ajala). Ultimately, Burnham's heroics led her to her destiny and the Disco's Captain's chair. Michael saved the Federation from Osyraa (Janet Kidder), the leader of the Emerald Chain, who hijacked the USS Discovery. Coupled with Saru's choice to return to Kaminar at the end of Star Trek: Discovery season 3, Burnham finally got the promotion she waited almost a thousand years for.

Captain Michael Burnham is the undisputed most important starship Captain of the 32nd century.

The story of Star Trek: Discovery 's first 3 seasons was the story of Michael Burnham's redemption and journey to the Captain's chair. In Star Trek: Discovery season 4, Captain Burnham faced her gravest test to save the galaxy from the Dark Matter Anomaly while facing political pressure from new Federation President Laira Rillak (Chelah Horsdal) and the end of her romance with Book. Burnham led Discovery into another galaxy to make First Contact with Species 10-C, the creators of the Dark Matter Anomaly. Captain Michael Burnham is the undisputed most important starship Captain of the 32nd century, and her final mission is to seek "the greatest treasure in the known galaxy" in Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

Michael Burnham was promoted to Admiral as seen in Star Trek: Discovery' s series finale coda, which is set 30+ years in the future.

3 Lt. Commander Airiam

Discovery's tragic cyborg.

Lt. Commander Airiam (Hannah Cheesman) returned in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4 , "Face the Strange". The cyborg tragically died in Star Trek: Discovery season 2, but a time bug planted on the USS Discovery by Moll (Eve Harlow) sent Captain Michael Burnham back to the 23rd century of Star Trek: Discovery season 1. Airiam was in command of the USS Discovery in the absence of Captain Gabriel Lorca. While Discovery's bridge crew was hostile toward Captain Burnham, it was Airiam who believed Michael that she time-traveled from the future. Airiam also learned her tragic fate but agreed with Burnham that she would go through with her sacrifice anyway to save Discovery.

2 Lt. Commander Gen Rhys

He's a constitution class man.

Lt. Commander Gen Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon) capably commanded the USS Discovery in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 8, "Labyrinths" . With both Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner at the Eternal Gallery and Archive, Rhys took over the center seat and led the USS Discovery into the dangerous badlands before engaging the attacking Breen. Rhys, who serves as the USS Discovery's tactical officer, kept the crew and starship safe, buying Burnham the crucial time she needed to pass Dr. Marina Derex's test and acquire the final clue to the Progenitors' treasure. Rhys impressively showed his potential as Captain of a starship.

1 Commander Rayner

“i love the feeling of interrupting something.”.

Perhaps Star Trek: Discovery' s most successful and popular new character , Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) was Acting Captain of the USS Discovery in the final two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5. Rayner was introduced in Star Trek: Discovery season 5's premiere as Captain Rayner of the USS Antares. The Kellerun was nearly drummed out of Starfleet but Captain Michael Burnham requested Rayner as the new First Officer of the USS Discovery. It wasn't an easy fit, at first, and the gruff Rayner struggled to connect with Burnham's crew.

Commander Rayner refused to sit on the USS Discovery's Captain's chair at first, but when he did, he led Discovery to victory.

However, Commander Rayner proved exactly why he is such an effective starship captain in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 9, "Lagrange Point" and Star Trek: Discovery 's series finale , "Life, Itself". Acting Captain Rayner commanded the USS Discovery a gainst the Breen while Captain Burnham was trapped in the Progenitors' dimension, and it was Rayner's tactical prowess that saved the day. Under Rayner's leadership, the USS Discovery executed a saucer separation and spore jumped the more powerful Breen to the Galactic Barrier. Rayner's Star Trek future is an open question after Star Trek: Discovery , but the Kellerun's redemption as Acting Captain of Discovery was a highlight of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

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After more than a decade, Star Trek is returning to the format of serialized television — and it’s been a long wait. Star Trek : Discovery was announced a full two years ago, in late 2015, and has suffered through showrunner splits and multiple delays since.

And as the series heads into its premiere this weekend, it stands to do some things that Star Trek has never done before — even as it tries to win over one of the oldest modern fandoms. So here’s everything you need to know about this Sunday’s piece of television history.

Where to watch Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery will premiere on CBS on Sept. 24 at 8:30pm EST. But watching it isn’t as easy as tuning in for its predecessors. Instead of airing the series on television, CBS is using it to draw viewers to CBS All Access .

CBS All Access is CBS’s subscription-based streaming service . Only the first episode of ST:D will air on broadcast CBS. As far as we know, the rest of the 15-episode series will only be available on All Access. The first two episodes will go live on Sept. 24 to coincide with the premiere.

How to get CBS All Access

CBSAA has two different plans, each of which come in a monthly or yearly subscription. The app, available on a number of devices , offers access to “9000 plus” episodes of television from CBS’ library, live streaming of your local CBS affiliate and access to All Access original programming, like Star Trek: Discovery .

The Limited Commercials plan has “reduced commercial interruptions.” The Commercial Free plan has “no commercial interruptions,” except for when watching live TV ... and also when some shows just have “promotional interruptions.”

Here’s what it costs

Star Trek: Discovery ’s 15 episodes will air in two blocks, with the first eight finishing in November 2017 and the final seven starting up in January 2018. So, if you want to catch the whole series in a legal way, you’re probably going to be paying for at least five months of CBS All Access .

Where is Star Trek: Discovery on the timeline? What is it about?

Alright, let’s get back to space. Star Trek: Discovery will follow the adventures of the crew of the USS Discovery . Set ten years before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series , it will heavily involve the Klingon Empire, as a leader called T’Kuvma seeks to unite the fractious Klingon houses by provoking war with the United Federation of Planets.

Unlike most Star Trek series before it, Discovery eschews the episodic format to tell a single story. “The relationships [between characters] get richer and deeper; there are surprises, there are turns, there are secret agendas and reveals,” Jason Isaacs explained at San Diego Comic-Con .

Ex-showrunner Bryan Fuller’s initial idea for the series was an anthology — successive seasons would have jumped forward in time through the major eras of Star Trek, and told a different story about a different crew each time.

“The original pitch was to do for science fiction what ‘American Horror Story’ had done for horror,” Fuller told Entertainment Weekly .

It seems like ideas for further seasons split the difference — the theme of the season will be very different, but it won’t have an entirely new cast of characters. But whether the show gets a second season at all depends, first, on the success of its first.

Who is the cast of Star Trek: Discovery ?

Our main character is first officer Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green (her character follows a long line of Bryan Fuller protagonists who are women with traditionally male names). Unusually, for a human, she was raised on Vulcan — by none other than Sarek, the father of Spock. At San Diego Comic-Con, executive producer Alex Kurtzman said that this potential discrepancy — Why didn’t Spock ever mention that he had a human foster sister? — will be explained in the series.

Her character is often referred to as “Number One,” in tribute to Majel Barrett’s character of the same name from the pilot of Star Trek: The Original Series . At the start of Discovery , at least, Burnham serves under Michele Yeoh’s captain Philippa Georgiou on the USS Shenzhou , with whom she shares a strong connection of mentorship.

But it’s clear that at some point Michael finds herself aboard the USS Discovery , captained by Gabriel Lorca, who is played by Jason Isaacs. Isaacs describes his character as “probably more fucked up than any [previous Star Trek captain].” Other crewmembers of the Discovery include Lieutenant Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), a Science Officer specializing in fungi and Star Trek’s first openly gay character; Lieutenant Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif), a former prisoner of war still recovering from trauma as he resumes his service; and Lieutenant Saru (Doug Jones), the first Kelpien to join Starfleet.

Every Star Trek series worth its salt has a character who struggles with what it means to be fundamentally different from their crewmates, and it seems that Saru may be that character for Discovery . Kelpiens evolved as a prey species, and have an uncanny ability to “ sense the coming of death .” Jones has said producers told him Saru is “the Spock of the series, he’s the Data of the series.”

But let’s talk about the other side of Discovery ’s core conflict: the Klingons. Chris Obi’s T’Kuvma serves as the central antagonist, a Klingon leader whose people deliberately live according to an ancient, more restrictive code than their peers. T’Kuvma calls himself the second coming of Khaless, the first emperor of the Klingon Empire and founder of the codes of honor, law and tradition that bind modern Klingon culture.

T’Kuvma’s second command is Kol, of the house of Kor. At a Star Trek Las Vegas actors panel, Kenneth Mitchell, who plays Kol, told audiences that the Klingon characters of Discovery are at least partially defined by the conflicts — and differences — between the 24 Klingon houses.

“The images that you have seen so far are one house led by T’Kumva,” Mitchell explained . “Today you just saw the first image of [Kol]. So even in the wardrobe it is starting to venture to the more traditional Klingons. More leather and a different set of armor. And the series itself is going to explore 24 different houses and the leaders among them. And you will find different complexities and different ideologies amongst those houses.”

Kol is T’Kuvma’s protege and commanding officer, and his house, Kor, is one that will be familiar to long-time fans. Kor was the first Klingon character ever to appear in Star Trek, in the Original Series episode “Errand of Mercy.” L’Rell, played by Mary Chieffo, is commander of T’Kuvma’s battle deck, and Chieffo has said that she follows in the narrative footsteps of characters like Deep Space 9 ’s Grilka ; a Klingon woman realizing her ambitions in a patriarchal society.

And last, but not least, Star Trek Discovery will feature Harry Mudd, as played by Rainn Wilson, one of Star Trek: The Original Series ’ more infamous recurring characters. An interstellar con artist, the crew of the Enterprise encountered Mudd three times during the original series. Eventually, after he was found selling dubious love potions, he was sentenced to criminal rehabilitation. Wilson has said that this ten-years-younger Mudd is a bit more “dastardly” than we’ve seen, but that he’s being brought to life with “as much drama and comedy as possible.”

What’s up with Star Trek: Discovery ’s Klingons? Why do they look different?

The look of Star Trek: Discovery ’s Klingons is a combination of two factors — one, a longstanding part of Star Trek canon, the other, something original to the series.

“It’s a 200-year-old ship,” executive producer Ted Sullivan says of T’Kuvma’s vessel. “This is a group of Klingons who’ve gone back to a puritan way of life. They look very different: they wear armor that’s 200 years old and they don’t have any hair.”

But Star Trek has a long history of drastically changing the look of the Klingon race — and its own in-universe explanation for the realities of ever-evolving world of stage makeup and facial prosthetics. In the original series, Klingons were relatively similar in appearance to humans. They tended to wear more facial hair and have thicker hair overall, as well as darkened skin — but they were significantly redesigned for their small appearance in Star Trek: The Motion Picture , with distinctive armor, jagged teeth and their now characteristic cranial ridge.

Later films and shows continued this redesign, and even depicted ancient Klingons with forehead ridges as well. So what the heck happened to the Klingons of that Original Series era? “We do not discuss it with outsiders,” was Commander Worf’s infamous explanation in Deep Space 9 ’s time travel episode “Trials and Tribble-ations .”

The answer eventually came in the course of the prequel series, Star Trek: Enterprise . What happened to Klingons in the era of the Original Series was the Klingon Augment virus, product of a genetic arms race between the Klingon Empire and Federation scientists that went horribly wrong. Klingon scientists accidentally created a strain of flu that altered Klingon DNA with human characteristics, smoothing forehead ridges and changing the basics of a victim’s personality before leading to neural death.

Unable to undo the effects of the virus, scientists were merely able to stabilize victims — preventing them from dying — and stabilize the virus — preventing it from becoming contagious. But before their measures could be implemented, millions of Klingons had been infected and altered. And since their very DNA had been changed, those millions of Klingons were capable of passing the smooth-headed trait to their offspring.

Despite facing prejudice related to their genetic and physical disfigurement, smooth-faced Klingons often rose to prominence in the Empire afterward — both their ambition and their philosophical divergence from the rest of the Klingon population was blamed, by some, on their genetic differences. And so, in the era of the Original Series , most Klingons the Enterprise encountered had smooth foreheads.

By the time of the 24th century, the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation , a cure for the effects of the Augment virus had been found, and the smooth-headed trait in Klingon society had been effectively wiped out.

And that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about Klingons and Star Trek retcons.

How did Star Trek: Discovery get made?

Like all good generational multi-media franchises these days, the story of Star Trek: Discovery begins with a corporate restructuring. In 2005, Viacom made a series of decisions that all but reversed the company’s merger with CBS in 1999, creating two new companies: CBS Corporation, and Viacom. Viacom, as the owner of Paramount Pictures, owns the film licenses to Star Trek, and produces the Pine/Quinto-starring films. CBS Corporation’s CBS Television Studios has the rights to produce Star Trek television.

And, due to an agreement made with Viacom at the time of the split, January 2017 was the earliest that CBS would legally be able to air a new Star Trek television series. Star Trek: Discovery was announced in late 2015, and in January 2016, it was revealed that Bryan Fuller ( Hannibal , American Gods , Pushing Daisies ) was coming aboard to write and run the series.

Fuller cut his teeth as a television writer working on Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Voyager , and this was generally regarded as good news among the fandom. Shortly after, more veterans of Star Trek productions joined the fold, including Nicholas Meyer and Rod Roddenberry, son of Gene Roddenberry. Fuller was publicly committed to pushing Star Trek’s history of groundbreaking achievements in diversity in television forward, confirming early that the show was seeking a female lead, and would include an openly gay character in a major role .

What followed that was delays and friction between Fuller and CBS executives, who were disappointed with the pace of production and the expense of the series and felt that that Fuller was spending too much time on American Gods , another new series he is currently showrunning for Starz. From January 2017, the premiere was pushed to May. Eventually, Fuller stepped away from the show entirely, though it’s difficult to know whether significant changes were made after his departure.

“So much of what’s there,” producer Alex Kurtzman maintains , “in terms of story and certainly in terms of set-up, character, big ideas, the big movement of the season, that’s all stuff that Bryan and I talked about.”

Is Star Trek: Discovery good?

Nobody knows yet. CBS has not released screeners to press. As soon as we know, we’ll be sure to let you know.

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A Complete History of Star Trek's Klingons in The Original Series Era

Quick links, the origin of the klingon empire in star trek, the klingon empire acquires warp drive and a new level of war, starfleet and the klingons engaged in hot and cold war, the klingons vs. captain james t. kirk and how he brought peace.

Star Trek has six decades of history behind the scenes, but the aliens and characters in the narrative go back millennia. Despite being created on a whim for Star Trek: The Original Series , the history of Klingons is one of the most fully realized in the universe. Even though much of it was defined after that first show, how the Klingon Empire took shape is important.

The Klingons were created by Gene L. Coon as a surrogate power for the Soviets to the Federation's United States of America. When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the final film with The Original Series ' cast was in production. It told the story of how the Federation made peace with its most iconic enemies. The Khitomer Accords mark a significant point of transition in what it meant to a Klingon. Even though antagonism continued into the 24th Century, the way the Empire (as created by Kahless the Unforgettable) found a way to accept the peace-loving Federation is a remarkable Star Trek story. It's made better with Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds adding new details to this part of the timeline.

The Planned Opening for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Was a Disaster

The Klingons shared genetic markers, found in Vulcans and Romulans that point to a single humanoid ancestor more than four billion years in the past. This progenitor race seeded planets with unknown technology that encouraged the evolution of creatures with a head, two arms and two legs. Klingons, however, could trace their origins back to large reptilian or insectoid predators with exoskeletons and redundant organs .

The Klingon homeworld Qo'noS was ruled by Malor in the 10th Century CE on Earth. A common warrior, Kahless led a revolution that became the founding myth for the Klingon Empire. Legends of his battles were shared among Klingons into the 24th Century. He eventually killed Malor in single combat and founded the Klingon Empire. Kahless became a god-like figure in the culture, inspiring wars and warriors for millennia . There were a number of ruling dynasties and civil wars, continuing once Klingons took to the stars.

Four hundred years after Kahless united Qo'noS, the Hur'q species from the Gamma Quadrant sacked their homeworld. This started a period of uncertainty about war as a way of life. During the Second Dynasty, General K'Trelan killed the Imperial Family, installing more democratically minded Klingons in power. They claimed to be members of the Imperial houses to gain the respect of those bloodlines, but eventually they returned to their warlike ways.

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The Klingons acquired warp drive sometime in the Earth's 20th Century, and they turned their attention on the galaxy at large. While they still warred with each other, there were new planets to conquer and people to fight. Vulcans, who also were new to warp drive, encountered Klingons who opened fire on them. Until diplomatic relations were officially opened, Vulcans would fire first on any Klingon ship, eventually called "the Vulcan Hello." Klingons traveled the stars, warring and exploring, including sending a vessel into the Delta Quadrant.

In the 2150s, a Klingon crash-landed on Earth and was shot by a farmer. Dr. Phlox, a visiting alien, saved his life, and the NX-01 Enterprise was launched taking the Klingon back to Qo'noS. Captain Archer helped this Klingon maintain his honor and relations between humans and Klingons were off to an amiable start, but this didn't last. The NX-01 Enterprise helped refugees flee the Klingons by engaging them in battle. This led to Captain Archer being wanted as an enemy of the state. He was put on trial on Qo'noS and sentenced to the Rura Penthe colony. He escaped, leading to multiple hostile encounters with them throughout the Star Trek: Enterprise series.

In 2154, tyrannical, genetically augmented humans attacked the Klingon Empire, but the Enterprise was able to avert war. However, a Klingon scientist tried to use the augment DNA to create superior Klingon warriors . Instead, a deadly virus broke out, and Dr. Phlox was kidnapped to help cure it. He was successful, but the treatment led to the Klingons losing their distinctive cranial ridges. The Klingons then withdrew from Federation territory, until the Klingon-Federation war.

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The Klingons weren't seen in what would become Federation space for much of the late 22nd and early 23rd Centuries. They had again entered into a period of infighting and civil war, as any house sought to rule. When Starfleet did encounter the Klingons, there were open hostilities. There was a raid on a planet called Doctari Alpha and a battle at a planet called Donatu V. The Klingons resorted to spiritual studies, usually based on the Kahless myth, though a sect studied time travel at the Borleth Monastery .

In 2256, T'Kuvma, a unique-looking Klingon spiritual leader , united the great houses on the ancient Sarcophagus Ship. He provoked a war with the Federation at the Battle of the Binary Stars, dying at the hands of Michael Burnham. General Kol, who originated Klingons' use of cloaking technology, took control. The war raged for a year, with the Klingons nearly defeating the Federation . When General Kol was killed and the Sarcophagus Ship destroyed, things only got worse. Eventually, Section 31 developed a plan to destroy the Klingon Homeworld, but Michael Burnham prevented it from reaching fruition. Instead, she gave control of the hydrobombs to L'Rell.

A less war-hungry acolyte of T'Kuvma she was able to continue his mission of uniting the warring factions on Qo'noS. She even allied her fleet with the Federation to stop a rogue AI that threatened all life in the Alpha Quadrant. The Timekeepers at the Borleth Monastery also helped Starfleet solve the mystery of the "Red Angel," and helped Captain Christopher Pike fix the timeline after he tried to prevent his future debilitating accident. Time itself needed James Kirk and Spock to take the helm of the Enterprise. However, the tenuous peace wouldn't last for long.

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A new war broke out between the Federation and the Klingons in 2257, but it was short-lived. When the USS Enterprise and General Kor's fleet arrived at Organia, the powerful beings that lived there forced them to negotiate an end to hostilities. The Treaty of Organia ended the war, but there were still clashes and battles throughout the sector. Klingons armed pre-warp species, as did Kirk and the Enterprise crew, albeit reluctantly. A Klingon who went by the name Arne Darvin was surgically altered to look human, and almost carried out a terrorist bombing on a starbase.

After a little more than a decade of relative peace, a rogue Klingon commander named Kruge took a Bird of Prey to the newly-created Genesis planet. There he destroyed the Starfleet science vessel studying it and killed David Marcus, the son of James Kirk. He defeated the Klingons, killing all but one of them, and stole the Bird of Prey. Another rogue Klingon Captain named Klaa tried to battle Kirk and the Enterprise, but Klingon Ambassador Korrd ordered Klaa to save him from the God of Sha Ka'Ree. With the destruction of the moon Praxis in 2293, the Klingon homeworld was threatened and peace finally had a real chance.

Chancellor Gorkon knew the Klingon Empire wouldn't survive unless it made peace and accepted help from the Federation. A conspiracy of Starfleet officers, Romulans and Klingons (including General Chang) assassinated Gorkon and framed Captain Kirk for it. He was sent to Rura Penthe, escaping with the help of Spock and the Enterprise. They arrived at the peace summit just in time to save the Federation president. Captain Kirk's heroics led to the signing of the Khitomer Accords and all-but the end to open hostility between the Klingons and the Federation . While not completely allies with the Federation, the Klingons and Starfleet were no longer at war.

The Star Trek universe encompasses multiple series, each offering a unique lens through which to experience the wonders and perils of space travel. Join Captain Kirk and his crew on the Original Series' voyages of discovery, encounter the utopian vision of the Federation in The Next Generation, or delve into the darker corners of galactic politics in Deep Space Nine. No matter your preference, there's a Star Trek adventure waiting to ignite your imagination.

Created by Gene Roddenberry

First Film Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Latest Film Star Trek: Nemesis

First TV Show Star Trek: The Original Series

Latest TV Show Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Cast Nichelle Nichols, Scott Bakula, Kate Mulgrew, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Avery Brooks, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan

TV Show(s) Star Trek: Animated, Star trek, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Lower Decks, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Lower Decks