‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Starts Final Run on Paramount Plus
The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery premieres on Paramount Plus Thursday, April 4. Two episodes drop on premiere day, and new ones come out on subsequent Thursdays. Episodes one and two are called “Red Directive” and “Under the Twin Moons.”
There are 10 episodes.
The final season sees Capt. Michael Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose existence has been hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt for it as well.
Sonequa Martin-Green plays Burnham. Doug Jones is Saru, Anthony Rapp plays Paul Stamets, Mary Wiseman portrays Sylvia Tilly and Wilson Cruz plays Dr. Hugh Culber.
Star Trek: Discovery debuted on Paramount Plus pre-cursor CBS All Access in 2017, the network’s first original series developed specifically for U.S. audiences. When the show was announced, CBS All Access said it would introduce characters “seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966.”
The series is produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Michelle Paradise, Heather Kadin, Aaron Baiers, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Sonequa Martin-Green, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth are executive producers. Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise are the showrunners.
Kurtzman’s credits include the films Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
Paradise worked on The CW show The Originals before coming on board at Star Trek: Discovery.
A review of the new season on Space.com says: “The opening episode of the final season [of] Star Trek: Discovery is a far, far cry from strong openings that this show has demonstrated it's capable of in the past. And that's a sentence we've had to write far too many times.”
Another, in the Star-Tribune, says, “The plot in the final episodes seems like a rip-off from The Avengers, with the rather bland crew racing across the galaxy to locate puzzle pieces.”
A more favorable write-up on IndieWire says the final season “hits the ground running with a fun, Indiana Jones-inspired chase plot that doesn’t require you to open Memory Alpha to remember what came before. The MacGuffin is taken straight from a Next Generation episode. We won’t say which one, but it’s a plot point that’ll inspire a good number of nods from the audience: ‘Yeah, why didn’t they ever follow up on that before now?’ It’s a good example of internal continuity for the franchise organically inspiring a cool plotline, not just a callback for the sake of nostalgia.”
Star Trek: Discovery aired on CBS in 2020, when the pandemic delayed scripted production.
Star Trek shows on Paramount Plus include Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
