THE FINAL FRONTIER

SHOWRUNNER MICHELLE PARADISE ON THE LAST TRIP FOR STAR TREK DISCOVERY

- DARREN SCOTT

THEY BOLDLY WENT FROM The Original Series timeline of the 23rd century, rewrote Starfleet history and jumped over 900 years to the 32nd century. But the story is ending – for now – as the crew of the USS Discovery find themselves grounded with the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery. Showrunner and writer Michelle Paradise sat down with SFX to give some insight into what that means for their untimely end.

Why is this the final season of Discovery?

Oh, gosh! I think those are a lot of decisions that are made above my head. We just found out that it was going to be the end, actually, after we had completely shot what was only originally going to be the fifth season. I can’t thank enough [our] studio and network partners for giving us the opportunity – once they had decided this was going to be the end, and once they had told us – to go and shoot some additional material so that we could wrap up the series as a whole and have it feel like a series end.

I’m sure, as you know, that’s most often not the case when a show ends. It’s just, “Well, whatever you’ve done, that’s the ending.” They are so aware of the impact of this show and how much people love it and what it means. So it’s a very uncommon thing to allow showrunners to go back and do some additional work to really tie it up in a satisfying way and I’m so grateful. I know Alex [Kurtzman] is too. We all are that they gave us the chance to do that.

Was that something that you were able to weave throughout the season? Or is it something that comes towards the end?