The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub sits down with
Star Trek: Discovery
lead and executive producer Sonequa Martin-Green and showrunner Michelle Paradise.
Martin-Green and Paradise discuss the planning that went into the emotional final episode of
Discovery
, their favorite episodes from Season 5, and tease the ancient power introduced in Episode 1.
The
Discovery
duo also share their favorite moments from Season 5 and the series as a whole and confirm an extended series finale.

Unbeknownst to the cast and crew, Season 5 would mark the end of Star Trek: Discovery, the show that sparked the Trek universe back to life in 2017. After all the adventures the Discovery crew have taken fans on, led by Sonequa Martin-Green’s (The Walking Dead) Michael Burnham, it’s time to say our goodbyes, and showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise thought long and hard about how to give the cast a proper send-off. In this interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Paradise assures us that the extended finale will “feel complete in a really good, even if it’s bittersweet, way.”

Having it no other way, the creatives behind Discovery pulled out all the stops. Season 5 pits our heroes up against some of the galaxy’s most formidable foes when they’re sent to retrieve an ancient artifact. Discovering they aren’t the only ones out to get their hands on this mysterious object, they embark on a treasure hunt full of clues with adversaries hot on their trail.

During their conversation, Martin-Green and Paradise discuss the emotional final episode and reminisce on their favorite moments from the series. They tease the ancient power, share which episodes they’re most excited for fans to see, and confirm that the series finale is going to be an extended episode. For all of this and more, check out the full interview in video above, or you can read the transcript below.

This interview was conducted prior to watching any Star Trek Discovery Season 5 episodes.

Star Trek: Discovery
Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk’s Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.Release Date September 24, 2017 Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 5

Read Our ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 Review

What is the Ancient Power in ‘Star Trek: Discovery?’
It’s gonna be ancient. And it’s gonna be powerful…
Image via Paramount+

COLLIDER: I’m both really excited to talk to you guys about the final season and sad that it is the final season. It’s one of those mixed kinds of things. I read the synopsis, and this upcoming season is about an ancient power in the universe. I hate asking the generic BS, but what can you tease about the ancient power of the universe?

MICHELLE PARADISE: It is ancient.

SONEQUA MARTIN-GREEN: It’s powerful.

[Laughs] That is very descriptive.

PARADISE: I feel like anything we say will be a little bit spoilery, but I think fans will really dig it once it’s revealed.

Is it any sort of nod to things that have been on Star Trek in the past?

PARADISE: I don’t know. I’ve never seen Star Trek before. I’m just kidding. [Laughs]

Got it. Let me ask you this, when it comes to ancient power, is it like Q level? What’s the barometer of power?

PARADISE: We can’t answer. It’s powerful.

MARTIN-GREEN: And ancient.

Right. Exactly.

PARADISE: Let’s just say it’s more powerful than my iPhone.

I got it.

PARADISE: I do have an older iPhone, so that’s not giving anything away.

MARTIN-GREEN: That’s right. More ancient than all of us sitting here.

Image via Paramount

I’ll move on because, clearly, I get nothing. [Laughs] Of the last episodes, which are the ones that you are most excited for fans to see?

MARTIN-GREEN: That’s a good question. I’m really excited for them to see the finale, like the actual finale. That’s the one for me.

PARADISE: Yeah, I’m pretty excited about that one too. I’m giving the generic, but I feel like every episode has a thing that I’m excited about, so I’m not sure that I could pick just one. I love our premiere this season, and the finale as well. This was a go-big. Every season is go-big, but this is like, “Let’s go the biggest we can possibly go.”

‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Finale Will Feel Complete and Bittersweet
“Emotional is an understatement.”

How cognizant were you about those last few minutes on screen? Because as a Star Trek fan, there have been some phenomenal finales, and then I think of Voyager, which I absolutely hated because basically they got back home and then it was over. So I’m just curious, were you thinking about that at all with those last few minutes?

PARADISE: Absolutely. That was huge. Alex [Kurtzman] and I talked about it a lot in terms of what those final moments would be, what it would look like, and what did we want to do there? You always want to wrap a season in a really wonderful way. Wrapping a series, especially when we didn’t know going into the season that it would be the final season, we thought a lot about it, and we put a lot into it. I do think that people will really enjoy it and that it will feel “of a piece,” and feel complete in a really good, even if it’s bittersweet, way.

Is everyone sitting around playing poker?

PARADISE: Well, they’re under a disco ball. We finally brought it out for the show.

I just had to throw that out there.

MARTIN-GREEN: I love it. I don’t know how you knew, but that is exactly what we’re doing.

I actually do want to know, though, and you’re gonna get asked this a lot, but what was it actually like on the final day of filming for you? Because this is a great role and it’s a meaningful role. Was it emotional?

MARTIN-GREEN: Oh my goodness, emotional is like an understatement, right? Like Michelle was saying, we didn’t know going in, so when we were able to come back to do these additional shoots, or really it was one additional shoot, but we had to pack a ton into a short period of time So, we bonded even more there on the tail end. It was like, “Let’s go big because we’re about to go home,” kind of thing. So there were so many tears, but also so much celebration. I’m so thankful to God that I was able to be here, able to be with her, with Alex, with Tunde [Osunsanmi], with the cast and crew, and to build this. It’s like, “We’ve done it. We did it. We have our contribution. Here it is. And we’ll always have it. We’ll always have each other.” So, it was all of that going through your mind, swirling through your mind and your heart. I can specifically remember the last moments, the last take.

Image via Paramount

I’m assuming you shot this on your iPhone to release later.

MARTIN-GREEN: I did. The poker.

Of course. Exactly.

PARADISE: I couldn’t say it any better. I don’t know how it would have felt if we had known going into the season. There was something very special, first of all, to get the opportunity to go back and do some additional shooting to wrap it up in the right way, but then knowing that that’s what we were going into. For me, it felt like it was over the course of those days as we were shooting, just knowing that each of those things we would not be coming back to do again. And then those final moments, just full of appreciation for our amazing cast, our crew, all of the folks that we’ve been able to work with on this show there. Sonequa said it earlier, it’s lightning in a bottle. Honestly, it’s a tremendous group of people, and they’re so talented and such kind, loving human beings. It’s been really a privilege to work on the show.

MARTIN-GREEN: It has.

The ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 Finale Will Be a Longer Episode
Image via Paramount

I’m definitely curious if the finale might be like a longer episode because of the additional photography.

PARADISE: It might be.

[Laughs] I’m getting nothing. Can you actually confirm it’s a longer episode?

PARADISE: It’s a longer episode, yes. We’re not spoiling anything.

Believe me, I want to watch it as a fan. I do not want to know anything. I’m trying to go around.

PARADISE: It’s under seven hours.

I am curious for the both of you, when you think about the show, not just this season, what’s the sequence or scene that you were involved in that ended up being the biggest pain in the ass, or just the one that you couldn’t wait to film or be involved in?

MARTIN-GREEN: That’s a really good question, and also really hard to answer.

PARADISE: I never found them to be a pain in the ass. A lot of our stuff is so logistically complicated to pull off, and again, we have an incredible team, Tunde leading the team over there in Toronto. The one I was most excited to see how we would do it is in Season 5. It’s the sand runner stuff. It’s in the trailer, and just the logistics required to pull that off was one thing because none of that is VFX that you see. That was all done on the AR wall, the sand runner stuff, and just the coordinating that it took to get it done. And I got to be there on the day when they were shooting it, and then watching our actors get up there on those things, and as they moved the wall imagery would move. It was just incredible. It really was. It was like all the pieces having to come together to make that work, and it was such a treat.

Image via Paramount

MARTIN-GREEN: Yeah, a lot of the AR stuff was like that. So, even in the premiere of Season 5, there was a whole sequence, which you see in the trailer on top of the ship. We were all just like, “What are we doing? This is crazy.” But it worked. And Iceland, I’ll say, from Season 3 when we jumped to the future, Episodes 1 and 2. That was insane because we would have, like, five minutes to get something, and the geothermal energy under the ground was draining our batteries, and “Well, we can’t do that. We can’t do that.” It was crazy. “Oh, we’ve gotta bury me. We’ve gotta do this. Oh, we’ve gotta get this fight shot from eight different angles, and we’ve got three hours to do it.”

PARADISE: We kept losing cameras because they couldn’t connect in the place where you were doing that.

MARTIN-GREEN: Yes, because the ground would literally drain the power from everything, that ground is so charged. So, yeah, Iceland. That whole episode is just a feat.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 releases episodes on Paramount+ every Thursday.

Watch on Paramount