‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5 is a Worthy Swan Song
After five seasons, Star Trek: Discovery, the rebirth of the franchise, flies into the sunset. And so far that sunset is beautiful.
When a television series ends, it’s natural to look back. Star Trek: Discovery isn’t just any show either—it’s ushered in a whole fleet of new Star Trek shows. And the tale of the tape is intense. First Trek show to debut on streaming only. First Trek show with a Black woman as both lead and captain. The first gay married couple as well as the first out non-binary and trans actors. It’s firsts all the way down.
DISCO reinvents Star Trek’s past by connecting Michael Burnham with Spock. And of course, it takes us further into Trek’s future than we’ve ever gone before. Gone is the episodic nature Star Trek (almost) always uses in favor of a completely serialized narrative. Some of the changes are a breath of fresh air. But DISCO also has its fair share of controversial decisions, too.
And now here we are—nearly on the last proverbial page. The creators behind DISCO didn’t know this would be the show’s final outing. And yet there is a “looking back to look forward” vibe in the first four episodes of the fifth and final season which serves the series well.
With that in mind, let’s look forward. We’ve seen the first four episodes and there’s a lot to say (mostly spoiler-free).
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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 – The Pitch
There’s something out there. A technology. An artifact. Something that can help the galaxy or destroy it. Discovery has to find it before someone else does. It’s a little bit Indiana Jones, a little bit The Fifth Element, and a whole lot of a third thing we won’t mention here. There are meditations on the nature of life and the universe punctuated by firefights, starship battles, and puzzle-solving.
Actually, the thing that these first four episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 make me think most of is the Uncharted game series—and that’s both good and bad. The action-adventure stuff is thrilling in most places, but upon rewatch I suspect some moments will feel a little like side quests or quick-time events.
As for our main cast: everyone is back, but things are changing. For Saru, especially, there’s a massive shift in his role in the series and with Discovery. Book is also back and his relationship with Michael is also struggling to find its new equilibrium in compelling ways. And, without giving too much away, I’m very relieved to say that there’s more still to say about Adira and Gray this season. It would’ve been easy to quietly write that relationship out, but that’s not what we’re getting.
But obviously, this new season means new allies and new antagonists. Speaking of which…
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Mal and L’ak
Star Trek: Discovery has a very interesting take on antagonists, especially in the 32nd century. In season three there’s no real final villain. There’s the Burn—an event which breaks the Federation apart. There’s an Orion pirate named Osira. But at the heart of that event isn’t a manipulative monster, but rather a lost child screaming out into the dark. Similarly, the fourth season deals primarily with the 10c—a race destroying planets not out of malice but out of misunderstanding.
The fifth season is different in this regard. While the potential threat for our mystery tech will assuredly speak to existential real-life dangers, we do have actual antagonists this time around. Mal and L’ak are a couple of thieves (and a romantic couple) who are after the same thing Discovery is. They like flirting with danger, but their larger endgame is unknown.
Mal and L’ak add to the adventure aspect of the season arc. They are the competition. And there’s something a little more playful in the tone as a result—at least at first. This makes for a much lighter season than last where Discovery is racing against the clock to prevent entire worlds from being eradicated.
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Captain Rayner
The big show stealer of the season thus far isn’t a returner hero or a villain, but this season’s surly, hot dad—Captain Rayner as played by Battlestar Galactica’s Callum Keith Rennie. Rayner is basically Burnham’s equal opposite number. Where Burnham is all hearts on sleeves, Rayner is brusque. And while Burnham is all about the flat pack team structure. Rayner is the boss.
Rennie is a massively welcome addition to DISCO. As nice as it is that the ship’s crew succeeds largely through emotional connection, Rayner’s injection of dry stoicism adds spice to the stew. And the more time Rayner is around Discovery, the more he and the crew influence one another. It’s a fresh dynamic.
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Star Trek: Discovery – Looking Backward To Look Forward
Something Star Trek: Discovery does in this final season is throwback to the past—both the franchise’s past and the show’s own past. Some of the shapes that take are ones fans have figured out through trailers and some are entirely unexpected.
But the big win is the change in tone. If Star Trek: Discovery has one flaw, it is how serious it is a lot of the time. The galaxy is always ending. Planets are always dying. Emotions are always so, so high. And while there are still big stakes this year, it’s the execution more than that’s changed.
I find myself thinking of another show’s unexpected final season. Star Trek: Enterprise’s fourth season so many years ago gave the NX-01 crew a new lease on life. After a season dedicated to terrorism with obvious real-life parallels, Enterprise spends its last season exploring character dynamics. This is where we find out how the Federation takes the shape it does. And despite some major losses, the overall tone of the season leans towards hope.
And that’s what I see in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 so far. It’s not just that the show is more adventuresome and more fun—it’s also more hopeful. I’m sure there will be deep philosophical things to say as the season progresses, but what the first four episodes have more than anything is joy the series usually only saves for the very end of its seasons. It’s a step in the right direction only made bittersweet by the show’s untimely end.
Star Trek: Discovery season 5 debuts April 2, 2024 on Paramount Plus.
