Since its debut in 2017, Star Trek: Discovery has undergone many more onscreen changes than the average Trek show, featuring a different captain in each of its first four seasons, transporting its crew 900 years into the future for a full reset after Season 2, basically destroying the United Federation of Planets (don’t worry, it got better), and perhaps most notably, introducing its main character, Michael Burnham, at one of the lowest points possible for a Starfleet character – as a hated mutineer in Season 1 – only to eventually have her become the inspiring captain of the USS Discovery.
Indeed, as Discovery enters its fifth and final season, that is where we find Burnham, played by the always great Sonequa Martin-Green: She’s in charge of the Disco, has saved the galaxy a couple of times over, and is a pretty different person than she was when we first met her. Some might even say, with apologies to Will Riker, that she’s more seasoned now… But if the thrust of Burnham’s arc has always been to push out of the box she had placed herself in in the pilot – even last season, when she was captain, she was continuously at odds with the president of the Federation! – how can showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise keep things interesting now that the character, essentially, has it all?
For one thing, after the events of the Season 4 finale, she doesn’t really have it all anymore. Her partner, Cleveland “Book” Booker (David Ajala) – one of the best things about the show since the time-jump at the start of Season 3 – has been disgraced after falling in with the wrong crowd last season (long story). He’s doing his penance, working for Starfleet now – “I go where the Federation tells me,” he says – but Burnham and Book’s romantic relationship has seemingly come to an end… even as he rejoins the ship to help in the search for this season’s McGuffin (more on that in a bit).
Interestingly, Book’s fall from grace parallels Burnham’s own from back in Season 1, but the damage last season’s incident did to their connection isn’t the only personal challenge facing the captain now. Whereas she has so often punched up in the past – at her captains, her superiors, even, as noted, the president – at the start of Season 5 Michael is introduced to a new frenemy who she must contend with: Captain Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie). As a Starfleet skipper who came into his own during the rough and tumble years after The Burn, Rayner takes a more raw approach to his missions, as in their first meeting when he’s willing to put his ship and crew at risk while attempting to capture some baddies.
Without delving into spoilers, I will note that in the first four episodes of the season that Paramount+ has provided for review, Burnham and Rayner’s relationship goes in a different direction than I was expecting, and it’s a refreshing one that seems to affirm that Michael really has grown as a character over the course of her time on Discovery. Things reach a peak in Episode 4 (again, the last one I’ve seen at the time of this writing), as the pair find themselves on something of a standalone adventure that is fun, intriguing, and the perfect forum for a connection to begin between the two characters. Rennie, forever immortalized as Leoben on Battlestar Galactica, harnesses his edgy persona to great effect as a new regular castmember.
But about those baddies: They’re the human Moll (Eve Harlow) and alien L'ak (Elias Toufexis), a pair of couriers not unlike the pair of couriers that Burnham and Book once were (when Michael was separated from her ship between Seasons 2 and 3). Moll and L’ak are looking for an ancient piece of technology which, no joke, can be connected to an episode of 1990s Trek in the most tenuous of ways. An overreliance on treasure hunt-style stories has been a weakness of Discovery since Season 2, taking entire seasons to resolve as the characters go from clue to clue week by week. Unfortunately, it looks like Season 5 is continuing in that vein. But Harlow and Toufexis bring a certain likability to their characters that is intriguing, and as noted above, the show seems to be figuring out how to do breakout episodes if the fourth hour is any indication.
As always, the production design and visual effects on Discovery are outstanding and feature-quality, even if some of the events being depicted occasionally stretch credulity even by sci-fi standards. Burnham riding the outside of a starship while at warp speed is a tough one for an old nerd like me to take, but there’s no denying that it looks as realistic as Burnham riding the outside of a starship at warp speed could look!
Meanwhile, the rest of the core cast are mostly given compelling things to do in these first four: Saru (Doug Jones) continues his relationship with the Vulcan T'Rina (Tara Rosling); Tilly (Mary Wiseman) returns after taking part of last season off, and she’s back to her humorous Tilly ways after encountering some Andorian champagne in Episode 1; and Wilson Cruz gets to put a unique spin on Dr. Culber in Episode 3 (sorry, no spoilers!). Stamets (Anthony Rapp), meanwhile, is confronted with the shuttering of his entire livelihood – the spore drive program – after the events of last season, though the scripts haven’t quite given the actor a chance to fully dig in on that prospect yet.
Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:
- I still don’t understand why David Cronenberg is a recurring player on Star Trek. I just wish he showed up more often.
- I had almost forgotten how fast Saru can run!
- Yes, Tig Notaro’s Jett Reno pops back in to crack wise here or there.
- Hey, the Saurian Linus is very present on the bridge this season – with dialogue and everything! Get ready to hear about his people’s mating habits.
- The big question about Star Trek: Discovery’s final season, of course, is… how final will it be? We know Paramount+ has a Starfleet Academy series in the works. Will that be set in the 32nd century as well, as Tilly is already an instructor there? And who’s to say that Captain Burnham or the others can’t show up again in some future Trek?
