Interview: Michelle Paradise On 'Star Trek: Discovery' Series Finale Tweaks And Rayner's DS9 Connection

In addition to speaking to Alex Kurtzman at the SXSW premiere event last week, TrekMovie also had a moment with his Star Trek: Discovery co-showrunner Michelle Paradise. The executive producer talked about what’s different in season 5, the changes they made to turn the season finale into a series finale, and some details on the new season regular, Callum Keith Rennie’s Captain Rayner.

Season five has a different tone and it’s a bit more episodic…

Yes

.. and there are more connections to Trek lore. Would you say this season has been influenced by recent seasons of the other Trek shows like Strange New Worlds, Picard, maybe even Prodigy?

No, It’s still fundamentally Discovery. And Discovery is built on serialized storytelling. So we still have that. Really, the shift in tone for this season was that we came into this season after season 4 which had a bit of a heavier tone in general. That previous season was written and shot during a time of COVID and we kind of knew coming into season 5 that we wanted that different tone. We wanted a bit more action and adventure, a bit more lightness–not to lose the things that make Discovery, Discovery. So really, it was a matter of thinking: What does that look like? So we’re sending our heroes on a quest. And so then the nature of a quest allows for a bit more of the episodic storytelling. But again, it’s Discovery so we don’t lose the serialized style.

David Ajala as Book, Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham and Wilson Cruz as Culber in season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery (Paramount+)

Regarding the additional footage shot to turn the season finale into a series finale, would it be fair to call this an add-on epilogue or were changes made to the original finale?

I would say, it’s probably more of the latter. What’s really interesting about this season is when we came in we didn’t know that it would be our last season. But as with every season of Discovery, we explore big themes, big ideas. This season has a lot about meaning and focus. So we had finished shooting and then we found out [it was the last season]. We actually felt like of all the seasons for it to happen, this was the best one because the themes are all so big. So when we got to the end and got to shoot some additional material, no, we didn’t have to change anything from the season. That is all just as we shot it with maybe a couple of tweaks for the finale that we ended up shifting just some things around, but it was very minor, very minor. But I do think that people coming into the season and not knowing that will feel very satisfied and like we had known going in. So that’s kind of cool.

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What can you say about Rayner’s backstory? He’s not a Romulan or a Vulcan…

He’s a Kellerun. We were looking for a species that not a lot had been done with them. We definitely wanted another non-human on the ship and taking care of things. And Kellerun is one that had not been explored a whole lot. So we were able to also build some backstory for him and for his planet that we’ll come to learn more about later.

Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner (Paramount+)

NOTE: Kelleruns appeared in a single episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Armageddon Game.”

Peter White as Kellerun ambassadaor Sharat in “Armageddon Game”

More from SXSW

You can watch full video of the SXSW Discovery panel. Also, read our previous red carpet interviews:

The fifth and final season of Discovery debuts with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria. Discovery will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and is also expected to be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.