‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Co-Showrunner Teases The Final Episodes And Her Message For Fans

For five seasons, Star Trek: Discovery has taken audiences on the ride of a lifetime. With its series finale now in sight, I sat down with executive producer and co-showrunner Michelle Paradise at SeriesFest in Denver, Colorado to discuss the beloved show’s journey and what fans should expect from this ever-expanding television universe on Paramount Plus, before we say a proper farewell to the U.S.S. Discovery.

So for starters, what has Paradise enjoyed most about the evolution of Star Trek: Discovery, since it first premiered in September 2017?

“That’s a really great question,” Paradise said. “I have loved being a part of it. I joined halfway through season two, and it was starting to know what it was and it’s really found its way. I’ve really enjoyed the character arcs and getting to take them all to these different places. It’s also hard for me to separate out the evolution of the show from my evolution on the show and stepping into co-running it with [co-showrunner] Alex [Kurtzman] and starting to take over more of that in later seasons. It’s been the highlight of my career.”

Paradise is no stranger to television production. She was previously an executive producer on such television projects as Exes & Ohs and The Originals, but I wondered what it might be about her Star Trek: Discovery cast and crew that perhaps feels special.

“It’s like a big family. First of all, our cast is incredible. They’re all insanely talented actors but they’re lovely human beings. They approach one another and they approach the project from just a place of love and respect for one another and for the material, which is always a wonderful place to start. You can’t say enough of [actor] Sonequa [Martin-Green], our number one and the tone that she sets on the show and on the set. We have a lot of folks on the show and the crew who come back, year-after-year. They all really love the world of Trek and they love one another. We try and go bigger and better and bolder every season, and there’s never a feeling of Oh, we can’t do that. It’s always a feeling of How do we do that?”

Since the original Star Trek series first premiered on television in 1966, the Star Trek story and fictional sci-fi universe has evolved into several iterations, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Strange New Worlds and Picard - not to mention the numerous Star Trek movies over many decades, including the three recent blockbuster films, starring Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana and Zachary Quinto, with another sequel in the works.

Throughout all of these years, Star Trek fans have remained quite loyal and vocal, both when they love a story and even when they don’t. So, how does Paradise and her Star Trek: Discovery creative team try to appease Trek fans, but also not allow the chatter to stop them from taking on some creative risks?

Paradise said, “I think the best way to answer that is we always try to honor what Trek is - where it came from, what is the DNA of any Trek series, which of course goes back to the original series, and then also honoring what is this version of Trek and knowing that it’s our job to make the best version of Discovery. Someone who loves Discovery may not love Strange New Worlds or someone who loves Strange New Worlds may not love Discovery. By design, these are all very different shows. To a certain degree, it has to be okay that not everyone is going to love this iteration. We always feel like if we can do justice to the franchise as a whole - what it means, do justice to the characters and do our best version of Discovery, then we will have succeeded.”

Ever since the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes ended late last year, there have been signs of movement and optimism within the entertainment industry, but also a sense of some standstill with television and film productions. So, what is Paradise seeing around the current state of Hollywood?

“I think it depends on who you talk to,” Paradise said. “It feels a bit like a mixed bag to me. There are a lot of people who are still very much struggling - writers, crew members, directors - because things have not picked up in the way that they would normally at this particular time of year. By in large, there’s not really a pilot season, as we used to know it. That’s very difficult for people. Of course, there’s still a lot of wonderful opportunities, but it seems like the compression that happened - it’s the combo platter of the [Covid-19] pandemic and the strikes, just after that. It does feel condensed - there are fewer things but I feel like, to some degree, that had to happen because in the big balloon of streaming, that in retrospect, it doesn’t feel like it was necessarily sustainable. Hopefully it will ease up, sooner than later, and kind of calm down because there’s still a lot of people who are struggling to get back into work right now and I feel for them - it’s hard.”

On more of a positive note, when asked what Paradise is enjoying most about the television landscape today, she says that she feels there is a lot that can be done, applauding the way that every week, Star Trek: Discovery is a “cinematic storytelling into television,” though she admits that the visual design of Discovery is not sustainable for every network and studio.

While our real world faces divisive times with war, political unrest and other conflicts, I wondered if Paradise and her team keep in mind the real-life issues occurring, when crafting its stories for the screen on Star Trek: Discovery.

“That comes from just the DNA of the show itself. The original series did not shy away from what was happening societal at that time. It did not shy away from tackling those things in the way that it could. That’s one of the cool things about sci-fi - aliens can stand-in for another culture, different relationships can stand-in for whatever is happening in society at the time. That’s kind of baked into any Trek show, is that reflection of what’s happening in the world at that time via sci-fi and the different ways we could do it.”

Paradise added: “In Discovery, we were very much aware of that and very thoughtful about what are the types of stories we want to tell, how does that reflect certain things that are going on. Trek means so much to so many people and where people are actively looking to Trek to reflect themselves in some way or actively looking to Trek as an answer to what’s happening in society and for hope that, as divisive as things are right now, as challenging around the world and in our country, that there is hope and we can overcome it with our better selves.”

When asked about what fans can expect ahead in the remaining episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, which drop every Thursday during this final season, Paradise teases that fans “might see more of our bad guys this season.” She added: “We did not going into the season [knowing] that this would be our last season. We’re so fortunate - CBS Studios and Paramount Plus gave us the opportunity, after the fact, to go shoot some additional material, and I feel like the thing I just want to keep reiterating for fans of the show is it has a proper ending. Our Discovery is not going to end on a cliffhanger of Are they all going to die? and then we never find out. It was worth the investment and I do think when people finish the season/series, they will feel like this season - again, we didn’t know going in - but it does feel like if you didn’t know that, you would think we knew going in because of what we’re doing thematically and where our characters go. So, I think people will feel very satisfied.”

As the conversation with Paradise concluded, she was left with one last question: For Star Trek: Discovery fans, people who have followed these five seasons - as they soon finish these final episodes, what message do you as a co-showrunner want to say these people, after investing their time in the series over the past seven years and falling in love with these characters?

“I just would want to say thank you. There is no Discovery without the fans and they are always so loving and supportive and passionate, even when they don’t like what we’re doing, they’re passionate. As writers and creators and actors and the directors, we love that! We love that passion and their passion means so much to us.”

Paradise added: “It was a gift. Hopefully, we’ll all get to do it again someday.”