Star Trek: Discovery's Series Finale Was A Surprise To Everyone – Even The Director
It was announced back in March of 2023 that the upcoming fifth season of "Star Trek: Discovery" would be its last. This marks the end of an era, as Paramout+ — back when it was called CBS All Access — launched with the premiere of "Discovery" in 2017. Meanwhile, the third and final season of "Star Trek: Picard" wrapped earlier this year, "Star Trek: Prodigy" will end after its upcoming second season, and the extant episodes have been pulled from the service entirely. The glut of new "Star Trek" is now seemingly at an end.
"Discovery" has struggled its whole life. It infamously abandoned the traditional episodic structure of "Star Trek," skewing toward the more popular, modern full-season story arcs. It also drastically redesigned the franchise, including new technologies and reworked aliens that looked nothing like what came before. "Discovery" was also far more violent than Trek had ever been, featuring regular murders at the hands of, well, just about every character. Many Trekkies bristled at the show's maudlin characterizations as well, complaining that many of the main characters, including the protagonist Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), were unbearably weepy. Regardless, the show garnered a large-enough audience and has now persisted for four seasons.
In a recent interview with Variety, prolific "Star Trek" director and actor Jonathan Frakes revealed that the cancelation of "Discovery" came as quite a surprise. Frakes has completed directing the first half of the season finale, assuming that "Discovery" would continue onto season six. It seems that when news came down from above that the series would end, he had to return to the set to ensure the tone was right.
'Very emotional'
Frakes has been a hard-working and prolific TV director since his days on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." He has worked on almost every Trek show ever since, as well as shows like "Leverage," "Roswell," "Castle," and "The Librarians." In the Variety interview, he reminisced on his first days on "Discovery," having helmed the first-season episode "Despite Yourself" (January 7, 2018). He said that being welcomed into the world of New Trek offered him a new old home. When word came down that his season finale was to be a series finale, Frakes was taken aback:
"I directed the first half of the finale of season five, which turned out to be the real finale. So that was a very emotional end as well. When we did it, we didn't know it was the end. And then [executive producer] Olatunde Osunsanmi had to go back up and do two or three days of new stuff to actually make the finale the finale."
While it's always sad to see a show go, it seems that the makers are willing to wistfully bid "Discovery" farewell. Most fans' attention, at least at the moment, are geared toward the outrage over the deletion of "Prodigy" and the possibility of a "Star Trek: Picard" spinoff called "Star Trek: Legacy," not currently in production. On that last point, Frakes is very keen, saying:
"I think they can't deny not only the fan reaction, [or] the fact that the numbers put the show at the Top 10 on the streaming charts. [...] I believe in a perfect world, they will find the assets and the energy and hire ['Picard' showrunner] Terry [Matalas] to put together this 'Legacy' show and that will, in fact, come to fruition."
Its fate remains to be seen.