The fourth season of “Star Trek: Discovery” came to a close this week. For a show that started out seemingly avoiding the tone of classic Trek, the most recent run has re-embraced some of the signature optimism – the finale coming down not to a battle but an appeal for compassion.
Producer Olatunde Osunsanmi, who has also directed many episodes of the series, spoke with Screen Rant recently and discussed some of the plans for the fifth season.
It’s a run that will see not only a Federation having been rebuilt, but the show’s continuing move away from franchise shepherd Alex Kurtzman’s darker and more action-centric ‘new Trek’ era.
That approach dominated the first two seasons, but has somewhat faded into the background since the jump to the 32nd century at the end of the second season:
“The galaxy’s a big place where incredible things can happen. Season 5 is shaping up to be… all I can say is that – it’s not time travel – but we go back into the past to get further into the future.
There’s this old version of “Star Trek” that exists. And this new version that’s been created by Alex but there’s a lot of things we still love about the old version. So it’s about pulling from there… not necessarily stories or characters but more themes, and process, and how those stories are told, and applying it to what we do in the future. And that includes [Burnham’s] character and things she does as a Captain.”
Indeed the recent season has been bigger on fan service from shoutouts to various pieces of Trek lore and mythology, with that likely to continue next year. One change is the fifth season is expected to be several episodes shorter with a ten-episode run instead of the usual thirteen.
Writing on the new run is underway with filming expected to kick off in June ahead of an airing in the first half of 2023.