star trek theme writer

Alexander ‘Sandy’ Courage, 88; composer wrote ‘Star Trek’ theme

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Alexander “Sandy” Courage, who composed the soaring theme for the “Star Trek” TV series in the 1960s and was an Emmy Award-winning, Oscar-nominated arranger, has died. He was 88.

Courage, who had been in declining health since 2005, died May 15 at an assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, said his step-daughter, Renata Pompelli.

After launching his 54-year career as a composer for CBS Radio in 1946, Courage became an orchestrator and arranger at MGM in 1948.

Over the next dozen years, he worked on a string of classic musicals, including “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Show Boat,” “The Band Wagon,” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “Gigi.” He later was an orchestrator for musicals including “My Fair Lady,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Doctor Dolittle” and “Fiddler on the Roof” -- as well as for films including “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Jurassic Park,” “Basic Instinct,” “Hook” and “The Mummy.”

“He made a very big contribution to the musical life of Hollywood from the end of the second World War to recent years,” Oscar-winning composer John Williams told The Times on Thursday.

“He was known to most musicians in the community as having been one of the architects of what we used to refer to as the MGM sound, which meant that most of the musical films from MGM had a particular style of orchestration, which was an extension and development of what was done in the theater in the 1920s,” Williams said. “They actually took that to a very high art form, particularly in the musicals produced by Arthur Freed.”

Composer Ian Fraser, who met Courage after he had moved to 20th Century Fox in the ‘60s, said Thursday that Courage’s “knowledge of all the genres of music was really monumental.”

“He was part of the wonderful music department at 20th Century Fox,” Fraser said. “With the passing of [composer] Earle Hagen this week, the last of that group are gone, never to be replaced.”

In the late ‘50s, Courage scored nearly a dozen films, including director Arthur Penn’s western “The Left Handed Gun” and Andre de Toth’s western “Day of the Outlaw” -- as well as “Shake, Rattle and Rock!” and “Hot Rod Rumble.”

He began composing for television in 1959 and wrote music for more than 350 episodes of series that included “The Untouchables,” “Laramie,” “Daniel Boone,” “Judd for the Defense,” “Lost in Space,” “Land of the Giants,” “The Waltons,” “Eight Is Enough,” “Falcon Crest,” “Flamingo Road” and many others.

Then there was “Star Trek,” the legendary science-fiction series that ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969.

Courage was no science-fiction fan when “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry asked him to score the pilot episode in 1965.

“I never have been” a sci-fi fan, Courage later told film music historian Jon Burlingame. But I thought, ‘Well, what the heck. It’s another show.’ ”

Roddenberry, Courage recalled, said he didn’t want the show’s score to sound like “space music,” nothing “far out.”

“He wanted something that had some . . . drive to it,” Courage recalled. “In fact, he told me to always write that way through the show, all of it.”

The eight-note brass fanfare that Courage wrote to herald the starship Enterprise became one of the most familiar musical signatures in TV history.

“I’d argue that it’s the most famous fanfare in the world,” Burlingame, who teaches film music history at USC, said Thursday.

“It’s been around 42 years -- and it’s all around the world -- and when you hear those eight notes you immediately think of the Enterprise,” he said.

Courage shared an Emmy in 1988 as a principal arranger for the ABC special “Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas.”

He also shared Oscar nominations with Lionel Newman for their adaptation scores for “The Pleasure Seekers” in 1966 and “Doctor Dolittle” in 1968.

Courage was born Dec. 10, 1919, in Philadelphia and moved to New Jersey as a boy. He began playing the piano when he was 5 and later played the cornet and horn.

A 1941 graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., he enlisted in the Army Air Forces in January 1942 and served as a band leader on bases in California and Arizona.

Courage, who was one of the founders of the Composers and Lyricists Guild of America, also was an award-winning photographer whose pictures appeared in Life, Collier’s and other magazines.

His third wife, the former Shirley Pumpelly, died in 2005.

In addition to Renata Pompelli, he is survived by his other stepchildren, Raphael Pumpelly, Andrea Steyn, Lisa Pompelli; and six grandchildren.

A memorial service is pending.

[email protected]

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• Emmy Award nominees
• ASCAP Film and Television Music Award winners
• Documentary staff

Dennis McCarthy

• View history

McCarthy and Jay Chattaway

Dennis McCarthy ( born 3 July 1945 ; age 78) is a composer who has written many Star Trek -related musical scores, including the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine main title theme and the Star Trek: Enterprise end credits theme. He also composed the music for Star Trek Generations and many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation , Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise . He scored the pilots and finales of Star Trek: The Next Generation , Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise . McCarthy also wrote and conducted the music for the Star Trek: The Experience movie Borg Invasion 4D and the computer game Star Trek: Borg . Some of McCarthy's TNG and DS9 scores were released as part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Collection, Volume One and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Collection .

McCarthy was nominated for nine Emmy Awards for his work, winning in the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Main Title Theme Music" category for his Deep Space Nine title theme. He also won (or shared) nine ASCAP Awards , all for "Top TV Series" except for his award for Star Trek Generations , which won in the "Top Box Office Films" category.

McCarthy was once a member of Dick Dale 's backing band, which came up while he was scoring the episode " Vis à Vis " which featured two Dick Dale tunes, " Night Rider " and " Let's Go Trippin' ". Ronald B. Moore suggested the first song and remembered, " I was told that [McCarthy] heard the music and said, 'I used to be a Deltone.' This is a small world. He suggested that they close the show with another Dick Dale song. They got to [do that]. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 103)

McCarthy started his career as music arranger and moved shortly after this to the position of music composer. His first assignment was the television spinoff series Enos (1980-1981), followed by the series Private Benjamin (1982), Gun Shy (1983), Goodnight, Beantown (1983-1984), and The Barbara Mandrell Show . In early 1984, McCarthy was asked to redo the score for the second and the third part of the television mini series V: The Final Battle , just two weeks before the airdate. His successful scoring for V: The Final Battle including the "Visitor March" lent him to the assignment scoring the following television series V (1984-1985) as well as projects such as Trapper John, M.D. (1986), The Love Boat (1986), Mike Hammer (1986), The Colbys (1985-1987), The Twilight Zone (1986-1987), Dynasty (1985-1989), Falcon Crest (1989), and MacGyver (1985-1991).

• 2 Star Trek credits
• 3 Awards for Star Trek
• 4 Star Trek interviews
• 5 External links
• DS9 Main Title Theme (seasons 1-3)  file info
• DS9 Main Title Theme (seasons 4-7)  file info

Star Trek credits [ ]

• " Encounter at Farpoint " ( Season 1 )
• " The Last Outpost "
• " Justice "
• " Hide And Q "
• " The Big Goodbye "
• " Angel One "
• " Home Soil "
• " Coming of Age "
• " The Arsenal of Freedom "
• " Symbiosis "
• " Conspiracy "
• " The Child " ( Season 2 )
• " Elementary, Dear Data "
• " The Schizoid Man "
• " Unnatural Selection "
• " The Measure Of A Man "
• " The Dauphin "
• " Contagion "
• " Time Squared "
• " Pen Pals "
• " Samaritan Snare "
• " Manhunt "
• " Peak Performance "
• " The Ensigns of Command " ( Season 3 )
• " The Survivors "
• " The Bonding "
• " The Enemy "
• " The Vengeance Factor "
• " The Hunted "
• " Yesterday's Enterprise "
• " Sins of The Father "
• " Captain's Holiday "
• " Hollow Pursuits "
• " The Most Toys "
• " Transfigurations "
• " Family " ( Season 4 )
• " Suddenly Human "
• " Future Imperfect "
• " The Loss "
• " The Wounded "
• " Galaxy's Child "
• " Identity Crisis "
• " Half a Life "
• " The Mind's Eye "
• " Redemption "
• " Redemption II " ( Season 5 )
• " Ensign Ro "
• " Disaster "
• " Unification I "
• " Unification II "
• " New Ground "
• " Violations "
• " Conundrum "
• " Cause And Effect "
• " Cost Of Living "
• " Imaginary Friend "
• " The Next Phase "
• " Time's Arrow "
• " Time's Arrow, Part II " ( Season 6 )
• " Man Of The People "
• " Schisms "
• " Rascals "
• " The Quality of Life "
• " Ship In A Bottle "
• " Tapestry "
• " Lessons "
• " Suspicions "
• " Second Chances "
• " Timescape "
• " Liaisons " ( Season 7 )
• " Phantasms "
• " Attached "
• " Force of Nature "
• " Parallels "
• " Homeward "
• " Thine Own Self "
• " Genesis "
• " Firstborn "
• " Bloodlines "
• " All Good Things... "
• Main title theme (all episodes)
• " Emissary " ( Season 1 )
• " Captive Pursuit "
• " The Passenger "
• " Move Along Home "
• " Battle Lines "
• " The Storyteller "
• " The Forsaken "
• " In the Hands of the Prophets "
• " The Homecoming " ( Season 2 )
• " The Circle "
• " The Siege "
• " Invasive Procedures "
• " Rules of Acquisition "
• " Second Sight "
• " Sanctuary "
• " The Alternate "
• " Whispers "
• " Paradise "
• " Playing God "
• " Blood Oath "
• " The Maquis, Part II "
• " The Wire "
• " Crossover "
• " The Jem'Hadar "
• " Meridian " ( Season 3 )
• " Fascination "
• " Past Tense, Part I "
• " Life Support "
• " Destiny "
• " Prophet Motive "
• " Distant Voices "
• " The Die is Cast "
• " Explorers "
• " The Way of the Warrior " ( Season 4 )
• " The Visitor "
• " Indiscretion "
• " Homefront "
• " Crossfire "
• " Accession "
• " Hard Time "
• " Shattered Mirror "
• " Body Parts "
• " Apocalypse Rising " ( Season 5 )
• " Nor the Battle to the Strong "
• " Trials and Tribble-ations "
• " Rapture "
• " For the Uniform "
• " In Purgatory's Shadow "
• " Doctor Bashir, I Presume "
• " A Simple Investigation "
• " Blaze of Glory "
• " A Time to Stand " ( Season 6 )
• " Behind the Lines "
• " You Are Cordially Invited "
• " The Magnificent Ferengi "
• " Far Beyond the Stars "
• " Change of Heart "
• " Inquisition "
• " The Reckoning "
• " The Sound of Her Voice "
• " Image in the Sand " ( Season 7 )
• " Shadows and Symbols "
• " Once More Unto the Breach "
• " Prodigal Daughter "
• " The Emperor's New Cloak "
• " Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges "
• " Penumbra "
• " Extreme Measures "
• " What You Leave Behind "
• " Parallax " ( Season 1 )
• " Eye of the Needle "
• " Ex Post Facto "
• " State of Flux "
• " Heroes and Demons "
• " Elogium "
• " The 37's "
• " Initiations " ( Season 2 )
• " Parturition "
• " Cold Fire "
• " Resistance "
• " Alliances "
• " Dreadnought "
• " Deadlock "
• " Resolutions "
• " Basics, Part I "
• " False Profits " ( Season 3 )
• " Basics, Part II "
• " The Swarm "
• " The Q and the Grey "
• " Macrocosm "
• " Favorite Son "
• " Real Life "
• " Worst Case Scenario "
• " The Gift " ( Season 4 )
• " Day of Honor "
• " The Raven "
• " Year of Hell "
• " Year of Hell, Part II "
• " Concerning Flight "
• " Vis à Vis "
• " Living Witness "
• " Hope and Fear "
• " Drone " ( Season 5 )
• " Nothing Human "
• " Timeless "
• " Infinite Regress "
• " Gravity "
• " The Disease "
• " Juggernaut "
• " Someone to Watch Over Me "
• " Relativity "
• " Survival Instinct " ( Season 6 )
• " Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy "
• " The Voyager Conspiracy "
• " Tsunkatse "
• " Virtuoso "
• " Ashes to Ashes "
• " Life Line "
• " Unimatrix Zero "
• " Unimatrix Zero, Part II " ( Season 7 )
• " Critical Care "
• " Body and Soul "
• " Lineage "
• " Workforce "
• " Workforce, Part II "
• " Natural Law "
• " Renaissance Man "
• Archer's Theme (Closing credits) (all episodes)
• " Broken Bow " ( Season 1 )
• " Strange New World "
• " Breaking the Ice "
• " Fortunate Son "
• " Sleeping Dogs "
• " Shockwave "
• " Shockwave, Part II " ( Season 2 )
• " Dead Stop "
• " The Communicator "
• " Future Tense "
• " Cogenitor "
• " The Expanse "
• " The Xindi " ( Season 3 )
• " Impulse "
• " Twilight "
• " Carpenter Street "
• " Doctor's Orders " (with Kevin Kiner )
• " Damage " (with Kevin Kiner)
• " Countdown " (with Kevin Kiner)
• " Storm Front, Part II " ( Season 4 ) (with Kevin Kiner)
• " Borderland " (with Kevin Kiner)
• " Kir'Shara "(with Kevin Kiner)
• " Observer Effect " (with Kevin Kiner)
• " The Aenar " (with Kevin Kiner)
• " In a Mirror, Darkly " (with Kevin Kiner)
• " In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II " (with Kevin Kiner)
• " These Are the Voyages... " (with Kevin Kiner)
• DIS : " Kobayashi Maru " (Archer's Theme, uncredited)
• LD : " Hear All, Trust Nothing " (Theme from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , uncredited)
• PIC : " The Bounty " (Theme from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , uncredited)
• Star Trek Generations
• What We Left Behind

Awards for Star Trek [ ]

McCarthy received the following awards and nominations for his work on Star Trek :

• 1989 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " The Child "
• 1990 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " Yesterday's Enterprise "
• 1991 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " Half a Life "
• 1992 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " Unification I "
• 1993 Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement in Main Title Theme Music for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• 1994 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " All Good Things... "
• 1995 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " Heroes and Demons "
• 1995 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: The Next Generation
• 1995 ASCAP Award in the category Top Box Office Films for Star Trek Generations
• 1996 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• 1997 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• 1998 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , shared with Jay Chattaway
• 1999 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: Voyager
• 2000 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: Voyager
• 2001 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " Workforce "
• 2001 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: Voyager , shared with Jay Chattaway and David Bell
• 2002 ASCAP Award in the category Top TV Series for Star Trek: Enterprise , shared with Jay Chattaway, David Bell, Paul Baillargeon , and Diane Warren
• 2003 Emmy Award nomination in the category Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episode " The Expanse "

Star Trek interviews [ ]

• "Dennis McCarthy – Music of the Stars", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 14 , pp. 5-10, interviewed by David Hirsch
• TNG Season 2 DVD special feature "Departmental Briefing Year Two: Production" ("Music"), interviewed on 5 October 2001
• TNG Season 7 DVD special feature "Starfleet Moments & Memories Year Seven" ("A Unique Family"), interviewed on 5 October 2001
• In Conversation: The Music of Star Trek - The Next Generation ( 2013 )

External links [ ]

• Dennis McCarthy at Wikipedia
• Dennis McCarthy at the Internet Movie Database
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

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Beginning with the now-famous monologue by William Shatner, “Space: the final frontier”, the opening notes of Star Trek’s theme song have become ingrained in the minds of fans around the world.

The iconic song, written by Alexander Courage in 1964, is played at the opening and closing credits of every episode of the original series and has been reinterpreted in some form for each Star Trek feature film.

In a new video released by Canada’s CBC Music, host Tom Allen explores the connection between the song and some of history’s greatest classical music composers, including Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler.

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Published Jul 27, 2015

Exclusive Interview: Star Trek Composer Dennis McCarthy

Dennis McCarthy produced Brent Spiner’s semi-legendary album, Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back . And, oh yeah, he composed the main theme and music for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , as well as music for The Next Generation , Voyager and Enterprise .  McCarthy also wrote/conducted the music for Star Trek Generations , Borg Invasion 4D (the short film/attraction at Star Trek: The Experience) , as well as for the computer game Star Trek: Borg. All told, McCarthy spent 18 years helping immerse Trek fans in the adventures of their favorite characters, along the way earning two Grammy Awards. His numerous other credits include Enos, V, The Twilight Zone, Dynasty, MacGyver, Deadly Games, Stargate SG-1, Breast Men, Project Greenlight and Prayer Hour . McCarthy, as you might imagine, has long been on StarTrek.com ’s interview wish list. He proved elusive for a few years, but with an upcoming appearance at Creation Entertainment’s Official Star Trek Convention next month in Las Vegas – where he’ll be appear on stage to take questions from the audience and also participate in a special concert event with the Nevada Pops  – we finally can check him off our list. Below is part one of our exclusive two-part interview with Dennis McCarthy. Visit StarTrek.com again tomorrow to read the second half of the conversation. Let's start with the present. What's life like for you these days? And are you still working? McCARTHY: I’m still working, still very busy. I’ve done several short films. I did some extra music for a friend of mine who’s working on a Star Trek fan film. He’s also working on a comedy that’s set in an alien bar, and it’s very funny. I’m writing with some folks. I worked on Ancient Aliens , and got the main title on that. There’s a whole bunch of music flying all over the place. I had to convert over to electronics because the days of orchestras, while they’re still with us, if you can’t work a keyboard and a big Mac computer you’re dead in the water nowadays. So I had to make the jump, and I did.

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Does the 'Star Trek' theme really have lyrics?

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Even if you've never seen a single episode of "Star Trek," you probably know the theme song. First comes William Shatner intoning, "Space, the final frontier," followed by his monologue (backed by triumphant horns) about the " Star Trek " mission to "explore strange new worlds ... to boldly go where no man has gone before." The song then segues into an orchestral arrangement with an eerie melody -- is it a woman or some kind of flute? -- and back into the horn blasts. The original series aired more than 40 years ago for only three seasons, but the theme song is a classic and still instantly recognizable.

The "Star Trek" theme is memorable despite the fact that besides the monologue, there are no words -- and that's the way composer Alexander Courage intended it. But series creator Gene Roddenberry did write lyrics for the theme song, although he never had plans to record them or use them on the show. Roddenberry's move infuriated Courage, who swore never to work on "Star Trek" again.

Here's what happened: Theme song-composing work generally doesn't pay very well -- most contracts are royalty-heavy, which means that the bulk of the money comes rolling in per episode. The more episodes that air, the more lucrative the contract. Hopes apparently weren't very high for "Star Trek," because the producers had a tough time finding a composer. They finally hired Courage, who took a chance on the show, which had been running for a few seasons and would possibly make it to syndication, where the big bucks are (little did he know!). The composer and the lyricist usually split the royalties down the middle, but because there were no lyrics, the spoils would all go to Courage.

Roddenberry wouldn't let the money go that easily, though. He and Courage had a handshake deal that allowed him to pen lyrics for the theme song (or so he claimed; Courage always denied it). So during the first season, Roddenberry wrote them, claimed the lyricist title and started to pull in half the royalties. Legal, but pretty shady. Courage never returned to work.

Soprano Loulie Jean Norman went through a similar situation. Yes, that is a woman's voice you hear in the theme song -- but only in the first season. When the producers realized that Norman's Screen Actors Guild contract entitled her to rerun fees, they removed her vocals from the song and filled them in with various instruments.

In case you're wondering, here are Roddenberry's elusive theme song lyrics:

Beyond the rim of the star-light

My love is wand'ring in star-flight

I know he'll find in star-clustered reaches

Love, strange love a star woman teaches.

I know his journey ends never

His star trek will go on forever.

But tell him

While he wanders his starry sea

Remember, remember me.

Lots More Information

Related articles.

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• Deezen, Eddie. "The Star Trek Theme Song Has Lyrics." Mental Floss. Oct. 2, 2011. (Jan. 14, 2015) http://mentalfloss.com/article/28895/star-trek-theme-song-has-lyrics
• Snopes.com. "Unthemely Behavior." Aug. 8, 2007. (Jan. 14, 2015) http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/trek.asp
• Solow, Herbert F. and Robert H. Justman. "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story." Pocket Books. 1997.

Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article:

The Star Trek Theme Song Has Lyrics

By eddie deezen | jul 20, 2018.

The Star Trek theme song is familiar to pretty much anyone who lived in the free world (and probably elsewhere, too) in the late 20th century. The tune is played during the show's opening credits; a slightly longer version is played, accompanied by stills from various episodes, during the closing credits. The opening song is preceded by William Shatner (as Captain Kirk) doing his now-legendary monologue recitation, which begins: "Space, the final frontier ..."

The show's familiar melody was written by respected film and TV composer Alexander Courage, who said the Star Trek theme's main inspiration was the Richard Whiting song "Beyond the Blue Horizon." In Courage's contract it was stipulated that, as the composer, he would receive royalties every time the show was aired and the theme song played. If, somehow, Star Trek made it into syndication—which, of course, it ultimately did—Courage stood to make a lot of money. And so did the person who wrote the lyrics.

WAIT... THERE WERE LYRICS?

Gene Roddenberry, the show's creator, wrote lyrics to the theme song.

"Beyond the rim of the star-light, my love is wand'ring in star-flight!"

Why would Roddenberry even bother?

The lyrics were never even meant to be heard on the show, but not because the network (NBC) nixed them. Roddenberry nixed them himself. Roddenberry wanted a piece of the composing profits, so he wrote the hokey lyrics solely to receive a "co-writer" credit.

"I know he'll find in star-clustered reaches Love, strange love a star woman teaches."

As one of the composers, Roddenberry received 50 percent of the royalties ... cutting Alexander Courage's share in half. Not surprisingly, Courage was furious about the deal. Though it was legal, he admitted, it was unethical because Roddenberry had contributed nothing to why the music was successful.

Roddenberry was unapologetic. According to Snopes, he once declared, "I have to get some money somewhere. I'm sure not gonna get it out of the profits of Star Trek ."

In 1969, after Star Trek officially got the ax, no one (Courage and Roddenberry included) could possibly have imagined the show's great popularity and staying power.

Courage, who only worked on two shows in Star Trek 's opening season because he was busy working on the 1967 Dr. Doolittle movie, vowed he would never return to Star Trek .

He never did.

If you're looking for an offbeat karaoke number, here are Roddenberry's lyrics, as provided by Snopes :

Beyond The rim of the star-light My love Is wand'ring in star-flight I know He'll find in star-clustered reaches Love, Strange love a star woman teaches. I know His journey ends never His star trek Will go on forever. But tell him While he wanders his starry sea Remember, remember me.

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Taraji p. henson returns to host 2024 bet awards, jeff russo nods to the past, be it ‘star trek’ or david bowie, while creating new sounds for ‘picard’ and ‘the man who fell to earth’ – sound & screen.

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Star Trek: Picard composer Jeff Russo says he tweaked the streaming series’ main theme for the just-concluded second season in order to capture the current tone of Jean-Luc Picard’s latest adventures in the final frontier.

“What we wanted to do was really reflect the growth of the character and what this particular story was going to be,” he said onstage Thursday at Deadline’s Sound & Screen awards-season music event. “Season 1 was a lot more contemplative, and a lot more about his personal journey. And this one is a little bit more swashbuckling, and this one is a little bit more of an action-y type thing. There’s a lot more stuff going on, and we wanted to give it a little more pace and a little more hype.”

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Russo noted that when working on a series in the five-plus-decade-old Star Trek franchise like Picard , “we have this long history of music canon that I get to pull from, which is really, really fun to do.”

And Russo recognized that he, too, is building out that vast, ever-expanding library of Trek music. “A lot a lot of that is trying to figure out how to how to have our own identity while still being a part of this franchise and connecting the musical references from the past and making new musical references for the future and just sort of connecting that whole thing,” he said. “And it’s really important to try to cast your own thing, but never let go of the thing that you know you were.”

Similarly, Russo said that in his work on another sci-fi series produced by Trek czar Alex Kurtzman, Showtime’s The Man Who Fell to Earth , he sought to envision music that would have logically emanated from a TV show based on the cult 1976 film, but also captured some of the essence of its star, glam rock icon David Bowie.

“We talked early on about that there’s a connection to Bowie,” said Russo, an avid fan of the edgy pop star. “So we wanted to give a nod to that. We wanted to add some of that grit and some of that way he did things into the into [the show], and he sort of pops up throughout the whole series.”

Check out the panel video above.

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In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.

• Gene Roddenberry
• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• 277 User reviews
• 99 Critic reviews
• 16 wins & 31 nominations total

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• Trivia In the hallways of the Enterprise there are tubes marked "GNDN." These initials stand for "goes nowhere does nothing."
• Goofs The deck locations for Kirk's Quarters, Sickbay and Transporter Room vary (usually between decks 4-7) throughout the series.

Dr. McCoy : "He's dead, Jim."

• Crazy credits On some episodes, the closing credits show a still that is actually from the Star Trek blooper reel. It is a close-up of stunt man Bill Blackburn who played an android in Return to Tomorrow (1968) , removing his latex make up. In the reel, He is shown taking it off, while an off-screen voice says "You wanted show business, you got it!"
• Alternate versions In 2006, CBS went back to the archives and created HD prints of every episode of the show. In addition to the new video transfer, they re-did all of the model shots and some matte paintings using CGI effects, and re-recorded the original theme song to clean it up. These "Enhanced" versions of the episodes aired on syndication and have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
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I Asked Star Trek: Discovery's Michelle Paradise If She'll Return To The Franchise After Series Finale, And Her Response Was So Perfect

I love this.

Star Trek: Discovery laid the framework for a new era of the long-running franchise, and some of its biggest swings happened while Michelle Paradise was helping steer the ship. The executive producer join the show midway into Season 2 and was the co-showrunner of the Sonequa Martin-Green-led series from Season 3 to its unexpected cancellation with Season 5 . Now that her work on the show is over, Paradise's future with the massive IP is uncertain. So CinemaBlend asked her about possibly doing more with it following her show's series finale, and her answer was so perfect.

With many upcoming Trek shows on the way, it would seem that there are opportunities for Michelle Paradise to put her writer's cap back on and contribute to an episode or two. For instance, she could even lead one of those surprise projects Alex Kurtzman hinted at while speaking with CinemaBlend. I asked Paradise what her feelings were in regard to possibly joining another series on some level, or maybe even becoming showrunner of a different show. It wasn't too surprising that the veteran scribe's thoughts were respectful, but I also appreciate just how sweet they were:

Oh, wow. I love Star Trek. I mean, I grew up on Star Trek so it's been a dream to get to be part of this iteration of it. And all of the folks I've worked with have just been so lovely. So, if the opportunity arose, I would love to come back and be part of it in some way. And, if that opportunity doesn't arise, I'm forever part of this family, and that in and of itself is just an amazing gift.

I would be shocked if Star Trek didn't welcome Michelle Paradise back into the fold at some point. Not only did she play a key role in setting the tone for a new type of serialized storytelling within the franchise, but she also played a big part in creating the vast blank canvas for future creatives that is the 32nd century. Here, the upcoming Starfleet Academy series will feature Holly Hunter and others to showcase further how the universe has changed 1000 years after the TOS era. 

All in all, her comments are so great. Fans likely be excited to hear that she's up for more cosmic storytelling. Additionally, you have to appreciate the fact that even if she doesn't get another Trek opportunity, she's pleased with what she's been able to do and relishes her status as a member of this growing "family."

The legend had kind words about the star.

There are, of course, so many variables that could change with Trek over the next decade that make it difficult to say how exactly everything might shake out. For one, it seems increasingly likely that another studio will own the franchise in that time. 

Given that acquisition, new leadership could influence what eras are drilled down upon and which ones are forgotten. Star Trek: Discovery may currently hold the blueprint for the franchise's future, but some other company may feel differently. 

Regardless, I think there's value in bringing in Michelle Paradise back in whatever capacity other shows would have her. We know that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is returning for Season 4, and it would be great to see her contribute to an episode of that show. I also think she'd bring a lot of experience to any Starfleet Academy episode, especially if other Discovery characters are in the series as CinemaBlend suspected when we talked to Tilly actress Mary Wiseman a month ago. And, even if Paradise doesn't come back, it's comforting that she's at peace with her legacy within the franchise up to this point.

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After the series finale premieres on May 30th as part of the 2024 TV schedule , anyone with a Paramount+ subscription can watch Star Trek: Discovery in full. Whether she's part of the franchise in the future or not, I can't wait to see what's next for Michelle Paradise!

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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Zachary Quinto Criticized by Toronto Restaurant for Reportedly Yelling at Staff 'Like Entitled Child' and Making 'Host Cry'

"An amazing Spock, but a terrible customer," Manita restaurant wrote on social media

A Toronto restaurant is calling out Zachary Quinto for his alleged behavior at the eatery.

On Sunday, June 2, Manita on Ossington Ave shared a message on Instagram Stories , calling the Star Trek actor "an amazing Spock, but a terrible customer."

"Yelled at staff like an entitled child after he didn’t reply to two texts to inform him his table was ready and refused to believe the empty tables in the dining room weren’t available for him despite being politely informed they were spoken for,” the message read.

“Made our host cry and the rest of our brunch diners uncomfortable,” continued the eatery, which describes itself as a "mediterranean-ish bistro" on Instagram .

Manita/Instagram

“Mr. Quinto, take your bad vibes somewhere else, we have many lovely celebrities join us at Manita, but you are NOT one of them,” the message concluded, tagging the actor.

The eatery then released a second message on Instagram on Monday, June 3. "To expand upon yesterday’s story re: Zachary Quinto: This isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time an irate guest has taken their frustrations out on our staff," they shared.

"Manita is deeply grateful for our mostly incredible, friendly, gracious guests … who may give us constructive feedback from time to time," they added.

"To all the other Zachary Quintos out there, on behalf of restaurant workers everywhere: We aren’t above criticism, but we are above being demeaned," the restaurant concluded.

Quinto's reps didn't immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE.

John Nacion/FilmMagic

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now !

Quinto celebrated his 47th birthday on June 2, and shared some pictures and videos of himself marking his special day on his Instagram Stories .

The actor headed to Canada's Wonderland theme park, posting a photo of the attraction's entrance. "Thank you for such an incredible birthday adventure!!!" Quinto wrote, adding a mind blown emoji and tagging the theme park.

Zachary Quinto/Instagram

He also posted a video on the Drop Tower ride, as well as another snap of himself posing with a birthday cake inside a restaurant.

Quinto isn't the only celebrity to be criticized by a restaurant on social media in recent years.

Back in October 2022, Balthazar owner Keith McNally called James Corden "the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago" and banned Corden from the New York City eatery in an Instagram post.

In a follow-up post hours later, he said that Corden had "apologized profusely" and the ban was lifted.

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

"I haven't done anything wrong, on any level. So why would I ever cancel this [interview]? I was there. I get it," Corden told The New York Times at the time, while promoting his Prime Video series Mammals . 

"I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it's so silly," he added.

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Star Trek: Discovery Gets Hilarious Sitcom Opening Credits

• Star Trek: Discovery season 5 finale is a tribute to the crew's found family, emphasizing connections made in space.
• A 1990s sitcom-style opening credits introduces the USS Discovery's bridge crew to the theme from Family Matters.
• Director Jonathan Frakes makes a cameo in the hilarious video, showcasing the fun side of the USS Discovery crew.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 gets 1990s sitcom-style opening credits, and they're hilarious. Discovery is about to end with its season 5 and series finale, "Life, Itself", which premieres on Thursday, May 30, on Paramount+. Star Trek: Discovery season 5 has been a thrilling intergalactic treasure hunt, but the true theme of the final season is the importance of the connections made by the found family of the crew of the USS Discovery.

On X, Patrick Kwok-Choon (@KWOK_ROCK), who plays Lt. Commander Gen Rhys, shared a video of Star Trek: Discovery 's season 5 cast performing a comedic new opening credits sequence set to "As Days Go By," the theme song to the 1990s sitcom Family Matters. Kwok-Choon credits the "genius" video to Orville Cummings, who plays Lt. Christopher on Star Trek: Discovery, and it celebrates the actors who portray season 5's USS DIscovery bridge crew. Check it out below:

Given director Jonathan Frakes is the last person credited in the video, it was filmed during production of Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 9, "Lagrange Point," which Frakes directed.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 9 Ending Explained

Saru returns to help Burnham and Rayner with the Breen as Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 9, sets up the show's explosive finale.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Did More With Its Bridge Crew Than Previous Seasons

Some members of discovery's crew missed most of season 5.

Star Trek: Discovery has often been criticized for focusing primarily on Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and not fully developing the characters who make up the USS Discovery's bridge crew. Star Trek: Discovery season 5 even introduced a few new faces to the bridge, including a new First Officer, Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie). Meanwhile, three significant people, Ambassador Saru (Doug Jones), Lt. Commander Kayla Detmer (Emily Coutts) and Lt. Commander Joann Owosokun (Oyin Oladejo), were absent from the bulk of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

Two original members of the USS Discovery's crew, Lt. Commander Ronald Bryce (Ronnie Rowe, Jr.) and Commander Nilsson (Sara Mitich) transferred from Discovery to other starships.

However, Star Trek: Discovery season 5 made strides toward audiences getting to know the crew of the USS Discovery better, thanks to Commander Rayner's gruff and quick interviews with his new personnel. Meanwhile, Lt. Commander Gen Rhys has also been a standout, even getting to command the USS Discovery against the Breen. Star Trek: Discovery 's Family Matters -style sitcom opening credits show that behind the scenes, the actors were incredibly close and fostered a family atmosphere that does translate on-screen in Star Trek: Discovery season 5.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is streaming on Paramount+

Cast Blu del Barrio, Oded Fehr, Anthony Rapp, Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Eve Harlow, Mary Wiseman, Callum Keith Rennie

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Alex Kurtzman

Directors Jonathan Frakes, Olatunde Osunsanmi

Showrunner Alex Kurtzman

Where To Watch Paramount+

• June 3, 2024 | ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Season 2 Coming To Netflix In July
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• May 30, 2024 | Alex Kurtzman Explains Why ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Is Set In The ‘Discovery’ Era
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Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Pulls It All Together For “Life, Itself”

| May 30, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 220 comments so far

“Life, Itself”

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 10 – Debuted Thursday, May 30, 2024 Written by Kyle Jarrow & Michelle Paradise Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi

A solid season finale ties things for the season plot and the characters, with a bonus bringing the series to a satisfying conclusion.

The Progenitors may be all-powerful, but would it have killed them to add some signage?

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“Let’s go get what we came for”

We are back at the binary black holes, the portal is out of reach of the Disco, there is no contact with the captain, the Breen dreadnaught is launching a swarm of fighters, and Primarch Tahal is one hour away from escalating things beyond any hope: just the kind of stakes and ticking clocks we expect for a finale. Inside the portal, Michael finds herself looking at a tunnel of seemingly infinite gateway windows she “cannot explain” to her tricorder, for posterity. She picks a bright light in the distance as her destination but when she notices an odd distortion, she is soon pulled through to a windswept desolate world and greeted by an angry Breen, who isn’t in a talking mood. After dispatching him and another Breen back in the tunnel, Moll shows up with some sarcastic praise, a bleeding wound, and a big gun. Michael offers a dermal regenerator as a peace offering. But soon enough they are at odds again, as Moll is willing to work with the Breen to use the tech to bring back L’ak and doesn’t trust the Feds. Michael has seen that dark future and isn’t going to let that happen, so cue the fight music and VFX as the pair punches and kicks their way through shifting gravities and multiple worlds like a TV-budget Christopher Nolan movie. Michael switches tactics, connecting emotionally over loss, giving Moll her personal promise to use the tech to bring back L’ak. (Remember Moll’s pattern buffer? Her heart is literally on her sleeve). Together the reluctant partnership heads off down the yellow brick road Progenitor tech tunnel.

Off to see the wizard?

“I have kind of a crazy idea”

Things are hectic on the Disco as Rayner realizes he can’t get to the portal and fight off the Breen at the same time, so Book volunteers to take a shuttle to grab the portal. Cleveland is given a short ticking clock before the black hole radiation will fry him but Dr. Culber volunteers to join anyway, as he has a weird feeling he is going to be needed. As they head off, Tilly hatches a plan involving a plasma cloud and the power of science. Back at Federation HQ, they need to divert the approaching Breen fleet, so Saru and Nhan volunteer to confront Tahal with an unarmed shuttle because for these Disco vets— and as the great Vin Diesel says —it’s all about family. They catch up with Tahal, who isn’t in the mood to have a nice chat and is curious why the Feds don’t want her finding out what’s going on with Runh’s old dreadnaught. Suru makes his first move, offering Tahal a Federation trade route through the L’Tar Nebula, which would give her an advantage over other Primarchs, but she rejects it. Nhan is nervous but Saru remains calm, even after being given 30 seconds to leave. The offer is rescinded after he calls Tahal a coward, then escalates to telling her he is a predator, she is his prey, and if she doesn’t take his deal, she will never get the Imperium throne. He now knows she already has hidden bases in L’Tar and his friends in the region will attack, diverting her attention and keeping her from winning the Breen faction war. She thinks he is crazy and bluffing but Saru compels her to look into his eyes and ask if she doesn’t see resolve. It works. Nhan is impressed: That’s some cold Kelpien cowboy diplomacy.

Sorry Commander Nhan, if one of us isn’t going to make it, I’m guessing it’s you.

“Every clue has prepared us for this”

To find their way through the endless tunnel of gateways, Michael starts thinking multidimensionally—like a Progenitor—and finds a new hidden vista, this time with flowers and a promising central dais. This whole place is the tech they have been looking for, and they are reminded of the danger as they pass a makeshift monument to the 24 th -century scientist who was killed trying to use it. The control interface is an unmarked scatter of triangles, and as the two debate how the “one between many” clue fits, when Michael can suddenly hear Book’s transmission. The distraction gives Moll a chance to knock the captain out before forming a pyramid on the interface, getting her zapped and pinned as the system wakes up with columns of energy. Outside, the portal draws matter from a black hole, impressive but not helpful to everyone out there. Tilly’s trick of blowing up the Breen fighters with a nearby plasma cloud works, and Book is ordered to grab the portal before the dreadnaught shows up, but he can’t get a tractor lock. Now Culber understands his mysterious drive to be there and relays the exact resonance frequency Book needs for the tractor beam… We’ll sort that out later. Michael wakes and pulls Moll off the pedestal, down but conscious. She works out the triangle puzzle (“one between many” means creating a larger triangle with the negative space, duh). She is rewarded by another transition and greeting from an actual extinct Progenitor, waiting to offer instructions… like Clippy , but with the power of creation. From what she heard from Book, Michael knows the portal is causing all sorts of dire problems, so the first thing is to shut it down. The Progenitor explains it is just powering up to perform its primary function: the creation of life, but it can’t bring back the dead, which is bad news for Moll and L’ak. Michael is concerned the tech can be used to create armies of destruction, but the Progenitor points to the evidence in the tunnel, all those gateways to worlds full of life. She then drops the big head-scratcher, the Progenitors didn’t create this thing, they found it. The Progenitors have progenitors? They are just part of a “cycle of creators and creations countless times over.” It’s progenitors all the way down. Mind Blown GIFs .

Let’s see what happens when I touch this invisible thing.

“It’s the right thing to do”

Tahal may have turned around, but she has sent a cloaked scout to see what’s going on. The Discovery crew can’t let that or the dreadnaught have access to the Progenitor tech, so Rayner has the craziest idea yet: Just remove all the Breen… with the spore drive. This is Discovery, where they do five impossible things before breakfast, so he rallies the crew with a speech to make it happen. Inside the portal, Michael is told she has passed the tests so she is now the “steward” of the tech. During a montage of the raging battle outside Tilly and Stamets zap the Breen away to the galactic barrier thanks to a cool saucer separation manuever. The Progenitor talks about how her race found themselves alone, so they found meaning by creating all the varieties of life throughout the galaxy, and now it’s Michael’s turn to play god. What is most meaningful to you? No pressure. For now, the captain wants the whole thing shut down while she considers her options. The Progenitor says she can wait and gives Burnham a quick data download of a few billion years of the history of life in the galaxy. No big whoop. Michael grabs Moll, lets her know about L’ak (sorry) and they beam to Book’s shuttle. Everyone reunites and hugs (Saru too, of course) but they soon debate the use of the Progenitor tech. Rayner talks of orders and Stamets of science, but Burnham is determined. They already have infinite diversity in infinite combinations, they don’t need the tech, and she’s sure Rillak and Vance will back her up. The portal is placed beyond one of the black holes’ event horizon, but the captain figures whoever made it could always figure out how to get it out if they are still around. Back at HQ, Moll and Book share a moment and her icy attitude thaws a bit; also, it turns out she is being offered a job with Kovich if she wants it. Speaking of that enigma, Kovich tells Michael the Red Directive is over, everything is classified, and that’s that. He tells her he has lived many lives and she is top of the list of aggravations, but he’s still impressed. Thankfully, she doesn’t let this latest mysterious comment go, pressing him to reveal who he really is. He finally introduces himself: “ Agent Daniels .” Damn, and I already used up all my mind blown GIFs.

Get ready for even more hugging.

“Last dance”

Cut to weeks later: We find ourselves at a beach destination wedding. Yep, T’Rina and Saru get hitched and seal it with a kiss. Aww. Everyone is there having a good time. Suru sums up the season with Michael as he looks at the gathering of diverse friends and well wishers, nothing it would make the Progenitors proud to see how “we are all in the most fundamental ways, connected.” After hearing how Tilly has a mentorship plan tailor-made for a spinoff series about Starfleet Academy , Michael finds Book and the two dip out to have a chat on the beach. He has been busy and now he is a free man, full of hope again. Both are looking to the future and agree that future should be together. “You, me, and Grudge.” More aww, more kissing, but they are interrupted: It’s a call from Kovich. Another mission. And the season ends with just the right note. “What are we waiting for? Let’s see what the future holds.” Fade to black… but wait, there’s more.

Marriage is logical.

Cut to an isolated cabin on Sanctuary Four (where Book planted that Kwejian world root, BTW). It’s Michael and Book, many years later, with gray hairs and fun banter over bad coffee. There is talk about it being a big day before a shuttle arrives, piloted by their son! He’s a Starfleet captain! She’s an admiral! New uniforms! They are not messing around. Mother and son head off, mentioning Tilly is still at the Academy, and she gives some advice for his first big speech in command. She reflects on her (classified) mission, talking of the question about what is most meaningful. Her answer, “Sometimes life, itself (title alert!) is meaning enough.” Channeling her own inner Diesel, she talks of their family, her Discovery family, and how her son will find family with his new crew. He drops her off at the USS Discovery in space dock, which is getting the -A removed from its registry as the ship is being reset to its original 23rd century design and parameters for its “final mission.” On board, the admiral greets Zora and informs the AI she will take the ship into deep space and then leave her, to await something to do with “ Craft .” Reflecting on how it’s been “a hell of a journey,” Michael sits in the captain’s chair and all the feels come back to her. We see her younger self on the bridge and she’s with her Disco family. Everyone is there, even Detmer, Owo, and Bryce. There is a lot of hugging and chatter and laughing and joy as we fade back to older Burnham coming out of the moment. The OG Discovery exits spacedock and all the ships and shuttles at HQ are lined up as an honor guard. Nice. For one last time, she orders “Let’s fly” as the classic music swells and we fade to black for the final curtain. Goodbye, Star Trek: Discovery . I really will miss you.

Zora, if you are so smart, how come you didn’t predict we would get canceled?

All good things…

This was a solid season finale that nicely tied up plot and character stories amidst fast-paced action and philosophical questions—with a few answers. Packing so much in did perhaps bloat the episode, which got even heftier when the epilogue (shot later, after the series wasn’t renewed) was tacked on. But the themes of the season were woven throughout, which in true Disco style were made clear with all the talk of connection, diversity, and family. From the beginning, this show has always been about Michael Burnham, and her hero’s journey was certainly on full display here as she was deemed worthy to hold the power of the gods, with Sonequa Martin-Green delivering a fantastic performance covering the required range needed for all the plot, romance, and action. The rest of the ensemble had hero moments throughout too, notably Doug Jones’ Saru, who ended the season strong showing just how formidable he is, without having to fire a shot (or quill). Everyone was smart, clearly worthy of their positions, and the show doesn’t need to make the baddies dumb to keep the plot moving. Even the USS Discovery itself got a hero moment, one of the many spectacular visual effects moments they saved up for with the finale. Director and EP Olatunde Osunsanmi really understands this show and these characters and knows how to pace things so that extra time did fly, although he is definitely over-enamored with the spinning camera rig.

Inside all that action were big and little moments of character to pay off elements that had built up through the season. A great example of this was Rayner, a new character introduced in conflict with Burnham at the start of the season, and who we learned later is haunted by his past with the Breen. For the finale, he spots his own errors and pivots, he has the trust of the crew, and he even has a tiny bit of mercy for the Breen. Callum Keith Rennie was one of the standouts of the season and its sad that we won’t get to see where the character would have gone had there been another season. Wilson Cruz’s Culber also had a nice bit of closure here, as the doctor’s spiritual journey brought him onto the (almost suicide) mission with Book, where he took that leap of faith and learned to embrace the mystery of how “Jinaal” has changed him. Sadly, the same can’t be said of his husband Stamets, who got the short end of the stick this episode (and all season) with Anthony Rapp mostly relegated to technobabble and subbing in as chief engineer in the weeks Tig Notaro couldn’t make it to Toronto. Stamets has looked for meaning after the spore drive and that journey will continue now that the Progenitor tech has been taken away. Mary Wiseman’s Tilly had fun moments this episode but her backstory about struggles at the Academy and her solution (a mentorship program) seems more about setting her up for the new show than servicing the character.

Did anyone see my dead husband? I seem to have lost him.

Meeting the makers

For the finale, the big bad Breen mostly took a back seat. We never got a glimpse into what was happening on the dreadnought with Moll gone. We got some FaceTime chat with Tahal, who was just as one-dimensional as Ruhn, but the various Breen ships did pose enough of a credible threat for there to be high stakes for our heroes. In the end, it was Moll who was the main adversary for the episode, as she stuck with her single-minded determination, resulting in probably too many fight scenes inside the Progenitor portal. Also, why did she fight the Breen who were supposedly working for her? The adversaries Moll and L’ak were certainly stronger than previous villains for the show, but the last few episodes didn’t really pay off some of the promise of earlier ones. Maybe her redemption was planned to come later as an agent for Kovich. Speaking of that enigmatic character, it was quite satisfying to finally address his backstory, and tying it into the Star Trek: Enterprise character of Daniels was clever and makes a lot of sense.

The biggest reveals for this episode were tying things up with the Progenitors as this season picked up the thread left by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Chase” and really ran with it. The scenes with Burnham and the Progenitor (ably played by Somkele Iyamah-Idhalma) were strong, turning their mission of seeding the galaxy into Star Trek’s recurring theme of infinite diversity, as laid out nicely by Saru at the wedding (in case you missed it). The one thing that didn’t land was the “one between many” triangle thing, which turned out to be a basic IQ test and not something tied into the rest of the clues, tests, and cultural understandings Burnham has passed throughout the season.  Of course, Burnham was the one who was deemed worthy to become the steward, but it also fit with the character that she had the humility to reject the power and hide it away as the galaxy already had plenty of life and it was too dangerous to leave lying around. The twist that the Progenitors were only the latest in a line older than the universe itself is a very big idea straight out of classic sci-fi, and even scripture. It’s a nice touch to add a bit more mystery to all of it.

Sometimes even in Star Trek, dead is dead.

Sometimes it’s okay to cry

As for fans of romance, you got a twofer with Michael and Book getting back together and Saru and T’Rina getting married. A wedding in a finale is a bit cliché, but it was nice and used well to wrap things up. The final moment on the beach with Michael and Book was sweet and did a decent job of hinting at more to come, and it could even have made for a reasonable series finale, with an optimistic and hopeful Star Trek look to the future and the next mission, together.

But then the producers were given the chance to shoot an epilogue to wrap up the series after they found out this season would be their last. This brings us to the extra bits that start at the cabin with older Book and Michael. Wrapping things up with this kind of leap forward into the future was a bit trite, but they didn’t have a lot of time to pull it together and what they did was pretty impressive, albeit with the focus on Michael Burnham. It was still well-earned and satisfying to see her happy ending as an admiral, shepherding her son to be the next generation of Starfleet. They didn’t have to, but continuity-lovers will appreciate how they used this coda to really tie a bow onto connecting the series to the Short Treks episode “Calypso,” right down to explaining away how the ship in that future didn’t have the 32 nd -century refit. The conversation with Michael and Zora was very sweet, all part of the right tone for this coda. Things got even more on brand for Michael’s memory sequence, bringing in the rest of the cast—her Discovery family. Only Saru (barely) got an audible line, which may disappoint fans who want to know what’s up with the other characters, but the emotion of it all was there and this leaves plenty of opportunities for those characters later if they show up on the Academy series. All in all, it was very Discovery , and what more could you want to tie things up?

Did no one think to bring drinks for this party? Reno?

Final thoughts

This season had big ideas and “Life, Itself” answered the right questions and posed some more, which is a good thing. This is the best finale for the best season of Discovery , and sadly it will be their last. The show really hit its stride in season 5, delivering on the promise of a new adventurous tone while still servicing the characters and their many emotions.

Where have you been?

• At 1:25:35, the finale has the longest runtime of any episode of Discovery— or any single episode of Star Trek, not counting 2-part episodes.
• The epilogue added 15:40 to the runtime.
• Michael uses her Vulcan meditation technique to clear her head to solve the puzzle.
• The L’Tar Nebula sounds like the Lantar Nebula mentioned by Vash in “Q-Less,” but probably something different.
• After getting mentioned a lot over the last couple of seasons, we saw the Pathway Drive in action on Saru’s shuttle when it caught up to Tahal’s fleet.
• A possible continuity error: The first shot of the triangle test shows 10 triangles, but both Michael and Moll used only 9 for their different solutions, with no extra triangle.
• After Culber revealed the subspace frequency he said, “I’m a doctor, not a physicist,” classic Star Trek .
• The EV suit computer voice Julianne Grossman, who did the computer voice for the USS Discovery for the first 3 seasons before Zora (Annabelle Wallis) became the ship’s voice.
• When Kovich tells Michael that everything from the season will be classified, she says she was “familiar with how those things work now,” possibly referencing how the USS Discovery and spore drive were classified at the end of season 2 ; however, she was not present for that, as she had already jumped to the future.
• Reacting to Saru’s gambit with Tahal, Nhan said she didn’t want to play him in Ferengi Rummy.
• Book was late to the wedding because he ran into some Talaxian pirates.
• It’s not mentioned in dialogue, but Burnham and Book’s son’s name is Leto. He’s played by Sawandi Wilson.
• The registry on Leto Burnham’s shuttle was UFP 47 .
• Michael talked to Leto about recently visiting Crepuscula .
• Molly the trance worm had a baby. Aww.

Michael thinks back to Voq… yeah, she married the right alien.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast  covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted 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 premiered on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and was broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada.

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

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“He finally introduces himself: “Agent Daniels”

See, you wouldn’t have gotten that from a series inspired by the Kelvin reboot — or maybe yes since Enterprise is the only series that is canonical in the Kelvinverse. Thought it likely wouldn’t have been as satisfying…

Enterprise is actually not quite as canonical as you think it is in the “Kelvin” verse The origins and outcomes in Kelvin are vastly different from the Prime Universe. SNW pretty much confirms that. Kelvin is not as “divergent” as we thought it was. I figured he was around for the Temporal Cold War given his knowledge about Time Travel. My only gripe with Kurtzman Trek is that they act like they did not do a somewhat soft reboot of the Original Series canon and timeline which they actually did.

Exactly. Just say it’s a reboot and you give yourself freedom from the canon lawers (like me). They should have done that from day 1 of Discovery honestly. It was the perfect chance to re-*discover* what Trek is for us in the 21st century. Alas. No vision or guts.

Yeah Discovery should’ve been a reboot on day one and it could’ve stayed in the 23rd century. But as someone who actually likes that it got to do its own thing and put us in a completely new time period, I’m not too bothered in the end. But of course they could’ve just had the show in the 32nd century from the beginning and just set Trek on a completely different course in the modern era away from everything we knew making this century the ‘present day’ going forward which many fans like me wanted anyway once we heard a new show was coming.

But all of that is clearly in hindsight now.

That’s all on Bryan Fuller. Though his original plan was to set the series in a different era for each season set in the timeline of TOS, Discovery should have had a visual aesthetic that fell somewhere between Enterprise and TOS. Instead he took it in a much different direction. Had he said “It’s a different timeline!” most would have just run with it.

It was telling that when Fuller launched Discovery he didn’t bring in anyone from the Berman era to work on the series. Ron Moore, by contrast, brought in people from the Berman era to work on Battlestar Galactica, Outlander and For All Mankind.

Fuller wanted a full series and visual reboot and should have just said, yeah, this is a reboot set in a different timeline.

Yeah 100% agree.

Discovery made a lot of errors in the first season but the biggest was putting a show that was clearly meant to be a reboot in a 50 year old universe but pretended like it wasn’t a reboot.

Despite all it’s issues starting out that will always be the biggest IMO.

Actually he did bring on Joe Menosky who has worked on all the Berman shows minus Enterprise but it seems like what happened with Nic Meyer and he didn’t gel very well with the new group because he left after the first season and never talked about his time on the show.

I got the impression that Menosky was a bit frustrated by the entire experience and that he was this lone and ignored voice. Given a chance, Menosky probably would have loved working on Picard or SNW where his input would have been appreciated and not ignored.

I rewatched part of DSC S1. Still compelling television.

Aside from that, requesting the visual aesthetics of 60s science fiction? Get real. Its a tv show, not retelling of a future to come. It doesnt matter, if they say its a reboot or not. Technology advanced. Look at scripture. 4 variants of Christs story, in one book. Star Trek is art. Television has no obligation to align with anyones fantasy. Media shouldnt deliver, what people want, but what they might need. I also have an opinion. Did I like it? Dont know. Was I entertained? Yes. If this enough? Yeah, for the moment.

People creating want to create something on their own, always redesigns always new ideas, sometimes they take old stuff and build ontop of it, but usually they go rather somewhere else, like Bajor, Delta Quadrant, Child Universe. Artists are not engineers in that matter, as engineers try to make something work. Artists express themselves. So every iteration of Star Trek is different. So many new uniform styles to keep track off. The costume designers are off the leash.

But I always come back to what Phlox said to Trip about his people having something similar to television until they realized, their lives were more interesting. Live by Phlox’ wisdom!

The Khan episode from SNW confirms the Prime universe rebooth. The idea they dropped around Time trying to re-insert itself is interesting. That is the freedom they needed to upend the Gorn story from TOS for example. I have no problem with the soft reboot but just say that is what you did and be done with it.

SNW has begun the process of reimagining TOS. Look as much as I love TOS, not everything about it translates into our modern era. I always thought for years that TOS needed a soft reboot. It is no accident that Time Travel was emphasized in DISCO and SNW. Kurtzman needs to just say it. JJ deicded to be coy about Khan and look how that turned out.

I had my issues with DISCO but I enjoyed seasons 1 and 2.

EXACTLY. And Discovery could have that done too with the Klingons.

If you go by that, go by the Borg. Stranded, frozen from the sphere from First contact. Found in the arctic, chased by Enterprise. Any time travel episode that left stuff in the past could upend what has been established before. Could also be an out for Pike not getting irradiated.

That episode helps confirm that the canon of the Kurtzman era is not the same as the prime. Sorry but the idea of TOS being reimagined is quite insulting to the show that started it all, I would be happier if the current stuff was separate from the Trek of 1966-2005

Not exactly.

When Beyond came out, Simon Pegg (who worked on the script) floated the idea that changes in the timeline causes ripples BOTH WAYS. So, within their creative intent, they interpret the Kelvin Universe existing in a place where there may be no continuity with anything, since there’s no guarantee any of it matches if the past has been changed too.

Well, I forgot that since Nero and Spock crossed into another quantum reality through the singularity, they were already in a different timeline even before Nero attacked the Kelvin. Just like it happened with Worf.

So, Nero’s attack need not have changed the timeline both ways since it was already different from the moment he arrived.

That whole thing was awfully silly. Since Kovich said he’s lived lifetimes it just made sense he be El-Aurian.

The statement would be applicable to a time traveler too. It’s misdirection.

I don’t think “living lifetimes” applies to time travelers. The term is meant to denote longevity. Not jumping to other eras.

Doctor Who does that whenever they do an episode in which one of his companions is left behind and grows old, then resets to their original age by the end of the episode.

But in the Who case it for sure denotes longevity, too. I cannot think of a case where “lifetimes” refers to anything but a very long time.

Lifetimes can refer to multiple lives, not necessarily longevity.

Think of every time someone in Trek experienced an alternate timeline. Each one of those would be a lifetime.

That includes Jake Sisko in The Visitor, the Enterprise-D’s crew in All Good Things, and the Voyager crew in Endgame, and all other alternate timelines in between.

For instance, Harry Kim experienced at least five lifetimes that come to mind; Non Sequitur, Year of Hell, Timeless, Endgame, and his prime timeline lifetime.

Surely there were others as VOY did multiple alternate timelines.

Well they could have if they decided to focus the KT on the Temporal Wars in some way but obviously that was never in the cards.

But I get your basic point and probably why in the end fans will always gravitate to the Prime universe because this is where the now thousand year old history (wow) and all the cool and old characters most fans grew up with lives.

And it’s pretty crazy that Daniels was part of the 22nd and 32nd century. He has basically bookend the entire franchise. This is why I love this show so much because of how imaginative it is!!!

Whatever cements Enterprise further into canon makes me happy.

Although that’s always been the biggest irony that Enterprise is really the only show canon to both universes.

Yep, heh. Back in 2009 the thought that Enterprise was the only Trek series that was still part of canon made me laugh because of how much “real” fans hated it when it came out.

And now a lot of fans hate the Kelvin movies today so I guess it has come full circle lol.

(But for the record I’m NOT one of them)

How goes the white whale, Captain Ahab?

I actually liked what they did with the Kelvin films. How do you reboot a series without rebooting a series? Why, set it in an alternate universe, of course! Where they stumbled was allowing four years between the first and second films and then deciding to revisit Khan instead of trying something entirely new (something like “Beyond” should have been the next film). I was hoping for a new standalone, not a retread of a TOS and the feature film it inspired.

I’d still like to see another Kelvin film and with the cast being who they are now, I think it would do well.

Am I the only one who thought the big reveal was Kovich revealing themself to be Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, especially given all the TNG-specific swag in his office?

Not saying I would have loved it, but it definitely felt like that’s where it was going as I watched the scene.

One of my Kovich theories was that he was EL Aurian. So close I guess.

My first thought, with the “many lives” snippet, was that he was going to reveal himself as Flint.

I thought that too, or, believe it or not, I considered he may have been Data or a Soong.

I thought a version of Data or a Soong relative at first too, there is beta cannon where Data gets an upgraded body and is able to change his appearance. But I wasn’t completely surprised with the Agent Daniels reveal as it’s been floating around as a theory for a while.

…just watched that episode an hour ago, actually. McCoy tells Spock at the end Flint is dying, will just live out a normal human lifespan.

True. Interestingly the novels (I know very much noncanon) had him fake his impending death.

Now that was not only an awesome episode of Trek but one of the best series finales in the franchise right up there with All Good Things and What We Leave Behind.

I will miss this show/cast and after 5 seasons it has earned its place as my 2nd favourite Trek show with DS9 still number 1.

Only a few episodes of Trek have made me cry tears of sadness like All Good Things, What We Leave Behind, The Visitor, Family, The Siege of AR-558 and now this episode Life, Itself joins the ranks. It was so well written, acted and directed it felt like a feature film and not just a series final of a TV Show. The Kovich reveal as Daniels from Enterprise was shocking as i never expected that but now thinking back at all the episodes of Discovery/Enterprise that Kovich/Daniels was in it makes sense to me.

Discovery separating the saucer section and using both it and the secondary hull to spore jump the Breen Dreadnought and the scoutship was amazing. One of the best CGI sequences in Trek.

Seeing one of the progenitors was cool though i would have loved it if it was Salome Jones but i understand she is in her 90s now. Also interesting to note that the ‘Progenitors’ didn’t invent the tech but found it and they themselves for creating by another race. Another mystery but maybe one that will probably best left unanswered.

As for Moll sadly she was the only thing i didn’t like about this episode. I understand her need/want to bring L’ak back but to be honest I’m not that interested in her story. But i do hope she and Book make amends with each other.

The epilogue was really nice though I wise we got a bit more of the rest of the cast. It does make sense that it featured Burnham as she is the show.

Also i loved the Calypso tie in and i do hope we find out someday exactly why Zora/Discovery has to wait in the Nebula for Craft and how did they know his name. Is it something to do with the Progenitor tech or perhaps Zora herself?.

Burnham told Zora it was a Red Directive, so perhaps Kovich/Daniels needed Craft to not die, and is no longer allowed to time travel due to the Temporal accords? An AI like Zora is timeless and can get to the future to save him in that Nebula. If Discovery still looked like a 32nd century upgraded ship, the Federation might be pinged for Temporal intervention?

Maybe we’ll get an answer, maybe it’ll always be people’s head canon?

The resolution of Moll’s arc was so frustrating. After everything she did to get to that point, all it takes is Burnham to tell her she can’t save L’ak and she’s just basically like, “Oh darn. That saddens me. Okie!”

The show should have had the guts to Toht her ass once she got her tangram puzzle wrong.

Wow! The finale episode was stunning! Lots to think about, but for now I will just rewatch and enjoy the spectacle and nice connecting of the Progenitors with IDIC and with the lives of the Disco crew.

I will miss Soniqua Martin Green. I loved this show.

I will miss Sonequa , too . But , I will follow her career. All of them, really. But Sonequa really spoke to me. Also, she was such a great Trek ambassador.

I adore her. Her grace, warmth, empathy, depth and thoughtfulness. I’m truly grateful to have had Discovery and her. What a great addition to the Trek family and herstory. From the very first episode, her complex performance really brought a depth and grounded reality to the Trek mythos for the first time in a way it hadn’t had before. Before Discovery, Trek was very stylized in its type of acting and character portrayal and SMG really made this universe we all love so much feel that more real.

Hugely underrated actress. Her performances have been richly compelling and, at least once her character initially relaxed a bit, full of warmth and humanity.

That Hope is You Part 1 is one of the show’s strongest episodes, largely due to the carefree performance she gives. I’d love to have seen more of that Burnham. SMG gave it her all to smooth over what was a fairly inconsistently written character amongst several inconsistently written characters. It reminded me of Kate Mulgrew and the shared burden they had of trying to steer a groundbreaking imperfect but semi-superhumanly capable woman through choppy waters with grace, charisma, and style. I’d be fascinated to watch a shared interview with them.

Agreed, greatly enjoyed Soniqua’s portrayal, and that of many of the Discovery crew.

Also, greatly enjoyed the poignant “Agent Daniels” moment and tie-in, thanks for that golden nugget, writers!

An enjoyable ending to a memorable show.

I will not miss her whispering during “dramatic” moments, nor her quivering lips. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

Interesting how often people with little talent lash out at those that are in the public eye and celebrated for theirs. Basic people… shhh. Remember that trying to hide someone else’s light doesn’t make you shine. I’d love to see your audition for the role. Do you have a link to your acting reel?

“ It’s not mentioned in dialogue, but Burnham and Book’s son’s name is Leto. ”

Yes, it is. She says his name.

For a second I thought it was a Dune reference before I realized it was Book’s nephew’s name.

Yep, caught it too. I didn’t know exactly what she said, but as soon as I saw the “Leto” in the recap, I knew that’s what she said.

Very underwhelming. The journey was far more interesting than the destination, although inside the portal looked really cool. The payoff lacked imagination, and didn’t warrant revisiting the material… so yeah I was disappointed. The science and explanation of the past two episodes was questionable too. They should have gotten Salome Jens or at least tried to imitate that character specifically. Would have made more sense. But the conclusion of what to do with the tech.. how they unlocked it. how they found someone ‘worthy’.. it just makes the mystery of the rest of the season fall apart. So as a season finale.. it’s a fail. Even worse is the series finale coda. If you like these characters and get some of the emotion of all the hugging and stuff in the coda, cool. I never really loved these characters, so it did nothing for me. I thought seeing Book and Burnham together in old age was really nice, and I did like that. The Kovich reveal? Felt a little like the ‘My name is Khan’ reveal in STID. Why should that name mean anything? I had to go look It up. Lt. Daniels was a background character from two of the TNG moves. Whatever. More to explore with that character in Academy? I guess. At this point, I couldn’t care less about him. I guess it’s fitting that a show that has distorted canon so much, would choose to tie in its ending to an event in a small short trek show. A show that they easily just could have (and should have) declared apocryphal, and pretended it didn’t exist or exists in some alternate universe. Whatever plan Chabon had for it didn’t happen, so just let it go. Why they were retrofitting Discovery to its former look makes no sense. The reasons they were taking it there aren’t even presented clearly (or at all.. did I miss something?) It was a dumb way to end the show. I suppose that means it’s an appropriate ending for this series. The season was pretty good up to this point, though.. it was fun. But.. I’m sorry.. it wasn’t a very good season finale, and it was a terrible series finale.

“I had to go look It up. Lt. Daniels was a background character from two of the TNG moves”

Nope… Daniels was the time traveller on ENT, a very, very meaningful player in the TCW… The reveal was AWESOME. I was cheering out loud when it happened….

Ah. I’ll go back and look that one up. When I put Daniels in to memory alpha, that was the only option that populated in the search box, and I didn’t look beyond it, because he had all that TNG and DS9 stuff on his shelf so figured that was THE connection. I stopped watching ENT a year or two in, so if I did see that character, I don’t recall him at all.

I think you’re confusing him with Picard’s chief of security in FIRST CONTACT and INSURRECTION (remember, Worf was stationed on DS9 during those movies and happened to come along for the ride).

The revelation more or less worked, but I thought Daniels died in season four of ENT.

He did, but when Archer defeated the space nazi aliens he was shown alive again.

Space nazi aliens, those were the days.

Why can’t he be BOTH? He said starship enterprise ‘and others’… and TNG is way after ENT. So why can’t he be BOTH Daniels?

Also, he said “USS,” and NX-01 wasn’t a USS. :-)

“ I had to go look It up. Lt. Daniels was a background character from two of the TNG moves. Whatever. ”

Incorrect. He was a recurring character from four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise. He’s a time agent from the far future who was involved in the Temporal Cold War.

Garth Beat you to it.

Very underwhelming. The journey was far more interesting than the destination, although inside the portal looked really cool. The payoff lacked imagination, and didn’t warrant revisiting the material… so yeah I was disappointed… But the conclusion of what to do with the tech.. how they unlocked it. how they found someone ‘worthy’.. it just makes the mystery of the rest of the season fall apart. So as a season finale.. it’s a fail. Even worse is the series finale coda.

Pretty much exactly my thoughts (not for the first time, @heyberto seems to share my taste in Trek).

First off, on the epilogue — look, I didn’t *hate* it, but I found it…”superfluous” is the best word, I guess. The final beach wedding scene would have worked as a series finale just as well. I don’t see the point in revealing that Michael and Book had a son. The New Kwejian scenes looked gorgeous, but we’d seen Kwejian before; that wasn’t enough. Two minutes of hugging was *not* what we needed, and typically for the show, all the other characters were shunted aside. I also struggled to understand just why Starfleet was taking Discovery to meet Craft and how this was supposed to culminate in “Calypso.” Leaving it as Zora’s dream, as this season’s early episodes implied, would have sufficed.

The epilogue was So. Very. Discovery, in short.

As for the main act: lookit, it’s not terribly surprising that the takeaway was “the journey is more important than the treasure”; that’s almost par for the course in quest stories. Think back to “Sword of Kahless” or even “The Chase” itself, or any of the Indiana Jones movies (especially Raiders, Dial, and above all Crusade). Still, I think we needed a bit more ooph here beyond “humanity isn’t ready for this,” because it needed to be something “The Chase” was not. I would have been more impressed with the theories circulating that Discovery’s *were* the progenitors, a la PLANET OF THE TITANS. (Had they known this was to be a series finale, in fairness, perhaps they might have gone there.)

I somewhat enjoyed the revelation that the Progenitors didn’t create the technology, but I’m still left puzzled as to what, exactly, this great technology was and why it was so potentially galaxy-changing. The visuals were impressive, yes, but we’ve seen long-range, Stargate-style teleportation before: the Iconians, that Delta Quadrant tech that showed up in season one of PICARD, “All Our Yesterdays,” etc.

They spent too long dwelling on the Burnham-Moll fight scenes. One would have been enough.

I wanted to love this finale, because in the second half of the season, I actually found Discovery to be worthwhile — a word that, on the whole, I wouldn’t have applied to the series before. Moll turned out to be more than yet another courier. But they just didn’t *quite* stick the landing.

I should add that I binge-watched the last five episodes because I was out of the country and couldn’t get my VPN to work with P+. That may have favorably colored my impression of them; indeed, I suspect that a lot of NuTrek may improve with binge-watching.

of course it will because they are just too-long films. Not episodic television.

Agreed. I lot of what you said are my thoughts as well, as usual.. just stated much better. lol. I think the issue of payoff is a problem for me, not because It’s just a simple idea.. it’s that it’s not anything more than what we could come up with. Looking back, they should have not used the McGuffin of this story by getting it from a past Trek episode. If the goal is to simply tell this ‘kind’ of story, then just do that. I rewatched the Chase before this season, and I remember how I had no idea where they were going, and thinking ‘wow.. what a clever idea’. Granted it was over 30 years ago when I saw it, and I’m probably more cynical now, but I don’t think that’s it. They really needed to elevate the payoff, if they’re going to resurrect it. As you said, we’re in no different place after the episode ends, than when we were at the end of The Chase. Another case where the writer’s room just gets enamored with ideas from Trek’s past, without having a clear story to tell. The fact that they did it better in 9 out of 10 episodes this season than they have in the past is a pale consolation, now that we’re at the end. Just my take, though.

I have to say I was surprisingly satisfied with it all. The Chase had a baaad premise IMHO. Discovery corrects it by bringing mystery back to the origins of sentient life. So that “underwhelmingness” was a real, real plus to me. It´s a good resolution, with classic quest and classic Trek tropes (Michael is offered God status and turns it down).

The Daniels bit didn’t quite work for me (for a moment I thought it would be ole positronic Jean-Luc in a different golem), as didn´t the Calypso thing… but i did enjoy old Michael to my surprise, it was a good end point for her continuosly-restless-and-often-annoying-self and I found myself thinking I´ll miss her (and for a second there I thought Leto was getting the Enterprise-M or something).

Season 1 was the best for me, with 2 and 5 as close seconds. I reallly did enjoy the finale.

See, I think the Chase is fine for an isolated episode. Season 5 did a really great job of sustaining interest, and keeping up a good pace that made it feel like a light hearted romp, but with some significant consequences that felt plausible for this universe. Sadly, (and I was worried about this), the conclusion was just not fulfillable, and that’s the problem for me with the season ending. I think I could have come up with something more interesting, at the very least. It felt very formulaic, and predictable in addition to being underwhelming. I would have liked to have an ending with more stakes. I really thought Culber was going to move on to do something with it that was bigger. As for the finale Coda, it just did things it didn’t need to do. I’m with you on the Daniels thing. I think that wasn’t a bad tie-in at all, but I also thought if they had slow played that a little more after the character’s introduction, it might’ve landed better. I don’t know. I loved the Burnham/Book/Leto stuff. There was so much that wasn’t explained about taking Disco out there, to retrofitting it back to it’s original configuration, etc… Should’ve have kept the send off isolated to saying goodbye to the characters, IMO. None of this is intended to shoot down your opinion of the finale. I’m stoked it worked for you. Wish it did for me, because it was a really enjoyable season.

A good question is why waste time, effort & resources making the ship look like it’s former self? Obviously so it could tie in with that Short Trek. But man… Makes zero sense like a lot of what went down on this show.

My entire point exactly, well said. I think the original idea for what Chabon was doing with that episode got abandoned when he left the show, so they should have abandoned the tie in.

I thought this was an absolute mess.

To have the entire Progenitor story basically amount to a “well no one can be responsible with this, so let’s blow it up” plot, meant all of the running around this season amounted to a waste.

And tacking on “Calypso” because … they “had to” was stupidity on top of stupidity.

Also, for all the people who complained about “memberberries” with Picard , this entire season was memberberries but done in an awful, hacky way. The “Daniels/Kovitch” reveal both felt unnecessary (“why can’t Kovitch just be Kovitch and you reveal something interesting about Kovitch as a character?) and had elements that made no absolute sense to me (e.g., no way do I believe he would have Sisko’s baseball, there’s no way the Bajorans would ever let a “holy relic” from the Emissary sit at Starfleet HQ instead of having it on Bajor).

In Star Trek Online, the baseball is STILL on his desk at DS9, so technically, the Bajorans don’t think of it as THAT holy.

It has been hundreds of years since DS9. In that time, Sisko might have returned from the Prophets and given the baseball Daniels.

Yeah there was a ton of memberberries this season…so it shouldn’t t a shock why so many people loved it lol.

I say it again and again people complain about fan service and yet every time it’s presented the fanbase goes nuts over it.

The producers are just trying to give the fans what they want because it seems to work. Hence why Picard season 3 and SNW were partly so popular.

same thing happened in bond film ‘for your eyes only’ where after all the fighting, killing and chasing, bond destroys the McGuffin to stop falling into anyone’s hands.

I couldn’t agree more. I think the creatives behind this series wanted more to blow it all up, do it their way and comment on every contemporary social dilemma, than create great television and great Trek. The continual plot changes, character additions and deletions and never-ending changes in direction, made this a mess from episode 1. In contrast SNW’s is both classic and contemporary Trek rolled into one neat and tidy package. I sincerely hope the producers of Academy take a good long and hard look at this quagmire and learn what NOT to do. Trek can’t take too many more duds. They have gold sitting there on the table with “Legacy” – if that’s what it’s to be named) and the ongoing SNW iteration. Lets not pretend this was anything more than what many describe it as.

95% of the episode was awesome, really a great finale but I just don’t get the “Calypso” bit at the very end. It hardly makes any sense to me: erasing the “A” from the hull, downgrading the ship and dumping it somewhere… none of that made any sense for me, other than re-canonizing “Calypso” which had already been written off by most fans as non-canonical. No explanation given for any of that. Even if it’s a secret “red directive”, why then are they given a public send-off by the entire fleet???

It would have been so easy to write that off, and just give Discovery (the show) whatever finale would have been most satisfying. It’s an odd choice for a show that had abandoned the visual aspects of Trek’s canon from it’s very first episode.

I was on that page, too. Found it odd they went out of their way to change the ship back when originally they seemed to go out of their way to abandon anything that even evoked the feel of the era they were in. Just another thing where it feels like they want to supplant the old stuff with their own stuff.

“ which had already been written off by most fans as non-canonical ”

Fans don’t decide what is or isn’t canon, though. It was never non-canonical since it happened onscreen.

I preferred the theory that Discovery got duplicated during the jump to the future personally.

I like it too. There are a million explanations that would have worked better than what they did in this finale.

Yeah, this is where I’m getting hung up too. The episode was, to me, perfect until that moment. I thought the epilogue was supposed to bring it all together, not finish it all off with deep confusion. People keep saying the epilogue “set up” Calypso, but it literally didn’t. It introduced more questions, and if those questions don’t have answers, then it isn’t a mystery – it’s a lie.

I know I’ve been ragging on Disco lately, but that was a very good finale. Sure, Moll was a dull character from start to finish, and sure, SMG ramped up her whisper-acting to an annoying level (I will not miss Michael Burnham at all). But there was a lot to enjoy about this finale, and the two hours flew by before I’d even realized it. The Progenitor world was gorgeously shot, the scenes with the Progenitor were wonderful, and the Kovich/Daniels bombshell was far more satisfying than any theories I’d come up with. Just amazing. Also, I really got a kick out of seeing the ending set up Calypso. Despite my problems with this season (and they are legion), I do have to hand it to the writers for ending it well. The final puzzle was something a 10-year-old would have worked out in five seconds, so I wish the writers had come up with something more clever and non-obvious. Still, that’s a minor quibble, given how much I enjoyed the rest of it. To my surprise, it even made me look forward to Starfleet Academy, as I’m hoping the characters who were horribly short-changed this season (Stamets, Detmer, Owosekun, and Reno) might show up there with more to do. Plus, I’m relieved they didn’t decide to bring Gray Tal back for that hug-fest scene, because Gray never worked as a character. All in all, I’d give this one nine stars out of ten, and I’d rank it among the show’s best.

The big reveal has been a matter of speculation for quite some time so it was more of an, “Ah, OK” moment than a “Holy moly! Never saw that coming!” moment. For those entirely unfamiliar with the history behind that revelation, it won’t carry much weight.

As for the epilogue, it was an unnecessary choice, much like another, unrelated major franchise. That final scene would have been far more effective had it taken place within a year of the resolution of this seasons’ storyline, the other elements could have been left open to explore in the future.

I have never seen even a single person guess Kovich was Daniels.

My first thought was, GOOD ONE! “I never thought of that”.

It made the most sense, really.

Actually I saw a review of the finale on YouTube and they showed a post from Reddit that guessed Kovich was probably Daniels from 3 years ago. So someone certainly guessed right lol.

But yeah I’m guessing the overwhelming majority never thought he would be Daniels, certainly not me. I never thought he would be a legacy character at all, just someone part of a bigger organization Section 31 which many theorized. So it was a great reveal IMO.

I wonder if Discovery had continued we’d have seen a more extended Daniels reveal that brought in elements of the Temporal Cold War. It might seem less impactful simply because they ended up cutting straight to the reveal.

Give us a Daniels/Temporal War streaming movie! 😊

Not around here, no. Elsewhere, yes. We’re going back to season 3 on that one.

Also, they stupidly stated that Tilly was “the longest serving instructor in Academy history,” meaning they can’t place the character in jeopardy in ACADEMY.

And seriously, in 1000 years of history, no one has ever installed a mentorship program at Starfleet Academy? Even informally?

right – not great to write themselves into a box there. But – writing and plot has never really been the strength of this show

I don’t think putting canonical plot armor on the lead character of your new scifi show is as big a choice as you think. First, time travel/alternate futures, but also, I have never once assumed that Burnham or Sisko or Janeway were not going to make it to the final episodes of their series, yet every time they were put in jeopardy along the way I didn’t scoff at the implausibility. I went along and suspended my disbelief, because that’s what you do when you watch any TV.

That’s true of half the SNW characters and yet I don’t think dramatic tension is reduced.

Have watched it yet (spoilers don’t brother me), but if they tied it back to Calypso doesn’t that indicate the Federation goes to shit again? Wasn’t craft fight against the Fed?

And oddly… the vidraysh name apparently will come back into use.. so basically.. the universe is going to crap again, and Roddenberry’s optimistic future will not persevere…. again.

Yep. Federation will be at war.

Exactly my question. I supposed there are ways to square that particular circle (maybe Craft was in stasis and didn’t realize Covid^H^H^H The Burn was over), but the question is: why? What’s the point?

I’m fairly confident that in reality Calypso was based on an early draft of the ideas for the season 3 jump and that Craft was in fact a version of what became Book. But still, it was nice to find a way to acknowledge and incorporate that story, even with the possible holes.

I loved this episode. The final moments really threw me off though. Why was the ship reverted to its 23rd century appearance? Why was it abandoned? Why are they waiting for Craft, who merely shows up and leaves in 1,000 years? For me, the episode was perfect until the very end, and that ending so far is extremely distracting to me. I feel like I had to have missed something.

You didn’t miss anything. All of your questions are left to the imagination…or maybe to future Trek writers…

Clear writing and logical plot threads have never been a strength of Discovery. In this case it seems like they were doing their best to resolve a gaping plot hole that was created with the Short Trek about future Discovery abandoned in a nebula or whatever it was.

All of this is sadly very true. ;)

Yeah all of it is just a huge big question mark. Funny it was meant to tie in to Calypso to give us some answers but instead it just gave us even more questions lol.

But it is what it is I guess.

I got up early to view it. For what was supposed to be a season finale, and they morphed it into a series finale? It’s as close to a miracle as DSC will get. My nitpick issues with DSC won’t go away, so I won’t go into them here. I want to offer a few thoughts on S5. Firstly, I think DSC’s cancellation was planned at the end of season 4. I guess Par+ only agreed to make S5 with a lot of budget cuts. Look at Detmer and Owoshekun disappearing halfway through the season. They also needed to set up SFA. I hope I’m wrong, but if Tilly is a lead character in this show, it will struggle to succeed. Getting Holly Hunter was brilliant casting. I WILL watch SFA faithfully when it airs. The AR wall saved DSCs behind. Look at Federation HQ. It’s a plain white room. Very little was spent on new sets. I consider Michelle Paradise, the showrunner, the equivalent of Fred Freiberger, who produced season 3 of TOS. She got the job because she’s been described as a “details producer.” They hired her to get these eps in the can and within budgets. IMO, she’s just not that imaginative, and this is evident in some of her story choices. Maal and Laak were totally unnecessary this season as the bad guys. They were used as a lazy story idea to compete with the DSC crew for the coveted tech. The Breen were cool, and all that, but a competition with a Breen Fleet would have moved the plot along. Look at the ending- nothing happened with their characters. For all the DSC haters out there? This show wasn’t meant to cater to TOS or TNG fans. Once I accepted that, I could somewhat enjoy DSC and follow along. My issues were with (some) the writing and acting. DSC succeeded with inclusivity. My gay sibling and I cried together when we saw Culber reconcile with Stamets, and he went to the future with him. The non-binary and trans characters were a welcome addition. It’s a shame they didn’t do much with them, storywise. The lack of strong male characters from s3 onwards (until Rayner) hurt DSC’s storytelling. (Here come all the “butthurt” comments…) DSC brought new fans into the franchise. For a lot of them, DSC is THEIR Star Trek. They will measure past and future shows against that yardstick for comparison. I feel bad for those fans. Finally, a Trek series that marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community could relate to. It was no different for us “nerdy kids” in the ’70s. We read sci-fi books, built models, and played Star Trek in the backyard. I had TWO friends growing up who liked Trek. We were the outcasts. It wasn’t until Star Wars that nerd culture started to take hold. I will rewatch DSC front to back to reevaluate my opinions on it. I AM grateful for DSC. It got Star Trek back on its best home, television. We have SNW, LDS and Prodigy. (with SFA and S31 to come.) Since 2017, we’ve had new Trek episodes to watch weekly. Just like TOS in 1969, DSC now belongs to the fans. I hope they rewatch it and share it with the people they love. If DSC fans nurture their show like we TOS fans have? There are always possibilities…

I consider Michelle Paradise, the showrunner, the equivalent of Fred Freiberger

That’s such a mean, mean thing to say, and wildly unfair. Paradise is an excellent writer who was given a very complex (perhaps convoluted) task when she took up the reins on Disco, and she did a fantastic job elevating it above a mere technical exercise.

The lack of strong male characters from s3 onwards

Dadmiral Vance, Cleveland Booker, and Agent Kovich would like a word. Plus, Culber’s role was really beefed up in seasons 3-5. Even Reese stepped up and became more than a background character in later seasons. Not to mention Saru being the ship’s captain in season 3. In season 4 you have the Tarka/Book plot, which I would describe as extremely male, and even the scientist Hirai played a major role in that season.

I know you anticipated this critique, but there really were lots of strong male characters in later seasons of Disco, they were coming out of its ears there were so many… it’s just that the main cast just wasn’t made up of a supermajority of traditional male archetypes like on previous Trek shows, so it feels like “less” somehow.

People praise Voyager and DS9 for their depictions of woman characters, but both those shows still had like an 80% male cast. DS9 had only 2 women as regulars, and Voyager had only 3.

Disco might seem very female-oriented, but trust me, it really only seems that way. I know that feels like I’m attacking your perception or accusing you of something, but I notice it, too, and have to remind myself sometimes that it’s my beloved older Trek shows that were wildly unbalanced, not Disco, and Disco wasn’t some corrective in the opposite direction, it’s just… actually balanced.

Re Paradise: Mean? Maybe so. Harsh? Yes. She has a (IMHO) dry, sterile form of storytelling. There was no actual coherent flow to this season. They took ideas from the writers’ room and plugged them in to tick a box. She was given the job of cleanup showrunner or backup QB. Her good organizational qualities hurt the passion of the show. A lot of the episode plot points felt contrived. When we compare how heroic Burnham, Georgiou, etc., were and are throughout the series? For myself, there were no male characters I either identified with or was rooting for until Rayner. I was looking for male characters that reminded me of Kirk, Pike, Scotty and the other male costars on TNG, DS9 and the others. For the record, I’m a fan of DSC. I was out there defending it and singing its praises. In S2, we got some of the best Star Trek, period. I stand by my opinion of Paradise as a showrunner, as mean as you think it is.

Wow you are so on the nose with Paradise. I still think she is an awful show runner but this season at least didn’t feel completely tedious with a lot of melodramatic schlock as the last two. But no I won’t miss her either.

She was absolutely the wrong person to leading the writers room, so your criticism is fair. They need sci-fi writers, and too few, if any, on staff. That’s the root of the problem.

For myself, there were no male characters I either identified with or was rooting for until Rayner. 

This post-2015-or-so idea that characters are legitimate only if a viewer can “identify” with them is bizarre.

If I can’t relate to a character, and the story is crap, then why should I watch?

To broaden your horizons. IDIC, and all that.

Yet I watched faithfully—each week. I applauded the strong female characters and DSC’s inclusivity. I didn’t dismiss DSC as crap or not “true” Trek.

I’m not sure I can speak to how being a “details producer” does or doesn’t help the show, but I think at this point it’s safe to say Paradise doesn’t have a ton of range. Problems are continually solved with variations on, “Trust ME! Feelings! It was CONNECTION all along!” She doesn’t have much of a defining stamp beyond that, and didn’t demonstrate a desire or ability to do any episodes that broke outside of a defined box. She peaked with her first season 3 episode IMO.

A “details producer” is usually very organized. Once a script is locked down, the showrunner is responsible for finishing the episodes on time and within the episode budget(s). Being organized is a good thing. As I mentioned, she took a checklist storywise and clicked the boxes. It didn’t matter that the plot points were out of order, didn’t make sense, or pay off at the end of the season. She got the episodes “in the can” on time and within the budget. Moll and Laak made ZERO sense to the plot besides someone to compete with to get the tech. At best, it’s the same retreading of ideas.

I know what a producer and a showrunner does. :) I just meant calling someone a “details producer” doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not more than their organizational prowess. It can mean they are good at intricate long term plotting for instance. JMS while running Babylon 5 could be called one, for instance.

From what we’ve seen of her work, I think your assessment is fair, especially as we know she was sweating the detail of “Calypso” for years. She has a vision and overarching direction for the show, but Paradise comes across as a workmanlike producer and writer who has a lane and a certain box of tricks she prefers and sticks to. She brought calm and order to a show previously defined by BTS chaos (and during the pandemic, no less) and no doubt Kurtzman appreciated not having to put out fires while dealing with the headache that was Picard. There’s not much flair to anything but it was competently made and the cast and crew were happy.

I actually really enjoyed this and would have found it a fitting finale even without the additional twenty minute epilogue. Although it was beautiful to see, and, man, Admiral Burnham aged a lot more flatteringly than Admiral Janeway.

I would have preferred Kovich had remained his own character. Some mysteries don’t need explanation.

nice tie in to Calypso though. I need to rewatch that again now.

I’ll miss the show. Despite the vitriol it’s received from so many, I’ve always had a soft spot for it and have enjoyed every season to greater or lesser degrees.

Well Janeway had 25th century aging tech vs Burnham’s 33rd century aging tech. ;D

And I really want to say something about black rarely crack but I guess it’s not appropriate here lol.

I thought we were going to cut away just as he was telling her.

well, that was a waste of everyone time

Not in the least.

I thought it was an absolute mess.

It wasn’t a waste of my time.

So long DISCO! Wow what a ride it has been. THANK YOU to all that had a hand in it’s creation over the years. TREK has never looked better, or had loftier goals. Thanks for the inclusiveness…I will always ship CulMets! AND, root for Adira! :-) Now, time for a start to finish DISCO rewatch. Without DISCO there wouldn’t be a SNW or Lower Decks or all the TREK that WILL follow. If you are ready….LET’S FLY!

100% agree on all of it :)

So happy you enjoyed it! :)

Without DISCO there wouldn’t be a SNW or Lower Decks 

I’m not sure that’s quite the talking point you think it is.

Well, it was a little better than the TOS “finale” but wasn’t as satisfying as the TNG era finales.

Sorry, but the whole Progenitor reveal was a major letdown for me. A lot of stuff to look at, but nothing really happening. Also, the forced tie-in to Calypso at the end made no sense at all. Was it Kovich/Agent Daniels who told Michael about it off camera? Seemed unnecessary.

I’m happy others liked it, but I never connected with the 32nd century version of the show. I watched and I tried to connect with it. It just never happened.

Seasons 1 and 2 will always be my preferred version Discovery.

Hard disagree. Nothing could be as dissatisfying and Voyager’s disastrous finale. Or, shudder, Enterprise.

At least the Voyager and Enterprise finales had an actual story to follow with characters I cared about. I enjoyed them more than what Discovery delivered in its finale. But again, glad you enjoyed it. I didn’t.

I’ve always liked Endgame but could’ve been stronger for sure. I always felt what was missing from it was its own epilogue. Yeah no comment on TATV lol. But I think most people feel Demons/Terra Prime is really that show’s true finale since TATV was Riker literally just in a holodeck reminiscing.

Sorry, but the whole Progenitor reveal was a major letdown for me. A lot of stuff to look at, but nothing really happening.

Exactly. This is what happens when you let the special effects, including that virtual reality wall, supplant solid writing.

I never connected with the 32nd century version of the show.

Agreed; I would have been content had they wrapped Discovery after season 2.

A pretty cool episode right up until the great reveal (even then it could’ve done without several minutes of Burnham-Fu that went absolutely nowhere), but everything after was oh so formulaic and therefore rather disappointing. Okay, at least the notion of “we don’t really NEED that super-powerful technology” added a tiny bit to the old “too powerful for any faction to own”-trope and yet it was that stale trope that drove Michael’s final decision… yeah and the rest was mostly nice, but really just padding. The Kovich-reveal? – Yeah, good old Daniels, so what? – Didn’t really tie into ENT’s Temporal Cold War-arc. Saru finally getting married? – Cute, but it would’ve been a real bummer if he wasn’t. Michael and Book getting back together? – So very predictable. And the epilogue? – Boy did they go to lengths only so a single Short Treks episode would finally make more sense. But at least we got to see Owo, Detmer and Bryce one last time.

So another site is reporting Saru was also promoted to Admiral? Did anyone hear this?

Apparently Admiral Vance calls Saru Admiral at the wedding.

It’s not mentioned in dialogue, but Burnham and Book’s son’s name is Leto.

It is mentioned. When I heard it, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard correctly (really, “Leto?” like from Dune?), but I did hear it.

Leto was thr name of Book’s nephew that was killed in S4.

Leto was Book nephew, tht died in the desctruction of the planet.

One last time. The shows problems have remained problems even after their move to the future. Bad writing and poor characters. The final few seasons relied heavily on the audience caring about the characters. Since I never really cared about any of them that just opened the door to the terrible writing and plotting. This season was pretty predictable all the way. The only thing I really didn’t see coming was Moll just believing Burnham when she told her resurrection wasn’t possible. Although Moll was pretty gullible thinking it was. Obviously it wasn’t. When Burnham told her Moll had bought into the idea so hard that there was no way she should have bought it. She gave up way too easily.

That tagged on coda really didn’t work either. Everyone showed up like the end of Titanic. I’m thinking “did everyone die?” That felt weird. And I guess they wanted to make that Sort Trek relevant but I honestly didn’t see the need to slavishly adhere to it. Still makes no sense, however.

Anyway, it’s unfortunate the Academy show remains in that time frame. All these shows made by Secret Hideout have built in uphill battles but I saw no reason to create more speed bumps by remaining in the 32nd century. Well, it is what it is. That’s one way to satisfy the fans who like Star Trek Discovery. Leaves it open for every actor to show up. And we all know they will.

It didn’t sound like you liked the ending at all but I can’t disagree with some of your issues. I am actually surprised they didn’t resurrect Lak by the end. This is Star Trek, it’s literally a given lol but nice to subvert expectations once in awhile. But overall I did really enjoy it although I was very mixed on the season as a whole.

But I know your thoughts on all the modern shows and they are not very positive lol. But maybe the Academy show will surprise you and others. If not, you will always have ENT, TOS and DS9 to watch.

I have TOS, Enterprise and the feature films on disc. If DS9 ever gets remastered I’ll pick that up. Until then those are the episodes and films I check in on from time to time for my Trek fix.

I did like Prodigy’s first half, however. Hoping their 2nd season can get back to that level.

Well, that’s done, then.

I truly loved the finale overall. Yeah, there were certainly questionable and unnecessary things in it to say the least but overall it worked for me. I just loved how Trek-y it all felt. I loved how everything looked inside the portal and we met a progenitor (I was hoping among hope we met the original from TNG but yes I know the actress is now 90) to ultimately deciding it was just too powerful to use and so they got rid of it. Yeah I think most people thought they would either destroy it or put it somewhere that no one could access it but it was a very Trek conclusion.

And the visuals and FX were very impressive and beautiful throughout the episode. It felt like a movie and very cinematic. All the money was on the screen for sure.

The best moment for me was when Kovich revealed he was Agent Daniels. That literally got a huge GASP out of me lol. I was truly surprised but a very welcomed one. It was a great twist in so many ways, mostly because we always knew he was involved with the Temporal Wars. I literally went back and watched a ton of Daniels clips on Youtube lol. It really makes you look at Kovich time on the show very differently now.

I thought Saru and T’rina’s wedding was a nice way to end the episode which was obviously the true ending of the episode. We saw it all coming but it was still nicely done.

And I loved the epilogue so much. It was sweet and very endearing. It was nice to see Michael and Book decades into the future happy with a family. And while the tie in to Calypso felt a bit clunky (and raises SO many questions lol) I still liked it as the final scene. It is a little sad Zora is basically out there just waiting for Craft until the 43rd century but I liked the existential feel to it.

While the season has been VERY mixed for me to say the least I thought it ended well enough and sadly the first finale I can truly say I loved on this show lol. I didn’t hate season’s four finale but I was so checked out on the show by then I just didn’t care by then. It’s certainly not All Good Things level but I will say it is better than Endgame and certainly better than TATV lol. But I give the finale an 8/10.

There are certainly things I didn’t like and had issues with which I will certainly talk about but I wanted to leave my overall thoughts on a more positive note. I have given Discovery a very hard time over the last five seasons, most of it well deserved in my book lol. But I have ALWAYS rooted for the show every season and maybe in time my feelings will change on a lot of it. It’s just a very hard show for me to love for sooooo many reasons and still remains my least favorite show in the franchise. But I can also say this was the best season for me by far and I hope everyone who has loved it from the beginning loved it just as much in the end.

Well now that it’s over with, it’s time to leave the 32nd century (for a little while at least ;)) and travel back to the 24th century. The only question is will it be LDS, PRO or Section 31 next? Whatever comes next, I’m excited for it!

Ok now that was awesome. It definitely was a fitting series finale, even if it wasn’t supposed to be originally! I also loved the epilogue, I almost cried as I knew this was the end for these characters. Let’s just hope Starfleet Academy lasts long enough for some of them to return.

Have to admit that while I found plenty to gripe about with regard to the resolution and outcome of the story, the journey and tone of the entire season (and especially the finale) felt pitch perfect Star Trek. Creative and contemplative with excellent character building through sharp writing. This season, more than any other Discovery season, has felt the most embedded in the franchise, I really felt at home and I loved spending every minute with this show. The tedium of recent seasons was gone and enjoyed every moment with this crew and setting. The real standout this season has been Michael Burnham, and that really is the true achievement of the season, she became a confident leader that I believed in and respected for the first time. This really is SMJ grand finale which is the perfect way to end the show.

I will admit to being a little confused by the Daniels revelation, mostly because Kovich didn’t resemble the Daniels I think of at all. I know it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, but the Calypso finale was such a beautiful way to end the story of Discovery. Not only does it give us some finality to the ship, but it also gives a chance to see the ship restored to bookend the show. It’s still insane that Starfleet would abandon its only Spore Drive ship, especially since it’s impossible to classify this thing at this point so people are going to be looking for it. But the Red Directive gives us plenty of head canon to work with to cover those gaps, I suppose.

Either way, I’m extremely happy with the finale and thankful for a season I truly enjoyed…for once! Bravo and farewell! Thanks for giving this TNG+ fan an unexpected gift!

I really enjoyed the finale and this was certainly Discovery’s strongest season since season 2. Loved how it tied into Calypso and the Kovich/Daniels reveal was great.

I would agree as well. This is certainly the strongest season since season 2 and it’s probably a tie for me between them.

I got emotional. I will be watching that again. They did a good job.

So did I man…so did I.

Usually when I’m crying after watching an episode of Discovery it’s for an entirely different reason lol.

LOL True. But this season I was not crying and yelling at the same time!

One of the poorest final episodes I have ever seen.

I have wanted each and every episode to be better, I have tried to justify to others to keep trying to watch this show.

There are great sci-fi stories and adventures but on the whole something keeps missing the spot.

This is the first final I have ever wanted to end and spent time watching the clock.

I felt no emotion to the characters, even though I wanted too and I really wanted a great last episode.

The show ended consistently with how it always was throughout the five seasons: Heavy on loooong, manufactured emotional beats; light on particular details of the plot actually making any sense whatsoever. Heavy on characters wrestling with emotional quandaries the audience has moved well past already; light on organic character development that feels earned. Random thoughts immediately after watching: This episode had about five endings. Quite over-written. I love how we’ve been primed all season for SaT’rinaru’s wedding… and then Burnham and Booker ditch the reception because more space adventures! That’s just cold. Kovich is revealed as “Agent Daniels”… my mouth drops open for 10 seconds… and all I can think to say is… “Who?” Because I haven’t watched most of Enterprise, and what I have seen of that series I’ve forgotten. (Ironically, I did just start watching from the beginning along with the Greatest Generation podcast so I suppose there’s a chance I might finally see the whole show with Archer and co.) I know the writers were going for a deep cut and I suppose this technically qualifies. I’m guessing many Disco watchers had the exact same reaction as me: nonplussed. How does it make sense for there to be TNG and DS9 memorabilia on Kovich’s wall, if he’s a character from Enterprise? For a moment I was thinking they were going to make him out to be Luther Sloane (Section 31, DS9) and as dumb as that would have been, at least I would have known that character. Oh, sure, they tossed in a cryptic line about “other places” so you can head-canon Daniels into the other shows, if you care to try. But sorry, that’s not how nostalgia and callbacks work at all. It was completely shoehorned fake canon stuffed into a deep cut reference. That really clanged. Speaking of shoehorned—I had thought the writers had given up on resolving the Calypso conundrum. Turns out, they should have left it alone. Completely whiffed on tying things up in a way that made sense. Stripping “A” off the paint job and flying it to the middle of nowhere secretly because something something Red Directive? That’s not an explanation. That’s the writers throwing their hands in the air and going, “I got nothin’.” I did speculate this is exactly how it would play out, though. So, no surprise here. What really matters is, Burnham was teary-eyed for a good, long while, feeling her feelings! They sure used the heck out of every square inch of the AR wall. I didn’t believe any of those locations were actual, real, physical places. But that’s become the norm in modern TV. The contemporary equivalent of TOS-style purple skies and painted cardboard rocks on every planet. Not the worst sin, just not nearly as effective as the VFX-obsessed producers probably believe it is. (See most of Andor for an example of how to make sci-fi locations look dense, interesting, and realistic.) Kinda bold move not to bring L’ak back in the episode, I suppose. I expected they would go for the easy, happy ending. They did leave the door open for Moll to find some miracle way to return him in the future, of course. Sadly, I just feel nothing for either of those characters. I’m already forgetting about them. Tilly’s going to be in the Academy show. We get it. We get it. (sigh) I couldn’t help myself, I had to laugh out loud at the nonstop camera shakes and spinning. It’s always been too much. But they cranked it to eleven for the finale. Really felt like a parody, but it was done in earnest. I got dizzy and disoriented, and not in a way that enhanced my enjoyment of the show. I literally said out loud, “stop moving the camera for no good reason!” Lock it down and let these people act, for crying out loud. Speaking of crying, the final final final end scene had me going, “yeah, I don’t really feel anything when it comes to saying goodbye to at least half of these characters, because we don’t know them.” Sad that in five seasons the writers couldn’t give any meaningful characterization to most of the bridge crew. I hope the actors get good residual paychecks or something, because they will get zero career benefits from appearing as a glorified background actor. A few of those people weren’t even in this season, right? But they show up at the end to hug and cry and say goodbye. I do remember there was a scene where that Saurian sneezed a lot of snot on Burnham one time. I think that’s about it, though. Farewell, Disco. You went out the same way you came in. Trying way too hard, yet not hard enough, completely unaware of how awkward you really …  Read more »

I loved some things about this episode and hated others, which is how  Discovery  usually stacks up for me. :-) Exploring the galaxy with Starfleet never gets old, and the Starfleet mandate to not only explore but also to help allied planets in trouble, to protect everyone the Prime Directive allows, and to just generally make the galaxy a better place never gets old for me.

I do wish that we hadn’t had a REALLY extensive fistfight between Burnham and Moll during the middle of the episode, though. We’re trying to bring a person back to life, to keep the Breen from destroying everything, and to discover how life was created, and it all comes down to a FISTFIGHT? Seriously? I know Kirk had to have a fistfight in nearly every episode because NBC demanded “action,” but  Discovery  is on a streaming service … is a fistfight really still necessary? I mean, the backgrounds during the fight were gorgeous, but that just made the whole idea of a fistfight seem even more incongruous to me.

I hate, hate hate Olatunde Osunsanmi’s direction. EVERY time he directs an episode, his direction calls attention to itself, as if the director can’t resist saying, “Look at me; look at meeeee!” The constant camera spinning feels weird and juvenile to me; the direction is supposed to SUPPORT the story, not get in the way of it.

While I agreed with Burnham’s decision to let the Progenitors’ tech fall into the black hole, I thought that spending 30 seconds on that decision vs. twenty minutes on Admiral Burnham and her son and the setup to  Calypso  was a rather imbalanced placement of priorities. I would have liked to have seen Burnham talk aloud about the GOOD that Progenitors’ tech might have enabled her to do and to balance that against the possible negative consequences, whereas she only talked about building an army.

Good bye,  Discovery!  Thank you for bringing us  Strange New Worlds  and  Lower Decks  and  Prodigy .

“I hate, hate hate Olatunde Osunsanmi’s direction. EVERY time he directs an episode, his direction calls attention to itself … the direction is supposed to SUPPORT the story, not get in the way of it.”

I’m not a fan of his directing either. His signature move gets used far too much.

Plus, even from the start it was obvious that the Maguffin would either be fake or destroyed. No way can that sort of power be lying around for just anyone to grab. Even for the awful writing crews at Secret Hideout.

By and large a great episode.. the ending was great.. EXCEPT the contrived ending that made no sense from an in-show perspective. Having them redo the ship back to her original look and parking her in a nebula is a great idea for fans who just MUST have a connection to “Calypso”, but in-universe, from the characters perspective, the best they could do to make it make sense is ‘a red directive’. It literally makes no sense that this ship gets parked in a nebula after being remade to look like she originally did, and not at the fleet museum, if you’re looking at it from in-universe, in-show, at that moment perspective and NOT from a fan who is hung up on the show connecting to a 15-minute short from six years ago. And it took me right out of the moment.

It would have made far more sense to have her restored to her original configuration for the Fleet Museum and putting her there in the series finale so that fans that simply MUST have that connection to “Calypso” can use their imagination to say that some time after the show the ship must get stolen, pulled out of mothballs, or whatever.

Oh, and what a crappy thing to do to Zora, to deliberately leave her aboard an abandoned ship for a thousand years by herself. I guess there are no AI rights in the 32nd century.

I’m going to try to rewatch.. but I go back to.. what is the why? There was a mention of Craft.. but the only thing I could figure was to go back to season 2 when Discovery protected itself.. so they couldn’t destroy it.. had to abandon it.. so it was there to protect the sphere data?.. maybe?

What’s more secure – the Fleet Museum, or some random place in a nebula by itself where nobody’s watching it and anyone could stumble upon it? Okay granted, the ‘red directive’ mentioning Craft indicates someone – Kovich/Daniels – knows it won’t be for a thousand years… and now Kovich/Daniels has taken on the role of a god who can control history and the fates of people and or worlds and or civilizations with his omniscience. A bit much.

My headcanon retcon: Discovery is also going back in time to 2258 and hiding, not just in a nebula, but in time… That’s why it’s disguised into its older form.

Okay – I’ll confess – I teared up a bit when the camera panned over some of that Trek memorabilia in Kovaks office

For all my railin against this episode.. that was cool. Not emotional for me, because this show has lost me to the point that not even those artifacts are enough to get me emotional.

I understand – I’m older than Kovak so anything that creatively integrates TOS and TNG hits me – lol

I thought it was weird he would have them. And Burnham wouldn’t have known what any of them were anyway.

That’s ok.. it was really just for us. I would’ve liked to have seen a bigger array of stuff.. Enterprise, TOS.. I just recall seeing TNG and DS9 stuff.

Oh, what an adventure. My thanks to the cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery for a five-season voyage.

At the end of the day I’m glad Picard and Discovery had a beginning, middle, and end. Despite the fact sine may not consider it perfect, Star Trek, canon. I’m glad it was able to wrap up.

The final season was a lack luster excise of a Holy Grail quest. Agent Daniels reveal…I just didn’t care.

So basically, the whole season was reset to zero after chasing their tail. A lot like every Doctor Who story: everyone runs around concerned about universe ending consequences… and then nothing happens.

That’s not fair. Sometimes in Doctor Who the universe did actually end. Or at least part of it got wiped out.

Until it’s not. Gallifrey’s destroyed. Oh look it wasn’t after all! … etc.

I think the ending highlights that they had a great concept but watered it down concerning having a 23rd century starship crew end up in the future after something catastrophic had destroyed the Federation and having them having to completely rebuild it. You’d be back to starships being powerful capital ships in the middle of nowhere, no back up, the need to colonize and connect with alien races, threats being extremely dangerous, space the final frontier. The stakes would even be higher. In Balance of Terror the Captain had to make decisions on behalf of the Federation due to communication times, they could have had it where Michael was making decisions because she was all that was left of the Federation. Also a nice theme about the 23rd century frontier can-do boldly go spirit persevering, that today’s humanity still has a place in the 35th. You’d get to reboot Star Trek without having to reboot Star Trek! I think Discovery would have been much stronger had they gone all in vs. a watered down burn, the Federation isn’t destroyed or perverted, it’s just in hiding, the Burn is just a childs temper tantrum, etc. Ironically… I guess this means even this version of the Federation falls and only an old Discovery for some reason can save the day? What? Why? What happens? I actually want to watch that show, as long as they show and not just tell.

I think the ending highlights that they had a great concept but watered it down concerning having a 23rd century starship crew end up in the future after something catastrophic had destroyed the Federation (temporal war and all) and having them having to completely rebuild it. Outside that I think Discovery was a better show pre time jump. You’d be back to starships being powerful capital ships in the middle of nowhere, no back up, the need to colonize and connect with alien races, threats being extremely dangerous, space the final frontier. The stakes would even be higher. In Balance of Terror the Captain had to make decisions on behalf of the Federation due to communication times, they could have had it where Michael was making decisions because she was all that was left of the Federation. Also a nice theme about the 23rd century frontier can-do boldly go spirit persevering, that today’s humanity still has a place in the 35th. You’d get to reboot Star Trek without having to reboot Star Trek! I think Discovery would have been much stronger had they gone all in vs. a watered down burn, the Federation isn’t destroyed, it’s just in hiding, the Burn is just a tantrum, etc. There are still hundreds of Starships after all. Ironically… I guess this means even this version of the Federation falls and only an old Discovery for some reason can save the day? What? Why? What happens? I actually want to watch that show, as long as they show and not just tell.

It’s been a long road.

To me the final scene was a way to reintroduce the original discovery to the universe and delete the red directive on the time jump. Now they can say “oh look we found this long lost ship finally” Yeah it’s a stupid head canon but it could work.

I can’t stop thinking about Zora. Stuck out there, all on her own, for a thousand years.

Did Michael destroy/kill a Progenitor along with the tech?

Did this ending essentially rip off the ending of BSG?

The tech wasn’t destroyed, just moves inside the event horizon.

Thirty seconds of dialog by Kovich could have explained the Calypso situation. He could have said how remarkable Discovery was to history… and when it time jumped, a copy of the ship opened up a new alternate universe. One where they abandoned ship and history in that universe split. It would have tied his comments about the mirror and Kelvin universe he made earlier in the series to the Calypao short…. Plot hole solved … it also would have opened up future Trek storylines as Kovich leads research into this other universe…. Sigh ….

Umm who activated the spore drive at the end?

Burnham and a crew were aboard the Discovery as it departed. After travel to coordinates in deep space, Burnham and crew abandoned ship.

I thought the finale was very good, not great, but as others have said it felt very much like Star Trek. I am not sure what they ended up filming post production, but I assume it was much of the epilogue with Booker and Burnham and their son along with the final scene on board Discovery. Both scenes were filled with hope for the future (even if Zora has to wait for the 42nd century) and that is very Star Trek.

Regarding Agent Daniels, USS Enterprise – nice touch and connection with the much maligned Enterprise. Let’s hope we get to see what really happened to Archer and the rest of his crew sometime in the future (I choose to ignore that series finale as something that didn’t happen haha)

From a ranking standpoint, I would give this finale a solid 7.5 out of 10. Far better than the Enterprise and TOS finales which were simply terrible, but behind TNG and DS9. Maybe it slots in just behind Voyager’s Endgame.

As for legacy, yeah like many I hated the first half of S1 and the show did its best to slowly battle back from a terrible debut, with varying levels of success and failure. In retrospect I must admit Discovery did take some big chances, once again with varying levels of success and failure.

Ultimately, although alienating many legacy fans, Discovery was in many ways ground-breaking, in the last three seasons embracing IDIC more than any other series and targeting new demographics. The show did manage to attract an expanded audience as evidenced by the rather surprising ratings numbers – at least for S5. The show also helped spawn Short Treks, SNW, Picard, LDs and Prodigy and the upcoming S31 and SFA – and that is a worthy legacy by itself. Congrats to the cast and crew of Discovery.

Btw, even though it had just 5 seasons, the show did last 7 years (2018-2024). Let’s hope SNW will exceed that run. LLAP!

I will admit I found the “coda” a bit off-putting. All that to make Calypso canonical? But looking at it, I’m seeing more a bit of them using Calypso for the coda, not the other way around. But there was something else: The only people we really saw were Burnham and Book, and mentions of Tilly and Vance (still on duty? That’s a long time.) Everyone else was in Michael’s vision. Did they really have to do that? She said she had a crew, but there was no one else on the bridge. They had all the actors there- couldn’t the bridge doors have opened and they all would have come out, a little aged? (For that matter, why wouldn’t Book come along?) For all the criticisms that this was the Burnham show, that really sealed it.

Burnham’s Pointless Fisticuffs: Apparently, twenty minutes of gratuitous fighting is the best use of our protagonist’s time before she remembers that talking might be a more effective strategy.

Rayner and Nhan’s Non-Roles: Characters so crucial to the story that they could have been completely omitted without anyone noticing.

Culber’s Magical Connection: Culber’s metaphysical link to Jinaal conveniently giving him the knowledge of subspace frequencies. Because that’s how pseudoscience works, right?

Puzzle in Two Dimensions: Introducing the concept of extradimensional thinking only to present a mundane two-dimensional puzzle.

The Great Anti-Climax: Burnham’s profound encounter with ancient technology boils down to learning absolutely nothing new or exciting.

Unnecessary Epilogue: Adding a continuity fix for a short episode that no one really needed, because tying up loose ends from a Short Trek story is clearly a top priority in a series that utterly wrecked canon anyway.

Spore Drive Nonsense: The already ridiculous spore drive is taken to new heights with impossible feats of magic tech, defying all known laws of science and common sense.

Glad this series is over. Don’t know how anyone ever liked it, but if you did, sorry you’re losing a show you liked. But for me – don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Discovery!

I mostly agree with all points. Except that I think Rayner offer a lot to the season and that the climax was an anti-climax. Keeping the mystery was better drama, and better sci fi. It worked story-wise because Michael overcomes her God complex and makes a wise and reasoned choice that reflects the personal growth that she’s experienced in rumor with no evidence to support the rumor until this moment.

Star Trek finally realizes its potential in its finale. While remaining true to Discovery, the show finally feels like Star Trek. The writers managed to satisfy character arcs while subverting my expectations: Michael gets the opportunity to become a god, and refuses it, overcoming her messiah complex. Stamets doesn’t get his “legacy” but he learns to accept who he is and what he’s been a part of. The epilogue was mostly unnecessary. How fitting that the entire bridge crew would show up and have no dialogue and nothing to do.

And they didn’t even really show up! The actors did and the characters didn’t.

International Space Development Conference 2024 beams up Star Trek's William Shatner and more in Los Angeles

Sci-fi meets space fact in Los Angeles at the ISDC 2024 conference this Memorial Day Weekend.

The stars of Star Trek are about to get a taste of real-life space exploration when they beam into the 2024 International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles this weekend, and you have a chance join them to get your space fix. 

On Friday (May 24), actor William Shatner, who originated the role of Captain James T. Kirk and launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket in 2021, will receive the Robert Heinlein Memorial Award "for his deep impact on public perception of the human expansion into space, which boldly highlighted diversity and inclusion previously unseen on television," conference officials said in a statement . The award, which is given annually by the nonprofit National Space Society at ISDC, is just one event featuring Star Trek actors. If you're in the Los Angeles area, you can learn how to attend the ISDC conference at the at isdc.nss.org .

" Star Trek: Strange New Worlds " actor Melissa Navia, who portrays helm pilot Lt. Erica Ortegas, will host the 2024 ISDC conference. NSS officials have also recruited her fellow Trek alums in a May 26 panel "Science Fiction to Science Fact" featuring Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys on " Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "), John Billingsley (Doctor Flox on " Star Trek: Enterprise ") and other Trek and sci-fi veterans to discuss "how science fiction has, and will continue to, transition into our everyday lives, and ultimately, the exploration of space." 

But real science fact is the main draw for ISDC, which is expected to draw over 1,000 attendees to its talks at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport.

"ISDC 2024 talks will cover the exploration, development, and settlement of the Moon, Mars, and cislunar space; deep space exploration; innovative spaceflight technology; the commercialization of space and space infrastructure; life support systems; collaboration in space; living in space; space solar power; space debris mediation solutions; planetary defense ; space law; and both national and international space policy, among others," organizers wrote in an overview. This year, the conference's theme of "No Limits" has drawn in retired astronauts Susan Kilrain and Jose Hernandez , as well as Alan Stern (who leads the New Horizon mission to Pluto and beyond, as well as Vast Space CEO Max Haot, Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin and YouTube creators Isaac Arthur and Brian McManus.

“The ISDC is the only major space conference that is intended for everyone, from space professionals to students to the lay public. It is the largest and longest running space conference anywhere,” Aggie Kobrin, NSS Event Manager, said in a separate statement . "We're thrilled to be holding the conference in Los Angles this year. It's wonderful and to have these amazing speakers appearing before an audience ranging from seasoned NASA professionals to hundreds of young people, all of whom are deeply interested in space."

You can learn more about the 2024 International Space Development Conference, which runs from May 24 to May 26, at the website  isdc.nss.org where you can also find a full list of speakers and conference schedule.

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Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network . To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik .

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‘Master of the House’ Thai Thriller Series Coming to Netflix in July 2024

Thai drama Master of the House is coming to Netflix in July 2024.

Picture: Master of the House – Netflix

A new and exciting Thai thriller, The Master of the House , is on the way to Netflix in July 2024. Here’s everything we know so far.

Master of the House is an upcoming Thai Netflix Original thriller directed by Sivaroj Kongsakul. Kulp Kaljareuk is the series’s executive producer, and Kantana Motion Picture Company is the production company behind the project.

Table of Contents

When is master of the house coming to netflix, what is the plot of master of the house, who are the cast members of master of the house.

A trailer for the Thai thriller hasn’t been released yet, but we can already confirm that Master of the House will premiere on Netflix on July 18th, 2024 .

When their diamond tycoon father mysteriously dies, the ruthless heirs fight for the family estate with their stepmother and former maid, Kaimook, who only recently married their father.

Director Sivaroj Kongsakul had the following to say about the themes of the series;

“The core theme of this series revolves around our ability to manage power and greed, and whether our pursuits might inadvertently harm others. If left unchecked, it can wreck relationships, families, societies, or even entire nations. How can we control these impulses? Are we aware of the pain we might inflict in our quest for success? This aspect makes the show both entertaining and compelling, prompting viewers to reflect on these issues.”

Picture: Nusba Punnakanta (top) as Nusba Punnakanta

Narilya Gulmongkolpech plays Kaimook, the wife of tycoon Roongroj and former maid. Master of the House is the actress’s Netflix debut; she has previously starred in films such as The Medium , Mayhem! , and Postman .

Teerapong Leowrakwong plays Roongroj, the diamond tycoon.

Picture: Narilya Gulmongkolpech (left) and Teerapong Leowrakwong (right) – Netflix

Chartayodom Hiranyasthiti as Phupat, the eldest son currently running the family business. The actor has starred in multiple Thai dramas over the past few years, but yet to make his Netflix debut till now.

Picture: Chartayodom Hiranyasthiti as Phupat – Netflix

Thanavate Siriwattanagul as Mavin, the younger brother. Like his fellow co-stars, Thanavate is making his Netflix debut in Master of the House.

Picture: Nusba Punnakanta as Padcha – Netflix

Nusba Punnakanta as Padcha, the wife of Phupat.

Claudia Chakrabandhu Na Ayudhya as Araya, former actress and snobbish wife of Mavin.

Tassawan Saeneewong as Yupin, the current head housemaid.

Will you be watching Master of the House on Netflix? Let us know in the comments below!

Jacob joined What's on Netflix in 2018 as a fulltime writer having worked in numerous other industries until that point. Jacob covers all things Netflix whether that's TV or movies but specializes in covering new anime and K-dramas. Resides in Norwich in the United Kingdom.

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Brazil’s Biggest Industry Event, Rio2C, Hits Record Attendance With Carlos Saldanha, Ron Leshem Among Speakers 

By Marcelo Cajueiro

Marcelo Cajueiro

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RIO DE JANEIRO — Latin America’s largest creativity event, Rio2C , will gather over June 4-9 at the Cidade das Artes complex, in Rio de Janeiro, about 50,000 participants, up from 44,000 last year, including some 1,600 speakers and representatives of about 1,100 companies.

Modelled after SXSW, the fifth in-person edition of Rio2C will feature over 500 panels designed to promote the convergence of film/TV, music, innovation, tech, games, publishing, science, fashion, sustainability and sports.

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“Rio2C is key for Brazil’s film and TV sector, because it gathers the main market players and promotes essential exchanges and reflections. Warner Bros. Discovery participates actively in the event with panels and discussions, and believes the synergy strengthens the industry and stimulates the production of quality local content,” says Monica Pimentel, VP of content at WBD Brasil.

Rio2C 2024 will see a record attendance of foreign participants. The list of international speakers includes Ron Leshem whose credits take in “Euphoria” and “No Man’s Land”; Armando Bo, AN original screenplay Oscar winner for “Birdman;” Caleeb Pinkett, producer of series “Cobra Kai;” Editi Effiong, helmer of feature “The Black Book” and a leading producer in Nigeria’s Nollywood; Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn, writer-directors of Venice winner “The Distinguished Citizen” and creators of series “Nada,” “The Boss” and “Bellas Artes;” and Axel Kuschevatzky, producer of “Argentina, 1985.”

The increasingly strong presence of international creatives and execs is one the highlights of this year’s event. Ezequiel Olzanski, CEO of EO Media, an international content distribution and production company based in Latin America, is attending Rio2C for the first time.

“Rio2C must be considered a very relevant event, given the undeniable importance of Brazil both in size and value for our industry, not only for Latin America but globally. A territory that could be considered, given the population and own language, a continent itself,” says Olzanski, who previously worked for Gaumont, MarVista and Endemol.

Sandra de Castro Buffington, co-producer of doc “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” and founder of Global Media Center for Social Impact da UCLA, is also attending the event for the first time.

“Rio2C is the pinnacle of creativity and connection for the entertainment industry. It reveals the enormous opportunity for co-productions between Hollywood and Latin America’s top creators and enables strategic connections and partnerships to emerge,” Buffington says.

The presence of nearly all top production and distribution companies in Brazil at Rio2C offers large networking opportunities.

“Rio2C is the main gathering of the film and TV industry in Brazil, with relevant results for companies and executives in terms of business and reflection about the present and future of our sector. It is a must-go event for everyone who works with the creation, commercialization and exhibition of film and TV content in the country,” says Sergio Sa Leitao, Brazil’s former Minister of Culture, who is currently director of Sao Paulo-based production company Cine.E.

The predecessor of Rio2C is RioContentMarket, a smaller film and TV event held from 2011 to 2017 in a hotel in Rio. In 2017, Brazilian entrepreneur Rafael Lazarini licensed the RioContentMarket mark with ambitious plans to expand the event.

Lazarini, who has a background in marketing and studied media and entertainment management at UCLA, worked for big companies in Brazil and the U..S, such as Petrobras and Rogers and Cowan. He says he envisioned an event with the current structure of Rio2C when he first attended South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, in 2007.

“In Brazil, film and TV creatives did not talk to music, tech, publishing and other talents. Everyone kept to his or her own boxes. In South by Southwest, I understood how an event could help them to interact and work together. They are complementary sectors and got to talk to each other,” said Lazarini, who currently twins the position of Rio2C’s CEO with the one of giant Live Nation’s senior VP and head of business development for Latin America.

Instead of starting from scratch, Lazarini decided to buy RioContentMarket, mostly a film and TV event, and incorporate new areas. Again, the model was SXSW, whose predecessor was a music conference, he said.

What’s next?

“As South by Southwest, we intend to create spin-offs of Rio2C, sector events for specific creative industries,” Lazarini said.

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