watch star trek picard season 3

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'Star Trek: Picard': How to Watch and Where to Stream Season 3

Sir Patrick Stewart is back for a final voyage as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, along with some familiar old faces.

Season 3 sees Captain Jean-Luc Picard reunite with a host of Star Trek legends.

Boldly going on one last journey, Patrick Stewart returns as Starfleet's beloved captain for Star Trek: Picard season 3.

The show first hit screens back in 2020 as a follow-up to fan-favorite series, Star Trek: The Next Generation,   chronicling   Captain Jean-Luc Picard life 20 years after his last appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis.

This latest run sees Picard take on a new adversary in the form of Amanda Plummer's mysterious Vadic, while also promising appearances from series veterans LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn and Gates McFadden.

You can stream Star Trek: Picard Season 3 on Paramount Plus in the US and UK, and for free on City TV in Canada. We'll also show you how to use a virtual private network, or VPN, if you're outside of your home country and want to watch the show, or want some streaming privacy. 

Read more: Best VPN 2023: VPNs Tested and Rated by Our Experts

Release dates for Star Trek: Picard Season 3 in the US, UK and Australia

No matter where you are in the world, if you want to stream the show, it will only be available on Paramount Plus. You can sign up for an ad-supported or ad-free subscription. There is also a free seven-day trial available. Here's when Star Trek: Picard Season 3 will be released on the platform:

• Stream it in the US from Thursday, Feb. 16 . New releases typically drop around 3 a.m. ET (12 a.m. PT).
• For viewers in the UK or Australia, unlike previous seasons, Star Trek: Picard season 3, will not be appearing on Amazon Prime Video, and can instead be found on Paramount Plus, with the first episode premiering on Friday, Feb. 17. As with the US, new episodes will be released on the service each week at the same time from then on.

Read more: Best Streaming Service of 2023: Netflix, HBO Max, Disney Plus and More

Paramount Plus

Paramount Plus has two main subscription plans in the US: Essential for $5 a month ($50 a year if paying annually) and Premium for $10 a month ($100 a year if paying annually). Both offer Star Trek: Picard Season 3.

The cheaper Essential option has ads for on-demand streaming and lacks live CBS feeds as well as the ability to download shows to watch offline later. Students may qualify for a 25% discount. 

In the UK, membership costs a flat rate of £7 a month or £69.90 if you want a yearly sub, although a one week-long free trial is available for new customers. 

Australian viewers can also take advantage of a seven-day trial, with a subscription after that priced at $9 a month or $90 a year.

Read our Paramount Plus review .

How to watch Star Trek: Picard Season 3 in Canada

Canadian Trekkies have two options for watching the final installments of Picard. The new season will be airing on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel, but if you're a cord-cutter you can stream the show via Crave.

CTV Sci-Fi Channel will be showing new episodes every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET from Feb. 16, with the third season episodes appearing on Crave every Thursday from the same date.

Crave boasts access to classic HBO series, on-demand movies, Showtime content, plus Crave originals. Members can watch shows including The Last of Us, The Gloaming, Yellowjackets and The White Lotus.

A subscription currently costs CA$10 a month for the basic Crave Mobile tier or £20 per month for Crave Total, which includes downloads and four streams at a time. New subscribers can meanwhile get access to a seven-day free trial.

How to watch Star Trek: Picard Season 3 from anywhere with a VPN

Perhaps you're traveling abroad and want to stream Paramount Plus or Crave while away from home. With a VPN, you're able to virtually change your location on your phone, tablet or laptop to get access to the movie from anywhere in the world. There are other good reasons to use a VPN for streaming, too.

A VPN is the best way to stop your ISP from throttling your speeds by encrypting your traffic. Using a VPN is also a great idea if you're traveling and find yourself connected to a Wi-Fi network, and you want to add an extra layer of privacy for your devices and logins. Streaming TV can be a bit smoother with a reliable, quality VPN that's passed our tests and security standards.

You can use a VPN to stream content legally as long as VPNs are legal in your country and you have a valid subscription to the streaming service you're using. The US and Canada are among the countries where VPNs are legal, but we advise against streaming or downloading content on illegal torrent sites. We recommend ExpressVPN, but you may opt for another provider from our best list such as Surfshark or NordVPN. 

If you're looking for a secure and dependable VPN, our Editors' Choice is ExpressVPN. It's fast, works on multiple devices, and provides stable streams. It's normally $13 a month, but you can  save 49% plus get three months of access for free  -- the equivalent of $6.67 a month -- if you get an annual subscription. 

ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Read our review of ExpressVPN .

Follow the VPN provider's instructions for installation, and choose a country where Star Trek: Picard will be streaming on Paramount Plus. Before you open the streaming app, make sure you are connected to your VPN using your selected region. If you want to stream Picard episodes on more than one device, it's possible you'll need to configure each one to ensure you are signed in. Go to settings and check your network connections to verify you're logged in and connected to your VPN account. Now you're ready to open Paramount Plus to stream. 

If you run into issues with streaming, first make sure your VPN is up and running on its encrypted IP address. Double-check that you've followed installation instructions correctly and you've picked the right geographical area for viewing. If you still encounter connection problems, you may need to reboot your device. Close all apps and windows, restart your device and connect to your VPN first. Note that some streaming services have restrictions on VPN access. 

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Star Trek: Picard - Season 3

Streaming in:

We checked for updates on 124 streaming services on June 4, 2024 at 6:02:08 p.m.. Something wrong? Let us know!

Streaming, rent, or buy Star Trek: Picard – Season 3:

Currently you are able to watch "Star Trek: Picard - Season 3" streaming on Paramount Plus, Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel or for free with ads on CTV. It is also possible to buy "Star Trek: Picard - Season 3" as download on Apple TV.

Where can I watch Star Trek: Picard for free?

Star Trek: Picard is available to watch for free today. If you are in Canada, you can:

• Stream 10 episodes online with ads on CTV

If you’re interested in streaming other free movies and TV shows online today, you can:

• Watch movies and TV shows with a free trial on Apple TV+

Picard and the former USS Enterprise crew come together to face a dangerous threat 

When Admiral Jean-Luc Picard receives a distress call from Dr. Beverly Crusher, he reunites with his former command crew of the USS Enterprise to battle a mysterious enemy looking to destroy them all. This final season sees the return of Dr. Crusher, Geordi La Forge, Worf, William Riker and Deanna Troi.

10 Episodes

S3 e1 - the next generation, s3 e2 - disengage, s3 e3 - seventeen seconds, s3 e4 - no win scenario, s3 e5 - imposters, s3 e6 - the bounty, s3 e7 - dominion, s3 e8 - surrender, s3 e9 - võx, s3 e10 - the last generation, where does star trek: picard rank today the justwatch daily streaming charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. this includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. this includes data from ~1.3 million movie & tv show fans per day..

Streaming charts last updated: 5:17:25 p.m., 2024-06-04

Star Trek: Picard is 956 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The TV show has moved down the charts by -3 places since yesterday. In Canada, it is currently more popular than Virage but less popular than Cristóbal Balenciaga.

Videos: Trailers, Teasers, Featurettes

What to know

The third and final season of picard promises emotional reunions and exciting action.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 is the final season of the sci-fi series created by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer and Alex Kurtzman. It is the eighth series in the Star Trek franchise and is produced by CBS Studios. 

The series stars Patrick Stewart portraying his iconic role of former Captain, now retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard set 20 years following his appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Season 3 reunites Picard with his former USS Enterprise command crew as they must come together to face a new enemy targeting the previous squad. 

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 also stars Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge, Michael Dorn as Worf, Jonathan Frakes as William Riker and Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi.

Production News

• Picard is renewed for a second and a third season ahead of its series debut. ( Source: The Hollywood Reporter )
• Season three sees the return of former Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner. ( Source: Variety )
• Amanda Plummer joins the third and final season. ( Source: Deadline )
• Official trailer is released with new cast members Ed Speleers and Todd Stashwick announced. ( Source: StarTrek.com )
• Star Trek: Picard season 3 was released on Crave in Canada. 

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episodes

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Retired admiral Jean-Luc Picard is affected by the loss of Lieutenant commander Data and the destruction of Romulus.

Season 3 Episode Guide

10 Episodes 2023 - 0

The Next Generation

Thu, Feb 16, 2023 45 mins

After receiving a cryptic, urgent distress call from Dr. Beverly Crusher, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard enlists help from generations old and new to embark on one final adventure: a daring mission that will change Starfleet, and his old crew forever.

Thu, Feb 23, 2023 45 mins

Aided by Seven of Nine and the crew of the U.S.S. Titan, Picard makes a shocking discovery that will alter his life forever – and puts him on a collision course with the most cunning enemy he's ever encountered. Meanwhile, Raffi races to track a catastrophic weapon – and collides with a familiar ally.

Seventeen Seconds

Tue, Mar 7, 2023 45 mins

Picard grapples with an explosive, life-altering revelation, while the Titan and her crew try to outmaneuver a relentless Vadic in a lethal game of nautical cat and mouse. Meanwhile, Raffi and Worf uncover a nefarious plot from a vengeful enemy Starfleet has long since forgotten.

No Win Scenario

Fri, Jul 7, 2023 45 mins

With time running out, Picard, Riker and crew must confront the sins of their past and heal fresh wounds, while the Titan, dead in the water, drifts helplessly toward certain destruction within a mysterious space anomaly.

Fri, Jul 14, 2023 45 mins

Caught by Starfleet and facing court martial, paranoia grows as Picard struggles to uncover whether a prodigal crewman from his past has returned as an ally—or an enemy hellbent on destroying them all.

Sat, Mar 25, 2023 45 mins

Now on the run, Picard and the skeleton crew of the U.S.S. Titan must break into Starfleet's most top-secret facility to expose a plot that could destroy the Federation. Picard must turn to the only soul in the galaxy who can help – an old friend.

Crippled, cornered, and out of options, Picard stages a gambit to trap Vadic and reveal her true motive – a gamble that puts the Titan in the crosshairs and forces Picard and Beverly to question every moral code they've ever held.

Thu, Apr 6, 2023 45 mins

Vadic forces Picard to make an impossible choice: deliver what he can never give... or watch his crew perish. Their only salvation lies in the mind of an old friend and old foe.

Fri, Aug 11, 2023 45 mins

A devastating revelation about Jack alters the course of Picard's life forever – and uncovers a truth that threatens every soul in the Federation. The final battle begins as Picard and his crew race to save the galaxy from annihilation – but not without a gut-wrenching cost.

The Last Generation

Tue, Apr 25, 2023 45 mins

In a desperate last stand, Jean-Luc Picard and generations of crews both old and new fight together to save the galaxy from the greatest threat they've ever faced as the saga of Star Trek: The Next Generation comes to a thrilling, epic conclusion.

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Patrick Stewart: Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Did the One Thing “I had firmly said I didn’t want”

P atrick Stewart was a hard sell for Star Trek: Picard since he believed that Jean-Luc Picard’s arc was finished after Star Trek: Nemesis . However, Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and other creators of the series convinced him to take on the role in the series. He put a lot of consideration into committing to the project, as evident from a list of three conditions he presented to the creators.

They were obviously not thrilled about the conditions and tried to reason with the X-Men actor, who stuck to his guns. While the creators agreed to them, they did one thing that Stewart asked them specifically not to do in the conditions during the third season of the series.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Broke One Of The Conditions Set By Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart took some necessary steps before committing to Star Trek: Picard and one of them was to set a bunch of conditions for the creators. He shared this list of conditions in an article for Time and one of the conditions was not to treat the series as a reunion of sorts for Star Trek: The Next Generation stars.

“One of the greatest commercials I’ve ever seen”: Paramount+ Launches Mother of All Super Bowl Ads, Patrick Stewart Leads the Charge

Stewart explained that his rule was not to disrespect his Star Trek co-stars but because he wanted Picard to work with new characters in a new setting . He was okay with featuring the characters of the 1987 series in cameo appearances possibly in the second or third season.

However, he wanted these appearances to be chance encounters and not forced ones. He wrote about his first condition in his article for Time :

The series would not be based on a reunion of The Next Generation characters. I wanted it to have little or nothing to do with them. This was not at all a mark of disrespect for my beloved fellow actors. Rather, I simply felt it was essential to place Picard in entirely new settings with entirely new characters. Perhaps Picard might encounter Riker or Dr. Crusher in the second season, but such encounters were not to be the series’ raison d’être.

Stewart’s first condition was followed throughout the first two seasons. The series did bring back Brent Spiner’s Data and Jonathan Frakes’ Riker in the first season and Marina Sirtis’ Deanna in the second season. But they were separate appearances and Stewart admitted that he had softened on his hard-line conditions by then.

However, Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas approached Stewart before the filming of the third season. He shared Paramount’s insistence that they wanted a proper reunion of The Next Generation stars. Luckily, Stewart had grown comfortable with the series and allowed the reunion to happen. He wrote in the Time article:

For season 3, our last, Terry Matalas, by then Picard’s showrunner, told me that the studio wanted a full Next Generation reunion. Ugh, just what I had firmly said I didn’t want. But that had been three years ago. Now I was less resistant, having enjoyed working with Jonathan, Brent, Marina, John, and Whoopi.

Stewart had one condition to make the reunion happen. He suggested that rather than bringing back all characters at once he wanted to “trickle them back in.”

How Did The TNG Reunion Come About In Star Trek: Picard Season 3 ?

In the season’s premiere episode, Picard gets a distress call from Dr. Beverly Crusher, his former lover. She and her son are being pursued by an unknown enemy, who is trying to abduct the child. The child is revealed to be Picard’s son. Picard plots to rescue them with the help of his old Enterprise gang.

Stewart reunites with LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge, Brent Spiner as Data, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, Michael Dorn as Worf, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, and Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker.

“I never looked this good”: Patrick Stewart Was Creeped Out After Watching James McAvoy as Professor X in Some Scenes

The season also broke Stewart’s other rule of no uniforms. The showrunner allowed Patrick to wear outfits that looked like everyday clothes, but some of his old gang wore black and gold uniforms. His third condition was to end the series after three seasons.

Star Trek: Picard is now available for streaming on Paramount+.

• June 4, 2024 | Nog Is Faced With A Ferengi Existential Crisis In Preview Of ‘Sons Of Star Trek’ #3
• June 3, 2024 | ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Season 2 Coming To Netflix In July
• May 31, 2024 | Podcast: All Access Says Farewell To ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ With “Life, Itself”
• May 30, 2024 | Alex Kurtzman Explains Why ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Is Set In The ‘Discovery’ Era
• May 30, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Pulls It All Together For “Life, Itself”

‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Season 2 Coming To Netflix In July

| June 3, 2024 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 50 comments so far

Just a couple weeks after the producers asked for patience , there is finally news on the release of the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy .

Start your July with new Prodigy

Today the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy showed up on the “Coming Soon” tab for Netflix Kids, listing Monday, July 1 for the release. TrekMovie has confirmed this with CBS Studios. However, we were not yet able to confirm if the release will include all 20 episodes of season 2, which were completed at the beginning of the year.

The listing on Netflix also includes a new synopsis:

Now Starfleet trainees, Dal and his friends embark on another adventure to solve the mystery of the Protostar and save the planet from destruction.

From Netflix app

Season 2 of Prodigy will feature the return of Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Picardo as the Holographic Doctor, now serving on the new USS Voyager-A under the command of Vice Admiral Janeway. The Doctor will be tasked with minding the new trainees Dal R’El, Rok-Tahk, Zero, and Jankom Pog along with their Melenoid slime worm companion Murf.

Earlier this year Picardo had high praise for the Prodigy  writers and their approach to his character…

“What’s wonderful about the writing of the show is that they maintain what I love most about doing  Voyager  itself, which was I could be a comic relief, but on a dime I could turn and it could get quite serious when it was a dire situation. [ Prodigy ] used me for comic relief, believe me, in a lot of scenes, in a lot of episodes. But there are some dramatic moments which was really a pleasure to do as well.”

Gwyn will still be a big part of the show in season 2. She has a mission of her own, to save her people the Vau N’Akat on the planet Solum.

The doctor gives the provisional cadets a briefing in preview of season 2

The first season of Prodigy  wrapped up on Paramount+ in December 2022. Season 1 was re-released worldwide on Netflix last Christmas after Paramount+ removed the series in the summer of 2023. Netflix previously announced that season 2 would arrive in 2024 and today is the first time there has been a specific date. In March all 20 episodes were unexpectedly released early on French TV (dubbed in French).

We are awaiting more details and the release of preview images or possibly even a trailer. A clip from season 2 was released by CBS last summer .

This is a developing story. We will provide updates as soon as they are available.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe .

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Robert Picardo Says The Doctor Isn’t Just Comic Relief In ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Season 2

It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. Welcome back cadets! Can’t wait to see The Doctor :)

It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. 

I said the same thing on Facebook and X, lol.

Yes, so excited to see the Doctor back!!! I cannot wait to see him and Janeway in a room again. It’s been far too long.

Oh cool, I didn’t expect any more Trek for a long while.

I liked the first season although it lost something when it became too Voyager. Was never a fan of Voyager so not sure how I feel about this. We’ll see.

“I  liked the first season although it lost something when it became too Voyager. Was never a fan of Voyager.”

This is where I am, too.

I’m the opposite, the more Voyager the better. Bring it on if you ask me.

How does this work for Canada? It is usually shown on CTV Sci Fi and is not on Netflix here currently.

We will be following up with more info including international release for those countries outside the current Netflix countries. This includes Eastern European countries with SkyShowtime and Canada with CTVScifi

In Canada, it used to be that Star Trek shows were on CTV (a network) and Crave (a streaming service), both of which are owned by Bell Media. Now the only way to watch Prodigy is via CTV, which I think requires a cable TV subscription; there’s no streaming service that carries it. Any chance this might change…?

You can use a VPN to make your device look like it’s in the US. I recommend Surfshark, IP Vanish or Express VPN. I use Surfshark. I watch Netflix from the US, London, UK or Budapest, Hungary.All from the comfort of my home from the GTA. (Greater Traffic Area..)

This is very very exciting!

I just watched season one for the first time literally a month ago and I was so impressed with this show. I adored practically everything about it; especially having Janeway back. But all the new characters were great and enjoyed all their arcs Dal went from my least favorite to favorite after the first half of the season.

Other than Picard season 3, this is the only other show in NuTrek I have truly loved. Hopefully we will see more Voyager characters along the way

Well I’m still so happy you finally found something else in NuTrek to be excited about! It sounds like you finished the season and loved it! :)

As far as more legacy characters showing up, I am 100% convinced at least one more Voyager character will appear, even if it’s just a cameo or something. But they have said there will be another major legacy character involved in the season outside the Doctor and not from Voyager. So most likely TNG or (hopefully) DS9.

And I’m also happy to see you can post your thoughts without feeling harassed over it as you were but I will digress on that. Most people here are actually very open, friendly and civil, but yes like yourself, VERY passionate lol.

Haha, thanks!

Yes it is really nice to be enjoying another show outside of Picard. But I didn’t watch it because I thought it was bad, but simply not for me being geared to young children. But you and others were so right, it really does speak to adults as much as kids. I just appreciate it’s telling authentic Star Trek stories again. I know the others try but I have other issues with them beyond just that.

I would truly love anyone from TNG or DS9. I was actually a bit irked we didn’t get anyone from DS9 at all on Picard. I didn’t expect Odo for obvious reasons even though the season dealt with the changelings, but Kira or Bashir popping up would’ve been fabulous. Let’s hope we get another shot on Prodigy!

And yes everyone has been super lovely outside of that one individual I won’t name; just happy they are gone. But I haven’t had an issue with anyone else and have always had pleasant conversations, even when we do disagree from time to time. As you said, we are all passionate and sometimes resolute in our opinions; but that’s no excuse to be a bully to others because you can’t handle a difference of opinion that’s frankly been said many times over by others anyway. If you can’t have a civil conversation without getting so triggered over it, just keep scrolling. But I want to reiterate, this has been a great board to pop my head in from time to time to give a few random opinions and talk to you lovely people the last few months. :)

And I haven’t really posted here or other boards much lately anyway since I decided not to watch Discovery this season (but really hoped you and others liked it) and there haven’t been a lot of other things that have interested me. This show definitely has my attention now though.

Okay that’s good to know! 😊

Sadly that’s so much of the Internet these days so we’re all used to it but this board is very small as it is and it’s sad when someone new comes along who has never bothered anyone and is treated that way really bothered me. I’m guessing all the shouting and meltdowns over shows and movies we have here probably keep most new people away as it is lol. But it’s different when you are being harassed or attacked for simply having an opinion.

And most of the strife has mostly been over Discovery IMO. Passions just run very high on that show on either side. But the irony is the last season has been an absolute delight to discuss lol. Seriously, very little fighting has happened over it. There are still people who hate it as others who love it but very little infighting or trolling over it

Part of it has to do with certain personalities finally being banned who kept all the silly fights going in the first place as you experienced yourself, but there has just been a lot less people talking about the show overall for some reason and more people seem to generally like the season including me. That always helps lol. All in all it was actually a pretty tame, chill and frankly a dull place at times to discuss the show for a change.

Now that’s it’s over these boards will probably take a turn for the better overall since the other current shows are just more well liked or just less bitterness over them lol. Prodigy is one of those shows that gets 50 posts on a GOOD week discussing an episode and there is very little strife over it. People obviously disagree here and there but it’s a pretty easy going show to discuss so can’t wait. Prodigy brings more good vibes!

(See I got it back on topic ;))

And definitely would love to see Kira or Bashir. Anyone from DS9 would be a plus. Give me 10 episodes with Brunt and I won’t complain lol.

I think we’re going to get a great season either way!

I guess things become better on boards when you eliminate the elderly children who wants to throw a temper tantrum towards others when they don’t get their way haha.

And I’m very happy you enjoyed this season of Discovery. I haven’t read any of the articles or the comments about the season so not sure how others felt about it. Someone I talk to on FB watched it and it sounds like she liked it too and she’s not a big fan of the show either. I did watch a YouTube video discussing the finale yesterday to see how they handled the Progenitors. It sounded fine but not something I need to watch personally. But I hope its fans enjoyed the ending.😊

But I’m still in the middle of my Enterprise rewatch I started a month ago and currently on season 3. By the time I finish Prodigy may have already started!

So a good way to pass the time along until it gets here. 😄

And I would have no problems if Brunt joined the show lol. Jeffrey Combs is a Star Trek treasure.

It’s always great to talk to you. You’re always so sweet.

LOL thanks. And yes very excited about Prodigy. I really had no idea how I would ultimately feel about this season of Discovery considering I haven’t been a big fan of the last four lol. And while it did come out a little better as I hoped, it still wasn’t a complete home run either. But I felt it did just enough to feel it ended OK at least and that’s really all I can ask for at this point. I still have zero interest to rewatch it anytime soon though.

With Prodigy my expectations are much much higher because I trust the people who make that show 100%. They knocked it out of the park in the first season and I imagine it will be just as solid next season as well.

And enjoy your Enterprise marathon. Although I know you didn’t watch Discovery this season I know you’re obviously aware about the big reveal in the finale and one of the reasons why I liked it so much. Just a cool tie in although I know others are more mixed on the revelation. Not me, I thought it was great and I just love how it basically bookends Enterprise and Discovery together. :)

they did get Ro in, who was supposed to be in DS9 but ms forbes declined the role.

“What’s wonderful about the writing of the show is that they maintain what I love most about doing Voyager itself, which was I could be a comic relief, but on a dime I could turn and it could get quite serious when it was a dire situation.”

What I love about Prodigy is that they didn’t change the legacy characters so much that they were unrecognizable. They feel like a plausible continuation of the characters.

I’m rewatching S1 now and it’s so much fun. These writers can put in so much story in 23 minutes and it works. I can’t wait for S2. I’m hoping for a S3 or maybe a TV or theatrical movie.

This is amazing news!

Prodigy is my favorite show in the modern era and just tick all the boxes of great Star Trek for me! It’s also cool we now have less than a month for the next show.

As Janeway would say, do it!

Amazing News! Can’t wait to see what Kevin & Dan and their incredible team have in store for us.

Great news!

Yay! Have Anthony & Laurie talked about how they are going to review the season if they are all dropped at once? Like maybe 2 per week or something like that?

I hope they at least have a little break between batches of episodes. Dropping all 20 would be ridiculous. They’d be gobbled up in a flash and fan conversations wouldn’t be as fun.

I prefer this format. Having the freedom to choose when/how to watch each episode is a gift. Specially with Prodigy!

I feel like 10 episode releases with a short break a la Bridgerton is getting plenty. We all benefit from being able to talk about these shows on relatively the same timeline. Watching a show on my own time is fine, but I enjoy talking about them as they happen. With Netflix shows it’s always a case of, “OMG did you see episode 6 yet? No? Oh. Okay, well let me know when you get there!” or “Oh man I’m not there yet! Bummer.” The immediacy of conversations is stifled a bit. I find the majority of people gobble up binge shows like candy in one big bender, and everyone from the fans to the creators doing publicity chatters excitedly for maybe a month… and then the audience moves on to the next content that must be consumed. Binge models lead to longer hiatuses too. Even beyond Ted Sarandos’ inane comments, I lament what Netflix has done to the industry more than the convenient disruptions it has pioneered.

I assume TrekMovie will stagger reviews for episodes that have come out and it could become a big jumble of different schedules.

I’m hoping they at least divide the season up and we get 10 in July and maybe the other 10 in September or something. Give people wanting more. But don’t space it out too much. I really feel a big reason the show failed on P+ is because after they dropped the first half of the season, it took a full year to get the second half and most people (especially kids) just moved on by then.

Precisely, this is what modern animators don’t seem to understand. Kids grow up fast, which means you need to get the content to them quickly. In thine olden times there use to be 65 episodes spread over 13 weeks to tell the show’s story. If it was really successful it would get an order for the next year.

I’m of the opposite opinion. I hope they drop the entire season so that it can be binged. That seems to be the dominant strategy at Netflix.

I get it. And Prodigy’s team are going to be delighted it’s being seen at all and supported. It just would be nice if it were over the span of 20 weeks at a decent ebb.

This show is really great with the addition of the Voyager characters. Can’t wait to see The Doctor.

More Voyager please!

I wish that I could muster-up the level of enthusiasm the show’s biggest boosters (saluting you, Tiger 2) have for it, but I’m happy for them and will certainly be checking it out myself. From my perspective it’s fine for what it is: a children’s show set in the Trek universe. There’s nothing at all wrong with that in principle, and the best Pixar outings can easily transcend the demographic they’re pitched to accommodate. It’s just not particularly what I come to Star Trek for.

And speaking of Pixar, whatever reservations I have about Prodigy — man, is it gorgeous to look at. Many years ago, before TAS premiered, I remember Roddenberry boasting that the level of animation at Filmation Studios was on a par with Disney. . . a claim that, to be generous, was pretty generous. But that the level of cinematography and production design in Prodigy often compares favorably with feature films is just what you happen to see on the screen. It’s stellar work.

I laughed pretty hard over that first sentence.

And at the end of the day, you gave it a chance and it’s not really your thing. That’s all anyone can ask for. And yes, if nothing else, the show is stunningly beautiful to look at. Why it’s disappointing it didn’t reach the original target audience as it was meant to; or not as many as Paramount hoped I guess. Maybe it will have a better shot being on Netflix.

We’ll now know soon!

In regards to the visual quality, I agree it’s stunning to see. And it’s even more impressive considering it’s apparently about half as expensive to make compared to other animated shows (according to what the Hagemans have said), and they were working during the height of the pandemic which would have created certain hurdles getting it done.

Well…my patience died a couple weeks ago, but maybe I should have tried to be just a tiny bit more patient to begin with, because I am surprised Netflix isn’t waiting until December like I was thinking they were going to. So, this month The Acolyte, and next month Prodigy!

Even if they do drop them all at once, I will be watching one per week.

Alright, maybe two or three per week.

This is great news to have confirmed at last. Now the big question for me is will season 2 get a physical blu-ray/DVD release later down the line? Netflix are very against this, but Paramount are for it. Wonder which way it will go.

Not saying it’s a guarantee, but Netflix shows that were produced by outside studios have gotten physical releases. The Crown and Narcos come to mind.

I hope they release all 20 eps at once. The once-a-week thing is getting tiring…

I’m with you on that. Poor Anthony and Laurie though.

I prefer the once a week releases. But they will probably release 10 or 20 at once.

Erich Anderson r i p

If this ends up being the last season, as I’m suspecting it will be, I hope they get a chance to wrap things up.

I was thrilled to see this yesterday. After all that the show went through, and all the waiting for a release date, it’s great to finally know we’re in the home stretch. I loved this show. The biggest surprise of the modern era for me (though Lower Decks was a close second in that regard). So excited to see what’s in store for season 2. I’ve been hearing nothing but great things from those who’ve seen it (and thankfully no spoilers either).

YAY!! The wait is over. PROD rocks!!!

Finally! I was about to start learning French.

Will they Release all 10 or 20 Episodes all at once or will they get released weekly

Netflix typically releases episodes all at once. So we’ll probably either get all 20 on July 1, or get the first ten then and get the second half at a later date.

YES! Definitely keeping my Netflix subscription. CANT WAIT FOR SEASON 2! Seeing the Doc again will bring a tear to my eye I bet.

The Doctor was one of my 2 favorite Voyager characters (hard to choose between him and Seven), so I’m thrilled we’re getting him back. And I could easily imagine him being great on Prodigy, with these writers. He should have great interactions with everyone, including very likely having scenes with Janeway.

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Published Jun 3, 2024

Time Agent Provocateur: The Greatest Hits of Crewman Daniels

The man with a plan to save all the entire timeline is back. Or maybe he never left?

This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Discovery's series finale, "Life, Itself."

StarTrek.com

As much as serious Star Trek fans might worry about keeping the intricacies of the various chronologies well-ordered in our brains, there are characters within Star Trek striving to do the exact same thing. While Trek has given us our fair share of time agents — from Gary Seven in The Original Series , to Captain Braxton in Voyager , and even recently, La'An Noonien-Singh in Strange New Worlds — there is another, undercover temporally-concerned individual who had a big impact on all of Star Trek . We're talking about Agent Daniels, who first appeared in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode " Cold Front ," way back in 2001.

And now, sneakily, Agent Daniels is back . When Captain Michael Burnham completes her mission in the Discovery series finale, " Life, Itself ," she decides it's time to get some answers from the mysterious Kovich, as played cryptically, and charmingly by legendary director David Cronenberg, starting with Discovery 's third season. When Burnham deduces that Kovich is a "codename," she reintroduces herself, which prompts Kovich to reveal that his real name, yes, is Daniels, and that he'd served on the Enterprise and "other places."

"Life, Itself"

But just how many "other places" has Kovich/Daniels really been? While we may not know the full breadth of the timey-wimey adventures of Daniels, we are aware of his greatest hits to date. Here are the essential Daniels moments, all of which have kept the Star Trek timeline intact. Mostly.  

Daniels Saves the Day… and Then Dies?

"Cold Front"

From the very start of Enterprise , Captain Archer had hints that the villainous Suliban were just one part of a paradoxical Temporal Cold War . But, it wasn't until Episode 11, "Cold Front," that we learned that there were some future-tense allies in this conflict. When Silik sneaks aboard the Enterprise , Daniels reveals himself to Archer as being an agent from the 31st Century, sent back in time to prevent enemy forces from messing with the 22nd Century. Although this is the first appearance of Daniels in any Star Trek episode, ever, Matt Winston's performance convinces us that he's sort of been there all along; an innocuous crewmember that Archer might not notice.

And so, when Daniels reveals to his captain that he has a lot more information about the larger conflict, a seemingly meek character is transformed into a formidable one. That said, Daniels does get zapped, seemingly, to death in this episode, which makes his ability to keep popping up all the more interesting.

Daniels Takes Archer Back to the Beginning

"Shockwave, Part I"

In the Enterprise Season 1 finale, " Shockwave, Part I ," the crew, briefly, believe they are responsible for destroying an entire colony due to a random shuttle plasma accident. This disaster threatens to shut down the entire mission of the NX-01, and Archer, Trip, and everyone involved are understandably depressed. But, just as Archer climbs into bed to cuddle with his dog and feel sorry for himself, he wakes up in his old apartment on Earth, 10 months prior, and exactly one day before his mission began.

As Archer walks around shirtless, trying to figure out what’s going on, Daniels appears, explaining to Archer that nothing about the disaster on Paraagan II was his fault. Turns out, the Temporal Cold War is heating up, and somebody is trying to change the past to frame Starfleet and Enterprise . Daniels is here to help Archer set the record straight. Though, strangely, he doesn't offer to help Archer find his shirt.

Daniels Recruits Archer and T'Pol

"Carpenter Street"

Throughout Enterprise , we learn that Daniels is from the 31st Century, and that his organization deals with a lot of complex rules. He alludes to the "temporal accords," from time to time, which is something his future self, Kovich, has mentioned on Discovery, too. But, in the third-season episode, "Carpenter Street," Daniels can't get involved with the timeline changes directly, and so, he recruits Archer to do some time travel dirty work for him.

In this gritty time travel episode, T'Pol and Archer have to go back to Chicago in the year 2004, and prevent Xindi from using human blood to create a biological weapon in the future. With Daniels as their temporary boss, "Carpenter Street" remains the closest thing a Star Trek episode has done that feels like The Terminator — a shadowy battle in the present to prevent a worse future.

But, in addition to the new revelation that Kovich and Daniels are one in the same, "Carpenter Street" has also influenced contemporary Star Trek shows in other ways. In Picard Season 2, La Sirena 's mission to fix the timeline is similar in tone and style to "Carpenter Street," even if the specifics differ. And, in the Strange New Worlds Season 2 episode, " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ," La’An is recruited to fix the timeline in a way that's not entirely dissimilar to what Daniels does with Archer and T'Pol.

A Glimpse at the Enterprise -J

"Azati Prime"

In the Season 3 episode, " Azati Prime ," Daniels once again whisks Archer to a different time period, but this time, to prove a point. In this episode, Daniels wants to convince Archer that figuring out some kind of truce with the Xindi is likely the best route to victory. Why? Well, turns out in the 26th Century, the Xindi are members of the Federation, and some of them even serve in Starfleet.

To make this point very clear, Daniels brings Archer to the deck of the Enterprise -J, a 26th Century incarnation of the beloved ship, that plays a huge part in the Battle of Procyon V. But, If Archer doesn't make nice with the Xindi in the 22nd Century, then the Enterprise -J can't do its thing in the 26th. While this one-and-only glimpse of the Enterprise -J was a wonderful Easter egg for fans when the episode aired in 2004, it also connects to the recent Kovich reveal on Discovery .

In "Life, Itself," when Kovich says he served on the U.S.S. Enterprise , he could have been referring to the Enterprise -J, since the NX-01 Enterprise wasn't initially given the prefix of "U.S.S." Then again, if Kovich survived dying in the 22nd Century, lived in the 31st Century, and settled into the 32nd Century as "Dr. Kovich," then who knows — maybe there are several other Enterprise he's lived on.

Kovich Explains the Multiverse

"Terra Firma, Part 1"

Now that we know that Kovich is Daniels, so much of what he's done — and elucidated — on Discovery makes a lot more sense. In Enterprise , we were made aware that time travel was common in the 31st Century. But, in Discovery , in the 32nd Century, time travel has been outlawed, by the "Temporal Accords." Surely Daniels was behind making this happen, since he probably got sick of all the time paradoxes earlier in his career, which constantly required him to grab Captain Archer in the middle of the night.

In the Discovery Season 3 episode " Terra Firma, Part 1 ," Kovich says to Dr. Culber, "Consider yourself lucky to have skipped the Temporal Wars. Amongst the many horrible things we discovered when weaponizing time — temporal travel can make you pretty sick."

What this ends up meaning is that some time travel within the same reality is okay, but if you time travel and cross parallel dimensions, like Georgoiu did, the results can be fatal. Because we now know that Kovich was Daniels all along, it makes sense that he would have all sorts of knowledge that spanned the era of The Original Series, The Next Generation , and even, the Kelvin Universe. But, as Discovery concludes, what remains so interesting about Kovich is that in a world in which time travel is outlawed, he seems like the last of an extinct breed, the last of the Star Trek time lords, at the edge of the universe.

"Red Directive"

Luckily though, just like everyone else in the Star Trek family, Kovich (or Daniels) is never really on his own. And so, when he recruits Burnham to help with those pesky " Red Directives ," it seems he's carrying on the same tradition he started back in the 22nd Century, when he enlisted the help of the first captain of the Enterprise .

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is over. Now Alex Kurtzman readies for ‘Starfleet Academy’ and ‘Section 31’

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In “Star Trek” terms, and in the real world of “Star Trek” television, Alex Kurtzman, who oversees the 21st century franchise, might be described as the Federation president, from whose offices various series depart on their individual missions. Indeed, to hear him speak of it, the whole enterprise — honestly, no pun intended — seems to run very much on the series’ ethos of individual initiative and group consensus.

The first series to be launched, “ Star Trek: Discovery, ” has come to an end as of Thursday after five seasons on Paramount+. Others in the fleet include the concluded “ Picard, ” which brought “The Next Generation” into a new generation; the ongoing “ Strange New Worlds, ” which precedes the action of what’s now called “The Original Series,” from which it takes its spirit and several characters; “Lower Decks,” a comedy set among Starfleet service workers; and “Prodigy,” in which a collection of teenage aliens go joyriding in a starship. On the horizon are “Starfleet Academy,” with Holly Hunter set to star, and a TV feature, “ Section 31, ” with Michelle Yeoh back as Philippa Georgiou.

I spoke with Kurtzman, whose “Trek” trek began as a writer on the quantum-canonical reboot movies “ Star Trek ” (2009) and “ Star Trek: Into Darkness ” (2013), at Secret Hideout, his appropriately unmarked Santa Monica headquarters. Metro trains glide by his front door unaware. We began the conversation, edited for length and clarity here, with a discussion of his “Trek” universe.

Alex Kurtzman: I liken them to different colors in the rainbow. It makes no sense to me to make one show that’s for everybody; it makes a lot of sense to make a lot of shows individually tailored to a sect of the “Star Trek” audience. It’s a misnomer that there’s a one-size-fits-all Trekkie. And rather than make one show that’s going to please everybody — and will almost certainly please nobody — let’s make an adult drama, an animated comedy, a kids’ comedy, an adventure show and on and on. There’s something quite beautiful about that; it allows each of the stories to bloom in its own unique way.

Do you get pushback from the fans?

Absolutely. In some ways that’s the point. One of the things I learned early on is that to be in love with “Star Trek” is to engage in healthy debate. There is no more vocal fan base. Some people tell you that their favorite is “The Original Series,” some say their favorite is “Voyager” and some say their favorite is “Discovery.” Yet they all come together and talk about what makes something singularly “Trek” — [creator] Gene Roddenberry‘s extraordinarily optimistic vision of the future when all that divides us [gets placed] in the rearview mirror and we get to move on and discover things. Like all great science fiction, you get to pick your allegory to the real world and come up with the science fiction equivalent. And everybody who watches understands what we’re talking about — racism or the Middle East or whatever.

What specific objections did you find to “Discovery”?

I think people felt it was too dark. We really listen to our fans in the writers’ room — everybody will have read a different article or review over the weekend, and we talk about what feels relevant and what feels less relevant. And then we engage in a healthy democratic debate about why and begin to apply that; it seeps into the decisions we make. Season 1 of “Discovery” was always intended to be a journey from darkness into light, and ultimately reinforce Roddenberry’s vision. I think people were just stunned by something that felt darker than any “Trek” had before. But doing a dark “Star Trek” really wasn’t our goal. The show is a mirror that holds itself up to the times, and we were in 2017 — we saw the nation fracture hugely right after the election, and it’s only gotten worse since then. We were interpreting that through science fiction. There were people who appreciated that and others for whom it was just not “Star Trek.” And the result, in Season 2, Capt. [Christopher] Pike showed up, Number One showed up, Spock showed up, and we began to bring in what felt to people more like the “Star Trek” they understood.

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You’re ending the series after five seasons. Was that always a plan?

You know, we were surprised we didn’t continue, and yet it feels now that it was right. One of the things that happened very quickly as streaming took off was that it radically changed watch patterns for viewers. Shows that used to go 10, 12 seasons, people would tap out after two — like, “I got what I want” — so for any show to go five seasons, it’s a miracle. In ways I don’t think we could have predicted, the season from the beginning feels like it’s the last; it just has a sense of finality. The studio was wonderful in that they recognized we needed to put a button on it, we needed a period on the end of the sentence, and so they allowed us to go back, which we did right before the strike, and [film] the coda that wraps up the series.

“Discovery” is a riot of love stories, among both heroes and villains.

There’s certainly a history of that in “Star Trek.” Whether or not characters were engaged in direct relationships, there was always a subtext of the love between them. I believe that’s why we love the bridge crew, because it’s really a love story, everyone’s in a love story, and they all care for each other and fight like family members. But ultimately they’re there to help each other and explore the universe together. If there’s some weird problem, and the answer’s not immediately apparent, each of them brings a different skill set and therefore a different perspective; they clash in their debate on how to proceed and then find some miraculous solution that none of them would have thought of at the outset.

One of the beautiful things about the shows is that you get to spend a long time with them, as opposed to a two-hour movie where you have to get in and out quickly and then wait a couple of years before the next one comes along. To be able to be on their weekly adventures, it affords the storytelling level of depth and complexity a two-hour movie just can’t achieve in that way.

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It’s astonishing how much matter you got into these things. Some storylines that only lasted an episode I remembered as seasonal arcs.

The sheer tonnage of story and character we were able to pack into “Discovery” every episode was kind of incredible. The thing to keep in mind is that “Discovery” was made as streaming was exploding, so what I think you’re also seeing there is a lot of writers who were trained in the network world with an A, B and C story applying it suddenly to a very different kind of storytelling in a much more cinematic medium. And when you have that kind of scope it starts to become really, really big. Sometimes that works really, really well and sometimes it was too much. And we were figuring it out; it was a bunch of people with flashlights in the dark, looking for how to interpret “Star Trek” now, since it had been 12 years since it had been on a television screen.

Are you able to course-correct within a season?

Sure. You get people you really trust in the room. Aaron Baiers, who runs Secret Hideout, is one of my most important early-warning systems; he isn’t necessarily in the room when we’re breaking stories, but he’s the first person who’ll read an outline and he’s the first person who’ll read a script. What I value so much about his perspective is that he’s coming in cold, he’s just like, “I’m the viewer, and I understand this or I don’t understand it, I feel this or I don’t feel it.” The studio executives are very similar. They love “Star Trek,” they’re all die-hard fans and have very strong feelings about what is appropriate. It then goes through a series of artists in every facet, from props to visual effects to production design, and they’re bringing their interpretations and opinions to the story.

Did “Strange New Worlds” come out of the fact that everybody loved seeing Christopher Pike in “Discovery?”

I really have to credit Akiva Goldsman with this. He knew that I was going to bring Pike into the premiere of the second season of “Discovery,” and said, “You know, there’s an incredible show about Capt. Pike and the Enterprise before Kirk takes over; there’s seven years of great storytelling there” — or five years, depending on when you come into the storyline. I said, “We have to cast a successful Pike first, so let’s see if that works. Let’s figure out who’s Number One, and who Spock is,” which are wildly tall orders. I hadn’t seen Anson Mount in other things before [he was cast as Pike], and when he sent in his taped audition it was that wonderful moment where you go, “That’s exactly the person we’re looking for.” Everybody loves Pike because he’s the kind of leader you want, definitive and clear but open to everyone’s perspective and humanistic in his response. And then we had the incredibly tall order of having Ethan [Peck] step into Leonard [Nimoy’s] and [Zachary Quinto’s] shoes.

He’s great.

He’s amazing, just a delight of a human being. And Rebecca Romijn‘s energy, what she brings to Number One is such a contemporary take on a character that was kind of a cipher in “The Original Series.” But she brings a kind of joy, a comedy, a bearing, a gravitas to the character that feels very modern. Thank God the fans responded the way they did and sent that petition [calling for a “Legacy” series], because everybody at CBS got the message very quickly. Jenny Lumet and Akiva and I wrote a pilot, and we were off to the races. Typically it takes fans a minute to adjust to what you’re doing, especially with beloved legacy characters, but the response to “Strange New World” from a critical perspective and fan perspective and just a viewership perspective was so immediate, it really did help us understand what was satisfying fans.

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What can you tell me about “Starfleet Academy?” Is it going to be Earth-based or space-based?

I’m going to say, without giving anything away, both. Right now we’re in the middle of answering the question what does San Francisco, where the academy is, look like in the 32nd century. Our primary set is the biggest we’ve ever built.

So you’re setting this —

In the “Discovery” era. There’s a specific reason for that. As the father of a 17-year-old boy, I see what my son is feeling as he looks at the world and to his future. I see the uncertainty; I see all the things we took for granted as given are not certainties for him. I see him recognizing he’s inheriting an enormous mess to clean up and it’s going to be on his generation to figure out how to do that, and that’s a lot to ask of a kid. My thinking was, if we set “Starfleet Academy” in the halcyon days of the Federation where everything was fine, it’s not going to speak to what kids are going through right now.

It’ll be a nice fantasy, but it’s not really going to be authentic. What’ll be authentic is to set it in the timeline where this is the first class back after over 100 years, and they are coming into a world that is only beginning to recover from a cataclysm — which was the Burn, as established on “Star Trek: Discovery,” where the Federation was greatly diminished. So they’re the first who’ll inherit, who’ll re-inherit, the task of exploration as a primary goal, because there just wasn’t room for that during the Burn — everybody was playing defense. It’s an incredibly optimistic show, an incredibly fun show; it’s a very funny show, and it’s a very emotional show. I think these kids, in different ways, are going to represent what a lot of kids are feeling now.

And I’m very, very , very excited that Holly Hunter is the lead of the show. Honestly, when we were working on the scripts, we wrote it for Holly thinking she’d never do it. And we sent them to her, and to our absolute delight and shock she loved them and signed on right away.

And then you’ve got the “Section 31” movie.

“Section 31” is Michelle Yeoh’s return as Georgiou. A very, very different feeling for “Star Trek.” I will always be so grateful to her, because on the heels of her nomination and then her Oscar win , she just doubled down on coming back to “Star Trek.” She could have easily walked away from it; she had a lot of other opportunities. But she remained steadfast and totally committed. We just wrapped that up and are starting to edit now.

Are you looking past “Starfleet” and “Section 31” to future projects?

There’s always notions and there are a couple of surprises coming up, but I really try to live in the shows that are in front of me in the moment because they’re so all-consuming. I’m directing the first two episodes of “Starfleet Academy,” so right now my brain is just wholly inside that world. But you can tell “Star Trek” stories forever; there’s always more. There’s something in the DNA of its construction that allows you to keep opening different doors. Some of that is science fiction, some of it has to do with the combination of science fiction and the organic embracing of all these other genres that lets you explore new territories. I don’t think it’s ever going to end. I think it’s going to go on for a long, long time. The real question for “Star Trek” is how do you keep innovating, how do you deliver both what people expect and something totally fresh at the same time. Because I think that is actually what people want from “Star Trek.” They want what’s familiar delivered in a way that doesn’t feel familiar.

With all our showrunners — Terry Matalas on “Picard,” the Hagemans on “Prodigy,” Mike McMahan on “Lower Decks,” Michelle Paradise, who has been singlehandedly running “Discovery” for the last two years, and then Akiva and Henry Alonso Myers on “Strange New Worlds” — my feeling is that the best way to protect and preserve “Star Trek” is not to impose my own vision on it but [find people] who meet the criteria of loving “Star Trek,” wanting to do new things with it, understanding how incredibly hard it is to do. And then I’m going to let you do your job. I’ll come in and tell you what I think every once in a while, and I’ll help get the boat off the dock, but once I hand the show over to a creative it has to be their show. And that means you’re going to get a different take every time, and as long as those takes all feel like they can marry into the same rainbow, to get back to the metaphor, that’s the way to keep “Star Trek” fresh.

I take great comfort because “Star Trek” really only belongs to Gene Roddenberry and the fans. We don’t own it. We carry it, we try to evolve it and then we hand it off to the next people. And hopefully they will love it as much as we do.

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I agree with one major criticism of sisko in star trek: ds9’s early days.

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Star Trek: Why Avery Brooks Changed Sisko's Original DS9 Ending

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• Fans criticized Sisko for lacking presence in the first two seasons of DS9 and this feedback shaped the show's direction for season 3.
• Sisko's role became more prominent in DS9 season 3, addressing fan concerns about his impact.
• The introduction of Dominion revitalized Sisko's character, giving him a vital role in the Federation from season 3 on.

I love Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , but even I can agree with one major fan criticism of his role in DS9 's first two seasons. While DS9 is now rightly regarded as a critical highpoint in the Star Trek franchise, it took a while to bed in with viewers who preferred the action and adventure of Star Trek: The Next Generation . As the lead member of the Star Trek: DS9 cast , Brooks' Sisko followed in the footsteps of TNG 's Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). However, while fans liked Sisko a lot, they felt he lacked Picard's commanding presence and dramatic impact.

This negative feedback about Commander Sisko and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine more generally was shared with the production team at the end of season 2. The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion revealed that fans effectively wanted DS9 to be more like TNG . To justify its existence, DS9 had to establish itself as separate from other Star Trek TV shows , so this criticism does miss the point of the show a little. However, as I recently looked back on Sisko's impact on DS9 season 1 and 2, I found myself agreeing with the criticism that he sometimes lacked presence .

Benjamin Sisko's ending in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finale was originally a lot less ambiguous until Avery Brooks asked for it to be changed.

Fans Criticized Sisko For Not Making An Impact In Star Trek: DS9’s First 2 Seasons

It's unfair to say that Sisko makes no impact in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's first two seasons, but all too often he fades into the background. After immediately making an impression in "Emissary", outlining his many differences from Captain Picard, Sisko starts to get lost among DS9 's ensemble cast. It's for this reason that few, if any, season 1 and 2 episodes make anyone's list of best Sisko episodes of DS9 . There are some strong moments, such as Sisko's insurrection against the Bajoran isolationists in DS9 's Circle trilogy, or his barnstorming " it's easy to be a saint in paradise " speech from "The Maquis".

According to a 2002 special feature on the season 7 DVD boxed set, Avery Brooks had apparently considered leaving Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the show's early years. A conversation with his son about never giving up changed his mind.

However, early period Sisko rarely got to be front and center in the way that Picard or Kirk were in their Star Trek shows . That's partly due to the fact that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine isn't set aboard a starship, and is instead set aboard a military space station and commercial hub. A lot of Sisko's jobs in DS9 seasons 1 and 2 were smaller-scale, like dealing with accusations of sexual impropriety against Quark (Armin Shimerman) or intervening in a rivalry between two businesses on the Promenade. After such small-fry concerns, DS9 season 3 finally gave Sisko a proper challenge to sink his teeth into.

How Star Trek: DS9 Season 3 Fixed Sisko For The Better

Answering fan complaints about Sisko lacking impact, showrunner Ira Steven-Behr and his fellow writers immediately gave him more prominence in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3. Where in previous seasons, Sisko wouldn't have much to do in an episode that wasn't focused on him, the writers ensure that DS9 's commanding officer is present throughout. For example, DS9 season 3, episode 3, "The House of Quark" is a Ferengi comedy about Quark (Armin Shimerman) marrying a Klingon, but also features a great scene where Sisko gives Chief O'Brien (Colm Meaney) advice and support on marital issues.

From securing the USS Defiant to leading a diplomatic mission to the Gamma Quadrant, Sisko is given a role of vital importance to the Federation

More broadly, the introduction of the Dominion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's season 2 finale revitalizes Sisko as a character. From securing the USS Defiant to leading a diplomatic mission to the Gamma Quadrant, Sisko is given a role of vital importance to the Federation from season 3 onwards. From a real-world perspective, Avery Brooks is relaxing into the role, and by the end of season 3, is finally allowed to grow a beard and shave his head for season 4. This final touch completes Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3's concerted effort to show Benjamin Sisko as the integral and impactful lead character he should have been from the start.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Gates McFadden Beams Up 'Star Trek's Best & Brightest for 'InvestiGates' Season 3 [Exclusive]

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The Big Picture

• Gates McFadden's podcast, InvestiGates , is returning for a third season with exciting guests like Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala.
• The podcast features intimate conversations with Star Trek alums, sharing behind-the-scenes stories and personal experiences.
• Fans of Star Trek can look forward to upcoming projects like Lower Decks Season 5, Strange New Worlds Season 3, and Starfleet Academy Season 1.

Collider is thrilled to exclusively announce that Gates McFadden 's beloved podcast, InvestiGates: Who Do You Think You Are? is returning for a third season! On top of unveiling that the series has been green-lit for Season 3, we've teamed up with Nacelle, to unveil a few of the very exciting guests that McFadden will be interviewing in the new episodes. Across the first two seasons, McFadden conducted 25 one-on-one interviews with some of your favorite Star Trek alums, diving deep into behind-the-scenes stories, and even boldly going beyond the franchise for in-depth answers about what makes these actors tick.

Joining McFadden for Season 3 are Star Trek: Discovery alums Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala . Discovery will sail into the sunset tomorrow when the series finale hits Paramount+ and Martin-Green has guided the series from its inception to its beautiful and poignant ending . You can also expect to hear from your favorite grumpy captain, Todd Stashwick , who stole hearts in Picard Season 3 as Captain Shaw alongside McFadden. Fellow Picard alum, and procedural drama regular, Michelle Hurd , who played Raffi across all three seasons will also be sitting down with McFadden for a candid chat. And while those are all the names we can reveal for now, InvestiGates has a whole slate of big surprises lined up for Season 3.

Going beyond what we've seen on screen, InvestiGates "thrives on intimate conversations that are filled with stories of youth, family, and the cast's intertwined experiences." Engaging from her own experience in the world of Star Trek McFadden is able to create one-of-a-kind conversations with her co-stars that range from "hilarious to harrowing." Upon getting the green light for Season 3 McFadden said:

"Intelligence, imagination, empathy, love of science, pretty darn funny, and a belief that the future may be better than we thought. Those are the qualities of my podcasts guests for this upcoming season. Lucky me!"

Nacelle CEO Brian Volk-Weiss also shared a statement saying, "It's been one of the great pleasures of my career to work with Gates on this show as she does a flawless job at reeling you in with smart questions, and then leaving you in awe of her incredible hosting abilities long after you've finished the episode."

What's Next For 'Star Trek'?

To hold fans over until Season 3 of InvestiGates hits Spotify and Apple Podcasts, there are still several Star Trek projects to look forward to on the horizon. Discovery 's series finale will be available on Paramount+ this week and the cast of Star Trek: Lower Decks have already recorded voice work for the fifth and final season of the beloved animated series . While it's certainly sad to see these two shows go, we can also look forward to the third season of Strange New Worlds , which recently wrapped filming in Toronto , and the new series Starfleet Academy which will film this summer . Beyond the small screen, Paramount is also working on a Star Trek origin movie set years before the events of Star Trek (2009).

You can listen to the first two seasons of InvestiGates on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and catch McFadden's latest Star Trek performance on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard

Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, long retired from Starfleet, is thrust back into the heart of galactic intrigue when a desperate young woman seeks his aid. Determined to uncover a vast conspiracy and protect her, Picard recruits a diverse team of allies. As they navigate a galaxy fraught with new dangers and old enemies, Picard faces personal demons and ethical dilemmas, all while trying to uphold the ideals he has always stood for.

Watch on Paramount+

• Gates McFadden

Inside the ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Series Finale: The Last-Minute Coda, the Surprise Easter Eggs, and What Season 6 Would Have Been About (EXCLUSIVE)

SPOILER WARNING: This story includes descriptions of major plot developments on the series finale of “ Star Trek : Discovery,” currently streaming on Paramount+.

Watching the fifth and final season of “ Star Trek: Discovery ” has been an exercise in the uncanny. Paramount+ didn’t announce that the show was ending until after the Season 5 finale had wrapped filming — no one involved with the show knew it would be its concluding voyage when they were making it. And yet, the season has unfolded with a pervasive feeling of culmination. 

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“I think there’s more to it than just, ‘Oh, it was a coinkydink!’” the actor says with a laugh, before explaining that she’s thinking more about subtext than direct intent. “I’ve gotta give Michelle her flowers. She has always asked the deeper questions of this story and these characters. Those questions of meaning and purpose led to questions of origin and legacy, and, yes, that is quite culminating.”

Martin-Green and Paradise spoke exclusively with Variety about filming the finale and the coda, including the surprising revelation about the origins of one of “Discovery’s” most memorable characters and what Paradise’s plans for Season 6 would have been.

“It’s the Most Complicated Thing I’ve Ever Seen”

Once the “Discovery” writers’ room decided the season would be organized around a search for the Progenitor’s technology, they also knew that, eventually, Burnham would find it. So then they had to figure out what it would be.

“That was a discussion that evolved over the course of weeks and months,” Paradise says. Rather than focus on communicating the intricate details of how the technology works, they turned their attention to delivering a visual experience commensurate with the enormity and complexity of something that could seed life across the entire galaxy.

“We wanted a sense of a smaller exterior and an infinite interior to help with that sense of power greater than us,” Paradise says. Inspired in part by a drawing by MC Escher, the production created an environment surrounded by towering windows into a seemingly endless procession of alien planets, in which it’s just as easy to walk on the walls as on the floor. That made for a daunting challenge for the show’s producing director, Olatunde “Tunde” Osunsanmi: As Burnham battles with the season’s main antagonist, Mol (Eve Harlow), inside this volume, they fall through different windows into another world, and the laws of gravity keep shifting between their feet.

“It’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever seen, directorially,” Paradise says. “Tunde had a map, in terms of: What did the background look like? And when the cameras this way, what’s over there? It was it was incredibly complex to design and shoot.”

Two of those planets — one in perpetual darkness and rainstorms, another consumed by constant fire — were shot on different parking areas on the Pinewood Toronto studio lot.

“The fire planet was so bright that the fire department got called from someone who had seen the fire,” Paradise says. “It should not be possible to pull those kinds of things off in a television show, even on a bigger budget show, with the time limitations that you have. And yet, every episode of every season, we’re still coming in on time and on budget. The rain planet and the fire planet we shot, I believe, one day after the other.”

Martin-Green jumps in: “Michelle, I think that was actually the same day!”

“It Felt Lifted”

The last time a “Star Trek” captain talked to a being that could be (erroneously) considered God, it was William Shatner’s James T. Kirk in 1989’s “Star Trek: The Final Frontier.” The encounter did not go well.

“I had my own journey with the central storyline of Season 5, just as a believer,” Martin-Green says. “I felt a similar way that Burnham did. They’re in this sort of liminal mind space, and it almost felt that way to me. It felt lifted. It really did feel like she and I were the only two people in this moment.”

It’s in this conversation that Burnham learns that while the Progenitors did create all “humanoid” alien species in the galaxy in their image, they did not create the technology that allowed them to do so. They found it, fully formed, created by beings utterly unknown to them. The revelation was something that Martin-Green discussed with Paradise early on in the planning of Season 5, allowing “Discovery” to leave perhaps the most profound question one could ask — what, or who, came first in the cosmos? — unanswered.

“The progenitor is not be the be all end all of it,” Paradise says. “We’re not saying this is God with a capital ‘G.’”

“There’s Just This Air of Mystery About Him”

Starting on Season 3 of “Discovery,” renowned filmmaker David Cronenberg began moonlighting in a recurring role as Dr. Kovich, a shadowy Federation operative whose backstory has been heretofore undisclosed on the show.

“I love the way he plays Kovich,” Paradise says of Cronenberg. “There’s just this air of mystery about him. We’ve always wanted to know more.” When planning Season 5, one of the writers pitched revealing Kovich’s true identity in the (then-season) finale by harkening back to the “Star Trek” show that preceded “Discovery”: “Enterprise,” which ran on UPN from 2001 to 2005.

In the final episode, when Burnham debriefs her experiences with Kovich, she presses him to tell her who he really is. He reintroduces himself as Agent Daniels, a character first introduced on “Enterprise” as a young man (played by Matt Winston) and a Federation operative in the temporal cold war. 

This is, to be sure, a deep cut even for “Star Trek” fans. (Neither Cronenberg nor Martin-Green, for example, understood the reference.) But Paradise says they were laying the groundwork for the reveal from the beginning of the season. “If you watch Season 5 with that in mind, you can see the a little things that we’ve played with along the way,” she says, including Kovich/Daniels’ penchant for anachonistic throwbacks like real paper and neckties.

“I didn’t know that that was going be there,” Martin-Green says. “My whole childhood came back to me.”

“We Always Knew That We Wanted to Somehow Tie That Back Up”

Originally, Season 5 of “Discovery” ends with Burnham and Book talking on the beach outside the wedding of Saru (Doug Jones) and T’Rina (Tara Rosling) before transporting away to their next adventure. But Paradise understood that the episode needed something more conclusive once it became the series finale. The question was what.

There were some significant guardrails around what they could accomplish. The production team had only eight weeks from when Paramout+ and CBS Studios signed off on the epilogue to when they had to shoot it. Fortunately, the bridge set hadn’t been struck yet (though several standing sets already had been). And the budget allowed only for three days of production.

Then there was “Calypso.” 

To fill up the long stretches between the first three seasons of “Discovery,” CBS Studios and Paramount+ greenlit a series of 10 stand-alone episodes, dubbed “Short Treks,” that covered a wide variety of storylines and topics. The second “Short Trek” — titled “Calypso” and co-written by novelist Michael Chabon — first streamed between Season 1 and 2 in November 2018. It focuses on a single character named Craft (Aldis Hodge), who is rescued by the USS Discovery after the starship — and its now-sentient computer system, Zora (Annabelle Wallis) — has sat totally vacant for 1,000 years in the same fixed point in space. How the Discovery got there, and why it was empty for so long, were left to the viewer’s imagination. 

Still, for a show that had only just started its run, “Calypso” had already made a bold promise for “Discovery’s” endgame — one the producers had every intention of keeping.

“We always knew that we wanted to somehow tie that back up,” says Paradise, who joined the writers’ room in Season 2, and became showrunner starting with Season 3. “We never wanted ‘Calypso’ to be the dangling Chad.”

So much so, in fact, that, as the show began winding down production on Season 5, Paradise had started planning to make “Calypso” the central narrative engine for Season 6. 

“The story, nascent as it was, was eventually going to be tying that thread up and connecting ‘Discovery’ back with ‘Calypso,’” she says.

Once having a sixth season was no longer an option, Paradise knew that resolving the “Calypso” question was non-negotiable. “OK, well, we’re not going to have a season to do that,” she says. “So how do we do that elegantly in this very short period of time?”

“I Feel Like It Ends the Way It Needed to End”

Resolving “Calypso” provided the storytelling foundation for the epilogue, but everything else was about giving its characters one final goodbye.

“We want to know what’s happening to Burnham, first and foremost,” Paradise says. “And we knew we wanted to see the cast again.”

For the latter, Paradise and Jarrow devised a conceit that an older Burnham, seated in the captain’s chair on Discovery, imagines herself surrounded by her crew 30 years prior, so she (and the audience) could connect with them one final time. For the former, the makeup team designed prosthetics to age up Martin-Green and Ajala by 30 years — “I think they were tested as they were running on to the set,” Paradise says with a laugh — to illustrate Burnham and Book’s long and happy marriage together.

Most crucially, Paradise cut a few lines of Burnham’s dialogue with Book from the original Season 5 finale and moved it to a conversation she has with her son in the coda. The scene — which evokes the episode’s title, “Life Itself” — serves as both a culminating statement of purpose for “Discovery” and the overarching compassion and humanity of “Star Trek” as a whole.

To reassure her son about his first command of a starship, Burnham recalls when the ancient Progenitor asked what was most meaningful to her. “Do you know how you would answer that question now?” he asks.

“Yeah, just being here,” Burnham replies. “You know, sometimes life itself is meaning enough, how we choose to spend the time that we have, who we spend it with: You, Book, and the family I found in Starfleet, on Discovery.”

Martin-Green relished the opportunity to revisit the character she’s played for seven years when she’s reached the pinnacle of her life and career. “You just get to see this manifestation of legacy in this beautiful way,” she says. “I will also say that I look a lot like my mom, and that was that was also a gift, to be able to see her.”

Shooting the goodbye with the rest of her cast was emotional, unsurprisingly, but it led Martin-Green to an unexpected understanding. “It actually was so charged that it was probably easier that it was only those three days that we knew it was the end, and not the entirety of season,” she says.

Similarly, Paradise says she’s “not sure” what more she would’ve done had there been more time to shoot the coda. “I truly don’t feel like we missed out on something by not having one more day,” she says. “I feel like it ends the way it needed to end.”

Still, getting everything done in just three days was no small feat, either. “I mean, we worked ’round the clock,” Martin-Green says with a deep laugh. “We were delirious by the end — but man, what a way to end it.”

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