[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Star Trek: Discovery series finale “Life, Itself.”]
“Let’s fly.” Star Trek: Discovery ends the only way it can, with Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in the captain’s chair—but this is years in the future, and she’s now admiral.
The leap into her future—which included a dream-like scene of Michael with the rest of the crew, all young, the ages they were for the rest of the series—was added after news of the cancellation came. Before then, Michael is faced with a decision about what to do with the Progenitors’ tech (let it go, since it’s too much power for one person or culture to control) and everyone gathers for Saru (Doug Jones) and T’Rina’s (Tara Rosling) wedding. Plus, Michael finds out Kovich’s (David Cronenberg) name: Agent Daniels. Yes, as in the temporal agent on Enterprise.
Below, executive producer Michelle Paradise breaks down the finale, talks that reveal about Kovich, and shares what a sixth season would have looked like.
I know you got to go back to film a coda after finding out you wouldn’t be coming back. Talk about crafting the coda, what was added, and how this episode would’ve ended if you didn’t do that.
Michelle Paradise: The original ending was actually Burnham and Book on the beach walking off as we pan up, and then everything after that is what we shot after. We knew that we had a limited time. We were going to have three days to shoot. There was a looming strike, and we knew that we had to get everything written and shot before that because if we had waited, no one knew if it was going to happen, but if it did happen, we weren’t going to be able to shoot it. So there was a ticking clock from the time we found out, and I think we had, I want to say, like seven or eight weeks from the time we had to write it to the time we were going to be shooting it, including testing the prosthetics for the age makeup and all of that.
We knew that we wanted to wrap up the Burnham storyline first and foremost. We wanted to see what her future was. We knew we wanted to get that for people who had seen the shorts tied in with “Calypso,” so that we had a wrap-up for Discovery the ship as well because that’s a huge character and Zora.
Michael Gibson / CBS
And then we knew that we wanted to find a way to see all of our beloved characters as they are now one more time. So those were the elements we were playing with that. And when we wrote it, and it all came together just beautifully, Alex had a vision for that sort of dreamy sort of scene with when we’re on the bridge and Burnham is back as today Burnham, and we see everybody. And it turned out so wonderfully.
Actually one of the interesting things is we didn’t have to do anything to the season itself. I think there was maybe one or two lines of dialogue that we cut out of the beach scene between Burnham and Book where they’re talking about the Progenitor because we gave that bit of information with her and her son. But other than that, there was nothing else that we did to the episode. So it would’ve ended exactly as you saw it.
What would’ve happened in Season 6?
I was in the very early stages of looking at that. But one of the things we always knew since “Calypso” was done is that we had always wanted to find a way to tie that up. So I was in the early stages of trying to work on a story where we would ultimately tie that up. And then when we found out that there would not be a Season 6, that’s kind of what came into the equation of, okay, we need to tie that up, what is the most efficient what to do that? And hopefully for people who haven’t even seen “Calypso,” that will also resonate because we get an ending for Zora and Discovery.
Talk about the reveal of Kovich being Agent Daniels. Did you know that from introducing the character?
No. It was interesting from when Kovich was introduced. The way David plays him is so interesting. There’s this air of mystery about him that we, as writers and producers, were just watching it and asking ourselves, there’s more here. There’s a mystery to this guy. And then it was the question of, well, what would the mystery be? And what is most interesting? I believe it was two of our writers who are super, they know all of the things and everything in Enterprise said, well, what about Agent Daniels? I believe it was Carlos [Cisco] and Eric [J. Robbins] who might’ve pitched that in the room. And the minute they pitched it, it was like, oh, that’s so cool. So I honestly don’t remember if that was back in Season 4 or early in Season 5. It was definitely long before we knew that it would be our last season, but it may have, actually, even been in Season 4, because in Season 5, if you go back and watch, now that you know, there are a little Easter eggs that we planted along the way, not the least of which is him writing on pen and paper earlier in the season. So little things like that.
There’s quite a bit of time that’s not explored for these characters between Saru’s wedding and when we see Admiral Michael Burnham and a few possibilities for spinoffs. So is there anything that you can say? Tilly (Mary Wiseman) could easily be in Starfleet Academy …
Yeah. I can’t speak to anything that they’re doing on Starfleet Academy at the moment. I’m not aware of any plans for a spinoff based—well, everything actually is a spinoff based on Discovery right now. Someone referred to it as the trunk of a tree, and these other shows are branching off. But in terms of Discovery as it is right now and spinning off from something, I’m not aware of anything like that in the works.
Michael Gibson / Paramount+
Was there any question of having the series end any other way than Michael in the captain’s chair with one last “Let’s fly”?
No. [Laughs] I mean, we thought about putting Grudge in the captain’s chair and just letting her meow, but it didn’t feel as satisfying.
Would you still have taken Saru away from Discovery and everyone on the crew, especially Michael, for as much of the season as you did if you’d known it was the final one?
Honestly, I don’t think we would’ve done anything differently story-wise, only because it comes back to what we were exploring thematically this season, which interestingly, we’ve said, for any season for this to have happened, Season 5 was the one, because we’re looking at thematically place and purpose and meaning, and each of our characters are on a journey like that, which kind of feels like a great final season thematic place to explore. And so I don’t think we would’ve done it any differently because that was a wonderful journey for Saru, and it’s allowed him to marry T’Rina, which was just [so good].
It was so beautiful. Is there anything you wish you’d been able to do because this was the final season?
I don’t know. It’s hard to say. It’s hard to look back and say, oh, what would we have done? But I don’t know. I’m really happy with how it played out, and I honestly don’t think we would’ve done anything differently. But I can’t know because we didn’t know. But I’m really happy with how it all played out. And so I remain hugely grateful to our studio and network partners for letting us go back and do that coda, because if it had ended on the beach, and that was the end of the series, okay. But getting to see where Burnham and Book go and that they have a son, and that scene on the bridge was just so beautiful. Getting to see all of our heroes as they are now one more time, and getting to say goodbye to the ship, it feels—I don’t know. It felt like it wrapped it up in a really lovely way. And to get to do that was such a privilege.
Especially because you had that look into the future that was completely awful during the time bubble.
Yes, where it could have gone completely the other way and it didn’t. So, yay, team.
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How will you remember Star Trek: Discovery?
As one of the best, if not the best professional times of my life. What a dream to get to work on the show. And every single person I work with, they’re just wonderful human beings, so talented, lovely, caring people who want to do awesome work and are collaborative and not ego-driven. It’s been a really wonderful team and family to be part of, and I really genuinely am going to miss that, and I hope I can find that again. But wow, it’s been so hard, but also such a joy. I mean, making a show this size is hard logistically, but the hard has been wonderful. What a great, great team to be part of.
We did talk about spinoffs, but what about a possible revival, being saved someplace…
I’m not aware of any of those things, but maybe Alex or Secret Hideout, they know a lot of things. I don’t know. But I’m not aware of anything right now.
Star Trek: Discovery, Streaming Now, Paramount+
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