Ayla Ruby
The fifth and final (sadly) season of Star Trek: Discovery is well underway, and we’re still not ready to see the end of the voyages of Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michelle Burnham and her crew. The penultimate episode of the season, Lagrange Point, aired last week, and the finale will air tomorrow. Over Zoom a few weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to sit down with Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise and director Olatunde Osunsanmi about the show and what to expect from the finale.
This season has been a wild ride, bringing us the return of David Ajala’s Book, as well as a look under the helmet of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 villain, the Breen, plus a huge arc involving The Progenitors from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Captain Burnham even found herself with a mentee in the likes of Captain, now Commander Reyner, played by Keith Rennie. We talked in depth about all these things with Paradise and Osunami and so much more. And if you’re looking forward to Section 31 with Michelle Yeoh, you’ll definitely want to pay attention.
Read on for the full interview, but beware, there are some mild spoilers for Lagrange Point. So, if you haven’t watched the episode yet, reverse course and head over to Paramount+ to check it out before you read on. (You can listen to our full conversation at the bottom of the page.)
Ayla Ruby: Yay. So it’s nice to meet you both. I’m really excited to talk.
Michelle Paradise: Nice to meet you too. Thanks for having us.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Thanks for having us.
Ayla Ruby: So we’re talking Star Trek Discovery season five, and a lot has happened and is happening.
Michelle Paradise: Yes.
Ayla Ruby: So I’d love to talk a little bit about Burnham’s journey from, I guess, season one to now. Or even from the beginning of this season to now, because she’s gone through a lot of stuff.
Michelle Paradise: Yeah. You want me? You?
Ayla Ruby: Anyone.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: I think this is an excellent question for the showrunner. Yeah.
Michelle Paradise: I mean, to me, Burnham’s journey is one of the most fascinating that I’ve seen on television just because of where she started and where she’s ending. She started as a mutineer who was by the third episode of the first season she was down as low as you could possibly go. And we’ve watched her over the last five seasons work her way beyond anything that you could have imagined in that first season. Actually, I was rewatching some of that recently, and she was close to getting her own command. She was almost there when the series started, and then she makes this decision that knocks everything out of balance. And so I love what that journey’s been for her, the tenacity that she has shown. And when you have an actor like Sonequa, you just … When I joined the show beginning midway through your season two, one of the first things Alex Kurtzman told me was, “Sonequa can do anything. There is literally nothing that she can’t do.” And that is absolutely true.
Michelle Paradise: And I think one of the reasons that Burnham’s journey resonates so much is because of what Sonequa brings to it. Everything, the strength, the heart, the commitment, the passion, the empathy, all of those things. And so it’s been a really wonderful journey. And then this season, of course, watching her … End of season three, she became a captain. Season Four, we watched her sort of finding her way with that. And this season to be firmly established in that, and now to be a mentor to someone who was also a captain and was also taken down a peg or so, and also had things to learn, and now she can be a mentor figure to him. I think it’s just really wonderful to watch her play that.
Ayla Ruby: The relationship with Rayner is just so interesting. I’d love if you could dig more into that because I wasn’t expecting it. I was expecting him to just kind of go away.
Michelle Paradise: Yeah. Well, one of the things we talked about at the beginning of the season, and then one of the things that Sonequa herself raised, because we always have those conversations with her, where Burnham’s going to go, and what has she not accomplished yet? And one of the things we talked about is that Burnham hadn’t yet had the opportunity to mentor. In season three, she was sort of mentored by President Rillak. Excuse me, in season four she was sort of mentored by President Rillak, before that she had had other mentors like Vance, or Saru, or whomever. And she’s now gotten to a place where she has learned, and of course always has room to grow, but where she’s in a position now where she can give back to another captain in the same way that over the course of the series, she has continuously given back to the crew around her. And those relationships are stronger for what she has given to them.
Michelle Paradise: So it felt really important that we give someone like that to kind of push against her. And also in the casting of that, that it be not a … You sort of expect the casting might be like a younger character, someone who’s going to be kind of an easier mentorship. And so we deliberately went against that to just give her more places to go within herself and against that character.
Ayla Ruby: ou direct the first episode and the last episode of the season along with countless other Discovery episodes. Is there a way that, through directing, that you kind of highlight Burnham’s journey? Is there a way through the directing that you kind of focus on the emotional bits of the characters? Just how do you merge those two?
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Yeah. Well, it’s been interesting as a director, and directing Sonequa, and directing Burnham because, as Michelle sort of highlighted, she started as a lieutenant and then she became, I guess, an inmate, for lack of better word, and then was non-com, and on the ship without a position, and then eventually rose back up to captain. And so usually when you think of lieutenants, they are working for the captain. So maybe they’re not center frame, maybe they’re just off-center. And when you talk about inmates, then the camera’s a little bit higher and looking down. And when you talk about captain, they are dead center. The camera’s a little bit lower, and all the gravity and all the blocking in the scene works around them. And so that’s been really interesting to play with and has kept it fresh.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: The other thing that’s been really interesting is I just kind of mentioned all those different versions that Sonequa has played for Burnham. I mean, there’s always something new to dig into, whether it’s being at the lowest of the low as an inmate, or being at the highest of a high as a new captain, being a veteran, a captain in season five, it’s really fun working with her because I’m always going to be surprised by what she brings. And if I have a suggestion, she’ll take it and run with it and turn it into something that I wasn’t expecting. I’m usually blown away by what she comes up with. It’s all the little things. It’s all the nuance that she brings to it that I find the most exciting. For me, it’s what’s kept Discovery fresh. We’ve been working on five seasons of the show for about seven and a half years. And what keeps it fresh is all these different positions that the writers have put her in. And she hasn’t just been one thing. She’s constantly had to grow and grow some more, and that keeps it exciting.
Ayla Ruby: So this season obviously deals with some really big things, like all of them, humanoid life itself, The Progenitors. There are these really big stakes, but there’s also this wonderful balance with the stories of the people, I know not everyone’s a person, but the characters themselves. How do you balance these big stakes and these smaller humanoid stories?
Michelle Paradise: Well, probably I think both of us. I mean there’s the writing of it, and the directing of it, and those both have to be balanced. I mean, I think in terms of the writing side, balancing those big stakes, big storylines, that’s kind of baked into the DNA of Discovery itself. And so it’s always a balance, it’s always making sure that even with the big ideas and the big stakes, that we never lose sight of the big stakes for the individual, and their relationships, and the crew as a family. And so in the writing, we always talk about the character arcs at the very beginning of the season. And then in breaking any given episode, we talk about that as well. So it’s always part of the conversation in terms of the season and any given episode. And then Tunde.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Yeah, well, directing-wise it’s a little bit easier. It’s about following the script, and following where the characters are in that particular story. So I know if I’ve got a big action sequence, it’s about breaking down that action sequence, figuring out what its relationship is to the particular character or characters in that action sequence. And that determines how frenetic I’ll have the camera, how much it’ll move around, if it’ll rotate or push in. And then when we get to the drama, it’s about slowing that camera down now instead of it being handheld, it’s on a Steadicam, or on a dolly, or on a crane, nice and smooth. And it’s about having that conversation with the cast and saying, “Hey, now’s a wonderful time to take your time and unpack what it is that you’re feeling. Don’t feel rushed.” And I won’t rush with my camera. And so you just kind of dial it up or dial it down based on what you’re reading. And if you have this wonderful roadmap, which is a Discovery script, all of that becomes a lot easier.
Ayla Ruby: So I recently got to see the Discovery screening at the MPA in DC. And it was all fans, and we were chatting before it, and people were really excited about the Breen. So I feel like I need to ask about the Breen. Can you talk about the decisions to have a lot of them this season to reveal the Breen’s … what’s under the helmet, and just all of that because that’s huge. And I’m a DS9 fan, so that’s especially huge.
Michelle Paradise: So that also has two components. I think there’s the writing side of that, and then I want Tunde in to talk about the production side of that, and the visual effects and the look of it, which was also very cool. From the story perspective, we knew that we wanted a big bad that was big and bad, and that would be quite formidable for our heroes over the course of the season. And one of the things that we all thought was really cool about the Breen is that we didn’t know much about them. I mean, even just looking at them on screen, they feel scary. They feel scary because … And I’m talking about the original iteration, because of the helmet-y thing and the uniform. And you don’t know much about them. And what do the tubes do? And what’s that light thing on their head?
Michelle Paradise: But they feel scary. You don’t want to mess with them, but you don’t know anything beyond that about them. And we had a lot of questions. What’s under the helmet? What is their society like? How do they interact with one another? And so exploring who could be a really wonderful antagonist for our heroes this season, it felt like, let’s do that and let’s learn more about them in the process. Because the minute they come on screen, your heart just sinks a little bit because you know that they’re scary. But beyond just being scary, with our bad guys, we always want to know what makes them tick. We want to know why it is they’re doing what they’re doing, and who’s going to take the Breen throne, as it were. The political machinations felt like a really good driver for that. It was all of those things that kind of went into the decision, but then there was the, what do they look like under the thing? Which was a whole other thing that was really cool.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Yeah, you feel trepidation anytime you’re bringing a fan favorite back to life. And so we look at as much reference material as we can. And sort of where we went with it, what you saw with this idea that the Breen have two forms. And doing the concept art that led up to that, there were many iterations that we showed Michelle as we were embarking on, what do they look like? Because they got to be cool. And when do they take off their helmet, or put it on? And it ended up being in the first episode, even though you didn’t know it was the Breen at the time, and seeing L’ak’s head form from the jelly into something solid was a lot of fun.
Olatunde Osuanmi: And Jay Z, Jason Zimmerman, we call him Jay Z, Jason Zimmerman, our VFX supervisor who’s done the visual effects on all of the modern day Treks, all of the Kurtzman Treks. He was instrumental in helping with iteration, I don’t know, we must’ve gone through what, 36, 37 different generations.
Michelle Paradise: So many. Oh, so many.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Yeah. And it’s a wonderful skill he has and wonderful creativity he has. And also perseverance because of all the times we kept asking for, “What if it looks like this? What if it looks like that?” But I must say it’s a lot of fun to work it and to bring it to life, and hopefully the fans like it as much as we do.
Ayla Ruby: Now, this is going to air right before the finale, this interview. As we go into the finale, what’s kind of the lay of the land for the characters? What’s kind of the situation we’re approaching as we get into the finale? But without spoilers.
Michelle Paradise: Without spoilers? Well-
Ayla Ruby: Up to episode nine. Yes.
Michelle Paradise: Everybody dies in the end. No, I’m kidding. No, we wouldn’t do that. Our heroes are in battle against the Breen. Our heroes on Discovery are in a pew pew pew battle trying to get to Burnham and trying to get to the portal in which she … We don’t know what happens to her at the end of episode nine. She has presumably gone into this portal. We don’t know if she’s alive or dead. Some of our heroes think, “No, she’s got to be alive and we’ve got to go after her.” So that’s teeing up a battle for, because the Breen want that portal, that power as well. And then this isn’t spoiling because we’re not going to have an entire season/series finale without Burnham, but we will get to go inside and see what that’s like. We also know that Moll is in there. We don’t know what’s in there, but we do know it’s been implied that the power, whatever that power is, might be inside. So I have a feeling we’ll probably see in there.
Michelle Paradise: And it’s the stakes for the power that created life itself, life as we know it. So for our heroes, the stakes couldn’t be bigger. And I think people will really enjoy the episode. It’s a Tunde special. It has all of the action, all of the excitement, all of the heart, all of the character moments. It’s a really wonderful episode, and I think people who really love it. And I think it’s a fitting end to the season and also to the series. I just have to say one quick, again, we’ve said this before, but CBS Studios and Paramount+ giving us the ability to go back and shoot some additional materials so that we could wrap up the series itself properly, once we found out that it would be our last season. I think people will be very, very satisfied with that. And what a wonderful thing. It’s a gift that they gave us to be able to end it in the right way.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Yeah, that’s so true. I mean, you don’t always have that opportunity. And that opportunity comes with having to expend a lot of resources from CBS and Paramount to be able to give us that opportunity to end it the right way. The other thing I might add, hopefully it’s not a spoiler about the finale, is that the big word for me that forms in my head when I think about the finale is decisions. Decisions.
Michelle Paradise: Yeah.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: And I’ll leave it at that, but decisions.
Ayla Ruby: Well, I can’t wait to watch it now even more so. I was already excited, but now I’m even more excited. I know we’re running close on time, but I wanted to ask briefly, and I think this is for Michelle. In Mirrors, we got to go inside this wormhole sort of, and we could see the Mirror Enterprise. I’d love to know a little bit about more how that came to be. Was it a practical decision? Just anything you can share on that?
Michelle Paradise: Sorry, you cut out when you said “We got to see …” and then your voice got-
Ayla Ruby: So we were inside Mirror Enterprise. Fans were very excited to see the set used again. And I’d love to know anything else you could share about that.
Michelle Paradise: Well, we have a sister show with the Enterprise (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), and it’s always been a thought of how can we possibly use that but not steal their thunder. We don’t want to pull from Strange New Worlds, but what a beautiful set that is. They’ve just done a really gorgeous job over there. And it is there a way that we can use that on Discovery, understanding we’re many hundreds of years ahead of them on the timeline. And so that’s just kind always been in the back of our head. How can we do that? We had this idea of the Mirror universe. It wouldn’t require us to change their sets in any way. We just put up some Terran things if you will. But it then gave us an opportunity for our heroes, Burnham and Book to kind of come up against the anti-Burnham and Book, and Moll and L’ak, and then to see what would happen.
Michelle Paradise: And then of course, once we were in there, we were asking questions, okay, well how do we address some of the lingering … Whatever happened to Mirror Saru once he and Georgiou had their exchange in the Mirror Universe? And so it literally strikes like that, nods to previous seasons. It was fun to get to do that.
Ayla Ruby: I know people were online, were talking about Action Saru, and they were very excited about that.
Michelle Paradise: Absolutely love that.
Ayla Ruby: So we’re just at time. Is there anything else either of you want people to know about Discovery, or any other Trek things without going into other series? Movies rather.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Oh, you mean like Section 31?
Ayla Ruby: Yes. Or if you can share anything or want to.
Michelle Paradise: Directed by someone on this call? Tunde.
Ayla Ruby: If not, that’s totally fine too.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: Well, we wrapped shooting. We are deep in the edit. It’s a different kind of Trek, but it’s still Trek. It very much has the verve and energy of Philippa Georgiou and we’re really excited to share it at some point. I don’t know when that might be, but we’re excited to share it.
Ayla Ruby: Well, thank you both so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk and I’m so excited to see the final episodes.
Michelle Paradise: Thank you so much, and hope you enjoy it. And to everyone who’s watching this, thank you so much for being on this journey with us. Thank you for five incredible seasons. And we wouldn’t be here without you guys.
Olatunde Osunsanmi: What she said.
The final episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” Season 5 will release on Paramount+ on Thursday, May 30.
Comments
Loading…