harmfuljays wrote:
Hunh? I thought Discovery was no more.....and all of a sudden....poof S5 new episodes.
Nope, this final season was always planned. Would've been kind of a bummer to have ended it with season 4, that one was pretty...meh.
Minor spoilers follow.
Very interesting that they're mining both TNG and DS9 for major plot points here. The entire "quest" this season is centered around technology left over by ancient beings who were revealed in the TNG episode "The Chase" to have seeded the galaxy with the same DNA, which was a pretty creative way to ultimately explain why, in Star Trek, all the aliens look very similar to humans. Strange that the Federation chose not to make this information public, I assumed they did, but since the revelation comes as a surprise to Captain Burnham and her crew, they obviously did not.
Also, the new character they kinda shoehorned in, Captain (but I assume he's gotten knocked down in rank) Rayner, I assumed was a Vulcan or Romulan based on his ears, but he's not. He's an alien called a Kellerun, who only made one appearance in a mostly-forgotten DS9 episode "Armageddon Game." Those guys along with some other pointy-eared people called the T'Lani, had brokered a peace they were so dead-set to keep in place they conspired to kill Chief O'Brien and Dr. Bashir since the two of them were helping to dispose of some particularly nasty biological weapons. That one-note mentality appears to be reflected in Rayner's obsession with catching S5's villains. Beyond that, there's speculation the whole Kellerun/T'Lani thing will somehow play into this storyline, possibly linking Rayner and one of these bad guys. Who knows.
Wondering what they do with Saru going forward. He's officially done as a member of the crew, handing off 1st Officer duties to Rayner, but there's no way he doesn't play a major part in the final season.
Also, I really like David Ajala as an actor but Cleveland Booker seems like a guy who should've only hung around for one story arc and then been sent on his merry way. And now the coolest thing about him, his ship, is gone. The writers have forced a tenuous link between him and Moll, one of the villains of this season, and frankly it makes no sense to me. Whatever, Ajala is a charming enough guy that no scene with him is ever boring but I don't quite understand why he's still around.
At least the showrunners know a good thing when they see it and brought back the best character the show ever produced, David Cronenberg's Dr. Kovic, and gave him a pivotal role once again. I love that he's representative of this somewhat dark underbelly of the Federation, kinda like a CIA spook, but not in a villainous way. At least I sure hope they don't try and make him into one, it would be a huge misstep if they do so.
Lastly, we learned that two starships crashing into the desert sand with shields on high can indeed stop a rockslide! That was kinda cool.