Friday 3 March 2023

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY to end with fifth season in 2024

CBS and Paramount+ have announced that streaming show Star Trek: Discovery will end in 2024 with its fifth season.

The news is not a huge surprise, with Paramount+ moving to cut original programming budgets in pursuit of greater profitability, and the show having a fairly hefty price tag attached to it. The show kicked off in 2017 with a reported budget of $7 million per episode and costs have only increased since then. The show was at the vanguard of a whole new generation of Trek shows, with live-action series Picard (also ending after its currently-airing third season concludes) and Strange New Worlds following, along with animated series Lower Decks and Prodigy.

The show had a difficult genesis, with co-creator Bryan Fuller originally envisaging an anthology show that would dramatically shift locations, casts and even time periods from season to season, extending across different eras of the Trek universe and timeline. However, when that idea was shot down for cost reasons and Fuller's responsibilities to American Gods increased, Fuller chose to move on, leaving co-creator Alex Kurtzman to put together a new writing team (ironically, Fuller was later dismissed from American Gods due to massive budget overruns).

The early critical response to Discovery was somewhat tepid, but improved over its first four seasons. The show's position as a prequel set some ten years before the time of the original Star Trek series, but looking centuries more advanced, was contentious amongst fans, as was its embracing of both a darker and more emotional aesthetic than previous Trek shows, and problems fitting into established continuity. However, the show did nab a Hugo nomination for an early episode and the critical assessment of the show did improve after it moved a thousand years into the future.

The show was also a commercial success, being cited for almost single-handedly driving impressive subscriber growth for the CBS All Access platform in its early days, before its recent rebranding as Paramount+.

It also appears that the decision has been made to delay the final season into 2024, with some reshoots due to take place later this year, possibly an indication that the decision to end the series after five seasons was made late in the day and these reshoots will turn a season finale into an overall series finale.

With Picard also ending, this leaves the Star Trek franchise with one sole live-action show on air. Apparently other shows are under discussion, two live-action projects apparently under series consideration. One would pick up after the events of Picard and would feature a mix of new and established characters in the early 25th Century, and could draw upon characters from Picard, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The second is unclear, but could be either the much-discussed Section 31 series starring Michelle Yeoh (which may be complicated by Yeoh's much higher profile following a series of successful movie roles) or a Starfleet Academy series, possibly set in the Discovery time period of the 32nd Century. It is believed that there have also been discussions around a new series or mini-series featuring the return of Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway. She has already returned to voice the character in Prodigy, but is apparently keen to explore the character again in live-action.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will air a second season later this year, with Lower Decks also getting a fourth season in 2023 and Prodigy expected to start airing its second at the end of the year. The timescale for any new shows joining the stable is unclear.

1 comment:

Not Dukat said...

One more than ENT. I feel like Discovery finally found its groove in Seasons 3 and 4, much like Enterprise did. Perhaps the 7-year model really no longer works in the current television climate.

The bright side? We finally get that Elusive Fifth Season™ of Star Trek in the 21st century.