Star Trek: Discovery is back for its fifth and final season this April — and through the first four episodes we’ve seen, the year is set to bring fans an enjoyable ride that has notably course-corrected several key criticisms from Season 4.
 
The party line from cast and crew on Discovery Season 5 is that it’s more fun, and has more of an adventure vibe than previous seasons. While the show’s core identity has not changed dramatically from Seasons 3 and 4 — when series showrunner Michelle Paradise began to properly imprint her vision on the series — the tweaks made to the Discovery formula do create more room for fun and lightness than before.
 

The biggest single improvement comes from ditching the repetative narrative construction that became a drag on the series each outing. Season 2’s Red Angel storyline locked the show into a mystery that took until that year’s finale to be answered, and Season 3 did the same with the mystery behind The Burn. Last year’s central question about the DMA (and the extra-galactic Species 10-C) was another full-season mystery that seemed to get stuck in the mud before finally resolving in the finale, leaving a lot of fans exhausted and ready for some kind of change to the storytelling.

Big questions — and the big stakes that come with them — can fuel mystery and excitement, but by Season 4 the writing was on the wall: this mystery won’t get answered until the end of the year. So what was the point of all the episodes in between? Season 4 had its fun adventures and its great character moments… but because the season’s central question has always been presented as the most important subject, it has always sucked the narrative and dramatic vitality out of the journey to reach that answer.

With Season 5, the Discovery team has addressed this problem head-on. It’s no secret that this year is about an adventurous treasure hunt across the galaxy, and thankfully we know exactly what Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and her crew is searching for — and why it’s so important — before the end of the season premiere… and not say, a third of the way through the season.

This simple change makes such a difference to the episodes that come after, allowing viewers to enjoy the journey for what it is, to feel a true sense of forward motion with each new chapter, and (so far) avoids creating the frustrations found in the last few years of storytelling.

It’s a small tweak to the formula, but for me it made such a difference in my ability to enjoy the show. There are still questions to be answered, of course — Who is this new character, and why does she matter? What happened to the hunted artifact in the first place? — but they’re much smaller, more character-focused, and don’t feel existential to every episode of the season.

The season’s driving story is also very cool, and longtime Star Trek fans are going to a get a kick out of it. It does mean that the stakes are high — I am sorry to tell you that the future of the galaxy is indeed at stake, once more — but in this case, that feels right and appropriate due to the very nature of the treasure hunt. Discovery is using Star Trek’s existing canon to expand the world in a really cool way this season, and I think a lot of other fans will be as pleased with that connection as I am.

That also ties into another big improvement this season, as Discovery gives us a lot more 32nd century worldbuilding and insight into the state of the galaxy. Even though this is the third year spent in the 3180s, the last two seasons felt timid in how they expanded on what life is actually like in the far future, how most people live, and what’s happened in the 800 years since Discovery left Captain Pike’s era.

Season 5 feels much more confident in pulling things out of the Star Trek toybox and actually playing with them — making an important difference to ensure that the show isn’t just called Star Trek, but actually feels like a part of the Trek universe, too.

Finally, the last big positive change comes with the series’ supporting cast, and how the writers have integrated the Discovery bridge crew into the Season 5 narrative. A sticking point for some fans of the show, Discovery has always been a show driven by a core set of central characters surrounded by a lot of secondary characters who felt very secondary.

Detmer (Emily Coutts), Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo), Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon), and the other bridge crew, for example, have been around since the launch of the series but many continue to express frustation over barely knowing these characters despite their regular appearances on the show. While Season 4 attempted to bring them into the action a bit more, it often felt rather awkward — like the writers were looking for opportunities to shoehorn facts about the characters into dialogue, and how their hobby/skill/experience would help the main cast out of their current dilemma.

Across the first several episode of Season 5, the larger tapestry of characters feel more authentically and organically weaved into the narrative and the action. Much of this comes through the integration of the always-fantastic Callum Keith Rennie into the series, as his abrasive Captain Rayner must learn to adjust his stern, no-nonsense attitude while working with the Discovery crew in the season-long quest.

Of all the Star Trek shows, Discovery has always had the most defined and unique identity, and none of this is to say the series is radically different from the past few years in the 32nd century.  It’s a show about connection, about overcoming trauma, about the importance of representation, and about the importance of engaging constructively with your emotions.

Love it or hate it — and there are plenty of fans in both camps — Season 5 of Discovery is still Discovery. That means the show’s philosophy of the importance of connection, of engaging with your emotions, and working on yourself still reign supreme. But the tweaks to the show — ditching the mystery box, being more comfortable playing around in the Star Trek sandbox, and bringing the secondary cast more cohisively into the story — have made a significant and positive difference to Discovery.

I am looking forward to the last six episodes of Star Trek: Discovery’s final outing, and the adventure waiting for us there!

Star Trek: Discovery returns to Paramount+ on April 4 (and SkyShowtime on April 5).