The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery arrived on Blu-ray at the end of August, and — in what is likely one of our last pieces about the series for quite a while — it’s time to check out the Season 5 home media content, including that special bonus disc of exclusive extras!
The four-disc Blu-ray set (available in standard packaging and the annual Steelbook special case) contains all ten episodes of Discovery‘s final outing — “Red Directive, “Under the Twin Moons,” “Jinaal,” “Face the Strange,” “Mirrors,” “Whistlespeak,” “Erigah,” “Labyrinths,” “Lagrange Point,” and “Life, Itself” — along with the behind-the-scenes bonus features typical of past releases.
There’s also a single commentary track this season; the natural trio of showrunner Michelle Paradise, executive producer/director Olatunde Osunsamni, and series lead Sonequa Martin-Green (Burnham) speak about the production of “Life, Itself” over the show’s series finale.
Along with the commentary, Discovery Season 5 includes production featurettes, a gag reel, and a deleted scene from the series finale. Some of the featurettes are more engaging and more essential than others, but overall there’s a good amount of interesting and informative behind the scenes content.
I do have one minor (but recurring) quibble — the title page for many of the features, particularly the text of the title itself, looks like something someone with a shaky understanding of kerning put together in PowerPoint. (It’s a little bit more of a “graphic design is my passion” situation that I would have expected on this kind of release, personally.)
Oftentimes “season roundup”-type features just rehash the plot and character arcs of the season, but The Voyage of Season 5″ (38:57) has enough production tidbits to make it worth watching. As someone who “always uses pockets in [his] acting,” for example, Callum Keith Rennie (Rayner) faced the challenge of figuring out how to play a character who wears a uniform without any pockets. Who’d have thought?
Eve Harlow (Moll) had never done any stunt work or stage fighting, and had to learn the process from scratch; meanwhile, Doug Jones’ (Saru) longtime stunt double Bauston Camilleri gets a well deserved spotlight for his work in “Under the Twin Moons.”
This season’s “Being Michael Burnham” (13:15) feature chronicles Sonequa Martin-Green’s experiences during the three-day shoot of the “Life, Itself” series coda. As I discussed in my review of the episode, the coda didn’t really work for me. This making-of piece, though… this is more moving than the coda itself!
Martin-Green’s genuine love for the people she works with, both in front of and behind the camera, is infectious to watch. When she says she’s honored to be on set at 1:30 AM for the application of her old age makeup, you know she means it 100%. (By the way, she is wearing a lot more prosthetic makeup in the coda than I realized.)
The rest of the cast make appearances as well, and we get a real sense that the footage filmed for the coda’s emotional slo-mo goodbye scene required very little acting.
“A Team Effort” (20:04) spotlights Q’Mau sand-speeder sequences from “Red Directive” and the fight sequences from the series finale in this walkthrough of the environmental design process for the AR wall — and the physical set elements that sit inside the virtual set.
We’ve seen Discovery get more and more sophisticated with its use of AR backdrops over the last two seasons, and it’s clear from the onscreen results (but also from this featurette) that Season 5 was the pinnacle of what they were able to accomplish. An incredible amount of work went into making this show look as good as it does, and this is a nice overview of the art department’s efforts.
“Character Development” (23:31) focuses on Stamets, Culber, Tilly, and Saru, and this feature follows their development throughout the series both onscreen and also with respect to how their actors viewed their characters. Showrunner Michelle Paradise also provides commentary throughout. A highlight is Doug Jones’ thoughtful examination of how playing Saru over these five seasons has impacted his personal life.
If you’re interested in learning about director Olatunde Osunsanmi’s technical or creative processes behind the camera, this feature probably isn’t going to be for you. If you want to hear about how much everyone involved with Discovery loved working with the guy, then you’re in luck. In “Discovery’s Creative Force” (09:50), we do learn that he was responsible for a few significant creative decisions beyond his role as director, but for the most part this is a lovefest, pure and simple. Which, hey, always nice to be reminded that Discovery’s was a happy and supportive set.
Season 5’s Gag Reel (3:53) is considerably more fun and higher energy than the one included on the Season 4 set, understandable given that Season 4 was filmed under strict pandemic protocols which surely dampened the mood. Highlights this season include Doug Jones repeatedly mispronouncing “nuptials” as “nupitals,” Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala (Book) clearly having a great time on set together, and the occasional bit of off-camera commentary from director Jonathan Frakes.
The season only provides one Deleted Scene (0:41), a short walk-and-talk from “Life Itself” as Nhan and Saru discuss wedding plans and the challenges and rewards of mixing work and relationships. These kinds of casual character moments are something of a precious commodity on Discovery, so for that reason it would have been nice for this to have been kept in. (Nothing substantive to the overall plot is lost by its omission though.)
That, of course, are not ALL of the Season 5 bonus material out on disc this summer — unfortunately for fans, there are three additional video features that have been held back from the season set and reserved as exclusive content for the Star Trek: Discovery Complete Series box set.
Two of them are extended slideshows set to music, which is no big loss unless you’re a hardcore Discovery completist — but the longest feature is something that has disappointingly been locked away on this big box set.
“The Art of Discovery: Costumes” (16:03) is essentially a slideshow. This feature is a visual journey through costumes throughout all five seasons of Discovery, comparing design drawings with episode footage of the final costume as it appears onscreen. It’s… interesting to a degree, but would have benefited from some narration from costume designer Gersha Phillips or the costume fabricators. Probably the most entertaining thing about this are the uh, questionable digital maquettes of the actors seen in some of the drawings.
Like the costume feature, “The Art of Discovery: Production Design” (41:51) is a slideshow of production art from throughout the series, set to music from the show. I have to be honest, I have a hard time imagining someone watching this more than once — and even that first time would quickly become a “leave it on in the background while you do something else” viewing experience.
(Maybe they could release this as a screensaver or something?)
The only really worthy feature is the “Series Roundtable” (57:15), which starts out immediately weird: we join Alex Kurtman and five castmembers (Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, David Ajala, Blu del Barrio, and Wilson Cruz) as they silently watch a screenshare of a Season 1 featurette.
A strange beginning, but trust me you do want to watch this if you get the chance. The “work videocall” vibe quickly gives way to “punchy convention panel” as these six people (with great chemistry!) comment on old video clips and lovingly roast each other and the sometimes silly things they were asked to do in the name of Star Trek. “Sonequa saw my entire taint,” Wilson Cruz says at one point, laughing about his his nude rebirth in “Saints of Imperfection.”
“I did!” Sonequa Martin-Green agrees. It’s a good time.
***
Overall, the Season 5 package is fairly robust for bonus features this day and age; while a few additional commentary tracks or deleted scenes would have been nice, getting this much behind-the-scenes content on a physical release is still better treatment than most television shows get these days.
The cast roundtable piece is the lone detractor, relegated to the Complete Series box that (as of this writing) is only $15 more than the separate Season 5 set — but as exclusives go, it’s not as bad as some previous Trek releases in that department. (It’s still a disappointing move, certainly.)
But look — if you’ve been buying Star Trek: Discovery box sets for the last six years, it’s absolutely worth rounding out your library with the Season 5 collection. And if you’ve been waiting to open your wallet? The Complete Series box set is a no-brainer at the current retail pricing, and it’s a win-win with that extra cast roundtable feature.
You can order Star Trek: Discovery — The Final Season on Blu-ray or Steelbook Blu-ray now, or you can preorder the full-series Blu-ray collection here.