Star Trek: Discovery reaches the end of its second season this week and fans can expect the many mysteries that have built up across the run to be solved, according to one of the show’s bosses.
Last Thursday saw the broadcast of “Such Sweet Sorrow: Part 1,” the first half of the two-part finale storyline. Originally, this would have been it, but co-writer Michelle Paradise – who’s joining Alex Kurtzman as co-showrunner for season 3 – explained on The Ready Room over on the Star Trek YouTube channel that the ambition of the story made it necessary to extend the season by an extra episode.
“It was originally just supposed to be one episode. We had thirteen episodes for the season and in trying to wrap up all the storylines and all the mythology, we developed the story — and the story was huge and the outline was huge and we realized it is not one episode of television.
So, in order to do everything justice that we wanted to do – including all the character moments that we wanted to have – so, fortunately, our network partners said “have fun with another episode.” So, we did….There was so much story to tell and so much to wrap up and we really wanted to wrap up the characters’ journeys over the season and to try to squeeze that into one episode, we couldn’t have done it justice.”
The penultimate episode ended on a dramatic cliffhanger as Control – Section 31’s corrupt artificial intelligence that’s serving as the big bad of this season – sent an army of ships for the U.S.S. Discovery and the Enterprise to fight off. Paradise went on to promise that there’ll definitely be an exciting space battle to come in the finale. More than that, though, part 2 will also answer the season’s mysteries in a “satisfying way.”
“I can say there will be a battle, because he [Saru] says “prepare for battle.” If we didn’t have a battle, we would be really bad writers. You don’t want to end an episode teeing that up, and then not do it. What I can say is the mysteries that we have been exploring over the course of this season will be answered in what I feel is a satisfying way. The character journeys that we have been on will also be addressed in what I hope will be a satisfying way as well. And more adventures to come.”
One thing we were already expecting to be wrapped up is Pike and Spock’s arc on the series, as both Anson Mount and Ethan Peck won’t be returning – at least as regulars – next year. Pike already made an emotional goodbye to the Discovery crew in the last episode, but he’s still in the thick of the action on board the Enterprise.
Meanwhile, Spock’s currently aiding his adoptive sister Burnham with the problem of moving the ship to the far future using the time crystal. This will no doubt solve the mystery of why the Discovery was abandoned 1000 years in the future in the Short Trek episode “Calypso.”
Be sure to catch Star Trek: Discovery season 2’s grand finale next Thursday, April 18th.
