Star Trek: Discovery season 2 definitely went out bigger and bolder than ever before. This past week’s finale not only featured a major space battle and that beautiful recreation of the Enterprise but also propelled the U.S.S. Discovery and its crew into a thrilling new story to be explored in season 3.
Cmdr. Michael Burnham, Saru and the rest elected to sail their ship through a portal and travel 950 years into the future. Discovery has previously had a close relationship with The Original Series as it’s set a decade before it and Burnham is Spock’s adoptive sister. From now on, though, it’s going to totally carve out its own path, and star Sonequa Martin-Green thinks this is the “perfect thing” for the show to be doing.
“If feel it is the most genius decision for Star Trek: Discovery,” said the actress. “I’m so proud of our producers and writers for doing this, Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise and Jenny Lumet, who did an amazing job writing the finale. Them and the other writers deciding to take us to the future. Now we get to tell our own stories because we are going boldly where no other Star Trek has gone before.
But at the same time we still who we are. We are still connected to the canon in the way that we are. We cannot help where we started. We cannot help that I am in the family of Sarek and Amanda and Spock. We will always have that, but now we can take who we are to this future we have never seen before and tell our story and see what the future holds and what has happened with everyone. I just could not believe what an awesome choice it was. I am beaming with pride, because I thought it was the perfect thing for us.”
Fans have had a lot of questions about Discovery’s precarious place in canon over the last couple of seasons, but this finale tried its best to iron out the various continuity plot holes. For instance, the reason why Burnham hasn’t been mentioned by Spock in any previous media is because her identity is now a classified Starfleet secret. Likewise, the time jump explains why the Discovery wasn’t featured in TOS.
Speaking of which, the way Discovery has acted as a TOS prequel up to now hasn’t always gone down well with fans, but it finally has the chance to truly live up the Trek mantra of, as Martin-Green reminds us, going boldly where no one has gone before. This period in history has never previously been explored in Trek lore, so Star Trek: Discovery has free rein to color in the canon however it likes. Well, within reason, that is. I mean, if they decide to change the design of the Klingons again, fans might just riot.