Mary Wiseman was surprised by Paramount+ canceling Star Trek: Discovery with season 5. Created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017 and helped launch CBS All-Access, which rebranded as Paramount+. Star Trek: Discovery’s 5 seasons totaled 65 episodes, which ran from 2017 to 2024, and sparked a franchise renaissance of five more Star Trek series and a streaming movie.
In March 2023, Paramount+ announced that Star Trek: Discovery’s upcoming fifth and final season would end Star Trek’s flagship show. However, Paramount+ granted and funded 3 extra days of filming, allowing the cast and crew to return to Toronto for a special 12-minute epilogue that would give Star Trek: Discovery closure since season 5 was not planned as the final season.
In an exclusive interview with ScreenRant’s John Orquiola about her guest appearance as Lt. Sylvia Tilly in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 8, Mary Wiseman reiterated that Star Trek: Discovery’s cancellation “was definitely a surprise,” but she was “grateful” for how Paramount+ let them film a coda to end the show. Wiseman also spoke about filming the cast’s emotional reunion. Read Mary’s quotes below:
ScreenRant: Were you surprised when Star Trek: Discovery ended when it did in season five? I heard everybody was expecting seven years.
Mary Wiseman: Yeah, it was definitely a surprise. But also, I feel like they figured out a way to make it feel like it came to a complete ending. So we were really grateful for that opportunity to get the chance to sew it up in the way that we did. Not all shows get that chance to not leave the audience in an open-ended, unfinished space. I was grateful for that, that we were able to do that.
ScreenRant: I love the epilogue. The scene when you all came back together on the bridge. Can you tell me about shooting that reunion?
Mary Wiseman: Oh my gosh. We had so much fun. I just remember giggling the entire time because we knew it was the last time we were going to get to do that. Everybody that we spent all these long hours with, that we built these relationships with, all of us getting to be together. So there was a lot of giggling, a lot of joking around, and then obviously, a lot of tears, which we had to rein in, because in the actual scene, it’s not a goodbye, it’s just like a moment of love. It was emotional, both a lot of joy and the bittersweetness of a goodbye.
The cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery originally expected to equal the seven seasons that were standard for the Star Trek series executive-produced by Rick Berman. However, when Skydance Media started the process of purchasing Paramount Global, Paramount+ began ending its Star Trek series, including Discovery, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Star Trek: Picard season 3, which ended in May 2023, was always planned as the final season of the Patrick Stewart-led series.
Star Trek: Discovery’s season 5 finale, “Life Itself,” which became the series finale, concluded the storyline of Captain Michael Burnham’s (Sonequa Martin-Green) hunt for the Progenitors’ ancient technology. Star Trek: Discovery’s finale epilogue jumped forward 30 years to find Admiral Michael Burnham married to Cleveland Booker (David Ajala), and with an adult son, Leto (Sawandi Wilson).
Star Trek: Discovery’s finale epilogue saw Admiral Burnham return to the USS Discovery one last time to launch her time-tossed starship on its final mission to sync up to the events seen in the Star Trek: Short Treks episode, “Calypso.” This involved a touching dream sequence of the USS Discovery’s crew reconvening for an emotional farewell.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a direct spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery that continues its 32nd century saga, and imports guest stars like Mary Wiseman’s Tilly. As surprised as Star Trek: Discovery’s cast and crew were that their show came to an unexpected end, concurrent to the events of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, the USS Discovery is still in action, and Captain Burnham is still saving the galaxy.
Release Date
2017 – 2024-00-00
Showrunner
Alex Kurtzman