Star Trek: Discovery’s Huge Season 5 TNG Connection Explained By Showrunner

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery season 5

Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise reveals why season 5’s epic treasure hunt mission is a direct sequel to the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6 episode, “The Chase”. In Discovery season 5’s premiere, “Red Directive,” which was written by Paradise and directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) learns that an ancient artifact she is ordered to recover leads to a missing technology created by ancient humanoids called the Progenitors. What Burnham seeks is the power to create life itself that Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) first learned about in TNG season 6.

In an interview with Variety, Michelle Paradise reveals how Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s story, which was originally considered for season 4, was saved to be fully developed as the focus of the fifth and final season. Paradise discusses how Star Trek: Discovery will answer questions about Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “The Chase” which she wondered about for 31 years. Read her quotes below:

“I remember watching that episode and at the end of it just being blown away that there was this huge idea where we all come from. And then they’re going to have another mission the next week. I found myself wondering, ‘Well, then what? What happened? What do we do with this information? What does it mean?'”

“Burnham and some of our other characters are on this quest for personal meaning… [Searching for the origins of life itself] feels like a big thematic idea that fits right in with what we’re exploring over the course of the season, and what our characters are going through.”

“We had a lot of fun talking about what might’ve happened when [Picard] called back to headquarters and had to say, ‘Here’s what happened today.’ We just built the story out from there.”

Source: Variety

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is streaming on Paramount+