The U.S.S. Discovery has made its final journey. The streaming series of the same name has come to an end after five seasons. With Star Trek: Discovery now over, showrunner Michelle Paradise and star Sonequa Martin-Green spoke with Variety about the series grand finale. The finale was originally not meant as a farewell at all. Most importantly, Paradise revealed how the series’ flash-forward coda with an older Michael Burnham, shot after the show wrapped, referenced what was to be the main plotline for season six. And it all ties into an episode of Short Treks called “Calypso,” which dropped back in 2018.
The second Short Trek episode, “Calypso” was co-written by novelist (and future Star Trek: Picard producer) Michael Chabon. It centered on a character named Craft, played by future Hawkman Aldis Hodge. Discovery rescues him after the ship sat in space vacant for 1,000 years, at the same fixed coordinates. “Calypso” never answered how Discovery got there. Season six was going to be a season-long build-up to getting the titular ship to that point. Michelle Paradise didn’t want to leave that plotline dangling, so she wrapped it up in a few minutes of screentime. She wrote an older Michael Burnham delivering the ship to the coordinates (now retrofitted to its original 23rd-century configuration) as her final mission.
Paradise said, “We always knew that we wanted to somehow tie that back. We never wanted ‘Calypso’ to be the dangling Chad.” If they had never tied up that particular dangling thread, we know Star Trek fans would have never stopped asking about it. Kudos to Michelle Paradise for remembering to bring it all back to an episode that wasn’t even a part of the main series, that came out nearly six years ago. Not only is that the sign of a good showrunner, but a true diehard Trekker.