Warp Factor Trek

The news that Star Trek: Discovery will be returning for a fifth season was first announced on 18 January this year. The fifth season renewal came as a surprise to many, considering that – as WarpFactorTrek’s editor Dan Leckie predicted – the distribution overseas for Season 4 turned out to be a patchwork effort after thousands of angry fans flooded Paramount‘s social media accounts.

It now appears, as tweeted by executive producer Michelle Paradise on Twitter today, that Discovery‘s ten-episode Season 5 is officially in production, with filming commencing in Toronto. This will be the first season of Discovery to have fewer than thirteen episodes – as Paramount seeks to have ten-episode seasons for their various Star Trek series on the service (Star Trek: Prodigy does not count for episode quantity, as that is originally a Nickelodeon series and has ordered two seasons, each consisting of twenty episodes).

The plot of the fifth season – the first Season 5 of any Star Trek series since Star Trek: Voyager in 1998 – is unknown. What is known, however, is that there will be a combination of old and new elements from the franchise as a whole, as co-executive producer Olatunde Osunsanmi revealed to ScreenRant back in March, on the same day Season 4 concluded its run of thirteen episodes.

“The galaxy’s a big place where incredible things can happen. Season 5 is shaping up to be… all I can say is that – it’s not time travel – but we go back into the past to get further into the future,” Osunsanmi told ScreenRant. “There’s this old version of Star Trek that exists. And this new version that’s been created by Alex [Kurtzman] but there’s a lot of things we still love about the old version. So, it’s about pulling from there… not necessarily stories or characters but more themes, and process, and how those stories are told, and applying it to what we do in the future. And that includes [Burnham’s] character and things she does as a captain.”

It is unclear when Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery will air, though it is expected sometime in 2023.  The first four seasons of the show are available for streaming now on Paramount+ in the U.S. and other territories that have the service, as well as on the streaming service Crave in Canada. The seasons will be available on Paramount+ from 22 June in the UK and Ireland.

Wes Huntington

Wes Huntington has been a Star Trek fan since he was born, thanks to his parents (both of whom are still very much alive and are big Trek fans themselves). He lives in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, with his wife and cat. He is also a co-host of the Twin Cities Trekkies podcast, which launched in February 2021 and talks about all things Star Trek. You can find Twin Cities Trekkies via Facebook, Instagram, or anchor.fm/twincitiestrekkies.