Discovery’s New Season 5 Villains & Starfleet Officer Explained By Showrunner

Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise breaks down what to expect from season 5’s new villain couple and new Starfleet Officer. Star Trek: Discovery season 5 premieres Thursday, April 4, on Paramount+. When Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) leads a hunt for an intergalactic treasure, she encounters new parties from within and outside Starfleet who also seek the prize.

Before Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s world premiere at SXSW, showrunner Michelle Paradise spoke to Screen Rant about the final season. Asked to describe Discovery season 5’s newest character additions, Moll (Eve Harlow), L’ak (Elias Toufexis), and Captain Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), Paradise delves into each new face in-depth. Read her quote below:

We have Moll and L’ak, Elias Toufexis and Eve Harlow, wonderful actors. They are our antagonists for the season. In developing those characters, we talked about them as kind of a Bonnie and Clyde dynamic we wanted. We hadn’t done bad guys that were that were a couple before. So we wanted to try something new this season. And we also thought it was very important to, of course, as with all of our characters, make them multi-dimensional. And in the case of a couple, you want to understand what is driving them. What is it they want? You want to understand the depth of the love between them and where that comes from. So I think those two are an interesting addition to the series. And I think people will unexpectedly find themselves maybe even rooting for them, even though they’re up against our heroes.

And then Callum Keith Rennie who plays Rayner is also a wonderful addition. He comes in as Captain Rayner. And I don’t want to say too much about him except that he is a bit of an antagonist with Burnham [but] not in the bad guy sense at all. He’s a good guy character. But we will see Burnham grow through her interactions with him in a different way than we’ve seen her before. And so, that’s always a question with characters: If you’re going to bring in someone new, how do they impact our existing characters? How do they help highlight those character arcs for our existing folks? And all three of [them] do that in really interesting ways this season.

Related

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 – Everything We Know

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is the final season of Paramount+’s flagship series, and here’s everything we know about Captain Burnham’s last voyages.

Seasons

5

Showrunner

Alex Kurtzman