Star Trek: Discovery season 4


The fourth season of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery follows the crew of the starship Discovery in the 32nd century, more than 900 years after Star Trek: The Original Series, as they help rebuild the United Federation of Planets following a cataclysmic event and face a space anomaly that causes destruction across the galaxy. The season was produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment, with Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise serving as showrunners.
Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, captain of the Discovery, along with the returning Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz, Blu del Barrio, David Ajala, and Tig Notaro. Active development on the season began by January 2020. More time was spent writing than previous seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which inspired the space anomaly that the characters face in the season. Burnham's new role as captain is also explored following her promotion at the end of the third season. The fourth season was officially announced in October 2020, and filming took place in Toronto, Canada, from November 2020 to August 2021. New filming processes were implemented to ensure safety during the pandemic, which caused some production delays. A video wall was constructed to allow for filming in front of real-time computer-generated backgrounds.
The season premiered on the streaming service Paramount+ on November 18, 2021, and the first seven episodes were released through December 30. The remaining six episodes were released from February 10 to March 17, 2022. The season's international release on Netflix was cancelled days before the premiere to allow a 2022 debut on Paramount+ for most countries; after fan backlash, the series was made available early in some countries through Pluto TV or digital purchase. The season was estimated to have high viewership and audience demand, and received positive reviews as well as several awards and nominations. A fifth season was ordered in January 2022.

Episodes

Cast and characters

Main

Development

Active development on a 13-episode fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery began by January 2020, during production on the series' third season. By March, a fifth season was also in development with the intention of production on the fourth and fifth seasons taking place back-to-back, but these plans were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-production on the fourth season began in Toronto, Canada, on August 17. Executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise, the co-showrunners of the series, officially announced the season on October 16, the day after the third season premiered. Filming was scheduled to begin on November 2.

Writing

The series' writers room began working on the season remotely by August 2020. Pandemic-related production delays allowed them to get "quite ahead in scripts" compared to previous seasons, according to Kurtzman. He soon confirmed that all seasons after the third would continue to be set in the 32nd century. Writing for the fourth season ended in mid-May 2021, and took place entirely via Zoom so the writers room never met in person. Because they, and the rest of the world, were impacted by the pandemic during the creation of the season, the writers wanted to acknowledge it in some way without literally including a pandemic in the story. Paradise explained that Star Trek series have always reflected the real world in this way, and the season's story was designed to be a metaphor for the pandemic without being one-to-one: the main "antagonist" of the season is a giant, destructive space anomaly that the characters do not understand. To establish the impact that this anomaly can have rather than just explain how big and destructive it is, the writers chose to have it destroy the planet Kwejian—the homeworld of Cleveland "Book" Booker—in the season's first episode. This has an ongoing effect on Book throughout the season, and the writers wanted to test his relationship with protagonist Michael Burnham.
The third season ends with Burnham becoming the captain of Discovery, which star Sonequa Martin-Green said was a new beginning for the series. Paradise said the character had "grown in many ways" over the first three seasons, and the fourth would see her continue to grow as captain. The writers approached Burnhams's character arc in each episode by asking what her journey as a captain would be, and by the season finale she has learned to deal with captain-specific issues such as making tough calls and navigating political situations. The previous captain of Discovery, Saru, begins the season on his homeworld of Kaminar but eventually returns to the ship. He develops a relationship with T'Rina, the president of Ni'Var, which is a storyline that the writers decided to explore after seeing unexpected chemistry between the two characters during the third season.
Paradise said the writers always intended to form a "really lovely" family unit in the third season with Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber, a gay couple, and the non-binary Adira. This is extended to Adira's transgender boyfriend Gray, who is dead but whose consciousness is still connected to Adira. The third season promised that Gray would be "seen" by everyone, in a metaphor for representation, and the fourth season does this by transferring his consciousness into a synthetic body. Actor Ian Alexander had a lot more "hands-on involvement" with Gray's storyline in the fourth season. Another metaphor for representation is seen in the storyline for Zora, Discovery advanced computer. She becomes sentient in the season, and is deemed to be a new lifeform that officially joins Starfleet. This is similar to the android Data in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
After revealing that Earth is no longer part of the United Federation of Planets in the third season, the writers knew that Earth's rejoining the Federation would be a pivotal moment, and decided that this would be a two-season arc that concludes in the fourth-season finale. They wanted the season to explore ethical questions in a similar way to Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation, to make Discovery feel more like traditional Star Trek. The season also explores the mental health struggles of some characters, which was relevant to the creative team due to the real-world impacts of the pandemic. For Species 10-C, an unknown species that created the destructive anomaly, they wanted to create a species that was unlike any seen before in Star Trek or other science fiction franchises. They especially wanted the species to be difficult to communicate with, so the characters could not rely on their universal translators, and worked with science consultant Erin Macdonald as well as METI to understand what the new species could be.

Casting

The season stars the returning Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham, Doug Jones as Saru, Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets, Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly, Wilson Cruz as Hugh Culber, and David Ajala as Cleveland "Book" Booker, as well as Blu del Barrio reprising their recurring guest role as Adira Tal from the third season. Tig Notaro was asked to reprise her recurring guest role of Jett Reno in the season for two different filming blocks. She chose not to travel to Toronto for filming in November 2020 due to the pandemic, but hoped that conditions would be safer in May 2021 to allow her to travel for the second block; Notaro confirmed in May 2021 that she was in Toronto to film all of her scenes for the season over two weeks. Notaro is credited as a main cast member for her appearances in the season. Despite Tilly leaving Discovery in the fourth episode, Wiseman remained a series regular and returned for the season finale.
Other guest stars reprising their roles from the third season include Oded Fehr as Admiral Charles Vance, Ian Alexander as Gray Tal, Bill Irwin as Su'Kal, Tara Rosling as Ni'Var President T'Rina, Annabelle Wallis as the voice of Zora, Sonja Sohn as Burnham's mother, Gabrielle, David Cronenberg as Dr. Kovich, Phumzile Sitole as Earth General Diatta Ndoye, and former main cast member Rachael Ancheril as Commander Nhan. Kenneth Mitchell, who made guest appearances as different characters in the previous seasons, said in August 2021 that he would have a unique role in the fourth season after the progression of his ALS diagnosis limited his ability to move and speak un-aided; he is represented by the USS Mitchell, a starship named for the actor that appears in the season finale. New recurring guests for the season include Chelah Horsdal as Laira Rillak, the Federation President, Shawn Doyle as Ruon Tarka, and Hiro Kanagawa as Dr. Hirai. In the season finale, politician and activist Stacey Abrams appears as the President of United Earth. Paradise and Kurtzman had contacted Abrams about making the appearance knowing that she was already a fan of the series and franchise, and they did not include her name in documentation for filming to help keep her role a secret.
Additionally, Osric Chau portrays Tarka's missing friend Oros, Rothaford Gray is introduced as Book's father Tareckx, and Ache Hernandez and Luca Doulgeris return as Book's brother Kyheem and nephew Leto, respectively. The crew of Discovery also return for the season, including Emily Coutts as pilot Keyla Detmer, Patrick Kwok-Choon as tactical officer Gen Rhys, Oyin Oladejo as operations officer Joann Owosekun, Ronnie Rowe Jr. as communications officer R.A. Bryce, Sara Mitich as Nilsson, David Benjamin Tomlinson as Linus the Saurian, and Raven Dauda as Dr. Tracy Pollard. Rowe has a smaller role than previously after being cast in the series The Porter, and Bryce is replaced as communications officer in some episodes by Christopher, who is portrayed by Orville Cummings.