Sonequa Martin-Green talks show’s final season of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’

Article content

When filming concluded on Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery, Sonequa Martin-Green didn’t know that she had shot many of her final scenes as Captain Michael Burnham.

Article content

“We had wrapped. We thought we were going to see each other in eight months. Then they were like, ‘You’re not going back,’” Martin-Green, 39, tells Postmedia in a Zoom interview.

Article content

It was a blow for the actress, who became the first Black woman to headline a series set within the popular franchise when she debuted on the program back in 2017. The ending was bittersweet, but she was thankful that the cast was able to come back and shoot a proper conclusion.

“(Showrunners) Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise fought to get us some additional shooting. CBS and Paramount, they do treasure the show, and they agreed, but it was just a coda to wrap it up. We had little time and little pages. But I think people will be satisfied,” she says. “They did a phenomenal job.”

Article content

Article content

Co-created by Kurtzman (who co-wrote JJ Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek movie), Discovery was set a decade before the adventures of William Shatner’s Kirk and Leonard Nimoy’s half-human/half-Vulcan on TOS (The Original Series). 

“We didn’t know what we were doing in the beginning; we were on wobbly legs like when a horse is born,” Martin-Green says looking back. “We were breaking so many barriers and pushing the needle forward. We were having to dig out the path that we were ultimately going to take. But we had a lot on our shoulders and we wanted it to do well and make everyone proud.”

When Discovery first launched, it was the first new Star Trek show to air on TV since Enterprise 12 years prior.

With new characters added into the mix, including Saru (Doug Jones), Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp),  Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), Cleveland “Book” Booker (David Ajala), Adira (Blu del Barrio), Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), and Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), Martin-Green concedes they had “a little bit of trouble getting started.”

Article content

Younger versions of Spock (Ethan Peck) and Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) appeared briefly, before beaming onto their own series, Strange New Worlds, which cast Paul Wesley as Captain Kirk.

But by Season 3, when the story jumped ahead to 3188, Martin-Green says the Toronto-shot Discovery established its own identity. “I’m so happy that we did that. We were able to create canon and still be connected (to the rest of the Star Trek series), but have our own vibe as well.”

Season 5 kicked off last week on Paramount+ with Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery embarking on a season-long mission to unravel a mystery involving an ancient power whose existence has been hidden for centuries.

The premiere episode featured a callback to an earlier Trek series that Martin-Green expects to be a hit with longtime fans of The Next Generation.

Article content

“It’s always nice when we can point to the other iterations and parts of the franchise. I know we’re in the year 3190, but we are still connected to the Trek history you know so well,” she says.

With the final episode in the can, Martin-Green says that Season 5 ends in a way that honours Discovery’s legacy as a show that ushered in a new era in Star Trek storytelling. “We went big. We kept going bigger with Discovery. We added some levity to it, we shifted the tone a bit, made it more fun and adventurous, but don’t let the fun and adventure fool you, because we’re going deep at the same time and we’re going big and epic,” she says.

Later this year, filming will kick off on the Discovery spinoff Starfleet Academy, which will shoot at the same Pinewood Toronto stages its predecessor did. Meanwhile, Yeoh has just finished work on the first Star Trek TV movie, Section 31, a spy thriller which the Oscar winner describes as “Mission: Impossible in space.”

Article content

Martin-Green, who rose to prominence as Sasha on The Walking Dead, says the experience on the show was life-changing to her, but also the rest of her castmates.

“I’ve grown in every way that you can imagine from being Burnham,” she says. “It changed me. It was so difficult, so thrilling at times, so impactful, so beautiful, so delightful. I praise God. It was necessary for my story, as Sonequa. But also for the entire Star Trek family. The way that it impacted us personally is how it will continue to impact those who take it in.”

And just like previous iterations in the Trek universe, no one is really gone for good, right?

“There’s no goodbyes,” Martin-Green says with a smile.

Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery is streaming now on Paramount+.

[email protected]

Article content