'Star Trek: Discovery' Executive Producer Explains Why the Finale Was Extended

Star Trek: Discovery kicked off its second season finale last Thursday with the first part of “Such Sweet Sorrow.” The season concludes this Thursday with the second part of the episode, but it wasn’t always meant to be that way. Writer and co-executive producer (and soon to be co-showrunner) Michelle Paradise stepped into The Ready Room aftershow following last week’s episode. She explained that the finale was supposed to be a single episode up until the creative team realized a single episode couldn’t do their story justice. This seems to explain the extra episode added to Discovery’s original 13-episode season two order.

“What’s interesting about that is it was originally just supposed to be one episode,” Paradise said. “We had thirteen episodes for the season and in trying to wrap up all the storylines and all the mythology, we developed the story and the story was huge and the outline was huge and we realized it is not one episode of television. And in order to do everything justice that we wanted to do – including all of the really great character moments that we wanted to have – so, fortunately, our network partners said ‘have fun with another episode.’ And so, we did.

“There was so much story to tell and so much to wrap up and we really wanted to honor the characters’ journeys over the course of the season and to try to squeeze that into one episode, we just couldn’t have done it justice.”

Paradise remained tight-lipped about what’s to come in the second part of the episode, revealing only that it will follow through on the foreshadowed battle. “I can say that there will be a battle, because [Saru] says ‘prepare for battle.’ So if we didn’t have a battle, we would be really bad writers,” she said. “You don’t want to end an episode teeing that up, and then not doing it. There will be a battle What I can say is that the mysteries that we have been exploring over the course of this season will be answered in what I feel is a satisfying way. The character journeys that we have been on will also be addressed in what will hopefully be a satisfying way as well...And more adventures to come.”

Paradise also praised the hard work put into the finale by everyone involved. It’s an exciting episode,” she said. “I’m so excited for people to see it. I just have to say for everyone, the whole two-part finale, everyone just brought so much to it. our cast, our crew.

“You talked earlier about how it’s basically a movie shoot, but we had TV time to do this movie shoot and our crew worked just so hard, day in, day out. Our actors were incredible. They brought their A game – A plus, A plus, plus, plus – every single day to every single moment. [Olatunde Osunsanmi], he directed the two-part finale and just did an absolutely tremendous job with it. Olatunde, you’re awesome. And enough cannot be said about our editors and our VFX people, everyone in the post department. I mean, when you watch it, it’s everyone coming together every day and giving their best work and it shows on screen. Like, every part of it shows on screen. I couldn’t be more proud of how it turned out and how everyone turned out and how everyone worked together and made it happen, willing it into existence in a very tight time frame. It was just, it was fantastic. Kudos to all of you.”

Are you excited to see the second season finale of Star Trek: Discovery? Let us know in the comments! New Star Trek: Discovery episodes become available to stream Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS All Access.

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