Author: Dave Nemetz / January 8, 2021, 1:04 PM PST

Related Stories Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Finale Review: Oh, Captain! My (new) captain! Star Trek: Discovery renewal season 4 at CBS All Access

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the finale of "Star Trek: Discovery" on Thursday.

Star Trek: Discovery received a well-deserved ranking boost at the end of the third season. The ending on Thursday witnessed Burnham leading the Discovery crew in a fierce battle to retake the ship from the evil Osyraa and save the Federation-she was eventually rewarded as the new captain of the Discovery. Now, she will lead the Discovery to transport the much-needed Lithium to a distant planet. Now the burning mystery has been solved. (Read our full review here.)

So what is the next step for Burnham and Discovery? (CBS All Access renewed the fourth season of Discovery in October.) TVLine chatted with Discovery co-host and executive producer Michele Paradis (wrote the finale) Burnham’s big promotion, we also asked her a few annoying questions. Will Stamets' resentment towards Burnham continue? Was Saru still a member of the crew of the Discovery because he was obviously absent at the end of the finale? (Also, we have to ask Grudge the cat.) Read on for the answer, Trekkies.

TV line | Michael was the captain at the end of the season, which has been a long time. We always knew she would get there, but why is it the right time for her to lead the ship? I just think it's time to do this. It felt like we took her on this incredible journey in three seasons, and we knew at the beginning of season 3 that this is where we wanted her to end. This is something I think people have been looking forward to since the beginning of the show, so when we started season 3, our conversation was: well, if that’s where we want her to go, how far can we take her At the top of the season, so she may have the most satisfying season 3 arc, but will this also reward her journey through the course of seasons 1 and 2? So let her have the opportunity to enter this new future, stay here for a year without other heroes on our Discovery, let her grow and change during that time, and then come back to find her suitable position, it feels like Suitable for the character's journey. In the course of season 3, this also allowed us to find a new level for the role, and of course, a new level for our amazing actress.

TV line | Therefore, under the leadership of Captain Burnham, the current mission of Discovery is to transport Lithium to distant planets. Is this the template for the fourth season? I can't really talk about Season 4 in detail, but from a thematic point of view, Season 3 is all about connecting and disconnecting and finding a way back to each other. In many cases, The Burn makes this impossible because civilizations have no way to connect with each other. So this feels like an important journey that began at the end of our season: how do we move forward in the process of reconnecting the world? I feel this is an important first step. Since they have a large amount of lithium, of course they have to be responsible for not repeating past mistakes and just overusing it, but it feels like this is the right place to end the season and play well for everything that is coming.

TV line | You ended the episode with a sentence from Gene Roddenberry and old-fashioned Star Trek theme music. Is this the way to connect the ending to those Trek roots? Yes, in everything we do, we have been thinking about the origin of the original Trek, and the origin of Gene Roddenberry, what he built in the original Trek series...it is hard to overstate its groundbreaking at the time. Of course, since then, it continues to affect all Trek series. Especially quotations, which came up later in the editing process. Considering what is happening in the world today, it feels like this will be the right message to end our season, especially from him.

TV line | You don't even know how suitable this week is. I know! The whole season did resonate in a way that we obviously never expected. When we wrote all this, there were so many disagreements and so many disconnects, but we never foresaw the arrival of a pandemic. So this happened at this time, when we had already dealt with some of the things we were experiencing at the time on the subject, but we are now experiencing more intense...I think this can be traced back to some of the roots of the original series and By observing what is happening in society and using science fiction as a way to reflect some of its content, he talked and commented with it and said, "The challenges we face, we can overcome them. It doesn't have to be as divided as it is now." Of course, All of this still resonates today.

TV Line | Everyone laughed at the end, but I did notice that Stamets was a little bit snubbed of Michael. It seems that he still holds a grudge against her because she puts Xie in danger. How serious is the crack? I think this is because they will pass in time. For Stamets, this is a very emotional and very personal thing: "Wait a minute, we have to go back and pause for them? We can't do that!" Burnham, of course, absolutely loves Calber and Adila And Saru, but he also knew that if they made this choice right now, there would not be another federation that could come back. For Stamets, this is just a personal need. Thankfully, she and the staff found a way to do both, but obviously he still has some emotional reactions to it. But I hope he can get through it.

By the way, this is one of the things we want to do in season 3, is to make sure that our characters, no matter what they are going through, their emotional reactions are grounded, and we are not bragging about past things. So it feels very realistic for Stamets to have that kind of emotional reaction in the moment. It feels like a challenge for our crew to come to this new future and make an emergency landing, which is not what they expected. So we want to try to find a way to look at those very real emotional reactions in science fiction stories.

TV line | Finally I didn't see Saru on the bridge. Just to confirm: he is still a member of the crew? Can we expect to see him in the fourth season? Yes, he will definitely come back. For him, the end of the season is to return to Kaminar to help Su'Kal, so in the end he is not there, but we will not let Doug Jones go anywhere. He will definitely return in season 4.

TV Line | The book has had a big impact this season, as has his cat Grudge, and it looks like they are part of the exploration team's progress. What did he bring to Burnham's role this season, and where do these two men go? First of all, David [Ajala] is extraordinary. We are lucky to have him join us this season. I want to enter this season and we know we want to explore different aspects of Burnham. We want to give her a chance to grow and change, and give Sonequa [Martin-Green] a chance to play new things with her. In the first few seasons, her relationship with Taylor was a bit strained... "Energetic" is a mild term. This is very turbulent. This season, when we started talking about Book, we knew that we wanted him to be someone who can show her another side. The tone of this relationship may be different, and it will feel interesting and relaxed. She didn't have much fun before. [Laughs] So we want to give her that, and see: What does this bring to her, and how does this change her? I think the relationship between the two of them, they can push each other in new ways and help each other grow, it's really exciting to discover this throughout the season. So I think entering season 4, they will definitely have a new place.

Then of course, you mentioned Grudge, he is the breakthrough star of any Trek series so far. I think at some point, we just need to name this ship after her. [Laughs] USS Grudge. Spoiler alert, season 4: We will change the name of Discovery. That's great. I like how people react to that cat! It is a great cat.

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