Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: Emily Coutts, Michelle Paradise, Oyin Oladejo, paramount, star trek: discovery
Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 EP Explains Owosekun, Detmer Being MIA
Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise explains why we didn't see Oyin Oladejo & Emily Coutts' characters as much in season five.
In Star Trek: Discovery's fifth and final season, there have been two characters with a considerable lack of screen time: Oyin Oladejo's Lt. Cmdr Joann Owosekun and Emily Coutts' Lr. Cmdr. Keyla Detmer only appeared in three episodes: the season premiere episode, "Red Directive," episode four, "Face the Strange," and the series finale, "Life, Itself," in the final bridge reunion scene. Showrunner and executive producer Michelle Paradise responded to a fan who noticed their lack of presence in the season.
Star Trek: Discovery Showrunner Michelle Paradise on Owosekun & Detmer's Lack of Season 5 Screen Time
"#StarTrekDiscovery, you've left too soon. This season has been pretty great. They made the finale work. Still gotta know why Detmer and Owo were benched for most of the season," the fan wrote on social media. "We would NEVER bench Oyin and Emily! (Owo and Detmer) 😊 We love the characters and the actors who play them… they're wonderful humans and so talented. They had other projects during that time, so we got them when we could," Paradise, who wrote the finale, responded. Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Lt. Cmdr Asha (Christina Dixon) primarily took over operations during the final season, aside from the aforementioned three episodes. Coutts appeared in 52 episodes, while Oladejo appeared in 49 of the 65 episodes in all five seasons.
Discovery was the first Star Trek series created in the Paramount+ era and intended as a flagship series as part of its launch in 2017. What started as another The Original Series spinoff changed when it leaped into the 32nd century in season three, giving way to Strange New Worlds to pick up its narrative as its spinoff with Anson Mount as the fourth actor to play Captain Christopher Pike to lead the pre-Kirk U.S.S. Enterprise. With Discovery wrapping, it also will lead to the series' second spinoff in the 32nd century-set Starfleet Academy that will star Holly Hunter.