Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: Michelle Paradise, paramount, star trek, star trek: discovery

Star Trek: Discovery Showrunner Introduces Final Season's New Faces

Star Trek: Discovery Showrunner/EP Michelle Paradise introduces the final season's newest additions: Moll, L'ak, and Captain Raynor.

Star Trek: Discovery showrunner and executive producer Michelle Paradise has been there since day one and guiding the journey through its fifth and final season as the first series to explore the franchise's distant future in the 32nd century. The season's most prominent additions are Captain Raynor (Callum Keith Rennie) and new villains Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis). Discovery originally began as the second The Original Series prequel (after Enterprise) before its dramatic jump as a sequel at the end of season two when the ship time travels forward in time. Paradise spoke to Screen Rant about what we can expect from the new characters and how it ties into season five.

Star Trek Discovery: Who are Moll, L'ak, and Captain Raynor?

"We have Moll and L'ak, Elias Toufexis and Eve Harlow, wonderful actors. They are our antagonists for the season. In developing those characters, we talked about them as kind of a Bonnie and Clyde dynamic we wanted," Paradise said. "We hadn't done bad guys that were that were a couple before. So we wanted to try something new this season. And we also thought it was very important to, of course, as with all of our characters, make them multi-dimensional. And in the case of a couple, you want to understand what is driving them. What is it they want? You want to understand the depth of the love between them and where that comes from. So I think those two are an interesting addition to the series. And I think people will unexpectedly find themselves maybe even rooting for them, even though they're up against our heroes."

From the way the Discovery EP describes Rennie's character, could Captain Raynor of the U.S.S. Antares be another breakout character like Shaw from Picard? "And then Callum Keith Rennie, who plays Rayner, is also a wonderful addition. He comes in as Captain Rayner. And I don't want to say too much about him except that he is a bit of an antagonist with Burnham [but] not in the bad guy sense at all. He's a good guy character. But we will see Burnham grow through her interactions with him in a different way than we've seen her before. And so, that's always a question with characters: If you're going to bring in someone new, how do they impact our existing characters? How do they help highlight those character arcs for our existing folks? And all three of [them] do that in really interesting ways this season."

Season five of Star Trek: Discovery, which stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Emily Coutts, and David Ajala, premieres on April 4th on Paramount+.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!