The fifth/final season of Star Trek: Discovery makes its way onto home video this week, providing a solid conclusion to the series. As the fourth season came to a close, the U.S.S. Discovery crew found themselves investigating a Dark Matter Anomaly that hsad been wiping out planets, and was on a collision course with Earth. It turned out that this DMA was the result of an alien species mining the material they needed to power their hypershield, and they were unaware of its side effects. Book had gone rogue, working with Tarka, plotting to wipe out the DMA after it had destroyed their home planets. The Discovery crew ultimately got the Ten-C to agree to stop using the DMA, but their spore drive had been lost in the process. Once the crew returned home, Book was reassigned to community service, helping refugees displaced by the DMA, and we learned that Earth was planning to rejoin the Federation. Meanwhile, Tilly also left the Discovery to teach at Starfleet.

As the final season opens, Kovich (David Cronenberg) sends Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and her U.S.S. Discovery crew on a classified Red Directive mission to retrieve a mysterious artifact hidden inside a 800-year-old Romulan vessel. However, when they arrive, they discover that a pair of bounty hunters, Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis), have beat them to it. However, this is just the first of several pieces and puzzles that need to be solved to complete the map that will unlock the secrets to the powers used by the Progenitors to create life itself. The Federation wants to prevent any chances of this power falling into the wrong hands, and so the U.S.S. Discovery is not the only ship they have sent. Captain Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) has also been tasked with the same mission, and at first he and Burnham butt heads. However, the mission quickly becomes all-hands-on-deck, with Rayner joining the Discovery crew, Tilly (Mary Wiseman) being brought back on as a science consultant, and Book (David Ajala) returning to the ship due to his past as a courier and unique connection to one of the bounty hunters. Meanwhile, this is also Saru’s (Doug Jones) final mission on the ship as he is planning to resign from Starfleet and accept a commission as a Federation ambassador (and also formalize his bond with President T’Rina). And so begins an exciting race across the galaxy to solve the clues, uncover the secrets of the Progenitors’s powers, and keep them from falling into the wrong hands. But can anyone really be trusted with wielding this greatest treasure in the galaxy, the control of life and death itself/!

As the Discovery crew goes on this season-long story arc to solve the puzzles and find the pieces to the map, we also get some nice character growth and development along the way. Much of the season seems to be focused on relationships, such as Burnham and Book, Saru and T’Rina, or Adira (Blu del Barrio) and Gray, and all of these people trying to figure out what their futures together look like, and accepting that things may not be as they had planned. We also see characters like Tilly and Culber (Wilson Cruz) doing their own soul searching about their futures, and Stamets (Anthony Rapp) trying to figure out his purpose now that the spore drive is gone. The season brings in some great new characters, the Boonie and Clyde duo Moll and L’ak, who originally just seem like this thrill-seeking bounty hunter couple out for a quick score, but as their backstory is revealed, we learn there is more to their situation. Callum Keith Rennie is also a wonderful new addition as Rayner—I would watch a whole spin-off with this character! Raynor starts of as this gruff, stubborn, no-nonsense Kellerun, who’s been through a lot, and doesn’t really want to be friends/chummy with the crew. His approach differs tremendously from Burnham’s and Tilly’s, who make it a point to get to know personal details about their crew members. But over the course of the season, we see Raynor grow and start to appreciate that maybe this other approach has merit.

I really enjoyed this final season—the nature of the season-long story arc lends itself nicely to a mission-of-the-week format as the crew tries to find the next piece of the map or solve the next puzzle. This takes viewers to some fun and interesting places, such as the crew getting stuck in a bit of a time loop (easily my favorite episode of the season), or Culber getting to experience a symbiont takeover, or Tilly going on an undercover off-world mission gone awry. The season also brought in some entertaining new characters/actors, one of whom quickly became a favorite.

Even after the season-long storyline was wrapped up, the series used another 30 minutes or so in the extended finale to explore the future of these characters in order to give proper closure to the series in a satisfying way. While this final season does give all of the main characters a chance to shine at some point, like I said in my season four review, I could have used a lot more Jett (Tig Notaro), who is one of my favorite characters, and who always steals every scene she is in with her sarcastic, matter-of-fact humor. She only appears in a few of the fifth season episodes, but always made me smile.

CBS Home Entertainment’s Blu-ray release of this final season looks and sounds amazing. The video is presented with a pristine picture that looks quite clean and detailed throughout. There are a lot of special effects in this series, but they look great and really transport the viewer to these other worlds. The Blu-ray’s audio presentation is also excellent, making extensive use of the surround and stereo channels to provide a fully-immersive experience. The general ambiance of the ship really comes to life, and whenever there is gunfire or explosions, you feel right like you’re right in the middle of the action.

The season’s ten episodes are spread across 4 discs, which are placed on trays in a multi-disc HD keepcase, covered with a glossy cardboard slipcover. The release is loaded with bonus material, including over 90 minutes of interesting behind-the-scenes featurettes with the cast and crew, plus a short deleted scenes, an audio commentary on the series finale, and a fun gag reel.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (9:36:34)

• All 10 episodes of the final season:
  Disc 1 (2:47:01): “Red Directive”, “Under the Twin Moons”, “Jinaal”
  Disc 2 (2:44:30): “Face the Strange”, “Mirrors”, “Whistlespeak”
  Disc 3 (2:39:30): “Erigah”, “Labyrinths”, “Lagrange Point”
  Disc 4 (1:25:33): “Life, Itself”
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.35:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, German 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish (Spain) 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Italian 5.1 Dolby Digital, Japanese 5.1 Dolby Digital
• Subtitles: English SDH, Danish, German, Spanish (Spain), French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish

Extras:
All of the bonus material can be found on disc 4. Items exclusive to this home entertainment release are marked with an *.

• Audio Commentary – “Life, Itself”* (1:25:33)
  Executive Producer Michelle Paradise, director Olatunde Osunsanmi, and stars Sonequa Martin-Green (“Michael Burnham”) & David Ajala (“Cleveland Booker”) provide a fun and entertaining commentary track for the series finale. They have an interesting discussion about the series in general while also sharing lots of behind-the-scenes stories about filming the episode. The audio quality isn’t the best—it sounds like most of them are calling in rather than recording together in a professional studio. Subtitles are offered in English, German, Spanish (Spain), French, Italian & Japanese.
• Deleted Scene – “Life, Itself”* (:41)
  This short deleted scene finds Saru and Commander Nhan having a walk-and-talk about relationships before heading off on their mission.
• A Team Effort (20:04)
  The cast and crew talk about the collaboration between departments involved in putting the show together, combining the virtual and practical sets, creating the new virtual alien environments based on real locations, bringing the sand runners to life, filming in the rain, and more. Includes concept artwork, behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with executive producer Michelle Paradise, production designer Doug McCullough, supervising producer Jason Zimmerman, art director Jim Goodall, VFX supervisor Alex Wood, set decorator Ian Wheatley, assistant set decorator Summer Gaal, executive producer Olatunde Osunsanmi, supervising art director Matt Middleton, special effects coordinator Darcy Callaghan, stunt coordinator Christopher McGuire, executive producer Alex Kurtzman, and stars Sonequa Martin-Green & Eve Harlow (“Moll”).
• Discovery‘s Creative Force (9:50)
  Executive Producer Olatunde Osunsanmi talks about realizing his dreams working on the series, while other members of the cast and crew discuss working with the director/showrunner. Includes behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with executive producer Alex Kurtzman, supervising producer Jason Zimmerman, executive producer Michelle Paradise, and star Sonequa Martin-Green.
• Being Michael Burnham* (13:15)
  Star Sonequa Martin-Green talks about playing this character for five seasons, aging her up for the finale, saying goodbye to the show and the cast/crew, and more. Includes clips, behind-the-scenes footage of the makeup/aging-up process, and the final set goodbyes.
• Character Development* (23:31)
  The cast and executive producer Michelle Paradise discuss how several of the characters (Stamets, Culber, Tilly & Saru) and their relationships have grown and changed over the course of the series. Includes interviews with stars Anthony Rapp (“Paul Stamets”), Sonequa Martin-Green, Wilson Cruz (“Hugh Culber”), Mary Wiseman (“Sylvia Tilly”) & Doug Jones (“Saru”).
• Star Trek: Discovery: The Voyage of Season 5 (38:57)
  The cast and crew discuss some of the major plot points, developments and new characters of season 5, filming the action and stunt sequences, and more. Includes behind-the-scenes concept artwork and pre-viz footage, and interviews with executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Olatunde Osunsanm, Michelle Paradise, Eugene Roddenberry & Trevor Roth, property master Mario Moreira, stunt coordinator Christopher McGuire, supervising producer Jason Zimmerman, VFX supervisor Alex Wood, and stars David Ajala, Callum Keith Rennie (“Rayner”), Eve Harlow, Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, Blu Del Barrio (“Adira Tal”) & Sonequa Martin-Green.
• Gag Reel* (3:53)
  Fun with the cast and crew as they flub and forget lines, perform stunts, and have fun on set.

Final Thoughts:

The final season of Star Trek: Discovery is another satisfying 10-episode adventure that not only provides a self-contained season-long arc, but also entertaining missions of the week, and some interesting character growth for all of the main characters. The season also brings in some fun new characters, and provides a satisfying conclusion to the series for fans who have been watching all along. CBS’s Blu-ray release looks and sounds excellent, and includes hours of bonus material that is sure to please longtime fans of the series. This is an easy recommendation.