‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Star Sonequa Martin-Green on the Show’s Unexpected Final Season, the ‘Pressure’ of Representation and Taking the ‘Trek’ Cruise

variety.com:

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Sonequa Martin-Green’s first memories of “Star Trek” are of her parents watching it on TV — but really, they’re of Nichelle Nichols. “I don’t even know as a child if I knew her real name, but I knew, here’s this beautiful Black woman,” Martin-Green says. “This is Uhura.” Those memories — and that instinctive sense of the character’s significance — have stayed with Martin-Green through her seven years making “Star Trek: Discovery” as the first Black woman to headline a series in the venerated science fiction franchise. “Star Trek” had been absent from television for 12 years when “Discovery” launched in 2017, but as the flagship Paramount+ series premieres its fifth and final season on April 4, the franchise has the most robust slate of TV titles in its history, with a new show, the “Discovery” spin-off “Starfleet Academy,” set to begin filming later this year in the same Pinewood Toronto soundstages as its predecessor.

When Martin-Green and her castmates shot Season 5, they didn’t know that it would be the final mission for “Discovery”; the show was well into post-production on the season when Paramount+ made the announcement.

But in an uncommon show of goodwill, the streamer and CBS Studios carved out an additional three-day shoot for the series finale so “Discovery” could have a proper send off. “We wanted to conclude on a high note, and it was so important to honor the series’ incredible legacy and to give it the final season it deserves,” says Jeff Grossman, EVP of Paramount+ programming.