Michelle Paradise Confirms Discovery Finale Kirk Reference, and Not Much Else

A word of warning, landlubbers: Here be spoilers...for the finale of Star Trek: Discovery Season 2.

The dramatic final episode of this season ended with an emotional goodbye. Spock, ready in his shuttle and intending to head back to Discovery and go with his sister into the future - found himself stranded, the shuttle having been damaged by shrapnel. As Spock and Michael Burnham realize that this is their final goodbye, she asks him to “find his opposite”. For longtime Star Trek fans, this exchange was a clear nod to The Original Series, and helped link back to the Spock we have known for decades.

And it turns out that nod was deliberate. Cinemablend points to a recent interview in which series producer Michelle Paradise discussed the end of the season with Entertainment Tonight. When asked directly if Spock and Burnham’s conversation was an allusion to Kirk, Paradise said “Absolutely. That is definitely Kirk.”

Fans hoping for more TOS cameos in Discovery shouldn’t hold their breath, though. In the finale, Discovery travelled 950 years into the future. As Cinemablend points out: “While that will solve the problem some fans have had with the series butting up against the original canon...it will also significantly lessen the chances that any characters from the original series will ever appear again.”

Speaking of canon, it’s clear that adherence to and consistency with canon was a driving force behind the conclusion of season 2.

In the aforementioned interview with Entertainment Tonight, Paradise was asked whether season three could be seen as a reset of sorts for Discovery. She said that wrapping up the story and showing the crew lying about what happened is protection for Discovery, and a method of tying its story back into what we know historically about the Star Trek Universe.

Said Paradise: “It was about answering the season two story, eliminating the threat of Control so that we, as viewers, understand Control has been eliminated. The goal of this season was to take care of this problem and we have taken care of this problem successfully. And at the same time, that also puts us in line with canon.”

She couldn’t say much about season 3 (as one might expect), except to say: “I'm super excited to see where our characters go in the future and hopefully everyone else will be too.”