Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s treasure hunt touches upon themes and bears fascinating similarities to William Shatner’s Star Trek V movie.
Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5
Summary
- Star Trek: Discovery season 5 explores deep themes akin to Star Trek V, focusing on the ultimate quest for meaning beyond duty.
- Captain Burnham’s quest for the Progenitors’ treasure mirrors Sybok’s search for God, bringing intriguing parallels.
- L’ak in Discovery season 5 is reminiscent of Sybok, both outcasts seeking freedom and answers through the Progenitors’ technology.
Some of William Shatner’s lofty ideas for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier live again in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 which, while not a remake, touches upon similar themes. Star Trek V‘s story where the USS Enterprise is hijacked by Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) brother Sybok (Lawrence Luckinbill) and goes on a quest to find God was conceived by director William Shatner. Star Trek V was a critical and box office disaster, but it did touch upon a desire for Star Trek, which is about exploring the infinite universe, to ask the biggest questions of all about the meaning of life.
Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “The Chase”, not Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, was the basis for Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s hunt for the ancient treasure of the Progenitors. Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the USS Discovery seek to close the circle that began in TNG and find the technology that gave birth to humanoid life in Star Trek‘s galaxy. Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is not at all like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when it comes to structure or execution, but the parallel themes to William Shatner’s tome are fascinating to consider because Discovery season 5 is more than about finding ancient and powerful technology.
William Shatner’s conclusion in Star Trek V is that God resides in our hearts.
Star Trek: Discovery’s Treasure Hunt Is Burnham’s Search For God
Does the Progenitors’ treasure need a starship?
Star Trek: Discovery season 5 presents the Progenitors’ treasure as an all-powerful technology that can create life, but for Captain Michael Burnham, the mission to find the Progenitors’ technology is really about finding God. Just as Sybok wanted to find the literal God in the fabled world of Sha Ka Ree, who turned out to be a malevolent alien posing as God (George Murphy), Burnham is also looking for her version of the Ultimate Truth. Burnham isn’t seeking God, per se, but she does want answers to her life’s biggest questions. In short, Michael wants to know what more is there?
Burnham needs to know what her life means beyond her dedication to her Starfleet duty.
Captain Burnham expressed her inner conflict at the start of Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 2, “Under the Twin Moons.” Michael’s governing purpose is “the mission”, and she found her value and self-worth by literally saving the galaxy over and over. But Burnham needs to know what her life means beyond her dedication to her Starfleet duty. Burnham’s quest for the Progenitors’ treasure goes beyond what it means to the United Federation of Planets. No longer in a relationship with Cleveland Booker (David Ajala), Michael feels incomplete simply being Captain of the USS Discovery and the Progenitors’ treasure, she hopes, will show her the meaning of her life – answers similar to what Sybok sought in Star Trek V.
Unlike Michael Burnham, however, Sybok was also driven by hubris and the idea that he was God’s chosen one in Star Trek V.
L’ak Is Star Trek: Discovery’s Version Of Sybok
L’ak is a Breen outcast like Sybok was to the Vulcans
While they don’t resemble each other on the surface, L’ak (Elias Toufexis) is Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s rough analogue for Star Trek V’s Sybok. What the Breen L’ak and the Vulcan Sybok have in common is that both are outcasts from their people. Sybok was a Vulcan heretic and criminal who embraced emotion, which ostracized him from his family and culture. L’ak is essentially the same; he rejected the Breen’s warlike and xenophobic culture, which he fundamentally disagrees with. L’ak’s “God” – his singular focus and desire – is Moll (Eve Harlow), the human courier he fell in love with, and they both desperately seek the Progenitors’ treasure because it represents their freedom.
L’ak and Moll hope to trade the Progenitors’ technology to the Breen in exchange for lifting the Erigah, or blood bounty, from their heads.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier sincerely wanted to ask the biggest questions about God and life, but multiple mistakes doomed William Shatner’s Star Trek directorial effort. Still, the desire to find God has been a common Star Trek theme masked in euphemisms like V’Ger’s quest to find his Creator in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The Progenitors’ technology, which can not only create life but, theoretically, even resurrect the dead, is Star Trek: Discovery‘s version of finding “God” and the all-important answers they hope for. When it’s all said and done, Star Trek: Discovery season 5 may successfully complete the mission William Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier started back in 1989.
