Star Trek: Discovery is ending and it’s long past due

Paramount+ is ending Star Trek: Discovery after season 5.

Star Trek: Discovery never found its footing in the wider Star Trek universe, despite launching as CBS All-Accesses big new show. It was supposed to carry the fledgling streaming service at a time when everyone was all in on streaming. Companies were investing hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars into these services, expecting huge returns. For the most part, however, that hasn’t happened.

Discovery was given every chance to succeed in the early streaming years. Debuting in 2017, the show was marketed as hard as anything at the time, but it never achieved the same universal acclaim as Strange New Worlds did.

It was a niche show that catered to niche fans. It was constantly involved in on-set and behind-the-scenes drama, with rotating showrunners, lawsuits, and just poor writing with even worse characters. Discovery was finally canceled by Paramount+ and in turn, delayed the final season until 2024.

Discovery’s reason for the cancellation has not been revealed as of yet, but after a moderate season three reboot, the show would once again lose its traction in season four and remains largely one of the most unliked shows in Star Trek history.

Why Was Star Trek: Discovery canceled?

Streaming is no different than television in the sense that if a show is making them money, no matter how bad it is, they’ll keep it around. Even if the show’s returns are shrinking, but can still be deemed profitable, they’ll keep it around.

Considering Paramount+ is struggling to make waves and has been since the original service first launched in 2017, the price of Discovery has just become too high. There are rumors that the show was carrying an $8.5 to potential $10 million per episode. With the decline in revenue for streaming and the lack of subscribers, Paramount+ clearly saw that the show wasn’t making them money anymore, same as Picard, and opted to cancel the series.

Now, Star Trek has had two canceled shows, and it isn’t looking good for those shows “in production”.