Captain’s Log, Stardate 75360.3, we find ourselves taking a small break from our other reviews to take a journey into the outer depths of space with a new group of Starfleet Officers on board a ship called the USS Discovery…
Sorry, I couldn’t resist doing that introduction, today’s review will be covering the new series’s first season and the addition in the Star Trek Franchise: Star Trek Discovery. Created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman, it is set Ten Years before the original Star Trek Series, Commander Michael Brown’s (Sonequa Martin-Green) actions have caused an all-out war between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, and the death of her Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). Now an officer turned mutineer, she finds herself and the crew of the Discovery looking for a way to end the war and save lives.
When at first glance, I was skeptical about this series because there were so many changes, for example, newer looking Starfleet uniforms and the one factor that stood out most of all was that the Klingons looked different, something I wasn’t used to speaking as a fan from The Next Generation Era. At one point this was one of the things that made people go into a Nerd Rage and cry out “THIS ISN’T MY STAR TREK!” when there was already raging over bringing Star Wars to a new generation of fans.
Truth be told, this is different from your parent’s Star Trek, if you’re looking for something that is more in line with the Original or The Next Generation then you might be better off watching the reruns because with Discovery there isn’t a monster of the week or many space anomaly adventures but it does offer something completely different for audiences and if you’re open to a franchise-changing for a Modern Audience then this show fills that spot. While there are some plot holes like most first seasons have but at the end of the day it turned out to be a series that was needed, maybe darker than what its predecessors were but it traded idealism for realism, but the hope and optimism remains.
Like its predecessors before it, The Discovery’s first season took on real-life issues such as PTSD, Politics, Trauma, and of course, War. From Burnham’s mutiny and the development of the DASH drive to getting lost in Terran space and Lorca’s true identity, it amazes me how much excitement and suspense it can pack for an hour-long show, not to mention the random easter eggs that are in plain sight. This might sound crazy to include in a review but I’ll say it anyway, I was glad to see Mudd make his return, one of the characters of the Original Series I enjoyed seeing brought in a new era.
Final Grade:
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