Star Trek: Discovery - Season 1 Review
This review of Star Trek: Discovery's first season is spoiler-free!
Star Trek has been a cultural icon for many years now. Going back to the original series of Star Trek, we had William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy anchoring a cast of characters traversing the stars in the U.S.S Enterprise. After the fantastic success of this show, we were introduced to a multitude of different shows and films in this universe ranging from The Next Generation to Deep Space 9. Today, these older series have developed cult followings that rival nearly any other large-scale fandom. So naturally, when a studio took note of this, they decided they wanted to get in on the action and create a NEW Star Trek series for this new generation of viewers. Enter Star Trek: Discovery, a prequel to the original cast of characters' journey. Would the series succeed in this new time period, or cause the Star Trek fandom to split in two?
As mentioned at the top of this article, Discovery's first season takes place during the war between the Federation and Klingons. Following the crew of the USS Discovery, and more specifically the story of Michael Burnham's journey from first officer to disgraced federation member, and eventually science officer aboard the Discovery. Exploring the time before Kirk, Burnham's story ties into their world more deeply than they know. When things go terribly wrong with a new transportation system the Discovery is tasked with creating, the group aboard the Discovery must work together to find a way home from their strange new world. Discovery's first season really is a two-part story. The majority of the first half of the season is focused on Discovery's scientific work and exploring new worlds, while it really feels like the second half was pulled out of a hat and forced to air. As a whole, the first half of the story is much more enjoyable.
For characters, Sonequa Martin-Green's Michael Burnham is a good, but not a great lead. Unfortunately for Martin-Green, the story focuses too heavily on the relationships with other characters around her. For example, a love interests she meets part way through the season really weighs down the midseason to a point where I struggled to watch episodes. When Burnham is away from those storylines though, Martin-Green shines. The other major lead without spoiling the plot is Captain Gabriel Lorka. Played by Jason Isaacs, Lorka is a confident and serious captain that is willing to do whatever is necessary. I loved the style of this character through the first half of the season, but again as the show reached its second half, he really just went in the wrong direction. For me personally, I believe he ended up being the most misused character of the entire season.
The best part of Discovery's first season is without a doubt the early-goings storytelling and the look of the show. Back when I compared Discovery's first 9 episodes to The Orville, one of my clear areas that this show had over the Orville was that it really feels like it's going to new and real worlds. We meet alien spores and new peoples that really feel like they're there. For a series that's meant to explore the stars, Discovery knows how to at least nail that one area. But in the end though, this series falters in the second half in a major way and it almost feels as though the series ran out of ideas and focused on shock-value (like some other series now).
In conclusion, Discovery rightfully earned its divisive reputation with a strange first season that trod the line between great and terrible. The cast of the show was its strength for long periods of time, but when the story tried to go to new places, we were left with a sad shell of what we expect from Star Trek. For those looking for a new Sci-Fi series to get into, Discovery is an interesting show that surely could bounce back in its second season. But if I were to tell you what to watch, I would most definitely recommend The Orville instead of t his. For those though that simply want to satisfy their Star Trek fix, Discovery most definitely scratches that itch, if only for it's beautiful new worlds.
