It’s been 12 long years, but Star Trek has finally returned to the small screen. Discovery, set some ten years prior to the original series, stars The Walking Dead veteran, Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham.
The series follows the crew of the starship Discovery, the only ship in the Federation with spore drive technology, which allows them to appear virtually instantaneously at their destination and is what Federation believes will be the deciding factor in their war against the Klingons.
As mentioned previously, Discovery is set about a decade before the adventures of the original Enterprise crew. It’s supposed to be in alignment with that series but honestly, I feel that the overall look and tone strays from the classic continuity and appears to be a hybrid of the J.J. Abrams Trek films and that of a re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica. Although I did enjoy this new approach to the series, I can also see long time Trek fans having a hard time getting on board with Discovery.
From what I can see, CBS really wants this to be a must watch T.V. show, and it really looks like no expense was spared in the making Discovery. From the opening credit sequence, to the ships, sets, props and visual effects, the show looks great. In a visual sense, the show is a dream come true for fans, we’re finally given a series that has a huge budget backing it up.
But, here is where I find the series lacking and believe will get torn apart by the Star Trek fan base. I can understand that the creative team of Discovery used the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica to pitch this new series but, that may just be Discovery’s Achilles heel. Star Trek has always been about hope and an optimistic view of the future. Discovery tends to be much bleaker, which again goes against everything we love about Star Trek.
Well now that Star Trek Discovery has been picked up for a second season, I really hope the creative team goes back and embraces Gene Rodenberry’s positive view of mankind’s future. The series doesn’t have to give up telling us the origins of the Federation/Klingon war, because I really want to explore that part of Trek lore, just not at the expense of the foundation of what Star Trek was build on.