After years of waiting and delays, Star Trek: Discovery is finally here. Is it the disaster that been rumored? Is it the next bold new chapter in Star Trek’s history? Most importantly, is it worth spending $5.99 a month for?
The answer is no, yes, and is depends on how cheap you are. Seriously, you’ll spend $8.99 on a cheeseburger meal, but not $5.99 for a month of Star Trek?
Are you just that stupid?
Ten years before the original series, we join Lieutenant Michael Burnham of the USS Discov… I mean the USS Shenzhou. A human raised by Vulcans who appears to finally be letting her hair down after years of that non-emotional logical stuff, Burnham finds herself on the front lines of a brand new conflict with the Klingons when her ship stumbles upon an enemy ship waiting in a debris field. I could recap everything, but let’s just say that some mistakes are made, things explode, lots of people die, and Burnham ends up all the worse by the time the inaugural episodes are over. Most Star Trek relies on hope, but it’s pretty clear that this Star Trek is going to tear this poor woman down before building her back up again.
It’s also unusual as the title ship of the series doesn’t even make an appearance. That would be like the first episode of The Next Generation without the Enterprise or starting a Trek series with a pop song.
Okay, all kidding aside, Star Trek: Discovery is good. You can all relax. While the worth of the series isn’t readily knowable as we’re only two episodes in, Discovery has a lot of things working for it. For one, it is heavily serialized, allowing it to tell an overarching story without worrying about wrapping everything up with a bow at the end of an hour. As I said, this is all a trial by fire and, by the time episode two is over, everything is burned away and the thud of a life falling apart echoes through the end credits with all the appropriate somberness.
Discovery boasts some great characterization for a series only just starting out. While Sonequa Martin-Green is amazing as Burnham and the always lovely Michelle Yeoh was great as Captain Georgiou, I have to say that my favorite character was Doug Jone’s Saru mostly because we haven’t seen a character quite like him in Star Trek… cautious to the point of cowardice, sarcastic to a fault… he was a lot of fun to watch and, excuse me if this sounds weird, Doug Jone’s has an incredible body… not that way, you perverts, but in the way that his entire impossibly skinny body simply looks alien.
Personally, I think he is one.
So, yes… it’s good. It’s well shot, well acted, and well written. The characters interacted with each other in a way that almost made me believe they’d been playing opposite each other for years.
Don’t listen to the entitled Star Trek fans, Star Trek: Discovery is good. Time will tell if it becomes great, but for now it’s good and, after a 16 year drought of Trek on television, I’m elated that it’s back and looking better than ever.
Jason Gaston 