Review: Star Trek Discovery Season 1

Posted August 15, 2018 by Lola in Review, Sci-Fi / 12 Comments

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Star Trek: Discovery

Description:
Star Trek: Discovery follows the voyages of Starfleet on their missions to discover new worlds and new lifeforms, and one Starfleet officer who must learn that to truly understand all things alien, you must first understand yourself.

Description copied form the Star Trek website

This is one of the best tv series I watched in a long time. Not only does it look visually stunning, it was an amazing well plotted storyline, great characters and two romances I was totally rooting for. Story wise the whole plot line is well so well done. There are a lot of twists and turns and it kept my attention and kept me wanting to watch more. The episodes also flow very nicely from one to another. Everything is relevant. Things happen so they have the most impact, but also in a way that makes sense. The amount of foreshadowing is totally impressive and so well done. You don’t realize it’s foreshadowing until a twist hits and then suddenly all the clues and hints make sense. We did manage to guess one plot twist, but that’s more because we were discussing the episode and together pieced things together from the hints. Most other twists were a surprise.

The series has a very cinematic feel, that’s the thing that stood out the most at first. It all looks great and the pacing and the way events follow up on the others is very cinematic like. The pacing is more like multiple movies than a tv series. But it’s great. The story is pretty fast paced, but not in a rushed sense. Things just happen a bit faster, which also adds to the addictive feeling this series has. I am totally impressed with how they plotted this series and how all the events progressed.

This series is also full with awesome characters. In the first episode we already meet Michael Burnham, who is basically the main character of this series, if you can even speak of one main character. I thought she was an interesting character, she has grown up in a vulcan household and can come across as a bit emotionless at first, but quickly it becomes obvious that she has a human side as well. I liked how she tries to stay true to herself and also how many difficult decisions she has to make. I also like how at the end of the season she has come full circle and changed a lot compared to the start.

And while I like Michael and she’s a great character, I might like the supporting cast even more. Lieutenant Staments quickly turned into one of my favorite character. He is so grumpy and prickly at first, but he undergoes a bit of a character change and warms up and becomes more jovial later on. I also like how we really get a feel for his character in how he handles certain situations. Like the whole plot line with the tardigrade and what he did there or in the time look episode and also later on in how he reacted to certain events. I also liked how enthusiastic and passionate he is about his work. Then there is Tilly, who is just such an endearing character. I liked how she becomes friends with Michael She seems a bit unsure of herself and has this adorable trait where she sort of keeps talking. She undergoes some character change throughout the series and there is a scene toward the mid later half of the series that was so funny when she had to take on a certain role. I also felt like she was very open minded, forgiving and able to see things from another perspective. She has some great insights in some situations. I also liked Saru, one of the alien characters in the series. I liked how he managed to look a bit alien and how that shines through in his behavior. His interactions with Burnham are quite interesting and I liked seeing how things changed between them depending on the things that happened in the series.

Then there’s doctor Culbert. He doesn’t has as big of a role as other doctors in star trek, but he plays an important role in some scenes and I liked his character. He seemed to have his heart on the right right place and it was interesting how he refused to do this as that went against what he believed in. Lorca is an interesting character, although I can’t quite say I liked him, but he was quite realistic and interesting. He comes across as being a bit manipulative, everything to achieve what he wants and what he wants he gets. He can be a bit ruthless, but it also was interesting to see how he handled things and how he did seem to care about the crew and he had his own demons as well. I kinda kept going back and forth about what to think of his character. Ash Tyler is also one of those interesting character. At first he seemed okay enough, but at the end of the season he truly turned into an interesting character. It was interesting to see how he dealt with all that he’s been through and him trying to find a way to deal with all of that.

I also thought L’Rell was an interesting character and I liked that we got the point of view of a Klingon. It’s hard to really call her likeable as she still does some bad things, but she’s the most likeable Klingon. Her actions felt realistic and all in line with what she believed in and what she fought for. I liked how she really believed in T’Kuvma’s ideals instead of the war. And I felt like she was an important character and probably will continue to play an important role in the next seaosn as well. Besides that there are a bunch of other side characters and minor characters as well. There are some characters I hope to see more of in the next season, like some of the bridge officers, who don’t have as big of a role now, except appearing on the bridge.

There are two romances in this one as well. Normally Star Trek only seems to have very slow developing romances and while I like those, i also liked there were tow romances part of this one in season 1 already. And they both have importance too and certain plot events just wouldn’t have the same impact if not for the romances. And both romances are so good. While it’s not really a big spoiler I still think the surprise is better when you don’t know who gets into a romance. My favorite was the romance that gets introduced at first. It was just so perfectly done. The feelings between the characters, the tenderness. Gah. Those two were so great together and I loved soaking up every scene in which they interacted. I also liked how low on drama it was, these two loved each other and it was clear in the way they acted. I also found it interesting to see how their feelings for each other influenced their actions and how sometimes that conflicted with what was best for the ship or even orders and other times be actually in lien with what was best for the ship.

The second romance was a great one as well. I actually predicted that one with how the characters interacted with each other. That one we see developing and while it goes very fast to the romance part, but it didn’t feel rushed. It still manage to feel believable and made sense for the characters. I also liked how slightly awkward one of them was and how they had to find a way. And then how messed up it gets later and I just feel for them both. They really are each others anchor. And they have quite some obstacles to get through as well.

There are some dark parts in this. Difficult decisions and people placed in situations with no good solution. And some sad parts too. There are some character deaths and big eventful things. The character death toward the end just made me sad as it was a character I didn’t want to die. But just like everything the character deaths have a place too. Everything has a place and role and it all makes sense and every events influences the rest again. There are also some flashbacks to torture scenes, that I gladly skimmed over. It also touches upon things like PTSD and how to deal with things like death and war.

This series is also chuck full of diversity for those who like that. It has multiple people of color (Michael the main character is one of them), LBGT characters, both romances are interracial as well, character of different body types, aliens and even a robot/ android type of characters. And it’s all normal in this world, which fit in the spirit of The Federation and equality.

Ont thing I also want to mention that while it is Star Trek it also doesn’t quite feel like Star Trek. And I mean that in the best possible way, because this series is just that good and I would recommend you watch it whether you like Star Trek or not as that isn’t really predictive of whether you will enjoy this series. As it’s very different feel from most Star Trek series. Most Star Trek series have a monster of the week storyline with very slow evolving character arc’s. This one is so full of continuity that you can’t watch one episode without having seen the rest and it’s brilliant how every episodes builds upon the others. The character arc’s evolve a lot faster too, but it works.

At first it took some time getting used to the new Klingon looks, but after a while you get used to it. The speech also is a very different. It’s interesting how we learn more about the Klingon race and about this part of their past. And even tough they are the bad guys sort of in this series, they are interesting as well. And we get some scenes form their point of view as well.

To summarize: all in all I can’t recommend this series enough for those who like a good sci-fi series. It all looks visually stunning, but the best part of the well done story, all the plot twists and foreshadowing, two awesome romances that I kept rooting for and a cast of character that are great to follow. It’s filled with difficult decisions and seeing how the characters react to it all. The plot is so well pieced together with everything having it’s place and being relevant and the amount of foreshadowing and well done plot twists is impressive. I was really happy with the two well done romances in the series as well. Both were great couples. And there are so many great characters, most of them were great, although i did have my favorites. And they are all pretty interesting and realistic characters. The series has some dark parts with the war going on, some mental issues characters deal with and other difficult situations they land it. But the overall tone is one of hope. It’s filled with diversity as well, with POC charters, LBGT characters, alien species, robot like creatures and interracial romances. It doesn’t has the typical Star Trek feel, if you want that I would recommend The Orville. But in my opinion it’s irrelevant whether it has the same Star Trek feel as it’s just a very good tv series. I can’t wait for season 2!

5 Stars

Have you seen Star Trek Discovery and if yes what did you think of it?

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12 responses to “Review: Star Trek Discovery Season 1

  1. I was unsure of this one, but I ended up enjoying it a lot. I got my bf to watch it with me (he doesn’t really like scifi) and he enjoyed it a lot. Awesome review.

    • I also watched it with my boyfriend, he’s the one who first introduced me to Star Trek and also enjoyed this one. I thought it was a really fun show, although I was a bit unsure at first as I heard some people didn’t enjoy it.

  2. RO

    I’m a Star Trek fan and have seen every single show on tv, and in the movies, so I adore your review so much,and it’s right on point! Hugs…RO

    • Thanks! I am a big star Trek fan as well, although I haven’t watched any of the movies, the Original series and the next generation yet.

    • DS9 is really good to. I’ve watched that one, Voyager and Enterprise. And yes you can definitely jump back in with Discovery. The characters were all so well done.

    • That’s a pain they don’t have it on the channel you already have. I can totally understand you don’t want to pay more just to watch this show.

  3. The characters, the romance, the foreshadowing, all of it sounds great! And I like grumpy, prickly characters 😛 I was going to ask if I would need to have watched other Star Trek stuff to understand this, but you answered that! This does sound good, but idk if I get that here or how to watch it. I’ll have to see if I can find out.

    • It’s really well written and all the characters are so well done.

      Each Star Trek series stand alone, although there is a sort of generic timeline. Like in this series the Klingons aren’t part of the federation yet, while they are in later series. So there is a place each series has in the general timeline of the universe, but very little crossover, so every series stands alone. Here they mention one captain from an earlier series and a character that plays a role here I think and in another series too, but that’s about it. If you don’t know them, it won’t really impact your enjoyment of the series at all.

      I think you would like Staments, he was one of my favorite characters and it was fun how he was so prickly and grumpy at first, but also a very likeable character. I hope you get to watch it eventually.

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