Star Trek Discovery
Season 5 (The Final Season)
[DVD]
I look back at the legacy of Star Trek Discovery and I am equal parts baffled and confused. There are many many many things wrong with the series and the franchise as a whole. But, what it basically comes down to is really terrible showrunning and no good ideas. Discovery was never concerned with telling its own stories, but basically throwing back to old Trek. It’s not Star Trek in the classic sense of the term (anything before Enterprise), and that’s acceptable, but what it is is awful storytelling. How it got as far as it did is anyone’s guess. The show was never really liked by fans, and one wonders WHO it was written for in the first place. Anyone who’s a Star Trek fan could see right off the bat that any semblance of deep story telling was replaced by flashy special effects (count those lens flares) and moments full of feels. All the feels all the time every time. She show is over and over again trying to tell you it has heart, but really, deep down inside, there’s nothing there. It’s just an empty shiny shell.
Having stumbled for almost a decade, it’s with a sense of relief we get to watch the show get put out of its misery. Have the showrunners learned anything from their mistakes over the previous 4 seasons? No, of course not. There was never any hope they would have. Season 5 seems to bring us the same stinky ol’ soup, full or arrogant and dislikeable characters, one-dimensional villains, clunky dialogue, cringe moments, and overly complex and poorly thought-out plot. Discovery wants to raise the stakes, from saving humans, to the federation, to the galaxy, to now ALL LIVING THINGS. It does so by taking, as usual, something that was briefly mentioned as an aside in old-Trek, and blowing it up into a giant story involving incomprehensible tech. We are all in awe of Captain Burnham (hey, we never even find out why her name is Michael!) as she, at every step is the purest, smartest, most able, and righteous person in all of Starfleet. The villains are two lovers who love each other because they’re in love. We simply do not care about them, but again, Discovery will try to tell us that story has depth. Only in words, not through actions.
There is a semblance of watchability in season 5, as Burnham seems to actually be having fun in her missions, and Sonequa Martin-Green is, as always, a strong and capable actor, fun to watch and her dynamic with Saru is interesting, but with this script and uninspired story-telling, don’t expect too much. Will they save all living things? Will Captain Burnham get the guy in the end? You’ll have to wait and see. Or better yet, don’t.
So long, Disco. Don’t ever come back. We pity you.
